City Council — January 29, 2026

Yeah, because of that way they're facing. Yeah, perfect. Yeah? No that shouldn't move. And then does Chris know where the presenter is going to be? Tell Chris that the presenter will be right under the PowerPoint so just to let him know

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Good morning, everyone. Let's get ready to... Hello? Is it on? I don't think it's on. Good morning, everyone! Hello,

hello.

Good morning everyone let's start settling down so we can call this meeting to order please. Is that audible? Okay all right thank you very much well now it seems to work okay welcome to the Faulkner Gallery uh this is the Thursday January 29th 2026 it's a special meeting of the Santa Barbara City Council would you

If anyone would like to make a public comment on items on the agenda you can come up and then we'll do speaker slips afterwards.

Okay very good and we'll have three minutes at the podium if anybody wants to speak on the agenda items if not we'll move on and begin the symposium.

I'm not seeing anyone coming up to speak, Mayor.

Okay well how about that? All right very good then let's go ahead and begin our symposium and I'll turn it over to Ms. Harris are you conducting this or...

I think I'm going to make some prefacing comments for the Council and then I'll turn it over to Ms. Harris. So, just wanted to open today and thank the council and our distinguished panelists here today. The goal of this first session of this retreat today is really to help provide kind of an overview of the retail environment in the state of California and then more specifically The Central Coast in Santa Barbara.

As we are working on the State Street Master Plan and just thinking about economic development in our community more generally, we thought it would be helpful for the council to just have more of a grounding in kind of what is going on in the retail leasing environment? What is the retail market in Santa Barbara really to help inform you and to allow you to ask questions of experts to help also so that you all have an understanding what we should be thinking about in terms of our retail environment here in Santa Barbara. So that's really the goal of today's session, it's simply informational and I'm going to let Ms. Harris take it over and she'll introduce our panelists and provide a little more background.

Great. Thank you, Miss McAdoo. Good morning everybody and thank you for being here. My name is Tess Harris and I'm the State Street Master Planner for the City of Santa Barbara. It's really exciting to be here today. Today's Retail Symposium is the first of its kind for the city And it's an intended to provide a shared context as the council continues its work on downtown revitalization. I want to take a moment, this is the first but it certainly not the last so I appreciate all members of the public that are here today. We've already had conversation with some of our panelists and others that aren't in the room today about coming back into having another conversation around retail.

with many shared stakeholders in the community. So I just want Council to know that this won't be the only opportunity, it's really an introduction. So and I have a few comments, and then I'm going to pass it off to our panelists. I am just so delighted to have Rachel Rick and Mark here with us today. They all bring really great expertise in different areas around the retail environment. And so really thrilled to get to hear from them and be able to ask questions throughout the day.

So our goal today is to discuss what kinds of changes the city can make to improve the retail environment downtown and help businesses thrive, and in the city as a whole. And so staff have been looking more closely at the relationship between retail and tourism, between retail and residents, and really what is going on in our retail environment overall. Some of you may have been at the tourism summit yesterday and really just want to thank Visit Santa Barbara for that as well.

In looking at our Placer AI data that the city has, it's really interesting just to note that the number of unique visits that happen are primarily from metropolitan areas in California that we do draw Over 12,000 unique visits meaning one person is counted once even if they stay for five days or 30 days in a month. So over 12,000 from the San Francisco area excuse me over 37,000 from Los Angeles we have a large group from Riverside area over 5,000 San Diego, also very large and those are some of them they represent an important part of downtown's customer base. They also help to shape the demand for retail dining and our services.

And at the same time, and perhaps even more so downtown retail is also serving its residents. It's worth noting the wide range of ages and our demographics in general in Santa Barbara, and I just want to highlight the three age categories that have the highest amount of people in this city that our retail environment is serving. We have over 17% of Santa Barbara residents between the ages of 20 and 29. We have about 14% between 30 and 39, and we have about 12% between 60 and 69.

Each of these groups interacts with downtown differently and with retail differently, and that has implications for the retail mix hours, the types of spaces that we are providing from a retail environment. And then also worth noting just the relationship between housing and retail, and how that affects the retail environment. And quite frankly we don't have enough housing in our downtown.

