City Council — September 14, 2026

Hello all and welcome to the Carpinteria City Council meeting. Today is September 14th, and I will request a roll call please.

Thank you Mayor Allercone. We were in closed session for one item, real property negotiations and it is all of the information is included on the agenda and there's no reportable action this evening.

And we will now move into introductions, proclamations and presentations. And we will begin with a proclamation declaring September 15th 2026 to October 15th 2026 as Hispanic Heritage Month in the City of Carpinteria. I will now open up public comment. I do not have any speaker slips for this item. Do we have any via Zoom?

Mayor, we have no raised hands.

Okay, I will close public comment and bring it back to the Council for a motion

I move to adopt the proclamation of the City Council declaring September 15, 2026 to October 15th, 2026 as Hispanic Heritage Month in the city of Carpinteria. Second.

We have a first and multiple seconds. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None. Motion passes. We will now be reading the proclamation and we will begin with council member Mayer.

Whereas Hispanic culture constitutes the foundation of the history of the state of California and the Southwest region of the United States, and Hispanics are justly proud of their rich and diverse cultural heritage having made positive contributions to the social artistic linguistic and intellectual aspects of our society.

Whereas generations of proud, hard-working, enterprising Hispanics have contributed to and have strengthened our communities with countless achievements and their abiding values in the home and family. And

whereas Hispanics increasingly impact the political economic and social growth of our community and state and constitute approximately 43% of the city's total population and approximately 40% statewide per the US Census Bureau.

Whereas as we observe Hispanic Heritage Month, the city encourages all members of the community to recognize the accomplishments and contributions of Hispanics in our community. And the importance of social justice and fair representation for the Hispanic community in all aspects of city life and experience.

Now therefore, the City Council of the City of Carpinteria does hereby declare the period September 15th 2026 to October 15th 2026 as Hispanic Heritage Month in the city of Carpinteria and recognition of the many contributions Hispanics have made to Carpinteria California and the country, and to promote greater awareness of the rich history and culture of the Hispanic community.

And with that we'd love to invite Teresa Alvarez to the podium to share a few words.

Thank you. Would I be able to read it in Spanish after as well? Thank you Mayor and thank you to the City Council for this proclamation and for recognizing Hispanic Heritage Month here in Carpinteria. I'm honored to accept this, and I want to say a few words not just as the Executive Director of the Carpinteria Children's Project but as someone who came to this country as an immigrant myself.

Hispanic Heritage Month means something personal to me. It's a chance to celebrate the culture, the language and resilience that so many of our families carry with them. The same family CCP has the privilege of serving every day. Our dual-language classrooms aren't just an educational model. They're a statement that a child's home language is an asset not something to leave at the door. That belief comes from lived experience and I know I'm not alone in this room in holding it.

This community, Carpinteria, has been shaped by the hands and hearts of Latino families in the fields, in the classrooms, in the small businesses on Linden Avenue and in the homes where multiple generations show up for each other. Hispanic Heritage Month is a moment to say clearly that contribution is seen and it's valued. At CCP, we see it every day in the parents who trust us with their children before they even trust the language around them. We see it in the grandparents who pick up and the families who show up for the workshops we offer and in our lovely staff.

On behalf of our staff, our families, and our own community story, we're proud to call Carpinteria home and proud to keep doing this work here. Que orgullo ser latino! Thank you. Gracias Gracias alcalde y gracias al ayuntamiento por esta proclamación y por reconocer el mes de herencia hispana aquí en carpintería. Me siento honrada de aceptar esto y quiero decir algunas palabras no solo como la directora ejecutiva del proyecto infantil de carpintería, sino como alguien que vino a este país como inmigrante.

El mes de herencia hispana significa algo personal para mí es una oportunidad para celebrar la cultura el idioma y la resiliencia que tantas de nuestras familias llevan con ellos las mismas familias que en CCP tiene el privilegio de servir a todos Nuestras aulas bilingües no son solo un modelo educativo. Son una declaración que el idioma nativo de un niño es activo, no algo para dejar en la puerta. Esa creencia proviene en la experiencia vivida y sé que no estoy sola en esta habitación por sostenerla.

