City Council — September 1, 2026

I would like to note that the interpreter for this evening is Jose Gonzalez. Mr. Gonzalez, could you please raise your hand? And you can ask him for listening devices if you would like interpretation services. I'd like to call this meeting to order for the City Council meeting of September 1, 2026. Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll?

this month in honor of Ruins Preparedness Month, but it will be It'll be in Spanish specifically to serve our Another segment of our population

Thank you The next item on the agenda is public comment And Madam Clerk, can you please read the criteria?

Speakers may provide public comment on any matter within the subject matter jurisdiction of the City Council. Each speaker will be limited to three minutes, maximum 15 minutes for a public comment period unless the majority of the council objects. The mayor may provide speakers more or less time to speak. All comments or queries shall be addressed to the council as a body and not to any specific member thereof pursuant to government code section 54954282. The Ralph M Brown Act no action or discussion by the city council shall be undertaken on any item not appearing on the posted agenda except to briefly provide information ask for clarification. Provide direction to staff or schedule a matter for future meeting those on zoom and wishing to speak during public comment please use the raise your hand feature for callers using a phone press star 9

thank you first name I have here is Gary Hall followed by Gwenavere Cannon Mr. Hall

Good evening, Madam Mayor, council members, staff and citizens of Santa Maria. My name is Gary Hall. I am a resident of Rancho Buena Vista Mobile Estates at 2135 North Railroad Avenue here in Santa Maria. I represent the North Santa Barbara County Manufactured Homeowners Team or NESBIT. NESBIT's primary goal you've heard it all before remains to provide protection to all Santa Maria mobile home residents presently living in an unregulated rental market.

Yes, we continue to ask the City of Santa Maria to stand with us in maintaining affordable housing. Affordable mobile home living is vanishing here in Santa Maria and all across the state. As I have stated previously, I was encouraged at the June 16 meeting When I heard both council members Soto and Battaglia voice support for bringing forward a discussion of the mobile home model lease and enforcement agreement.

And again, I thank you both. I'm remaining hopeful that their action will soon open the door to exposing the flaws that are embedded in the two documents And how far those documents missed the goal of maintaining affordable mobile home housing, which of course was what it was intended to do. I continue to believe that now is the time to take action to replace the model lease with a uniform mandatory enforceable mobile home rent stabilization program much like those in our neighboring city and county jurisdictions.

On August 4th, you unanimously passed the motion introducing the ordinance amending Title 12 by adding Chapter 12-25B of the SMHP Senior Mobile Home Park Overlay District. You responded to our plea for protection from inappropriate mobile home park conversions. Thank you. On tonight's agenda is your opportunity to adopt the ordinance Please do so, and help save our senior mobile home parks. Thank you.

Gwynevere Cannon? Good evening Ms. Cannon.

Good evening Your Honor. My first item I want to talk about is safety And I think I've been here last year talking about safety. I was actually in a business on the weekend, and I was very kind of concerned there was a couple people in this business who had ankle bracelets on. And they were actually began to actually take from this business. They're actually stealing.

My question is that who's monitoring the ankle bracelet? Are these bracelets on their ankles to keep them at a certain distance, certain miles or where they live. Because you know they have these bracelets on but whose mind is it probationary officers are the police department Because they're still doing crime. And so I'm just wondering what's the purpose of the ankle break? Maybe it needs to be on their hands. I don't know, but you know, I would like for one of the officer and I do thank the police department for doing such a great job here in this city.

But there are just some things that I don' quite understand if they're going to have on these ankle bracelets and they still do crime. I think they should be locked up. I don't think they should be out in the public. Because I was a little bit concerned, I was with someone and they said let's go you know so here this business without two people that was going to purchase in that business.

The second thing I have is The hospitals here, I don't know what you as a mayor can do but it's an overcrowded hospital have to take someone to the hospital and it was four to five hour wait. And that tells me that we need another hospital. We can't sustain the city with the population. So therefore something has to be done because there are people in this, in the ER they were moaning and groaning. And you know I think that it comes down to saving someone's life so either someone...I've been trying actually talk with this hospital administrator asked what's your plan for this coming year?