And then we've also observed as staff in the downtown area, downtown tenants with the highest levels of foot traffic. So sometimes in the case of Apple and Marshall's those are two of our sales tax, two of 25, the top 25 sales tax Remitters in the city of Santa Barbara, but there are other tenants as well that are drawing in a significant number of people into our retail environment. And they're not just national retailers, they're also local restaurants and bars, hospitality uses and smaller businesses.

Just in pulling together the Kempton Canary Hotel, Wildcat, Joe's Cafe, Sandbar, Marshalls, Alo Yoga, World Market, Apple, Urban Flea Market, Locum and Gap. And I chose those there's a mix of them there but they have visits that total about 2 million visits downtown annually. That's a lot of people coming in and out of those businesses. Um, and so the mix is again how different types of tenants can collectively contribute to activity and visibility and vibrancy downtown. You'll hear that from our panelists today. And I want to highlight that the purpose again for this symposium it's not to advocate for a specific project or a specific outcome. It's to share insights on how retail in Santa Barbara has evolved What drives successful retail districts today and how the city can help create business conditions that have long-term success.

And so we're three, we're really pleased to be joined by our three speakers who bring statewide regional and local perspectives. Rachel the president of the California Retailers Association will kick us off and provide kind of an overview of what's happening at the state level in terms of retail. And then Rick Lemmo with Caruso Properties will share insights on tenanting strategies, retail mix and give his perspective from that lens. And then Mark Ingalls with Camino Real Marketplace in Goleta will offer a local market perspective from the South Coast and share success and lessons learned from his experience in commercial real estate. So with that I'm going to introduce Rachel.

Rachel Michelin is the president and CEO of the California Retailers Association Where she represents the state's retail industry before the legislature and regulatory agencies. She oversees a statewide membership that includes small independent retailers, franchises national brands and online merchants. Rachel brings more than 20 years of experience leading trade associations with a focus on policy advocacy organizational growth and building bipartisan relationships across the public and private sectors.

Rachel's leadership and relationships with the legislature and the governor's office have resulted in the most comprehensive retail theft bill package in modern California history. So with that, thank you so much, Rachel. And I'll pass it

off to you. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me appreciate the opportunity. I appreciated a tour I received yesterday of your retail in this area, in addition to participating in the summit And as I was telling some folks, now that I know it's less than an hour flight from Sacramento here. We'll be back because it's just a wonderful place to be and You know, unfortunately I took one for the team to be here and you know my team is in Sacramento in the cold. So, you know, I really have enjoyed my time here. And I'm going to touch a little bit on kind of high level. You know I'm with two gentlemen who are here in the weeds who are from this community so I'm not going to try to tell you all what you should do but I'm gonna give you some ideas and some challenges that I think are facing communities up and down the state of California When it comes to economic development and particularly I spent a few days prior to this with the number of CEOs from the national brands.

I'm having a lot of these conversations so you know I want to reiterate you know retailers want to see a vibrant business community in California. This is the largest retail market in the nation and the good and bad is that you know retailers have to So here because this is where the population is but we're also the most regulated and state in the nation where it is extremely expensive to operate in a state like California.

I will say that you know the number one thing that we hear over and over again even from my member companies It's it's this housing issue. It really is housing housing when retailers look to come and invest whether it's a national brand or small retailer they're looking for do I have the traffic that's going to allow me to cover the cost in order to operate in this community and while tourism I'm a huge fan of tourism California is as a great state to come and visit You know, a lot of these CEOs did not want to go back to the East Coast where it was you know negative 10 degrees. And so, you know coming here was it was a great treat for them and the reality is that, you know We need to make sure our employees can can live we need to have that workforce.

We need to have they're going to look at how can we sustain and when you think about the difference between an independent retailer and a national brand, a national retailer can absorb some of those costs. You know if there's a store and they really want to be in that market they probably have other stores whether it's in California or other parts of the country where they can absorb costs A small retailer can't. They're looking at their P&L and saying, Can I make payroll? Right? Can I pay my employees? And so that housing element is so vitally important which is why even from a retailers association perspective we are now engaging in housing legislation in Sacramento Because we really and that is something that as a state, you know, I don't think it falls just on local government as a state.

We need to figure out how are going to address this? How are we going to lower compliance because the cost to do business is more around the regulatory environment in the state of California what we find so often is that The legislature will pass legislation. It goes over to regulatory board or agency and it's the regulations in the compliance that conflict with other pieces of law, and so it's what as I told a member of the Legislature my members want to know which fire hose to look at they comply here they're going to get sued here If they comply here, they're going to get sued there. And so part of what I think is a role for local government in particular is to have those conversations with your elected officials at the state level To tell them if we want to see more investment in our communities, we need to streamline the regulatory process.