Esta comunidad de carpinteria ha sido moldeada por las manos y los corazones de las familias latinas. En los campos, en las aulas, en los pequeños negocios del Linden Avenue y en los hogares donde múltiples generaciones se presentan entre sí. El mes de la herencia hispana es un momento para decir claramente, esa contribución se ve y se valora. En CCP lo vemos todos los días en los padres que confían en nosotros con sus hijos antes de que confíen en el idioma que los rodea. Lo vemos con los abuelos que los recogen las familias que se presentan a los talleres que ofrecemos y en todos nuestros empleados Así que gracias por este reconocimiento en nombre de nuestro personal, nuestras familias y la historia de nuestra propia comunidad. Estamos orgullosos de llamar hogar a Carpinteria y orgullosos de seguir haciendo este trabajo aquí.

Que orgullo es ser latino muchas gracias

And we'd love to invite you and anyone else for a photo, and we will hand over the proclamation.

Okay, everybody is smiling and happy. And we're gonna do one with Teresa's okay We are good. OK.

We will now

I'm here. We have no raised hands.

Okay, I will close public comment and bring it back to the Council for a motion.

I move to adopt the proclamation of the City Council designating the week of September 7th to 13th, 2026 as Celebrate Community Week in the city of Carpinteria. Second.

We have a first and second all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None motion passes and we will begin to read the proclamation with council member mayor

Whereas Kiwanis International, Lions Club International, Optimist International and Rotary International have partnered in support of Celebrate Community Week to focus on local community service. And

whereas Celebrate Community encourages service clubs to collaborate on projects that improve and benefit their local communities.

Whereas in recognition of Celebrate Community Week, Carpinteria service organizations are partnering on local service projects, investing health and wellness food insecurity and hunger education and literacy and the environment. And

whereas the City Council of the city of Carpinteria wishes to recognize the important role that local service organizations play in building and strengthening the community by declaring Celebrate Community Week and

Whereas Celebrate Community Week highlights the important work of our local service organizations and demonstrates the positive impact that can be achieved through collaborative community service.

Now therefore the City Council of the city of Carpinteria does hereby designate the week of September 7th through the 13th, 2026 as Celebrate Community Week in the city of Carpinteria and recognition of the dedication service and contributions of Carpinteria Service Organizations to the community. And I'd like to request or it looks as though Rotary Club representatives and others are in attendance to share a few words to accept this proclamation Welcome, Christina.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council and city staff. Thank you so much for recognizing our local nonprofits and service organizations with this proclamation. It truly is one of the things that makes Carpinteria so special is the volunteers in our community. And so many of our volunteers volunteer multiple places And that's just amazing. And we actually even have a Carpinteria Nonprofit Collaboration Council where nonprofit leaders meet every month to collaborate, work together, see how we can support each other and it is an open meeting and any Anyone is welcome, and that is something that helped us create an actual internal calendar so that we work together to not have events on the same night. Our town is too small, and we're trying to have as much impact as possible.

And I'd like to invite everyone this Saturday to a community beautification day for our Tomo Park. And this is an example that we've invited different organizations, including the City of Carpinteria, to jump in and help together to make our community a better place. So thank you so much for the honor. I

would like to say, believe it or not 14 years ago I started and chaired what we call the International President's Summit. That included the president international of Kiwanis, Lions, Optimus and Rotary. It was sponsored by Rotary and we've been talking about this for the last eight years believe it or not that we would create a collaboration of these four organizations to actually move forward with serving the communities, specifically at this time. So I would like to thank and recognize Carpinteria for being included in this international initiative. It's something very special to us. Thank you.

That's great. And we'd love to invite you back, Christina, for a photo and any other service club representatives to accept the proclamation.

Do you want to represent noon Rotary? Hi. Thank you so much.

We are taking pictures right now. Thank you!

