City Council — April 21, 2026

Thank you. We can do roll call.

Thank You mayor so for the one closed session item read into the record earlier this evening there is no reportable action.

Thank you okay if we could have our interpreters come up please and introduce themselves

Yes, good afternoon. Just to let you know that we have interpretation available for those of you who want to hear this event in Spanish. So we have devices like these if you want to hear all this meeting in Spanish just raise your hand and we'll hand you one of these devices. Thank you. Okay, public forum. Now is the time for anybody to speak on anything that's not on our agenda and pertinent to our jurisdiction. Do we have any speakers?

Yes, Madam Mayor. I do have one in-person speaker slip for Charles Hughes. Those of you on the Zoom webinar please use the raised hand icon to speak to a non-agenda item. Charles Hughes will be our first speaker.

Hello council members, Mayor. Nice to see you again after Wednesday. I'd like to speak again about the Senior Center and I'd like to read from a few things from senior... It's from the National Council on Aging again. The first part of this is our senior centers provide a social outlet where older adults can meet Peers form new friends and engage in meaningful conversations.

Regular social interaction can boost mental health and stive off feelings of loneliness and depression. It's, so if you're serious about having a senior center, seniors have, they do have exercise needs. That's very important for seniors. Maybe the most important but also having a social outlet not being isolated. Seniors have hard time getting around. It's really important.

But there are several, the Coleta Senior Lobby along with With the other rooms at the Senior Center has the potential to be a social hub, providing great opportunity for seniors to interact with peers. There's several kind of drawbacks there at the Community Center for that. Most are just little things. It could be changed, it would probably make a huge difference but one of the larger little things is heating.

It gets cold. I know it's a problem. They keep the doors, they have a policy to keep the outside doors open all the time. The senior lobby, the door's always half-open. I guess that's the policy for that door and the thing is the heater blows out lots of heat There needs to be a discussion, brainstorming about how to because what's happening is when it gets cold the members say it's getting kind of cold in here and the person in charge says well if I turn the heat on somebody would complain about being too hot.

And the heat does blow out fast when it blows out. So during the night, 65 degrees is what it's set for. It's very seldom above 68 degrees. For seniors over the age of 70, that's really cool. That's too cool. I got 20 seconds on. So anyways, there needs to be a discussion. We're getting into warmer weather now But by next fall, it'd be a good idea to have all planned out. It should be in somebody's job description to make sure the temperature is a comfortable temperature. Thank you for listening

to me. Thank you for letting us know. Thank you.

I have no more speakers for public forum.

Okay, great. Okay. Amendments or adjustments to our agenda? City Manager.

I don't have any, but I can move right to City Manager Report if you like. Madame Mayor?

Please

do. I just have a couple announcements of upcoming events, but before I do that, acknowledge a previous event. We had our Community State of the City last week, last Wednesday at the Goleta Community Center. It was a great event and in case you weren't there we actually have a summary video that is going to be released tomorrow and will give you a sneak preview right now.

So cue it up, please Mr. Clerk.

I would like to introduce a woman who really at this point needs no introduction. Our Mayor, Paula Perote. Good government is

not a monologue it's a dialogue. Tonight relying on my colleagues and City Manager illustrates another reason I confidently say our city is strong

I'm so proud of what we've achieved together and I'm grateful to our city staff, our public safety partners, community organizations and to all of you, our residents for your ongoing support and engagement. Together we will continue building a safer healthier and more sustainable Goleta. Thank You!

And speaking of talent, we want to thank our keyboardist tonight. He's a junior at Dos Pueblos High School, Tyler

McCutcheon.

We also want to thank the Dos Pueblos High School Jazz Band for performing in the gazebo before the event. ♪

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you tonight about two important topics, housing and homelessness. It will be a challenging year ahead but there are real opportunities to provide housing that benefits the community and working together we can get it. To our

residents, visitors and our local businesses I say thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your patience. Across our community you can see the results of a city that is investing seriously in its future and it is leading us towards a safer more connected and more resilient Goleta.