We need to make it easier even at the state level because what happens is that's a deterrent for retailers to invest in the state and I'll give an example. I have a national brand who the CEO called me because he really wanted to invest build 40 new stores across the State of California To build one store just before they do anything is over half a million dollars just to comply with the EV charging regulation and the solar regulation.

And so when they see that, they're like well we're not going to invest. We'll go somewhere else and do it because it's easier to make those investments because I don't know if I'm gonna recoup those costs. And when you layer on some of the other things that are coming out of Sacramento in particular for a retailer it makes it very difficult. These are national brands When I talk to small retailers who to me are the lifeblood of any community. Because it's not you know, I love my national brands are great but it's a small retailers that's that's their identity that's who they are and so when I talked to them my heart breaks because they're also inundated with the same regulation the same compliance costs that some of these larger retailers are but they can't absorb it and so when you're thinking about Economic development and you're thinking about how you're going to be, you know, and I talked to city councils about it.

It's how are you going to tell a narrative that's going to make whether it's a national brand but more in particular smaller retailer comfortable and making not only that monetary investment but the emotional investment of being willing to open a store and go through the emotions that you have to You know, are you cutting the red tape in your local communities? Are you making them feel welcome? Are you looking at a plan? One of the things I see a lot is analysis paralysis.

People analyze and analyze and analyze and never make a decision. And I think that in this environment with its economy, we need people to make decisions and I get how hard it is because you make one decision. You're going to get hammered over here by social media. You're going to get yelled at people. It's a very volatile environment but I think that for Californians in particular in a community that is so beautiful like Santa Barbara You have such opportunity to change that narrative. But it really is going to take not just you looking at what you can do in your own community, but also what can you all do as leaders to help us impact things going on in Sacramento? Because really if we can't change that narrative, and there's a lot of us trying to do that.

We're just like hamsters on a wheel. We're going to keep running but we're not going to get anywhere because the narrative is still that it's very challenging to open businesses here in the state. I love California. I think we have so much potential. I think there are people that are willing to work with us, particularly in the majority party. But we need more voices and more help because this is going to impact whether you're going to survive as a thriving retail community or else you're gonna have to think of another way of approaching some of the things that you're doing here in your community because the reality is that the costs are just escalating so quickly And really I think it's going to be up to local governments to come up with some of these plans and innovations.

You know, and I'll close with this we're actually sponsoring a bill with assembly member from Los Angeles who is doing a pilot project in his district on economic development for small retailers in coastal communities. So we're leaning into this. This assembly member is realizing that we need to do something differently. They came to us to sponsor it with them and their local chamber. Those are things that you should also be thinking about outside the box. How can you do things to help bring some relief and do pilot projects where you can get the state involved, funding involved? GO-Biz is really interested in investing but you've got to get out of the analysis paralysis and really focus on what is that plan for the future.

So with that, I welcome their presentations and any questions and dialogue we have later.

Thank you so much Rachel. I really appreciate your comments. I'm now going to turn it over to Rick Lamo. Rick is the Senior Vice President at Caruso where he serves as the primary liaison with non-profit organizations, community stakeholders, elected officials, and city staff. In this role, he works with internal teams to support projects that reflect the character and priorities of the communities in which Caruso operates.

Rick is Vice President of the Greater Downtown Glendale Association Community Benefit District. He was the original founding member and the first president for 12 years. And he's also a board member of the Coast Village Road Association in Montecito. So Rick I will turn it over to you.

Thank you very much. I really appreciate being here. I've had a good month of involvement with staff. Spent 27 years in the radio business and still don't handle feedback well, which helps me start out because I have a very strange romantic relationship with the City of Santa Barbara. When you're in the radio business it's a lot of fun but it doesn't pay really well. I mean let's put it this way, I was not John Palmieri.

So my wife would make sandwiches and my sons two which we only had at that time would come up to Santa Barbara every single weekend sit on the grass by the beach have a sandwich and then go walk on State Street Now that's pretty much fun for everybody, but if you've moved from Cleveland to Ohio it's really fun. And so I always try and remember that because I had a very interesting dinner about 15 years ago or so with Governor Brown. And I said, Governor Brown, it's so expensive in this state!