Thank you Madam Mayor, City Council. I'm totally unprepared to say anything but I am super happy to say nothing. We as the Lions Club are extremely involved in helping the community. Our only purpose is to serve the community and we're so proud to do it. We look for opportunities and anytime we see one, we're happy to step up to it. So I thank you for this opportunity and just to say one more time how happy we are to receive this award and to help serve the community. Thank you.

And congratulations, you're coming up on 100 years in the community so congratulations there.

You know, if I could just say something to as someone who didn't necessarily have a background in some of these service organizations. I just want to thank the representatives from the Rotary and Lions Club who are here today every time I go to an event at the Lions Club or am a guest at one of the rotary meetings everyone there is so welcoming and just kind and inclusive. And I just think that speaks to the integrity of these service organizations. So thank you so much.

We will now move on, well item number four will actually be postponed to September 28th. And we will now move on to public information reports and announcements and we will receive a sheriff's recap.

Good evening mayor, council members. Unfortunately the sheriff or our chief Rich Brenningman he's unavailable tonight so we're going to be also moving that one to the next meeting. Great thank you

We will now

President Alarcon all board members are present and accounted for.

Great and then confirmation of legal noticing and procedural requirements of meeting?

And all legal noticing and procedural requirements of the meeting have been met.

Thank you, and I will now open up public comment. And I just want to remind everyone that this is the time for public comments on matters not otherwise on the agenda but within the subject matter of only the Carpinteria Library Board of Trustees. I do not have any speaker slips for this specific item. Do we have anyone via Zoom?

We have no raised hands.

I will close public comment and

Once again no raised hands.

Okay, I will close public comment and now ask for a motion of which Al Clark provided. Second. So we have a first and a second all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None. Motion passes.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice-Mayor and Council. I will be providing the monthly report on behalf of our librarian Eric Castro who is on a very well deserved vacation so I'll do my best. Eric's provided a number of updates from the July or number of events that we hosted in both July and August I'm just going to highlight a few. There are so many, as you know. On July 31st was the summer reading finale. We had the Bubble Guy party who came to celebrate the conclusion of the Licensed-to-Read Summer Reading Program.

We had a bubble guy performance, snow cones and music. The event brought together families and participants to celebrate their summer reading accomplishments. Overall, the library saw more than double the amount of participants in this summer's reading program which is really impressive. Compared to last year there was 635 attendees across this year's events. The strong participation reflects the community's enthusiasm for the program and the success of the library's expanded summer programming.

Some ongoing library programs. The library continued to offer a variety of reoccurring educational, recreational and community programs including an English Conversation group, Preschool Storytime, Carp Writers Group, Songwriters Group, Baby Are the Best and so much more. Additional information about upcoming programs and events are always available on the library's online events calendar which is carpinterialibrary.org Some information on partnerships, ongoing partnerships. The library continues its partnership with the Santa Barbara City College to offer free adult educational classes during this fall 2026 semester.

Two bilingual computer classes, Microsoft Excel Fundamentals and Introduction to Computers reached full enrollment before the first day of class. In addition, the library is offering an English as a Second Language or ESL class pronunciation and conversation for the first time. And there are 10 students enrolled at the time of the report. These classes expand access to educational and workforce related skills while providing convenient learning opportunities for Carpinteria residents. I just want to highlight that these are all free of charge for participants.

The library was awarded access to Homework CA, a statewide program offered through a partnership between the California State Library and Tutor.com. The service provides free online tutoring and homework assistance to school-age Carpinteria residents. Homework CA will replace the library's previously paid subscription to homework help, resulting in cost savings that will help the library respond to some budget reductions while continuing to provide students and families with access to high quality academic support.

The library's selection to participate in Homework CA reflects its successful participation in California State Library initiatives and evaluation efforts during the previous fiscal year, which I know Eric talked to you all about, about our Every Story Counts and other public library surveys. The library received strong community feedback and positive participation results demonstrating the value and impact for its services.