The City is investing in major community events and these initiatives directly support small businesses, increase visibility and help and retain attract local employees.

The Mayor's favorite part of the night our Q&A segment.

The Council has made it very clear in terms of investments to ensure that city staff is trained and aware of what to do if a situation would arise.

All of these efforts reflect our shared commitment to maintaining the quality of life that makes Goleta such a special place to live, work and play. So thank you for being part of what makes Goleta strong and connected together.

We're so grateful though that you showed up in person tonight and took time out to be here with us. Thank you so much and have a great night everybody! Thank you for caring about where you live.

I love that. Very nice.

Nicely done, thank you Miss Hoover. So if you like that event, that looked like a lot of fun right? Yes.

And I want to thank my council colleagues staff and the public for all the work put into it and being part of it. You guys did such a great job! It was a new idea to have all of us speak. I loved it. I thought it was great. Thank you.

Agreed. So we have two more events coming up at the community center and they'll be just as fun so tomorrow night Wednesday from 530 to 7 we are having street talk This is a transportation open house sponsored by our Public Works Department. The idea is to get people there to talk about transportation, circulation if you're a cyclist we want you to attend, if you're a pedestrian or someone who drives a car rides a bus, if you do all four the purpose of this is to have an open house engage with staff And provide input to us so that we can work on our circulation strategies and make Galea a safer place to circulate.

So that's happening 5.30 to 7 tomorrow night at the Community Center, it'll probably look a lot like what you just saw we're hoping for that many people and then the next day Thursday at the Community Center from 10 to 1 is the annual Senior Expo and this event seems to be getting just larger and larger last year I attended and I was just blown away how many people were there so we are expecting quite a big crowd this year And so hopefully we get people that went to all three events. Maybe we should have offered a prize if you went to the State of the City, Street Talk and the Senior Expo. We'll see how many people do all three. And that's all I have tonight Madam Mayor.

Thank you so much.

Mr. Manager how many people responded to the survey?

Thank you. Yes, so in advance of street talk in leading up to it we determined that we should go out and do a survey online prior to because that would obviously help inform us and prepare public works for how to put on The open house and be ready. And we received over 500 people who responded to that survey so it was, it was a lot I think public work staff is still deciphering all the comments they're starting to see themes, and that will be part of the engagement that they encourage at the meet at the open house tomorrow night.

But eventually all the results of that will come back to the council when they do their annual work plan. And they'll be able to answer more questions then about kind of what came out of the survey. But over 500 people did that survey.

Great, well thank you. Okay moving on to consent calendar.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. That will be item A1 acceptance of the February 2026 investment transaction report. Item A2 single audit report for fiscal year ended June 30 2025. Item A3 authorization to purchase universal play equipment at Stowe Grove Park. Item a4 authorization to advertise for bids for the 2026 residential resurfacing and arterial pavement projects Item A5, award of construction management inspection and materials testing contract to Unico Engineering Inc. for the Cathedral Oaks Road in Cribwell project phase one and two.

And item A6 adoption of Goleta train station policies and procedures.

Thank you. Council wish to pull any item? Council Member Lucerez-Martin.

Thank you I have just brief comments on A3 and A4. Anybody else?

I also have just some questions and comments for A4. I

just have some comments on A6.

Yeah, I'll go with A3 and A4

Great, I'll start with Council Member Reyes-Martin on A3 and A4.

Thank you. So A3 is the authorization to purchase the universal play equipment at Stowe Grove Park and I just wanted to highlight what a great milestone this is that we're actually purchasing the playground equipment. I know that our whole Goleta community has been eagerly awaiting the improvements at this park so I just wanted to highlight this and say thank you, thank you to Ms. Plummer and your whole team and really excited for this.

Do we have any speakers for A3, and could you read what A3 is?

Yes. Item A3 is authorization to purchase universal play equipment at Stowe Grove Park. If you'd like to speak to this item please use the raised hand icon and I will call on you. Seeing none.

Councilmember Kessin, did you have any comments on 830 before I

moved?