And he looked at me as kind and not smart and said, you know Richie, you gotta pay something for the sunshine. So now, part of what we are all paying for the sunshine is volunteering and hoping to take some of the opinions that I've gathered and others have. And hopefully it'll be a value to you. There is no doubt that I learned the basis of the retail business directly from Rick Caruso. A lot of people think he's just a business genius. I know him very well. He's a guy who knows how to practice common sense And I believe that that is our biggest solution.

There's a speech he gave once where he gave credit to what we all would think is a pretty simple quote, and it was with Steve Wynn. And it was, what can you tell me about business? The leasing business, every business. He said there's nothing more important than to know your customer. So let's talk about what's so easy here in Santa Barbara, because we have to first realize we have many customers.

Our first customer should be our residents and our property owners. Our next customer would be their tenants. And the last customer would be those who come from outside of Santa Barbara to visit us. That makes life a lot simpler. Because if you please them all individually, you're not really all things to all people. They all want the same thing. First and foremost they want a clean safe environment.

I don't care how much money you put into downtown LA we're probably not going to see a clean safe environment in downtown LA in my lifetime. It's like turning a ship it doesn't work. Now let's talk about a clean environment I love it when I go to a city and certainly, you know, city staff has no problem picking up the paper off the street. And certainly a lot of the tenants have no problem picking it up off the street or whoever handles the community benefit district maintenance, no problem.

But when I see businesses regular residences residents seeing a piece of paper and picking it up off the street reminds me of the very first thing I learned on the first day with Caruso at just one little tiny shopping center We all picked up the paper on the street. Do you know what difference that makes? It's about the experience that you create people sometimes jump the gun and say well, and I want to be respectful in my comments. Well we've got to talk about traffic and we've got to talk about Housing, which is very important. But what we need to talk about is what do we want our experience to be based on the customers we want here? Let's be honest, you don't want every tenant here.

Some tenants just don't make it in cities or some tenants from years ago. You're gonna help a buggy whip guy get a place on the boulevard or on State Street? No. So know your customer nothing that's more important than that. The next thing that I really want to drive home is, what's important about that environment? Because I was involved here outside of a Caruso project when Caruso was the very short term manager on behalf of Mace Rich of the Paseo.

And I can tell you, I don't care who it is, it was impossible to do business there. Slightly challenging right now, no doubt. But in those days, Mace Ridge wanted out they thought we manage it maybe will buy it. It was just impossible to do business and now you can see what we've got left. There's no sacks Nordstrom the issues you don't need me to beat you over the head with that.

Why do I believe that housing is important? I grew up in every business being Cognizant of what I refer to and others do, it's not my saying. The pebble in the pond theory. When you go to a pond and you throw a pebble in as long as you're not hurting the environment being watched over by the EPA or what have you. You're going to notice that where the rock lands is a circle then there's another and another so let's talk about our pebble in the pond here first and foremost we want to take care of our residents People, God bless you, say you can't be a hero at home. You must be a hero at home.

So first it's our residences. What's missing on State Street? Well we don't have a lot of residences so to be that pebble in the pond yes our residents in the city of Santa Barbara are very important. We need residences on the boulevard what kind of residence let's talk about know your customer well everybody wants to have residents that are going to shop that's pretty important I like something where you want a place for the people who are going to work in Santa Barbara to live. Why? It's their city, they're going to pick up paper on the sidewalk.

So that's the type of resident. It's very easy to have what is traditional affordable housing if you're hiring an employee at $75,000 or $80,000 a year to manage your store. They qualify for affordable housing in Santa Barbara. But let's talk about what affordable housing really is because regardless of the rules, why are developers so reticent to doing affordable housing?

What drives up the cost of housing almost more than anything else prior to the fires is regulation. And when I'm talking about regulation, I'm only talking about city. If I own a place that I wanna develop and I'm gonna put 18 to 24 months into that process Instead of having a stabilization rate in three to five years, it might be seven. I'd like to ask any of you privately to think about how long you can exist as a family losing money for seven years?

It doesn't work. What can we do differently? As a city, we can treat those people different and more special. Another example. I heard this complaint for many, many years as an active member in Thousand Oaks. Do you know that if you take 18 months to two years and that's what it used to take in Thousand Oaks to get a restaurant done? That restaurants not gonna see profit for 10 years just not possible or they're gonna charge $75 for dinner. How many residents are gonna go to that all right?

