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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.0:02 – 0:268 turns
You. You. Good evening good afternoon everyone. Good to see you here. I'd like to call this meeting to order of the Goleta City Council, a special meeting of January 12th 2026. Okay if you'll all rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Ready begin. We can have roll call please.
Roll call — called by Unidentified speaker 2
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okay if we could introduce our Spanish translators so they could come up and introduce themselves
I have a brief bilingual message to share with everyone. Tengo un mensaje breve, bilingue. Happy New Year. Feliz Año Nuevo. Nada más para dejarles saber que tenemos interpretación simultanea entre el inglés y el español disponible para esta reunión. Si gustaría escuchar participar en español tengo algunos auriculares disponibles para que lo puedan hacer. Pueden alzar la mano o me pueden dejar saber estaremos en el cuarto lateral en cualquier caso de pregunta que tengan. So, happy new year. Just to let you know that we have simultaneous interpretation available between Spanish and English for today's meeting. So if you'd like to follow along, participate in Spanish, we have some listening devices available for you to do so. You can just raise your hand, come up to me or we'll be in the side room for the entirety of the meeting available for any questions that you may have.
Thank you. Gracias.
Thank you. Happy New Year to everyone. Our first meeting of 2026. Okay at this time we'll have public forum On anything that the speakers would like to speak about that pertains to this jurisdiction. Do we have any speakers?
Yes, for those of you on the Zoom webinar please use your raised hand icon if you'd like to speak to a non-agenda item. I'm seeing no hands and I have no speaker slips Mayor.
Okay thank you. Okay, amendments or adjustments to our agenda?
Thank you Madam Mayor.
Agenda Discussionitems moved / continued / pulled — click to expand
I don't have any amendments there's only two items on the agenda but I'll just to remind the council that we do have a Planning Commission meeting at 6 so we're gonna try to shoot for an hour for this meeting so we have some transition time for staff to turn around and set it up for Planning Commission and then of course there's just the two items on the agenda one is on consent from the Public Works Department and then the main item is the item that we'll get into. But if the council or the public wants to comment on the consent item like we always do, you can certainly do that and Public Works is here.
Okay I'll do my very best to move things along this evening. Okay first item.
That is Item A1 Letter of Credit for San Jose Creek Multipurpose Path Project.
Okay Council Member would like to pull this item? Seeing any, do we have any speakers for this item?
Those of you on the Zoom webinar please use a raised hand icon if you'd like to speak to this item. I'm seeing none, Mayor.
Thank you. Would someone like to make a motion?
I move approval.
I'll second.
Okay. Roll call vote.
And Mayor Parodi.
I, ayes have it. It's not showing up but ayes have it. Okay moving on.
That brings us to our discussion action item that is Item B1 FIFA World Cup 2026 Team Base Camp Host City Agreement.
Thank you Madam Mayor and I'll do a brief
Roll-call vote Passed 4–0 move approval. I'll second. Okay. Roll call
Show transcript
staff report on this one. I know that's not very typical but every now and then I got to jump into the game and still keep sharp can't have the staff do all the work So this opportunity that's before the council tonight came to us just before the end of the year. Councilmember Reyes-Martin and I were invited to a meeting mid December or maybe towards the latter part of December but certainly before the holidays, and some people in the room who I'll introduce in a second were on this Zoom meeting and we then received a presentation kind of a nice PowerPoint presentation The World Cup that is coming up in the United States in June, and kind of the way the organization for the logistics and planning of it works.
And then the opportunity for host cities for base camps for teams. There already are 16 host cities for the games. I read somewhere that this is the biggest one yet. There's 48 teams, there's going to be like 104 games across 16 cities all across United States maybe a little bit in Canada and Vancouver also in Mexico but then the 48 teams need a place to kind of camp out While they're waiting for their games. And so early on, I think a lot of planning went into that to market potential facilities and sites for teams to choose from themselves and give them the ability based on if they are playing West Coast mid you know middle of the country what have you I think this goes back quite a while.
But fast forward to this past December, I think there was still scrambling going on by some teams to find their base camps. Maybe some had already found base camps but an opportunity came up here in Goleta that Goleta with some partners would make a great base camp and so Jaime maybe if you could put up the first slide I can explain what I think will become obvious in a second why our area is such a nice area for a base camp for a country traveling here.
And these slides are slides that were loaned to me by UCSB. Again, I'll get to the guests that are in the audience in a second. But here you're looking at a slide that was probably used as some kind of a marketing brochure to teams like hey this would make great base camp and so what is being proposed is that a team would stay at the Bacara and you can see the picture of the Bacara on the bluffs of the ocean in Goleta, beautiful shot.
And then they would practice at Harder Stadium, the shot right below there and then of course upper left the Santa Barbara Airport which is a wonderful airport managed and operated by the City of Santa Barbara actually not in the city of Goleta but very close to UCSB very close to the Bacarra and surrounded by the city of Goleta And then I guess if the players have any spare time, they probably won't. They can get out and play golf at Sandpiper Golf Course.
But the proposal was that a base camp essentially takes place during the entire month of June. So they need a hotel. They need comfort. They need practice facilities. They need team rooms, media set up. They need everything. Again, I think logistics of traveling to their games in and out of an airport are important. Safety is important. A nice hotel is important. Really premier practice facility with all the amenities is really important. So you can see how Goleta sold really well.