I said no. No, it doesn't matter I guess Would you for miss plumber would you like to show a You know, I have the same thing, the same observation that it's an exciting milestone and is this – would you like the opportunity to present? Is it queued up that people could show the pictures and so forth? You know, every opportunity we have to preen seems nice.

Thank you Councilmember Kasdan, members of the council. It is a very exciting night however unfortunately I do not have the information queued up it is available online in the packet some great renderings and we have taken the information to the Parks and Recreation Commission so it is available in those meetings as well It is an exciting project, it's exciting equipment and we're purchasing the equipment in advance because of the time required for manufacturing so it'll be available and ready to install as we are in construction. So thank you very much for your support and we're thrilled.

I really like, not only providing equipment for universal for those with special needs but also having different qualities to the different parks so that people might deliberately choose this park versus that park. They're not just homogeneous. So anyway, I think it's great. Thank you.

Yes, Mayor. That's Item A4, Authorization to Advertise for Bids for the 2026 Residential Resurfacing and Arterial Pavement Projects.

Thank you, and I'm asked often what's next for our pavement projects. So I'm hoping that we could potentially show the map of what's planned for 2026 or the bids that we're going out for. And if not then I think if we could direct staff, direct the community for where they could find it on their website?

I think I see Mr. Valdez going over there to queue it up, so there were just for the public there are two maps attached to the staff report and they indicate treatments on certain streets for paving project for next fiscal year. So hopefully as I'm buying a little time, Mr. Valdez can cue those up and if there's any questions for Nina she is here to answer those.

Or if Ms. Balna wants to give us some of the highlights while we get that.

Council Member Reyes-Martin, I also want to add that we have updated our five year map which is available on the website. So I know we get a lot of questions about what's next? What's next? What's next so now we've laid that out this shows the 2026 arterial pavement project. So we're doing portions of Cayo Real And then the additive alternates are Cathedral Oaks, portions of Cathedral Oaks and then Fairview. I can't see very well so if i got it wrong sorry um and then we're also doing the prep work in the residential area so the residential areas scheduled to get a cape seal so you see the dark blue that's the base bid and then the additive alternates are kind of So all the prep work is scheduled to go with the arterial pavement project because the prep work is very similar to the pavement project that we're doing on the arterial streets, so we'll get the economy of scale and better costs hopefully.

Thank you and so what we're doing tonight is authorizing the bids. When do you expect to be back with an award of contract?

I think we put that will be back in award in early 2027, so we're going to be out to bid at the end of this or at the end of this year and we're gonna bid the projects together because that'll help us determine what additive alternates we can do because they go side by side hand-in-hand. And then this shows the residential pavement area. This is scheduled for a cape seal, so the dark green colors are the base bid items and the lighter green are additive alternates that we will be bidding as well.

Thank you so much for this work. I know there's a lot of excitement for seeing more of this work done.

Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem, did you also have a question?

Yes and then just a brief follow-up. So once we have more bidding information then the council will have the opportunity to potentially look at If we're able to incorporate some of these alternatives, is that correct?

Mayor Pro Tem Smith. That's correct and will provide what we recommend to council based on the funding and with the bids come in at And I'd like just like to add that this last year's project we were able to do 99% of all the additive alternates that we've done in the past years because we got that extra funding So we're hoping that something like that may occur. And the beauty of this is that we have everything designed so whenever we have funding available, we can keep adding these in as additive alternates until we get the funding that we need.

Great, thank you. That's helpful and I just wanted to thank staff for adding evergreen for some of that prep work on the arterial. You know, I know we've heard from some residents about that section so I'm glad we were able to include that on the base bid on the arterial section and I'll keep my fingers crossed for the other portion as well. Thank you.

Yeah,

so if some of those alternative ones or alternate ones don't for some reason it didn't get funded are they at the top of the queue therefore for the coming year or most likely to be?

Councilmember Kasdan they're not at the top of the queue we would just keep trying to fit it in where funding allows

But each year you reevaluate the projects, right? The

payment

projects.

What we've done is we've developed a five-year because it creates efficiencies so that we can start designing sooner than we have in previous projects. So by doing that, we want to keep pace with those. So all these projects will be designed and all the added alternates will be designed. So depending on what we get done this year, we can add it to next years and just keep going and going.