So I think we have to think about the customer and the customer says, maybe you can get a concierge desk at the city where I can come. And within six months, I can accomplish a plan check as well as my permits that lowers the cost of doing business doesn't take any money away from the city unless we're shuffling it through many employees and Respectfully, the Permanent Employee Act.

So that's something we need to think about how do we get I'm not telling you change all your regulations? I don't know enough about it. I'm not smart enough for that How do we get to shorten the time within the pipeline? How do We have a welcoming atmosphere for people I Would come here with my wife and no doubt I would never take a chance on trying to convince my sons to let me walk on the street at six o'clock at night with any of my five granddaughters.

Why, you might say? So do I just... See it's always somebody that's a lot younger than me that has to show me high tech. I press this little arrow button. Okay! It's nowhere near as bad as it seemed to be 15 years ago but it's bad okay We were taking, and I by the way did not take the pictures when we were taking a walk. We ran into two homeless people that were blocking the doorway of a business.

Now I would like to remind you that not only are there ordinances here but let's talk about the ordinance that came down from the Supreme Court what some of us refer to as the Idaho ruling. Homelessness does not have a right privilege or legal place On city sidewalks, just because they're city sidewalks. Now I don't wanna strip compassion away from any of us. The older you get and the closer you think you're gonna be meeting your maker, you get very compassionate. Especially on Sundays we go all the time now.

And I donno if you've been to church lately but on Sundays, all of us old people, we think we have a reserved seat. Somebody sitting in our seat, we go crazy. But let me tell you why this is so important. If whether state streets open or closed, I'm gonna drive by. You don't want me to drive by too far away, okay? That needs to be cleaned up to create an inviting environment.

It's not that people visiting don't care. I think everybody cares, but you know what? Everybody has the right especially your city council and your city staff to have a city that's inviting. That's a step towards extending that invitation for people to come and feel comfortable and feel safe. And last but not least what everybody likes feel wanted it starts with the pebble in the pond It goes to the rest of the residents, it goes to tourists from the regional area.

And it goes to a magnificent opportunity for tourists coming in on a cruise ship. Yet and I could ask Kathy, she would have stats. How many places other than Janine's can I go for breakfast when a cruise ship docks at 7 in the morning? Very few. When we were involved here at the county getting Our own permits for the Miramar. I remember walking three blocks away from the city, the county building to get a coffee every place else was closed and the place that we always used to go directly across in the county went out of business or the landlord didn't have a thing. So I think we have to realize it's not just the city's responsibility to create this environment and welcome people there. It's all of our merchants as well.

I talked about it this morning with a friend. I've known it for a long time, especially when I was on the hiring committee in Glendale and somebody said something that just warmed my heart and that person was going to get hired no matter what. We have to stop justifying a no at staff level and get to a simple sentence. When you walk in, my job is how do I get you to a yes as quickly as possible? Because time is absolutely money.

And time is also very competitive. If I'm only gonna open two stores, I'm gonna go to the people who want me. I don't need to shove my way in that doesn't work for retail. So we talked about what I feel is in regards to homelessness. We talked about a little bit about what I truly believe and what many professionals believe in regards to housing But I think the last thing is what I call the silent killer.

People do their homework before they invest in a community and when I say invest, it may be getting an apartment, it may be building a retail store. If I do my homework and I see that the purveying sentiment with the governance is indecision, I'm not gonna fault them. I'm gonna say you know what? Until they decide it's just not time for me to look seriously.

People say to me, how do we get a big tenant here? Well let's start by creating an environment that a big tenant wants to do whatever they have to do. Remember that some people like Barnes and Noble every lease goes through their executive board, their executive committee. Okay, well guess what? Small businesses have an executive committee too. It's usually a husband and wife or two partners and that's their executive committee but you know what? They're more discerning because they can't withstand the loss of the big company might withstand.

Lastly, a mix. I don't believe anything is more important than a proper mix, a mix of retailers. You know why? Because Santa Barbara used to be and I hope it's going to continue to be used to be a mix of all kinds of people, all kinds of cultures I mean, that was fun to come up and interact with. And we used to interact with those groups that were on the beach where we came up for our sandwiches and they were having like arts things for sale. You can't imagine some of the stuff I bought after 50 years my wife's making me get rid of.