But fast-forward to today, we have some folks here from Visit Santa Barbara. Kathy Janega Dykes also Vanessa who I've just recently met and Vanessa I'm sorry don't know your last name Bechtel I think yes okay who I've spent a lot of time talking with over the last three weeks actually they're the ones who brought this to our attention and with Councilmember Reyes-Martin on Our rep on Visit Santa Barbara, that was the connection there. And so we were just so happy that they did bring it to our attention and so that we could say yeah, let's see what the council in the community thinks about this cuz it seems like such a cool idea. And then Johnny Whalen is from is in the athletic department at UCSB. So he's been involved I think he's been working on this nonstop for several months probably a big deal for UCSB to be able to use harder stadium.
So I've been talking to this group and others quite a bit as this whole thing has come together. So that's the kind of the setup in the story on how we got here, as you know, we had the holidays, the council went dark between mid-December and January 20th so that presented some logistical challenges for us And whether or not this would even work. But it came, it did come down to FIFA granting us an extra week they initially wanted a decision of whether or not we would be a host city or all host cities apparently and Apparently there's some wiggle room there by January 7th. And given that we just didn't have much time, that was looking like it was gonna be very challenging especially with the council not meeting but they did give us the extra week.
Some negotiations were going on an opportunity came up for us to ask them would you give us another week and with that we scheduled this special council meeting so that you guys could weigh in in the community could see all this and have an opportunity to see it as well So in this, I'll go through the staff report a little bit and if you could flip to the next slide maybe. Maybe getting ahead of myself on the venue, Jaime. Yeah, this is another shot of Harder Stadium and all the facilities they have. They have rooms, locker rooms, etc., etc. So I just thought I'd show that. This was again used to show to teams that this was a good facility for a practice facility and a home base. Next slide.
And there is Carlton also has been a partner in this. They've been talking with lots of different teams, still unknown who this team might be and if it works out but they also had to talk to teams about reserving rooms. We're talking about June and it's really important for them to know if they're going to have commitments to rooms and stuff way out in the future and this is a big deal for them as well.
And then last slide, this really gets to the importance I think of how this area works so well. We've got the Ritz Carlton about a 10-12 minute drive to Harter Stadium. They actually will not go quite the way shown on here because there is construction going on there. So they'll probably go down El Colijo. Anyway, I timed it myself. It's 11 minutes. And I was not driving that fast. And then you have the airport just sitting right there and of course beautiful city of Goleta, the environment for this whole thing so pretty awesome.
So what FIFA requires is three agreements. They require an agreement with the practice facility, in this case UCSB. In lots of instances that facility might be controlled by the city so it might be a dual agreement on being a host city and a facility. In this case we got three different things going on. We got yeah FIFA wanting an agreement with UCSB to use the facility for a month We have the VCARA wanting to enter into an agreement for what they can provide, what they can commit you to the team for a month. And then FIFA does require this city host agreement for kind of everything else and that's the agreement that is before the council tonight.
And it has requirements for the city and so I'll go through those briefly and we did list them out on page two and three of the staff report And I do think that's the last slide. So this is a template agreement, again we saw it for the first time right before the end of the year but we did have time to review it. Our city attorney had as much time as he was granted to review what became like a 200 page agreement or something like that.
And things were moving quite fast. But on page three, you can see some of the requirements making sure the team can get safely to and fro from their hotel to the facility if we need to help with the roads signage, direction make sure they don't get lost obviously that's stuff we can do. We have public works crews that can do all that kind of thing if there's parking unique parking requirements we can be really flexible like if they can't find a place to park a bus you know would we allow them to park it at City Hall yeah of course we would you know that's easy so there's things like that that we can do but I will call your attention to safety and security I think that was the one That jumps out the most. They obviously want a safe base camp for all teams, and it's a big deal and there's lots of requirements that come along with that.
So this is something that we paid a lot of attention to. And we certainly when we bought the extra week were able to make a few changes that they agreed to so essentially We're required and you can see the language in there to commit to safety. Why are the teams in our city? And primarily, primarily I will say you can imagine that that's kind of to and from so when they're on the Bacara property their certain security that comes with being at that hotel when they're on UCSB property They have a separate agreement and UCSB has made certain commitments about providing security while they're practicing at their facilities. But they do have to get back and forth, I assume there'll be in a bus. And specifically in the agreement they do require a police escort for that.
So that's the biggest thing that will jump out, I think as something that will certainly cost money and certainly is a commitment on our behalf. But it's beyond just the escort. There are other subtle commitments in there, and if there are questions about that I can answer. Isaac is pretty familiar with some of the more subtler commitments that we just have to pay attention to. We just, to some degree, don't know what we don't know here.
There's not a lot of wiggle room with this agreement. FIFA was kind of, this is our template take it or leave it and there wasn't a lot we could do and we certainly talked to some of our other cities that we know that are doing this to find out similar things that it was kind of take it or leave it if you want to do this. This is the agreement. Some positives that happened in the last week I would say was at one point the agreement we saw was going to be between the city and FIFA I don't know if that's a bad thing.