To alleviate this for our 5 hour wait. And you know the nurses and a doctor doing the best they can with what they have to work with so someone is mining that ship and I would love to know who is minding that ship. And the 3rd thing is. The library love the library I do go to the library, but I noticed that there used to be some city ranchers kind of posted out there I don't see them anymore and You know it still needs to be some type of security there.

Especially where the garage area could that pretty dark in there you have people coming and going to help this. You have people there do not On that project, it should be probably those funds should be put back into the police department. So for safety reasons.

Thank you Mrs. Cannon. I will have Mr. Rollins get a hold of you to answer these questions for you. That's all I have thank you. Thank you. Jeffrey Wheeler

Good afternoon council members and Mayor Patino.

Good evening Mr. Wheeler.

Okay, why do we drive on parkways and park in driveways? As with our language sometimes our world seems a little bit upside down I'd like to talk to you a little bit about parking this evening Dr. Donald Shoup of UCLA wrote a book called, The High Cost of Free Parking. He promotes three principles that have been used in many places already. One is called charge for on-street parking at the fair market value.

Pricing in residential neighborhoods could be an escalating scale more for a second or third permit allowing and charging more for people from outside the neighborhood There are many modern and flexible parking management technologies and companies. Do away with parking minimums, let the free market and the developers decide how many spaces they want to provide from the on street parking income put it back into the neighbors neighborhoods that it's generated in It could go for things like public benches, wastebaskets more patrols and traffic calming such as curb extensions and more.

This year the City Council approved permit parking for the neighborhood just north of Pioneer Valley High School. This is a nice neighborhood with large lots two and three car garages in driveways They had a problem with unlicensed teenage drivers parking inappropriately, perhaps partially blocking driveways. They followed the traffic committee's procedure collecting signatures of a majority of the homeowners.

Most people didn't park on the street. The ones that did about 15% voted against the permitted parking which would cost them. The homeowners who didn't need the on-street parking prevailed. They didn't buy any permits They didn't need them. They could park their cars in their garages and large driveways. They have now essentially reserved their curb space so others can't park there.

Only neighborhood residents can park there, only they can buy permits. Our youth still don't have driver's licenses and still don't know how to park with consideration. The root of the problem isn't solved What's perhaps ironic is that our city has put out a video this year about how we are not to put traffic cones or other items on the street in order to reserve parking spaces in front of our homes.

It tells us that when we bought our house, we did not purchase the street pavement. It does not belong to us. The cost of a permit in our city is very low. It's something like $14 for five years. Okay, I'll leave it at that. I'd like to quote our Director of Public Works who once said something like street pavement is our greatest liability and our biggest asset. Let's put it to work for us. Thank you.

Thank You Mr. Wheeler We will now move to the consent calendar. Does anyone have items they wish to pull for

discussion? Madam Mayor, let me just ask the caller if they want to speak real quick. Oh I'm sorry go ahead. Sojourn note takers caller on zoom if you're wishing to speak please raise your hand. And that concludes that madam mayor.

Thank you we'll now move on to the consent calendar does anyone have items they wish to pull for discussion?

683 for a separate vote.

That's the City Council salaries, okay? Anyone else have anything they want to pull? Do you want to speak? Okay that is

just a separate vote.

Just a separate vote? Mm-hmm.

I'd like to make a motion that we approve the consent calendar, excluding 6A3.

Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, Madam Clerk can you please call the roll?

I will move that we approve item 6A 3

I'll second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, Madam Clerk can you please call the roll?

Thank you.

Thank you So now The next will go to report by David Rowland City Manager

Thank you, Madam Mayor and Council. Just today I want to talk about briefly of a quality of life issue out there. Invest in our future is called Measure C. It's a house and sales tax. We'll be conducting four town hall meetings on the following dates and locations. Monday September 14th at the Grogan Community Center. Monday September 21st at the Edwards Community Center.

Monday September 28th at Menami Community Center And on Monday, October 5th at Sheppard Hall. The meetings will be from 6.30 p.m to 7.30 pm. We are using these meetings to provide educational information on Measure C and to answer any questions from the community residents and Spanish interpretation will be provided and we'll do a press release on this on our webpage as well to ensure people attend the meeting. That's all I have for tonight. Thank you.

Go over to the oral reports of council members.