Then finally, for some staff updates, Sophia Rose, a Carpinteria resident has joined the library as a part-time library technician. In addition to her regular library technician responsibilities, Sophia will also lead the Babies are the Best program where babies and their parents can participate in music movement and social activities. Her background in music and performance will support the continued development of this popular early literacy program.

With that I've completed the report happy to answer any questions that you may have

Thank you. Any questions from Council? Yeah, this might be more of an Eric question so I can save it for him too but it's great that the SBCC bilingual courses are filling up so fast is there any...I'm sure this depends on staffing at SBCC too but are there plans to be able to expand those or to even expand the course...the bilingual course offerings?

Yes, Vice Mayor through the mayor I know and Eric could of course provide more detail when he's here next month. I know SBCC reaches out frequently wanting to offer more classes and continue the ones we have through the multiple semesters. To be honest the issue we're running to is just availability of the community room so in addition to the programs the library is offering we have these classes and other partner programs We have spilled over, for lack of a better term, into the meeting room in the Veterans Hall area when it's available so that we can add more programming. So there is definitely a lot of interest and yes it is up to SBCC and instructor availability but I can say there is eagerness on both sides to continue adding these programs and offering them.

And then similarly, another thing that was in the report was the Mexican consulate visits and presentations. Is that something that also given that those were also very well attended and had a waiting list? Are those going to continue to be planned?

Vice Mayor through the mayor yes they are continuing to be planned if anyone is interested they can call the library to be added to the waiting list and I apologize I didn't hit on it but there was like 52 people On a waiting list and I know the waiting list is continuing to grow This one is very much dependent on their availability and when they can come here And use the room, but it's something that I think we'll be offering ongoing every few months whenever they're available

It's wonderful.

Thank you

very much Any other questions? Thank you for your report. I will now open up public comment. I do not have any speaker slips for this item, do we have anyone via Zoom?

We have no raised hands.

I will close public comment and bring it back to the council for a motion please.

I'll move to receive and file the Carpinteria Community Library monthly report. Second.

We have a first and second all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None. Motion passes Item number six, which is new business and discussion. Anything from council members? Okay seeing none

Thank you Mayor, Council, community members. As always I encourage people to read the entire City Manager Report we just give a couple of highlights here and there's some important links and things in here that people can click on and then of course if the council has any interest in any of these items happy to bring them back as an agenda matter. As is typical I'll be joined by A few different people helping me out. I'm going to start off with Assistant City Manager Ryan Kins to discuss updates on recruitment and also capital improvement projects.

Thank you, Michael. Good evening Mayor, Council Members. Yeah so we got several recruitments going on right now and just as a reminder these recruitments are for existing positions that became vacant following staff departures and they don't represent any newly created positions So these positions are the accounting specialist, accounting technician. That was pending final interview when I wrote this but we already did the final interview last Thursday and we did make a final selection so that's pending background check at this time. The building official had several great applications and we had one interview or doing another interview for a final interview so that one is pending final interview Same with the engineering technician that's pending final interview and then finally the management analyst position We did make a final selection there.

We set out an offer letter, and we're doing a background check at this time So happy to answer any questions on any recruitments we have As for updates on capital improvement projects, the Franklin Creek Trail project construction is proceeding. Grading and utility work is now complete over there. The retaining walls are being poured and anticipated completion is September 2026 end of the month This path surface is anticipated to be poured in October of 2026 and then the project is on track for final completion end of this calendar year.

On the Carpinteria High School crosswalk project, the realigned sidewalks on the high school side of 192 are complete along with the realigned trail on the Franklin Creek side. The new crosswalk is in place and being used The high-intensity activated crosswalk, that's the hawk system. It's awaiting final installation and completion of power and communication lines And then once that's done The project will be complete Happy to answer any other questions you may have

Yes mark some time a complete completion on that there Ryan

I'll have to double check with Josefina, our project manager on this. But I believe we have a couple more months of work to go. Yeah.