There's probably some positives to that, but as it turned out now it's between the city and the actual country, the team whoever that might be. And so down the road when it comes to certain requirements, there is no doubt there's language in here. It's FIFA's contract that you know they're their requirements and they're going to certainly watch out and make sure that this meets certain safety protocols that they may have but But I think when the devil gets in the details and we're getting closer to June, and we're asking the country does this work for you? Does that work for you? Should it come up? I think it's gonna be happening that way.
And so I wanted to point out what i think is the most important section in the safety sections. That 7.2, they do require us to prepare and submit a safety and security plan. So we will do that. We'll put...I think it's going to be really important for us to think about that and put our best foot forward on why this community is safe and why a plan that we put together will work for them And we will submit that, and I have no doubt that we'll get agreement on that. And that will have details on scheduling and we'll have excerpts of our sheriff's contract and the resources that we have at our disposal, how we will escort them back and forth when they need to get to the airport and so forth and so on. So I think that's really important, and that section alone gave me more confidence that hey, There's a lot we don't know here, but we have some room to put our best foot forward and I think it'll all work out.
So let's see so we got some changes like I said it's with the country those were two really important things that were a little touch-and-go but we got those in there and then here we are today So I want to go back to page one, the recommendations. There are three. One is to authorize the city manager to execute the contract and I will note in that recommendation there is some wiggle room that if there's a few minor things that need to be changed that Isaac and myself have the authority to make those changes after tonight Probably not going to happen. Like I said, it's a template we already put our best foot forward with FIFA.
If we went back with one more thing you know it's not clear that we would get that but if there's any if there's typos if there's things that we have to change we would want that authority after today but it's pretty much locked the way you see it And then recommendation B, we did have to make a stab at a dollar amount that this might cost the city. So it does say in the staff report this is an estimate. I would caveat that. I don't know if I would qualify it as an estimate. We do great work estimating costs here at the City. We estimate construction projects. I mean that's what we do all the time In this case, there are so many unknowns that at best I would say this was kind of an allocation of costs worst-case scenario because we just don't know.
But we do have to start somewhere. We do know that we have to escort them back and forth every day. We can kind of estimate that. We can kind of estimate miscellaneous but some things it's just hard to know. So I can certainly ask questions about that We don't need the money tomorrow. If the council wanted to acknowledge that there's going to be costs and wait for the appropriation, I don't think there's anything wrong with that necessarily. We're probably not gonna start incurring costs till April or May.
We'll be back with the third quarter review so there's time. There's...I think there's some options there but our thought was you know to come forward with our best foot forward allocate the funds so we could be ready to go But certainly if there's questions about that, we will do our best to answer just our feeling about trying to be conservative on what it might cost and then we'll know more later.
And then finally recommendation C. is that this is not a gift of public funds. Of course, that's a law that governs us and we feel and certainly will take questions or hear from the council or the public about just kind of the benefits of being a host city I mean you know this is a really cool opportunity comes across that way there's economic benefits, you know goodwill for the community, good partnerships. So there's a lot of kind of subtle and not so subtle things why this is just kind of pays off in a lot of different ways but it's very hard to put a dollar amount on it But anyway, if we were to expend that much money yeah we want the Council to adopt the finding that this is a good use of public funds. So those are the three recommendations before you today I do think I have covered everything but we're happy to take questions and like I said we have our partners here if you have questions for them they might be inspired to speak again it's been really great working with Both of them and the Bacara as well.
I've been in numerous telephone calls and meetings with all of them kind of over the holidays, and as they started to come together. So I think they're pretty excited about it so if they're excited they can certainly speak when you provide that opportunity.
0:26 – 0:4115 turns
Okay Council, I'm sure we have questions. Council Member Kasdan?
As far as lodging, we can do our part. We have a couch and we could take one person. And I think the mayor has a spare room. I have two rooms. And you know, I think we can really pull it together. Oh, and as far as escorting, if they want us to take, we could take either our Subaru to help escort them or we have a Nissan. Either one is fine. We're happy to help out.
I guess I would be more, it seems number one that there's a ton of uncertainty both as far as the cost that we might incur and as far as any grants or any I guess for me I'd be more comfortable by appropriating something like $50,000. Thank you. I'd be more comfortable appropriating something like 50,000 at this point now and then in the third quarter, fourth quarter when we do our financial review then to evaluate where we stand but I wouldn't want to sort of unilaterally assume that we're going to have all of these expenses or send a signal that we're expecting to spend all of this money for anyone who might be looking that we've set aside this for their expenses, but that you know we're going to...
That $50,000 is an amount we have and will do what we can to offset any additional expenses. So that would be my suggestion. Does that sound reasonable then City Manager? According to what you
Well, like I said, this was an allocation so that we can follow our normal processes when we expend money. We have to have a budget for it and this is something that obviously none of us knew of when the budget was put together. So it came from that position but yes in terms of how we do things We quite frequently do budget amendments and we do make changes when we need to.
And we try to do them at mid-year, we try to do them like when the quarterly report financial reports come to the council each time and those things do happen as we go so it's not unusual with our public works projects. We come back and add money even though we know That the total cost is going to be more. So what you're proposing, yeah, doesn't preclude us from moving ahead with the agreement and the point was to just disclose kind of like the possibilities of costs and where funds might come from but in terms of the mechanics of allocating the money, yeah it could be done later.
Okay thank you.