Okay? I literally found somebody who took a picture of a water spout but they didn't have one. It was just for show so I came back up to the seafood restaurant a week later And the guy met me in a parking lot and I bought it, felt like a drug deal for crying out loud. It was really nice. Let's not just pick on homeless. Our police are stressed to the limit in every town. We have drug deals taking place on the street as if no one's looking.

If we could help our police with enough funding to be able to do let's say between 630 and nine. Three simple drive-bys, you know what they're gonna do? They're gonna go someplace else. Now I know this is on the public record so I'm not gonna make the speech that I made in Glendale when we did something like this but you know what? I can't focus on where those people go.

I just don't want them in Santa Barbara because we have to focus on Santa Barbara. I said lastly which is a bad habit I have, One thing that helps us blossom very quickly are restaurants. Restaurants bring people, people bring retail. If we can find a way to speed the approval processes of restaurants very important if we can find a way so that when council members or city staff go to a restaurant for lunch dinner breakfast When the ticket comes back and you pay your check, put your business card inside.

Let them know that you care that they're there. People go well those are such small things. Those small things add up. Ask any restaurateur. They don't care about feeling important. They want to feel needed okay? And we have some of the best restaurateurs in the country okay? We've got Michelin star people for a guy that had a weight problem I never really cared that much about a Michelin star. I thought their portions were too small.

But I sure do spend a lot of time and money at Janine's. And I know that pineapple, coconuts, cones come out on Tuesday and Sunday mornings. That's the kind of customer we want to engender. That's the kind of customer we want to create an environment. Now where does this all come from? And I asked Rick Caruso that one day, where did he get all this knowledge? You were an attorney. No offense but he was an attorney and he said you know what my wife used to like to shop we used to go to Fashion Island. He said I'm not much of a shopper. I said what did you do? He said I sat out let my kids play or I watched other people play.

You know it was so beautiful about that. You can't hear me oh I'm sorry is this a little better I was telling everybody just how great a restaurant Joe's is. So you only missed that little part, he used to just hang out. It was clean, it was safe. The grass was cut or the power washing was done prior to when the customers get there. They paid top dollar to get what they wanted and Fashion Island even though retail has gone through challenges since COVID, Fashion Island still does great. The Grove does great, the Americana does great so the bottom line is very simple.

People create an environment where they want to be wanted. And there are so many, I'm a believer. I know you guys have to deal with much tougher issues every day than I ever do. I am a believer common sense can prevail and the biggest responsibility I think you guys have is to utilize city staff to get decisions made yesterday. Your goal has to have a timeline I would say your outside timeline needs to be ready within 18 months.

Because if I were to convince a tenant to be here right now, it could take 24 months before they could open. Guess what? They missed two holidays. The majority of their business is done in fourth quarter. So if you could keep and I know that's a lot to throw out and because of my romantic connection with this city from when my now adult kids were really kids I volunteered to work up here. Also, Rick Crusoe who's very busy had a great meeting with the mayor and others and said don't worry let me handle it. So you let me know what you need and we'll find it will help you but I think we need to get serious about timeline and we need to get serious about relinquishing council decisions and have staff go crazy because you've got a phenomenal staff up here.

I've worked with staffs at seven different cities and I would rank our Santa Barbara staff at the very top and I love Thousand Oaks But Santa Barbara is great. So I hope I didn't take too long. Did I have another picture up there? I think I did, yeah. People were saying to me one day, our homeless problem is not that bad here. I went down the street a couple of times and I found this or when we were walking, we literally ran into two people sleeping on the street.

The cops in Glendale? With the help of a nonprofit called Essentia, found a way to get those people that wanted a home. When I was working on the Caruso campaign for mayor, maybe that's why he didn't get elected. But when I was working on that campaign we studied homelessness. It's not a tough problem to fix even in Thousand Oaks right now they've created city land that they partnered with where Okay, they're anywhere from 80 to $100,000.

They're really, really nice ones with a company called Boxable. After you put your foundation in 48 hours after they're delivered, they can be lived in and there's a private bath, there's a kitchenette. What is there? There's dignity. Why is homelessness so bad in LA? They're building these giant places where they have a common area restroom How does someone live like that? It's not right.