Is any of the in terms of the additional couple months? I don't know if that's a delay in terms of work but is any does any of that have to do with our end on making this work go a little bit longer or is this like what phase are we in in this project? Like who's up next basically?

Yeah, good question Mayor. So essentially we're in the final phases of this really the only work that's left is the installation of that Hawk system and so that but there's a lot that goes into that in terms of installing the communication lines and the power lines and then the Hawk system itself. But we're on the final stretch of getting that project knocked out

Okay, by the end of this year you

said? Definitely the Franklin Creek Trail project will be completed at the end of this year. I believe that Carpinteria High School will likely be completed November range but I'll have to triple check on that and in our next report I'll make sure to include a timeline for that project.

Great thank you

Mayor, next under our other city community updates I want to turn it back to Parks Recreation Community Services Director Jeanette Gantt to give a couple of updates.

Thank you the City of Carpinteria is proud to participate in the 2026 Santa Barbara Creek Week which is taking place September 19th to 26 and to help coordinate eight free local events as part of this county-wide celebration of our creeks watersheds beaches and natural resources The week will kick off with the California Coastal Cleanup Day, which is on Saturday September 19th. With city staff co-leading cleanup sites at Linden Avenue and Jelly Bowl in partnership with Heal the Ocean and Carpinteria Beautiful.

Additional events throughout the week include the Creek to Coast Paddle, Carpinteria Bluffs BioBlitz, Yoga at Linden Field, Watershed Rock Painting at the Carpinteria Community Garden, Trail Restoration at Santa Monica Creek and a guided tour of the Carpinteria Salt Marsh Preserve. For a full schedule and updates you can visit sbcreekweek.com Moving on to Age Well.

Age Well celebrated Dia de los Abuelos on Friday, August 28th at the Veterans Memorial Hall. The event brought over 75 community members together to honor and celebrate the cherished grandparents. Guests enjoyed food entertainment and meaningful connections creating a joyful evening filled with appreciation. For the community garden, they will be hosting a creative workshop this evening. Actually right about an hour ago at 5 p.m., for garden members to build bee watering stations which provide shallow and accessible water sources for bees butterflies and other beneficial pollinators. The workshop will encourage garden members to incorporate pollinator-friendly patches into their garden spaces The community garden also hosted a volunteer day on the morning of Saturday, August 22nd from 930 AM to 12 PM.

16 garden members participated in weeding and remulching of the pathways. The event provided an opportunity for members to connect with one another while contributing to the ongoing care and improvement of the garden. And finally, throughout August the community gardens composting system diverted 191.2 pounds of food and garden scraps from the landfill. I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Any questions from council? No questions.

Great, thank you. Real quick State of the City. The city hosted its 2026 State of the City and Town Hall on Monday August 31st at the Veterans Memorial Building. City leaders and staff discussed the city's financial outlook current and upcoming projects and priorities as well as Measure I which will appear on the November 3rd ballot The main thing I want people to take from this is a recording of the event, if they missed it. It's available in both English and Spanish on the City's YouTube channel. With that we're going to turn it over to our Public Information Officer and Emergency Preparedness Program Manager Julissa Briones to give us a couple of updates.

Hi, good evening Council. So I have a couple of updates from the Emergency Preparedness Division. We'll start with the emergency operations plan and five-year emergency preparedness work plan. So last week the city held two community sessions to provide residents with information about emergency preparedness and gather community input to identify priorities for the next five years We had two workshops, one in English on Thursday, September 3rd over at the library and then another in Spanish on Friday, September 4th.

We had five participants for the Thursday session and 18 participants for the Spanish session on Friday which was excellent. The Spanish session was done in collaboration with AgeWell, the Abuelas group that meets monthly on a regular basis there. And we were really, really grateful for all of the feedback that we received. These events were held in coordination with Red Cross County Office of Emergency Management and also with Carpinteria Summerlin Fire Protection District. And again, we're very grateful for our partners and due to concerns regarding potential ice activity I just wanted to make the council aware the Spanish language one was only distributed internally and the intention is moving forward to do the same further protection.