Council Member Kariakou
So a lot of what's governing this process is boilerplate language provided by FIFA, correct? Fair assumption. Okay. Is there a boilerplate formula or minimum deposit amount that FIFA expects, anticipates a host base camp city to provide in situations like this. I just want to make sure they don't look at a particular dollar amount and go oh well they're not serious or that kind of thing. And I'm not saying that with necessarily my expectation of a dollar amount or the highway in mind but I just wanted Figure out like did we get any language from FIFA of these are generally such and such investment, this kind of money? I'm guessing the answer is no because I think it would have been in the staff report but I figured I'd ask.
Councilmember Cariocco and councilmembers actually we did get a little bit but I'll be honest I didn't pay a lot of attention to it and I'll tell you why. The agreement is very templety to the point where, you know, this form was probably in one way or another also used for the cities that have the stadiums. You know I'm sure and the attachment to this agreement which has to be incorporated by reference, is mostly having to do with the cities that have the stadium. So that was another kind of a sticking point initially. We got a copy of the agreement it was about 30 pages long we're like okay you know some things in here we don't like but what's this other document?
And they're like oh we'll get you that don't worry about that though And they finally did, and I heard it's like 150 pages long. But for the most part, it doesn't pertain to us. So there was a lot of stuff like that assumed bigger cities. It assumed that the practice facility was in the same city. And every situation is unique. And so from the second we started having these conversations, I'm like OK, this is unique.
The Bacara is in the city. The airport is in the city of Santa Barbara and the practice facilities on a UC campus which is slightly outside the city, an incorporated area. And there are phrases and so forth in these agreements that just don't fit that and we're going to have to work this stuff out. So yeah, they provided, they had and this kind of came to me third hand by the way. Some estimates for other cities but I quickly realized like it's not that helpful. I mean again we're pretty good at estimating costs here. We know how much a police officer costs. We know how much our staff costs. We have, we're good at promoting events and so a lot of it just was not that helpful to be honest with you. And so I took it with a grain of salt And we went kind of the path we did with hey, there's some things we know and a lot we don't know.
Let's just kind of use our best intuition to start with an amount and go from there.
Okay. Thank you. And then I wanted to go back to one of the things that you were discussing which was the safety clauses and those requirements. And I think one of the challenging things about this situation is The hotel in question is located right next to a public beach, and there's public beach access. And so I just want to make sure before we go too far down the road of creating a safety and security plan and trying to estimate how much we're going to spend like are we accounting for providing security at like the Haskells parking lot and the path to the beach that's not on Bacara property? Because I could see there being an expectation that people would want to close off that lot temporarily while the team is out doing things. And I just want to make sure that in our rush to provide a really cool thing for the community, we don't cut off other things from our community like access to our one beach.
Yeah, thank you for that question Councilmember Cariocco and members of council. It's a great question and yes we did think of that So first part of the answer, one of the meetings I attended was with staff from the Bakara. And at that particular meeting safety came up and they were in a sense kind of pitching the safety of their own facility and so it was really interesting to hear some of the comments they made about their own facility, the security they have The ability they have to put large groups into special villas where they're isolated from other populations and so forth and so on. So I say that because this is related to your question, and I'll get there but it was through that where some of the unknowns in here that we were concerned about like how broad the requirements were for us Kind of show that the Bacara was safe, started to give us some confidence when we understood that the agreement that the Bacara was going to have with whoever the team is.
They're gonna be providing a lot of that and that then lessens the ability on us. Especially just the geographics of the hotel that you're aware of. It's a half mile to get in, only one in and out. You've got the ocean buffer on one side, railroad and highway buffer on the other side, etc., etc. But through that we did – that was some of the language we got massaged. So that language was just a little too open-ended for our like and we did get them to change our requirements in the version you see now is the change we got. where we added something to the effect that our requirement is only on land that the city control. I think the words we used were responsible, accountable and control or something like that.
And we had the beach in mind on that actually. So yes, so we don't control a lot of land around the Bacara. The road going in is ours everything else is private. But the beach is, but it's also under the control of the Coastal Commission. We can't close that beach without the Coastal Commission weighing in so we feel pretty confident about that and yes we do not want to answer my question just because a team state and
then one last question is this at Santa Barbara available for questions okay could you come up So a World Cup team, as I'm thinking it's about 26 players on a roster. I'm guessing the honorage of coaches and advisors and trainers and everybody is maybe equal to that? So we're talking basically about a 50-ish reservation for about a month which from a transient occupancy tax standpoint, that sounds pretty cool.
So I guess my question is Goleta hotels like the Bacara, but others also pay into a tax that goes and helps to ensure that there's marketing and promotion of the region including Goleta. So my question is can you just talk a little bit about how some of that money is going to be used to help promote what's happening to potentially have this base camp in Goleta assuming this all goes forward? It looks positive. It looks encouraging. What are your plans to make sure that the word gets out about this in the community?
Good question. First of all, Happy New Year everyone. Madam Mayor, Council Member Kariakou, again my name is Kathy Chienega-Dykes. I'm President and CEO of Visit Santa Barbara. I am joined by my colleague Vanessa Bechtel who is our Chief Strategy Officer And for the real specific questions about players, I need to defer to Johnny Whalen with UCSB because I love soccer. I just don't know enough about the details and I think Mr. Nesbitt gave a great overview of this agreement. Our apologies for bringing this to you at the last moment. Literally, this has come up within the last week so we have been working fast and furiously to try to get this And I think to your point, Councilmember, is there's really a couple of benefits. First it's the tangible benefits, the direct spend in the community.