Go ahead and start, Madam Mayor. Council Member Flores? Thank you, Madam Mayor. August 27th I went to a town hall meeting to support Council Member Battaia. August 26th, A Day of Hope. August 29th, I was in Lompoc for Communify for the policy and council recognition.

Thank you. Council Member Battaia?

It's Saturday, August 15th. I attended Day in the Park. Sunday, August 16th, I attended the Boys and Girls Club Barbecue. Thursday, August 20th, attended Santa Maria Police Community Academy. Thursday, August 27th, hosted a town hall meeting in District 1.

Thank you. Council Member Hernandez?

Yes, on August 21st I went to the grand opening of Fighting Back Santa Maria's Center. It's a brand new center where young adults can go and get some resources which is really great And then on August 26th, I attended the Day of Hope. We sold a lot of newspapers on Broadway and Cook and the community really came out. I mean, I was just...I'm always impressed but it was really amazing. We don't have car accidents. Nobody gets run over but most importantly we raised so much money. The entire community from 9 to 12 is all out in different corners raising money for cancer patients It's just really amazing to see that in the City of Santa Maria.

Thank you. Council Member Soto?

Thank you, on Monday October 10th I attended a meeting regarding the Cook Street Apartments We've been in discussions on. On Wednesday, August 12th I attended a closed session City Council meeting. On Thursday, August 13th I attended a meeting on affordable housing with the home team of Santa Barbara County And our community development team on Friday. So I keep seeing October on Friday, August 21st. I attended the grand opening fighting for fighting back Santa Maria's Navigation Center. A big congratulations to them. It's a big win for for our community and, um, I also event here on the corner of Cook and Broadway, and thank you so much to all the residents who supported Dignity Health and Mission Hope. It was such a great event, and thank you to that very generous donor who gave me $100 bill for cancer patients.

Congratulations and thank you to the community. That's all Madam Mayor. Thank you.

August 6th, I attended a LAFCO meeting and Cal City's virtual roundtable impacts on SB 357 and city responses The August 11th attended Recreation and Parks Commission meeting on August 12th. I attended North County Subregional Planning Committee meeting in Solvang and the closed session for City Council on August 13th, I attended the Santa Maria Airport board meeting On August 18th, I attended the YMCA social.

On August 20th, SBCAG board of directors meeting. And I think the one thing that came out of the board of directors meeting is important are call boxes on 135. And SBCAG will be making the determination whether or not we're going to be keeping call boxes in Santa Barbara County And it seemed like the people from the south part of the county didn't feel it was necessary. But I do think that, and we may need to put this on a future agenda because people don't realize when they go from Santa Maria to Koyama there's many many dead zones and I think just out of safety we need to keep some of those Those call boxes open the self cell phones don't don't make if I'm going to and I go there frequently, but if I'm going to make a call.

I don't plan on getting anyone and then I will maybe finish it up when I get to because of the dead zones so I think that's something that people in Santa Maria need Also, SB CAG has put out we have applications to be on advisory committee for SB CAG to talk about 135. And so we will be selecting four people from Santa Maria, four people from the Orchid area and three people at large. So get in your applications to SB CAG and I think Probably the middle of September is when all applications need to be done. So if you bike, if you walk, if you drive a car, if you ride a bus we need to hear from you and need to know what our needs are.

As of Monday I think we had 40 applicants so people are interested.

Yes

that's what I said. That afternoon I attended the APCD board meeting. On August 21st, I attended the grand opening for Fighting Back, The Navigation Center. For people who've been following Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley we have come a long way in the past 20 plus years and The Navigation Center is to help young people navigate Through their life, and I know we have taken two kids out of the riverbed and place them in housing. And make sure that they can they have something to look forward to. They can go to school or they will help them get a job and that's so important so that we don't see them in the future out on our streets or somebody else's streets.

On August 22nd attended the Day of Hope car show And attended the California Women for Ag meeting. And on August 25th, I attended Unity Shop Focus Group. And August 26th we were all out there for the annual Day of Hope at Broadway. Some of us were at Broadway and Cook. Some of us were up in Bed Arabia. And I attended on August 29th the Santa Maria Natural History Museum 30th anniversary Which was very nice it was outdoors.

And so that we have nothing else ladies and gentlemen this concludes tonight's council meeting have a wonderful night.