Okay, so those folks who for instance have an alternate they should feel pretty confident that it's either going to come with this batch or shortly potentially after that.

If funding is available.

Okay I'll leave it there thank you.

Do we have any speakers? Oh sorry go ahead.

Thank you just to follow up on the notion of queuing and what's in the queue Because I think there's some streets that are identified as alternates in prior years that have not yet been funded and perhaps we're looking for funding. And I just wanted to know, is one of the criteria that you look at addition to funding is just maybe are there opportunities for economies of scale with other projects, other work happening in the city? What are those things that we look at as well?

So Council Member Kariyaka, we do look at all of those items. We also look at proximity. Sometimes these streets are closer together so the contractor only has to mobilize this one area so it'll save us money. So we look at every angle that's possible. Okay thank you.

Do we have any public speakers?

Yes any member of the public wishes to speak to item A4 please use raised hand icon and I will call on you Seeing none, Mayor.

Okay, then moving on to A6.

That's item A6 and that is adoption of the Gleta train station policies and procedures.

Okay thank you. Council Member Cariocco you wanted to pull this one? Sure

I just wanted to acknowledge this as just another example of progress is promised and keeping our promises We have a lot of people that have been eagerly awaiting this project. We have a big commuter rail employer forum happening tomorrow, so I just wanted to signpost that for folks. But this is really just another step in preparing ourselves to be open for business when construction is completed and just think it's just another great milestone for our city. And I'm just really proud of our staff and everyone that's been involved in this project, and I want to thank our federal and state funding partners and our partners at SBCAG as well.

Thank you.

And do we have any speakers for this item?

No speaker slips, for those of you on the Zoom webinar please use raised hand icon if you'd like to speak to Item A6. Seeing none

Mayor. Okay so I'm guessing we should ask if there's any speakers for any of the other items that weren't pulled.

Yes, and that would be item A1, item A2 and item A5. If you wish to speak to those items please use the raised hand icon and I will call on you. Seeing none Mayor.

Thank you then I'll entertain a motion. Somebody like to make a motion?

So moved.

I'll hop at you in a second.

Okay roll call vote please.

Thank you mayor that's item B1 a proclamation of the City Council of the city of Goleta California proclaiming the month of April 2026 as Earth Month in the city of Goleta

and I've asked council member Luz Reyes Martin to make this presentation

All right, I always never know where to stand up here. Like where's the best place? Earth Day, Earth Month. I'm waiting for that camera to adjust up there. Hi everyone! Welcome to Goleta! Where is...I'm looking for Kelly. Is it okay to stand here? I forget where you stand. I think Marcos is here. There we go thank you all right. I'm so pleased to get to read this proclamation and present it to you all. So a proclamation of the City Council of the city of Goleta, California proclaiming the month of April 2026 as Earth Month in the city of Goleta.

Whereas Earth Day was first celebrated on April 22, 1970 and today is recognized annually throughout the month of April to encourage us to deepen our understanding of the natural environment and recommit to protecting our planet through individual and collective actions. And whereas the City of Goleta is committed to being a resilient and sustainable community, recognizing that a healthy environment is vital to the current and future well-being of our residents businesses and local ecosystems.

And whereas the city's environmental initiative Go Green Goleta serves as a genuine call to action Reminding us that our tomorrow is today and that the needs of our environment are imminent. And we must act now to create a brighter future. And whereas the city's efforts to preserve native species, restore ecosystems, protect pollinator habitats and expand green infrastructure within the city are a core part of our local commitment to climate resilience And whereas the city is actively taking steps to protect our environment by encouraging everyday sustainability through the six core pillars of the Go Green Goleta initiative.

And whereas the city's diverse ecosystems are not only ecologically valuable but also essential to our local communities health, cultural heritage, climate resilience and economy providing clean air and economy, providing clean air and water, protecting from erosion and wildfire, and opportunities for outdoor recreation and education. And whereas the timeless saying goes little drops of water make the mighty ocean reminding us that seemingly small everyday efforts when multiplied across the entire Goodland community lead to substantial and lasting positive impacts.