So this is about a $1.5 million contract, The Ritz Carlton that does not take into account the addition of media that will be traveling to the area and friends and family that will also be following the team. And we are expecting that they will be staying at It's really these intangible benefits that raises the profile of the city of Goleta and really puts it into a different league. And we're already hearing from FIFA, from other teams that have said, oh you need to go look at Goleta and UCSB. I'm Of course, we have the Olympics that will be held down the street and opportunities to try to do more with that.
In fact, another example of a high-profile event is coming here to UCSB in two weeks. It is the Women's National Soccer Tournament versus, and they're actually staying at Goleta Hotels as well too so again direct benefits. So you're absolutely right there is that direct spend and certainly The TOT that will be generated from that, but I think for us we're looking at more long-term benefits. And I'm going to defer to...
I have the other one. Okay. So I heard a Bacara representative at one point said they were ready to block out around 65 rooms.
Okay, great. Your estimate was pretty close. Oh, cool! And then I guess the other piece of it is just, you know, it's Visit Santa Barbara, but it has Galeta Hotels and we're getting the direct spend. What are the plans for messaging and marketing this? Is it going to be come to Santa Barbara to see whichever team it ends up being, practice and do other things.
That's a very important question to ask. We are also required to conduct some marketing as well too. Just trying to see if Vanessa or Johnny has any information on that, too. I think all of this is still unfolding so I don't have all of the details yet but there will be in fact some marketing opportunities and there will have to be marketing opportunities down the road.
Thank you. I think it's just important not just because the city is contemplating putting some money out But also because, you know, the TBID money, the Business Improvement District money that's collected from Gleta area hotels. You know I want to make sure that those hotels are getting some bang for their buck because really those are their dollars. We're responsible for ensuring the program is administered and administered properly and fairly. And so I feel like it's an important part of our oversight role to make sure that there's that reinvestment of those funds, you know, to benefit the Gleta hotels too.
0:41 – 0:4611 turns
And another example of that is, I had referenced the women's tournament match that's coming up in a few weeks. So we actually have worked closely with the Goleta Hotels and then also UCSB to put out press releases promoting the events as well too using the name Goleta.
All right, I'm good for now. I'll probably have more questions later.
Okay, Mayor Pro Tem Smith?
Oh, thank you. Let's see I have two questions. One is so my understanding is that there would be sort of at least three agreements one with the city of Galita as the host city one with UCSB as having control over the stadium and the facility And one with the airport authority. I don't know if staff has given thought, is it anticipated that any one of these entities would be sort of the lead?
I guess to the extent that maybe in other communities this might all fall under one entity or only two. I don't know if there's any thought to that.
Thank you for that question Council Member Smith and I don't understand for sure that there is an agreement with the airport. There may or may not be, I'm just not aware of that. The three agreements that I'm aware of is the host city UCSB and Bacara at some point they certainly want to make arrangements with the airport they may be flying in on private planes I don' know But on your other question, it's a three-headed partnership. I could certainly make the case that we're most important, we're the host city but it doesn't work without all three so the Bacara is a wonderful hotel And who wouldn't want to stay there? How relaxing when you're practicing, getting ready for your games. The facility that UCSB providing and they all knew about this and were negotiating this before it came to us but our agreement is the host city agreement so I think if the council chooses to do it tonight we should go all in and be a host city and kind of roll out the red carpet if that's something we wanna do and show ourselves off.
I did want to note the agreement that Mr. Nisbet mentioned earlier that's incorporated by reference, the 2026 FWC hosting requirements does contemplate that the airport authority would be a contracted party. It's not something that came up in the city's negotiation but it is sort of listed within that document as one of the potential contracting parties so I think the best assumption would be they would be entering into a stand-alone agreement.
Okay thank you and then I don't know. I love soccer, I grew up playing soccer. But I admit my ignorance in terms of the potential countries that could be represented in the World Cup. I just don't know if there's been given any thought to whether or not any particular country could have any potential controversy linked to it in some way that may require more security than another country?
Yes, great question. Thank you for that question Council Member Smith. We thought about that for sure and as written in the agreement and in the staff report this is simply an agreement for us to be considered to be a host city and we may not be a host city and we don't know what team we're going to get But we were certainly, when we are trying to estimate security costs that certainly was a factor. And it also was part of the factors in us being really hard to estimate a cost for the council.
But yeah I could certainly make the case that some countries for a variety of reasons might have different challenges. They might bring larger crowds with them They might, yeah for some reason have some controversy going on where that could lead to a protest or something and we would have to provide security and manage that. So that is certainly one of the unknowns at this point. And so very good question.
Thank you I've no further questions
Council Member Reyes-Martin. Thank you, and thank you to everyone who's here. I know you've all been working really hard on all of this. A lot of my questions have been asked but I did have a question about just in terms of the timing and maybe this is for Mr. Whelan. You know, I would imagine potentially one of the sticky areas around that time of year is commencement in terms of managing traffic and flow.
Is that correct? Is that gonna overlap, and have you thought about how to manage that or to anyone?