Secondly, we will be having an El Nino County-wide preparedness meeting. The county of Santa Barbara is leading this effort but all cities are engaging and participating in it as well. Santa Barbara County will host the meeting on October 1st from 530 to 7 p.m., to help residents prepare for the upcoming storm season. The meeting will cover this year's weather outlook, the work completed on local creeks and roads to prepare And important information related to storm and flood preparedness and emergencies.

All community members are encouraged to attend this virtual meeting will also provide closed captioning in multiple languages and simultaneous interpretation in Spanish We ask that all attendees Pre-registered and make sure that we can accommodate everybody Excuse me, and the city has and will continue to assist in sharing this information with all of our residents through our newsletter and on social media I also have an update. It did not make this report, but it will for the next time around just wanted to make sure I gave it enough Give it some more press time here So the Red Cross in coordination with the city Carpinteria Summerlin Fire Protection District State Farm and FEMA will be hosting their annual sound the alarm event on Saturday October 10th and From 9 a.m to 2 p.m at Sandpiper Mobile Home Park, this annual event's intention is to install free smoke alarms across the entire community and we're really grateful to partner with our neighboring agencies on this effort.

And to sign up as a volunteer the community can visit bit.ly slash volunteer STACarpinteria and we'll be sharing this information on our social media channels as well And then an additional update as well, I'll make sure that it's included in the next report. So the city is working on the annual Santa Barbara County CERT drill. The city alongside the county of Santa Barbara, cities of Goleta and Santa Barbara as well are working to offer a county-wide CERT drill on Saturday, October 17th from 9 a.m to noon at Santa Barbara High School. We're very excited as the last time that we had a county-wide drill was pre-COVID so excuse me we've been working very hard to get this up and running again especially in advance of El Nino storms Pre-registration is required for all CERT members, whether you are just participating or participating or you're just observing.

A press release and formal announcement on social media will take place by the end of the week with additional information. And with that, that concludes all updates related to emergency preparedness and I'm available if you have any questions. Any questions?

I have a question. Just because it is, you know they're saying it's gonna be a super El Nino at the end of this year and no I know a lot of our emergency management work is required, you know we have to collaborate and I'm happy to see that the county will be hosting a meeting but how are we internally in terms of the city? Do we feel like we're prepared to handle should a disaster occur or an emergency occur by the end of this year in the City of Carpinteria?

Sure, so the city and all of our partners as well as you know internally with Parks and Recreation, Emergency Preparedness, Public Works. We've been meeting on a weekly basis to try to prepare and just try to make sure that we're addressing all sorts of different things that could come up in everything from making sure we have enough sandbag materials ahead of time to making sure all of our storm grades are cleared And I won't try to answer anything public works related, because I want to make sure I have Ryan Ayerly here maybe at the next meeting. We can make sure that he's here and can answer some of those specific questions in regards to like storm drains and things like that.

But we are being proactive in making sure that we're doing everything we can now to prepare for the storm season. And then we are meeting on a monthly basis with the county and all of our partners to make sure that we're all on the same page ahead of time. We're really grateful to the county for really leading the effort on the community-wide meeting, because what we have been experiencing is different cities are providing different updates and this really helps to make sure that everybody gets the same information all at once And so there's not different stories being told across the different jurisdictions. So we really encourage everyone to participate on October 1st.

I know that the session will be recorded and we'll make sure that it's available on the city's platforms as well.

And then is there any kind of role for the council during an emergency situation? I don't know if there's, I know that there's the October 1st meeting but is there a training that council can attend maybe along with staff just so that we understand what is happening. I think in the past or at least I'll speak for myself but the emails that I get is going along with what everyone else is receiving so I didn't necessarily know kind of what we were doing in the background obviously we were doing a lot but I'm just curious to know how we can Maybe increase those that line of communication or if there's an opportunity so I can better educate myself on our processes.