And whereas our acknowledgement of Earth Month each April serves as an annual reminder of the need for ongoing environmental stewardship, climate action and conservation as we are all stewards and beneficiaries of the earth. And whereas all residents are urged to explore the Go Green Goleta programs, adopt sustainable practices in their daily lives and join our collective effort to preserve our beautiful earth for generations to come.

Now therefore be it resolved that on this 21st day of April 2026, the City Council of the city of Goleta California does hereby proclaim the month of April 2026 as Earth Month. Approved today and signed by Mayor Paula Perotti. Thank you. And I would welcome any comments you may have and then we'll take a picture or do we want to do pictures first? Pictures first.

Okay, there

you

go. Ready?

One, two, three. All right, perfect.

And then we'll

do a big group.

Okay,

perfect. I don't have the mic on.

Great, I'll start and I know others are here. Thank you Mayor Parodi and Goleta City Council members. My name's Helene Schneider. I have the honor of serving as the board president of trustees for the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. And I know we have representation here from the land trust of Santa Barbara County in the Fire Safe Council and they may wanna speak separately. Wanna acknowledge Steve Winhanger our executive director of the botanic garden We are all in one place.

A little closer to home though, I really appreciate this proclamation to be able to talk about what we can each do each and every day to promote Sustainability, resiliency, fire safety, water conservation, native plants. At the Botanic Garden as you may know we are celebrating our centennial. We only turn 100 once if at all and so we're celebrating all year round and this is a really wonderful way to be able to acknowledge that We think about our founders at the Botanic Garden who 90 years ago planted those redwood trees that we so majestically love right now and think about the long-term planning that takes. And I know local government does a lot of long term planning, so we encourage you to come to us there's over 40 organizations that have come together to form a biodiversity working group.

So as it comes to city planning or looking at native plants for your landscape ideas, or whatever it is that we can do, please partner with us and we hope to be able to see you out and about this Earth Day weekend as well as any other time throughout the year. Thank you so much for this today.

Do we have any speakers? Oh, I'm sorry. It's okay.

I just wanted to add one last thing and invite my colleague Dan Rowlap, our Environmental Services Project Manager. As most of you probably know, we held our annual Goleta Earth Day event on Saturday as an actionable Beautify Goleta event. And I wanted to have Dan share with you some of the outcomes from that event.

Thank you Ms. Murray, Madam Mayor and esteemed council members I'm very excited to be here tonight to talk a little bit about our event that happened last Saturday it was our fourth annual Beautify Goleta Earth Day event and it was another success we had 62 volunteers who picked up over 380 pounds of trash We also saw 54 vehicles drop off over 8000 pounds of bulky items So this continues to be a really popular event for the community and I did want to give a shout out. It was Beautify Goleta was founded back in 2016 by former council member Roger Aceves, and back then it was just these free bulky item drop-off events.

We actually collected 120,000 pounds before the pandemic put us on a little pause. And since then we've expanded with volunteer cleanups and we've had over 1,300 volunteers pick up over 13,000 pounds of trash through this program. So it's a really tremendous effort and the Earth Day event, it's our fourth annual, it's always a favorite on people's calendars so thank you for your support. Really appreciate it.

Yes, for those on the Zoom member who's to speak to this item please use the raised hand icon. I do have two speaker slips Steve Withager and then Stephanie Diaz yes please all speakers will have three minutes

Good evening Mayor, City Council members. I'm Stephanie Diaz and I'm a representative of the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County and we're excited about our proclamation and the Land Trust really appreciates what the city of Goleta does and we feel that recognizing Earth Day and holding on to it for this month is wonderful For more than 40 years the Land Trust has worked to conserve land, both natural resources, agricultural land and open spaces all across our region.