And please come up to the microphone Johnny so everyone can hear you
0:46 – 0:533 turns
It's great to see you all and meet many of you for the first time. My name is Johnny Whalen, I have the privilege of working with UCSB Athletics on behalf of Kelly Barsky our athletic director we just say thank you. This process has been an amazing learning experience for all of us and I think one of the reasons that were at the doorstep of having a team committee here is because the collaborative nature of what we've been as a community One of the things that UCSB Athletics really prides herself in is community involvement. And I think we have a long-term plan here, in collaboration with you and with Visit Santa Barbara and with Bacara and others to have teams come for years to come not just this summer.
We hope the U.S. Women's National Team comes back for another game We hope to have a team here in 2031 when the Women's World Cup is in town, in the United States. And we have a vision that we hope can be a collective one and that we can be amazing partners together to bring the world to Goleta. And just to answer your question specifically about the potential of there being some challenges during graduation week, we've thought about it. We were working with our on-campus partners to address that how to make it as minimal impact as possible I think the good news is that the city of Goleta won't have any hotel rooms available anywhere. But maybe that creates some short-term challenges.
I'd like to address two things specifically while I am here at this moment, one is that we've made a conscientious decision at UCSB that we will not host a team that has any controversial elements to it and we've actually made that clear to FIFA and we would make it clear to anybody that our answer is no So while I want to reassure you all of that, I just wanna reemphasize it. Secondly, I'd like to just make one comment given what I know about bed spaces that will be used as it's been alluded to the Bacar Hotel will have 60-65 rooms but we also know there'll be about 50 to 60 separate media members coming and we also know there'll be at minimum 50 if not 100 if not more family friends and VIPs that will be coming So that collective group grouping will create wonderful sources of revenue in the region and hopefully be a great asset.
But to answer your question specifically, there will be some congestion but we'll try to make it as minimal as possible during the week of
graduation. Thank you for that. Thank you for your responses to other questions that have been asked. That's really appreciated I think it is really challenging to know in terms of how much funding to authorize at this point given there are so many unknowns. I'm going community events or other kinds of things. You know, I mentioned in one of the meetings that I was part of that I've had the opportunity to attend a World Cup many years ago and I do recall there being things like teams would have like a fan signing event or they'd do photo op with you know kids soccer teams or kids and you know A lot of these very feel-good kind of community serving events.
I think none of that has really been talked about yet. That's still probably to come, and I think those are some of the things that are probably potentials, and there's probably a role for the city promote that or help set it up and there's costs associated with that, which is exciting. This is a global event that has huge viewership globally and our local community will be exposed to it and might tune in to follow the World Cup when maybe in the past they hadn't because there is this connection to Goleta.
So I think if we're getting to the point of talking about that, the funding authorization maybe it's somewhere in the middle where Councilmember Kasdan mentioned. I would support the 150 that staff has presented. I'd feel probably a little more comfortable at this point with not to exceed 100,000 and then have staff come back as things get fleshed out a little bit more or you realize that maybe there are additional public safety costs that need to be accounted for, or there are other opportunities for the city to get plugged in with that would necessitate an additional allocation. Then I think it's appropriate to bring that back. That's kind of where I am but it is really exciting and I do think that it's a great opportunity build from this for future events.
It may not even be future athletics related events, it could be any number of other things. So I'm really grateful for all the folks who have been at the table to talk through this and how we all work together to accommodate An event like this I think is exciting and I do hope, I know Councilmember Kiriakou mentioned this. I do hope that to the greatest extent possible it really is Goleta that is highlighted and that with any of these other events that they're really community serving and that we are really just positively highlighting this partnership and this beautiful region so thank you
Well, I'll be really quick because a lot of questions have already been asked and answered. But thank you for mentioning Council Member Reyes-Martin the idea of community involvement. Do we have any idea if the organizers would support, we don't know at this point probably, support the community come and watch a training? How exciting would that be? I mean, that's when you're truly giving back to the community when you do something like that. Otherwise we're just transporting and accommodating but what's in it for the community?
0:53 – 0:598 turns
What I'd like to just mention is we have a very strong relationship with a federation that we're in touch with daily. And that federation, that national team's commitment is to be great partners with us And while I can't speak specifically to whether it will be an open training session or not, I do know that there will be an emphasis from the UCSB side of things in relationship with BACAR and in communication with you. And visit Santa Barbara to have the community be able to benefit from this. And I think about the schools, I think about the youth soccer programs. You'll see this in a couple weeks even when the US Women's National Team here It is here in town.
It would be a mistake for us to have a team that doesn't have its fingerprints in the community and one of the things we've been asked by this specific As their quote-unquote second team because the U.S. is assumed to be the first, but our answer is always yes this is a soccer community. This is a community where families can be a part of this and our partners and so we have full intentions of having that from the UCSB side of things and trying to make some level of community benefit with the people that are in the region.
Thank you for that. I know it's probably too soon to ask this question, but have we talked with our Sheriff's Department? Do we know the capability? Are they interested?
Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes we did reach out to them the first time we reached out to him Mr. Valdez reached out to him right before the holidays and that first reach-out was more as we are all going into the holidays hey this just hit us want to put it on your radar can you at least start thinking about this but more to come and then we also had a conversation with our new police chief this week about the more to come And putting together the safety plan.