I think we could definitely increase that communication with council, especially as we kind of approach the season and get a little bit closer. I'll make sure to coordinate with our public works team too and see if we can maybe bring you into some of these planning meetings just so you're aware of some of the information that's being shared on the city level.

We're also trying to be way more proactive on our social media accounts as well and so all council members are more than welcome to reshare some of that information on your own personal accounts, we always welcome that just to get the information shared across even more but I can return at the next meeting with some of those. Great thank you.

Yeah, quick question for you. Point of concern from the last El Nino that we had One of the I would say weak points that we had was actually access to and from the downtown or the beach area specifically evacuation processes and procedures Noted that the only way we can get out from that neighborhood was through Linden up Linden We talked about actually having a secondary emergency access because at that time The railway actually had to shut down also for that one, giving us the potential ability for a temporary crossing over the railroad tracks. I don't know if that's still in the works but at that time that was considered one of the priorities that we had and it's since then kind of subsided as far as urgency so there may be something you want to take a look at because that was one point that we did want to address immediately after the Las El Nino.

Thank you Councilmember Nemour. There's one thing in addition to that, that I can share as a ingress-egress is we have an informal arrangement that we'd like to formalize soon with the state parks to be able to use egress through the state park and I confirmed that with Dean Abelman there. I forget her exact title but Here for the for the area and we do look forward to formalizing that soon, but we do have another ingress egress in place.

So we also looking at the potential third one then, is that what we're talking about? Or are you just going to use the state parks? Oh

no. The other one will definitely still keep seeing what we can do there but for this coming weather events that we're expecting we do have a secondary one in place. The other one will probably take a bit longer

Sounds good. From what I recall last time, the only thing we did was we threw a big giant piece of plywood over the tire puncture apparatus. That seemed to work.

Also, I'd like to bring up back Jeanette Gantz. So she's helping to oversee our maintenance division for Public Works right now where that director position is open and can add a little bit more information about what Public Works is doing. I do know that they essentially move like clockwork. Several of them have been with the city for a number of years and live here in town And Public Works always does a fantastic job. And then internally, our focus has been communications and coordination with the other agencies. I don't want to say that it wasn't good before but in the last few years, I've definitely seen a major improvement there in coordination with our fire partners and the county.

And Julissa's been a big part of making that happen. But in terms of some of the more hard things that we're doing here, Jeanette can give more information on that.

Thank you and just to add on to what Michael Julie said the storm drains have all been cleared There was one remaining one near the salt marsh area like Julissa mentioned. We're also meeting internally We've confirmed all the permit the regulatory permits for the berm are good, and they're valid until 2035 we have solicited Bids for building the berm where we're allowed to have it up as early as November 1st. So, we're trying to get it scheduled as early as possible on or after that November 1st date as well.

The Public Works team has also addressed all the high priority trees Along the roadways, they'll be focusing on the trees right now around the downtown team preparation for avocado festival and after that in early October We'll be addressing the prior the high priority priority one and two trees within the parks. And then we're also meeting internally to just add to and refine you know our park closure and field closures and dog park closure plan and communication plans so that we can Let people know when those areas are closed so that they don't damage the turf.

And I believe those are the key items that Public Works has been addressing and like Mike said, the team was on it and they know they were clearing storm drains well before many of us have even talking about it. So really appreciate them and their hard work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jeanette. And last but not least I'd like to bring up our Community Development Director Nick Bobroff to give updates on development applications.

Thank You Michael good evening Mayor Ellercott and council members. I have just one item on here this evening and that was to remind your council and any interested members of the community about the upcoming Planning Commission hearing to consider the Surfliner Inn project and the accompanying proposed final environmental impact report So this will be a special Planning Commission hearing dedicated exclusively to this item and it's scheduled for this coming Monday, September 21st at 7 p.m And that'll be held here in the council chambers. It'll also be broadcast on SB TV and through zoom The environmental impact report for the project is up on the city website The easiest way to find it is to go to the city's homepage, scroll all the way down to the bottom where the Hot Topic buttons are and click on the button for the Surfliner Inn.