So there are easy fixes, again guided by common sense and I think those are the only two pictures right? And I think I already went way beyond the brevity promise I made to Tessa.

Thank you so much, Rick. Really appreciate it. We are next going to hear from Mark. I'm really happy to have Mark Ingalls with us here today. Mark is a third generation Santa Barbaran with more than 30 years of experience in commercial real estate development construction asset management and property management. Mark is the asset property and general manager of the Camino Real Marketplace, and is a partner on the development team for the Stork Medical Center. A major healthcare project in Goleta that's scheduled to break ground this year.

His project portfolio includes Camino Real Marketplace, Birch Park, Ice and Paradise, the Maravilla Senior Housing Project, the Goleta Marriott Courtyard Hotel, and the Ontario Hills Residential Subdivision. So really happy to have you, Mark. I'll pass it off to you!

Thank you Tess for the introduction and I'm honored to be sitting here with Rachel and Rick, both a wealth of knowledge. And I appreciate them sharing that with our community and with you today. I'm kind of coming from a little bit different perspective. I am the property manager and general manager for the Commuter Real Marketplace Shopping Center which is a regional shopping center.

State Street is a main street. It's not a shopping center. And you guys aren't landlords, you're a city. We're landlords, we control a lot of the elements that Rick touched on which are really important safety, security, a comfortable lively place to be and want to be. That's our jobs. Our tenants on the other hand, we try to do the best we can in selecting our tenants but we don't...we're not partners with our tenants they do what they do Our job is clear to make sure that we bring people to their business.

And I think much like State Street, the role that you all have is to create an environment that's safe, that's clean, that welcoming And you have to rely on your residents, your tenants both national and local and regional tenants to do what they do in bringing the elements that are needed and requested by the community. And in order to do that I think housing needs to be a component of State Street we all this discussion this communities had for many many years.

I think it's relevant I'm the third generation Santa Barbara born and raised, one of the privileged. And I grew up downtown. I grew up downtown behind a family business in front of a plumbing shop and behind an office in the middle. In our neighborhood we had neighborhood markets, we had neighborhood services, and I think that's consistent today in most neighborhoods in Santa Barbara.

The Westside, the Mesa Milpas the east side, and you still have those he has had those vibrant services and retail elements that the community that's close to the to those businesses can support. It's a neighborhood, it can be a neighborhood. If it was a neighborhood, it would be more sustainable. It would be more inviting for people that live to actually be out and engaged on the street.

So I think housing is an important component. I think the type of housing is really important. You need diversity. You don't need large Apartment building structures. I have my my personal opinions about knocking down two department stores and putting up to major housing elements, I think that every two-story building on State Street should have housing and every Building on State Street that wanted a third and potentially a fourth floor should should be encouraged to do so and install housing I think if we did that we would we would We would have a vibrant downtown Main Street. I think when people come to Santa Barbara, they don't come to Santa Barbara to shop.

When you're in Santa Barbara shopping is a secondary component. Restaurants, they want to feel like they are part of the community. Santa Barbara's unique. It's very unique and what's happening in Santa Barbara is not unique. The department stores that are leaving large vacant spaces in our communities, it's happening statewide and nationally. Those department stores were a trend and that trend is over and it's yet to be defined what replaces it but I think there's opportunities I think there's opportunities to bring, in other communities where they've been successful, medical facilities can occupy large spaces.

They can be converted easily, much easier than residential. We've got incredible educational community here at Westmont, Santa Barbara City College, UCSB bringing some of their functions I think Santa Barbara, you see Santa Barbara is thrilled to be downtown. They've been out in Goleta the good land but yet they're at the University of California Santa Barbara so it gives them a place in downtown that's that I think it's gonna be welcome to them and Santa Barbara will welcome them I think Rick and Rachel both touched on a lot of what's happening outside our area.

I don't want to go too long in my little intro here and save more time for questions. I feel like the solutions are in the dialogue, not in hiring experts that'll come in and tell you what you're not doing and what you should be doing, and if you could do this better, you would do this. I think it's in forums like this I think it's in talking to the community about what they want State Street to look like, the Monday through Friday crowd and what would bring them downtown. And be in a position to act on it because A critical time frame here. We've been discussing it as a community since COVID and it's time to unveil up a plan or an attempt at a change in knowing that it's going to change again, so nothing we do should be have a 10 story foundation because we just don't know what the future is going to bring in the change.