So not a lot of details, but yeah we obviously did not want to leave them out and so we will be getting with them should the council move forward and working on that with them. Okay thank you for that. Their response with little information was positive.
I think that may be it for me. I'm wondering, oh did you have something? Yeah and then we'll go to the public. Okay
well actually for Kathy so May-June as you know our hotels are at capacity And so I guess we want to be cautious before we say that that 65 or other amounts of people who are staying are going to be additional revenue because a lot of that will be displacing People who otherwise would have been staying there. I don't know what the net amount is likely to be of additional revenue, of additional people but we are routinely at that time of year at capacity without this event.
Actually, Madam Mayor Councilmember Kasten that's actually not correct. So June tends to be an interesting month and I don't have those stats available my apologies that aren't have that in front of me but we This is the reason why our Goleta hotels are really interested in this agreement as well too because it's not always the case. Summer travel doesn't really begin until late June, as we all are aware a lot of times schools go into the you know second week of June or third week so a lot of that family travel really doesn't begin until late June or early July And what we find is that June is also a soft month for our meetings and conferences, which typically meet at our larger resorts like the Ritz-Carlton as well too. So this was a great opportunity for us to find you know a group that would actually bring incremental business into the community.
Okay, well one takeaway for me is I have to find better conferences that will stay in the Ritz-Carlton as opposed to where I've been going. Oh, okay. That's great actually that no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait. Um, but that, that is terrific news actually. But the other thing I was, that I wanted to ask you about is um, that, that a lot of the benefit as you've described this are, is regional. A lot of the benefit is uh, that for the area that this is a location that's good for future events and so forth and I was wondering if, you know, I know Visit Santa Barbara frequently has grants and other sorts of things for cities where it's going to be benefiting multiple jurisdictions. Just could you talk about what sort of opportunities there might be for funding from Visit Santa Barbara?
Councilmember Kasten, I think a lot of our focus will be on the marketing of the event as to what Councilmember Karioke mentioned as well too. So that will be a large part of our efforts working with our PR department also with our marketing department and making sure that we are promoting as much as we can about Goleta and UCSB hosting a FIFA
0:59 – 1:0611 turns
So for the potential costs then that are accrued, there was a list of things that were expenses that we anticipated. Some were security although as mentioned we're ready to support them in our Subaru. But primarily what you're saying is that the Visit Santa Barbara's would aim in terms of contribution, in terms of the marketing and promotion and not so much in terms of the other elements that were listed in the future or potential expenses.
We would serve as your promotional arm. And I think, you know what was discussed before there are two primary costs for safety and security at this point and one is police escorts and then the second one is security at the resort and a lot of those costs still need to be finalized. The team does need to come to the area and conduct a risk assessment, but much of that won't be known unfortunately for a while. And I think what was also addressed at the beginning with by Mr. Nesbitt, a lot of these template agreements are prepared for larger cities whereas If there is a team staying at particular, let's say in Los Angeles. They need police escort because they're going from one part of the city and maybe 45 minutes or an hour to another part of the city.
So the Goleta and UCSB relationship is a little bit different from what FIFA is used to working with so much of that will just need to be addressed as The team starts to travel here and conducts its risk assessment, and really understands that the drive to UCSB is a very short drive and not a very long drive. And may not require as much as they need or as FIFA had originally requested.
So I mean that goes to when I first saw 150,000 I was taken aback And I guess I'm wondering, and I don't know who to direct this question to. Maybe Mr. Nesbitt? Maybe...I don't know. But it's such a short drive and I imagine that for the most part they're going during regular hours. It's not that they're You know, at two in the morning heading out. Or correct me if I'm wrong, if they decide to go to a club in Santa Barbara are we escorting them?
But I guess I'm wondering where those costs, have we had any conversations with the Sheriff's Department for instance? Is it automatically overtime expenses for escorting on this route? What do we know at this point?
Yeah, Mr. Nesbitt I think Johnny can answer a few of those questions as well too. Okay, I'll go first and then
yes certainly Mr. Whalen should come up as well. So Councilmember Kazin and council members unfortunately we just don't know a lot of details to answer your question. I mean those questions are exactly what will work out when we put forth our plan there again the agreement requires us to put forth the plan. Our plan will tell them what we propose to do And we will say we believe this will meet the requirements of the contract. So yes, some of your questions are just hard to know. We don't have the schedule. Do they do one practice a day? Two practices today? Do they go back to the hotel for lunch?
So much of that we just don't know. But the requirements are escort to and from practice, to and from the airport, that much we know. And that's kind of why our estimate was conservative but to Kathy's point There are lots of differences between the situation here and the example she gave in downtown L.A., and so that's why we have some confident level that when and if we do get a team, we'll be able to work out those details directly with the team as opposed to through FIFA and be able to answer those questions.
I don't know, give us some sort of or perhaps you do with respect to the Sheriff's Department what they might consider part of our contract.
Councilmember Kasdan, as I said we've reached out to them to let them know that this is coming and that we will want it should the council go ahead. I mean what comes first? We couldn't start negotiating hours and schedules for the month of June when we don't even know if we're going to have a team yet so we put it on their radar and those are conversations that Jaime and I will have with our Sheriff Department and we'll work out those details
Thank you. If I could just add one layer of detail that the federation that would be here will arrive in early June, the exact date is still TBA and they'll train here for approximately four or five days and each of those days they would train one time and go from the Bakara to UCSB and back After those, that initial day of window of training they would then fly to San Francisco for 48 hours or so. Come back another four or five-day window here and they would fly to the Midwest back and then one more time to the Midwest. And so the wonderful element in this is why this team is interested in this region Along with the climate and the accommodations and training facility is that distance away from everything is so close. So it gives them a chance for their players to not be traveling, to not be standing up and being able to get rest.