Protecting and restoring biodiversity is central to the work that we do and we also like to bring long-term health to the land. We appreciate the proclamation's recognition that healthy ecosystems support the community. Protecting and restoring biodiversity is central to the work and long-term health and resilience of the region. The proclamation that healthy ecosystems support the community and efforts to protect native species, restore habitat, support pollinators and expand green infrastructure. And especially your Go Green Goleta is wonderful And really, we appreciate the city's leadership and its continue to focus on practical community based work.

And we hope that we can continue to be able to coordinate with you. Thank you.

Thank you. I

have no more speakers for this item, Madam Mayor.

OK, thank you. We can

Yes Mayor, that is item B-2 a proclamation of the City Council of the city of Coleta California recognizing the month as April 2026 as National Donate Life Month.

And I will be presenting that. Thank you so much for being here. We always love seeing you and love presenting this proclamation, and I will read it for the audience. A proclamation of the City Council of the city of Goleta, California recognizing April 2026 as National Donate Life Month whereas organs, eye tissue, marrow, and blood donation are life-giving acts Recognizing worldwide as expressions of compassion to those in need. And more than 103,000 individuals nationwide and more than 23,000 in California are currently on the National Organ Transplant waiting list. And an average 17 people die each day while waiting.

And whereas the need for donated organs is especially urgent in Hispanic, Latino, African American communities. And a single individual's donation of the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, pancreas and small intestine can save up to eight lives and donation of tissue can save and heal the lives of more than 75 others. Whereas organ donors saved more than 46,000 lives last year and any person can register to be an organ, eye and tissue donor regardless of age and medical conditions. Also being a registered donor does not impact the quality of life-saving medical care a person receives in an emergency.

And whereas California residents can sign up with the Donate Life California donor registry online at any time by visiting www.donatelifecalifornia.org. And whereas, California residents can sign up to be an organ, eye and tissue donor When applying for and receiving their driver license or ID cards at the California Department of Motor Vehicles, or California residents interested in saving a life through living kidney donations may visit www.livingdonationcalifornia.org Now, therefore be it resolved that the City Council of the city of Goleta hereby proclaims April 2026 as National Donate Life Month in the city of Goleta.

And in doing so we encourage all Californians to check yes online or when applying for and renewing their driver's license or ID card at DMV. Approved this 21st day of April 2026 signed by myself Paula Perotti Mayor So why don't you come around here and we'll get a picture, and then we'll take a picture. And if you'd like to say a few words? No, here, you go in the middle. Yeah, and then you hold it.

Oh wait,

Dave's gotta go. Is it upside down?

Mayor and City Council, thank you very much for this proclamation. It'll go this weekend down into Los Angeles where we have an annual run walk with about 20,000 people will be there to see your proclamation as it's listed with other city proclamations from the county. After it from there, it ends up at the Goleta DMV so people will see that the city really promotes organ donation The DMV in Santa Barbara and Goleta are two of the top five or six DMVs in the state with the highest rate of people that sign up for organ donations. So about 98% of people that sign up do it at the DMV, and obviously having you guys make this proclamation helps the people in Goleta realize they need to do that.

A couple of quick things. Right now there's 188 people in the county of Santa Barbara on a waiting list for various organs, so that's where we're happening. We're always hoping for that also I'm About 11 years ago, I was on a sailboat and Harbor Patrol came and got me. And I ended up with a new kidney. The lady who died was a nurse at Cottage Hospital. She ended up—I ended up getting a kidney from her. She also donated the other kidney.

a heart, liver and lungs. So she helps five people doing that so it's always nice when it happens. One thing happening about a month ago someone died in Goleta and they ended up donating liver, lungs Thank you very much. by way of Donate Life, One Legacy. So there will be no real contact in both and also the family of the person who is deceased. And they may decide to talk to each other or they may not about a third of the time they actually get in and have communications with each other. Obviously with myself I've gotten to know the family of my donor very well we have what's called Walk barbecue at Ledbetter Beach for 10 years or 11 years now where I honor her and we also have people coming to do it so the last almost last thing is If any of you guys ever have questions, or if people talk to you asking about questions Please reach out to me and I will Get a hold of them and talk with them and give them the advice that I've been doing this long enough that I know kind of what's going on.