Once their training session is over and they're back at the hotel It is possible that their players or staff would like to leave the hotel, but those security responsibilities are no longer the City of Goleta's. It would be the team taking their own risk or responsibility to ensure it. I've been in a number of communications with FIFA over this entire year. There's no chance City of Goleta is going to be responsible to bring their players down to State Street for a dinner or something like that. So I hope that helpful information is helpful.
And Madam Mayor just a reminder maybe we have about 10 or 15 more minutes I'm
wondering if we have anybody from the public
Yes, I have no speaker slips for those of you on the zoom webinar Please use raised hand icon and I will call on you all speakers. We'll have three minutes. I do have Marcos Oh Martinez Diaz If you please unmute yourself, you'll have three minutes
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Hi, good evening. Can you hear me?
Yes I can thank you.
Okay awesome. Hi everyone! I think most of y'all know me. I just wanted to tune in. I think this is a really exciting opportunity. I love soccer. I think it's very diverse. It's reflective of the community we serve in Goleta. I think it's a great opportunity I know we talked a lot about the economic benefits, but I think more so the benefits that this could have to our community.
If you've been paying attention to the news, a lot of this World Cup, especially in the U.S., many people are being priced out from having the opportunity to attend a game. So giving families here in Goleta the chance to see a team that's in the World Cup, see them train I think that's really, really cool and it's a great way to be inclusive and just make regular people feel like they're a part of something really, really huge.
I hope Visit Santa Barbara and UCSB are appreciative of the commitment of this city. I think this is again a wonderful opportunity And yeah I just really want to say my support of it. As a community member and working with people you know that wouldn't be able to afford to go to a World Cup game, this is really really invaluable so thank you.
Thank you.
And i have no more speakers for public comment thank you
okay all right back to council are we ready for someone to make a motion? Or do you want to deliberate a little bit more? Council Member
Kariakou. As I've heard some of the questions getting answered, I'm moving more towards that $100,000 number and one of the reasons why first of all we don't know if the team that we get is going to make it out of group or not so there's just so much variation in the potential expense but I think The longer they stay, the more opportunities there are for the community to be engaged in this.
And I think about not just the public investment that we're being asked to make here. I'm also thinking about the public investment that's been made in our area. When I think about all the money, all the public money and private money that went into those facilities out at the university and I think anything that we can do as a community to squeeze more public value and community value Out of not just the public funds that we're spending, but others before us have spent.
I think there's value in that. And then the public speaker talked about different communities that really embrace soccer and would be inspired by having that level of participation. And I think there's a lot of value in that. I think that can't be overlooked. And the last thing, and Kathy Janka-Dykes mentioned this was The compounding effect that you're getting with the other investments, having the women's national team coming out here. It's just an opportunity to build not just the expectation, not just the anticipation, not just the payoff from these other events but then just how the word gets around in the sporting community that this is a great place to come. I'm old enough to remember when the Lakers used to come up here when one of their assistant coaches Bill Burka was a part-time resident of the area And they would go to Santa Barbara City College and they would practice there before the playoffs started and during off season.
And that got a lot of people in this community excited about basketball, and I think anything that we can do to get people coming out here again for our children and youth and people that are children at heart. I think there's a lot of value in that, so Our Visit Santa Barbara liaison, Luz Reyes-Martins. Comfort level with 100,000. I would be more comfortable if we for sure used the COPS funds before we go into the general fund unassigned balance.
I would like that unassigned fund balance to be higher than it is but it is what it is and overall I think we're in pretty good fiscal shape but I would prioritize those funds first just general direction. That's not part of a motion or anything
Anybody else have anything to say before we go take a motion?
I can take a stab at emotion? Okay. So, I would move that we move approval to authorize the city manager to execute the attached team base Campo City Agreement in substantially final form and as included as attachment one subject to any final negotiation considered in consultation with the city attorney Between the city and a participating member association team that has been qualified to participate in the FIFA World Cup 2026 competition and.
I'll make an amendment here to authorize the city manager to expend an amount not to exceed $100,000 for public safety community engagement and other appropriate uses related to the team base camp host city agreement. and appropriate 50,000 from the general fund unassigned fund balance to the city manager's department to supplement existing budgeted funds as described in the fiscal impact section. And find that the appropriation that I've just described and any future allocation to support the city obligations under the team Base Camp Host City Agreement is in the best interest of the city, serves a strong public purpose and is not a gift of public funds.
Specifically any allocation of city funding in support of the team camp host city agreement will bolster the city's local economy and local businesses among other Goleta strategic plan goals.
Do I have a second?
I'll
second. Okay roll call.
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0
Show transcript
ayes have it. All right thank you. There we go okay.
Madam Mayor I think we should wrap up I see planning staff hovering outside but is there anything else on the agenda before you adjourn
I don't think
so. Okay,
and thank you everyone meeting is adjourned.