I'd like to introduce Victoria Brown, who is hopefully right over here. And she's not really my boss but she does a lot of things that make my life easier.

Thank you Scott. Madam Mayor, Council persons thank you very much for having us we're very excited to be here. Scott is one of our best advocates and voices for organ donation and I'm just here to support him and want to say thank you for this proclamation it's so important to our community that we get the word out about donation it's not something that we talk about often So part of my job is to come and meet you where you are, and you're here at the council meeting.

And you are the voice to the community so we're so grateful. We invite you September 19th on a Saturday from 2-5 to meet us at Leadbetter Beach for Scott's annual Run Walk. Excuse me, walk barbecue. He doesn't run anywhere and we're just going to have a great afternoon of celebrating families the gift of life and in Scott. So if you can come join us, we appreciate it. And thank you for your time.

Thank you both so much for all you do. Thank you. Do we have any speakers?

Yes. For those of you on this webinar, please use raised hand icon if you would like to speak to this item Seeing none, Mayor.

Moving on to the next proclamation?

Yes that's item B3 a proclamation of the City Council of the city of Goleta California proclaiming the month of April 2026 as Fair Housing Month in the city of Goleta.

And council member Carriaco will now present this

Good evening. So I'm proud to read this proclamation, a proclamation of the City Council of the city of Goleta California proclaiming the month of April 2026 as Fair Housing Month Whereas April is recognized nationally as Fair Housing Month, commemorating the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and reaffirming the right of all people to obtain housing free from discrimination.

And whereas fair housing protections help ensure that individuals and families are not denied housing opportunities based on race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, national origin or other protected characteristics under federal and state law. And whereas the city of Goleta's effort toward advancing equity in housing by partnering with the City of Santa Barbara's Rental Housing Mediation Program for more than 20 years, educating the community and providing vital landlord-tenant mediation services that promote communication, resolve disputes and prevent unnecessary evictions that can lead to homelessness.

And whereas the Housing Authority of the County of Santa Barbara plays a critical role in administering rental assistance programs and increasing access to affordable housing for low-income households throughout our region, including many residents of Goleta. And whereas partner agencies, along with local social service providers and community advocates are essential to strengthening housing stability and ensuring that all residents have the opportunity to live with dignity and security.

Now, therefore be it resolved that the City Council of the city of Goleta hereby proclaims April 2026 as Fair Housing Month in the city of Goleta and recognizes the dedicated efforts of our regional partners in advancing fair housing and preventing homelessness. And that the city encourages all residents, housing providers, and community stakeholders to uphold fair housing principles and work collaboratively to maintain Goleta as an inclusive community where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. Approve this 21st day of April, 2026 and signed by Mayor Paula Perotti.

Do you want to take a picture now and then talk? Okay. So where do you want us over here?

OK,

perfect. There you go, Chuck. OK, ready? One, two,

three.

Awesome. And then if we do

the one with everyone please.

Yeah, no

I'm

thinking of the one in the 80s.

Oh, that was for immigrants.

Thank you Mayor Parodi and Council Members for this Fair Housing Proclamation. I'm Andrea Bufano, the Rental Housing Mediation Program Supervisor. It is truly an honor for me to accept this proclamation on behalf of the Rental Housing Mediation Program and Board. In support of this proclamation and joining me here today is Heather Smith, Chair of the Rental Housing Mediation Board And there she is.

And we have Rental Housing Mediation Program staff, Raymond Brango and Diana Santiago who are our rental housing mediation specialists. We work a lot with Chuck Flax from the City of Goleta Homeless Services Coordinator and Lucy Graham Senior Housing Analyst And so I thank them all for being in attendance. The Rental Housing Mediation Board is comprised of 15 City Council appointed mediators who volunteer their time and experience to mediate landlord-tenant disputes.

We have a super high success rate and really help the parties devise amazing resolutions. The City of Santa Barbara has partnered with the City of Goleta for the provision of rental housing mediation program services since the inception of the City of Goleta. Our services include education on landlord tenant rights and responsibilities, staff consultations, mediation services at no cost to participants.