UnGovr Transcript
iHow this transcript is madeUnGovr transcribes the official recording with automated speech-to-text, separates speakers by voice, and matches voices to the seated roster. Names and attributions are AI estimates and may contain errors.Verify any quote yourself: click anywhere in the transcript and the official video jumps to that exact moment, so you can check any quote against the recording.0:06 – 0:085 turns
Turn on the mic. Good evening and welcome to the closed session of the Solvang City Council meeting of May 11, 2026. We're beginning at 601. Roll call please.
Roll call, called by Unidentified speaker 2
Show transcript
thank you.
Thank you. We will now open it up to public communications on the closed session items, if any. Anyone on Zoom? There's no one in the building. Okay we will close it to public comments and Madam Clerk would you read into the record our discussions
Thank you item 2a conference with real property negotiators pursuant to government code 54956.8 property 4784th place Solvang California APN 139173014 agency negotiator Randy Murphy city manager negotiating party CRA Solvange RELC Under negotiation, both price and terms. Item 2B, conference with real property negotiator pursuant to government code section 54956.8, property APN 139192024425 1st Street Solvang California 93463.
Agency negotiated Randy Murphy City Manager negotiating party Jamison Elias Holding Limited under negotiation both price and terms.
Thank you. Okay, we're adjourned to closed session.
0:34 – 0:4011 turns
We are reconvened
from our closed session. Mr. Attorney, do we have any reportable action?
No Mayor there's no reportable action from closed session
Very good, thank you very much. Then I will close the closed session and the actions thereof at 629. And we'll give us one minute. We'll start on time at 630. Stand by.
Oh, shit.
Good evening everyone and welcome to the Solvang City Council meeting of May 11th, 2026. A little housekeeping please if you would silence your phones or turn them off that'd be very appreciated nobody likes to be interrupted and then we're starting at 630 this evening roll call please
Thank you very much. And Dennis
Beebe,
would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please?
Thank you, Dennis. Okay
Okay, I have the privilege today of a proclamation. The proclamation is an appreciation of National Public Works Week May 17th to the 23rd 2026 and their tagline here is rooted in service empowered by community. Whereas public works professionals focus on infrastructure, facilities and services that are of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and to public health, high quality of life and well-being of the people of the City of Solvang And whereas these infrastructure facilities and services could not be provided without dedicated efforts of public works professionals who are engineers, managers and employees at all levels of government and the private sector. Who are responsible for rebuilding improving and protecting our nation's transportation water supply water treatment and solid waste systems public buildings and other structures and facilities essential for our citizens And whereas it is in the public interest for the citizens, civic leaders and children in the City of Solvang to gain knowledge of and maintain an ongoing interest and understanding of the importance of Public Works and Public Works programs in their respective communities.
And whereas this year, 2026 marks the 66th annual National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association, Canadian Public Works Association. Now, therefore be it resolved that I Mayor David Brown along with the City Council of the city of Solvang California do hereby proclaim May 17th to May 23rd 2026 as National Public Works Week. And urge all citizens to join with representatives of the American Public Works Association and government agencies in activities, events and ceremonies designed to pay tribute to our public works professionals, engineers, managers and employees. And to recognize a substantial contribution they make to protecting our national health safety and advanced quality of life for all.
In witness thereof I have unto set my hand and caused the official seal of the City of Solvang, California to be affixed to this 11th day of May 2026. Congratulations to the Public Works Department and all those that helped in that endeavor. Who's here today? Is it Bridget? Are you here? Would all our Public Works people please stand and be acknowledged? Okay, thank you.
0:41 – 0:5315 turns
Well done
guys. I just wanted to mention the folks that were here today, Jonathan Flynn Keith Coates Daniel Overson and Christian Wright and those are just four of the members of our public works team here Magdalena Lopez was not here and Cesar Tapia was not here, but in addition to those folks we also have water and wastewater divisions in the city. And I just want to say how grateful we are to the City Council and to the community for the opportunity to serve you guys.
Public works is a really cool job! You know it's neat to be part of the community but to be able to serve in a capacity where a part of building the community as well as just maintaining the infrastructure of the community. It's such a noble and awesome job, and I know that everybody on my team and everybody I talk to in this city are grateful. So thank
you. It is mutually grateful. Thank you for all you do. Okay, we have a presentation from Waste Management. Would you like to go ahead?
I'll introduce Jessica McGinnis from Waste Management. She's our liaison with the company and she's here to give a summary of 2025 activities so take it away Jessica.
Hi everyone. For those of you I haven't had the pleasure of meeting personally, my name is Jessica McGinnis. I'm the Senior Account Executive for Waste Management and I work very closely with your city staff to make sure that services are being maintained to a high level of efficiency in the City of Solvang but today I really wanted to give a quick recap of some of our fun things we did in 2025 and talk about some things ahead of us coming up within the next few months. Wanted to meet with you before we got halfway through the 2026, so...
All right do you want to start from the top here? In 2025 we collected about 10.6 million pounds of trash from the City of Solvang We also did 1.7 million pounds of recycled material and 2 million pounds of organic waste, all within Solvang City limits. And then just a quick overview there if you could just go back for just a second Randy? The trash that we collect here in the City of Solvang is brought to Tahigas, which is a county-owned landfill. The recycling goes to Santa Maria Transfer Station where it's sorted and then distributed based on the recyclable material and then all of the organic waste that we collect that's strictly organic waste is recycled at Foxson.
And just a quick overview of some of the community involvement that Waste Management does here within the City of Solvang. We are involved with The Vikings, The Chamber, The Preschool... Just about any event that happens within the City of Solvang you can guarantee Waste Management wants to support the city and make sure that you have the receptacles that you need to accommodate those events.
I also work closely with city staff to make sure that when we have events that aren't Part of our contractual agreement that I work with those event planners or organizations to provide them as either donations or in-kind services, to make sure they're covered as well. I don't want to keep too much time here so i'll be quick on the overview here this was our 2025 end of year flyer that went out to our residential customers it gives an overview of what to do with your holiday decorations proper ways of recycling electronic and hazardous waste materials It gives the upcoming year's service collection schedule as well as the cleanup dates, how to navigate your accounts online and then there will be another slide where we talk a little more about the At Your Door program as well.
This is the commercial flyer that goes out at the end of each year. So this one briefly talks about how to establish a successful recycling and organics program for the commercial businesses within the city. There's also a quick sorting guide as you can see, some SB 1383 information as well as electronic and hazardous waste disposal options. And then our quarterly cleanups have also been a major success. They continue one time each quarter, we send out those cleanup events. We have one coming up this weekend which is going to be on May 16th and then we'll have another one in August and November for folks that are paperless please keep an eye on your email. We do send out reminders leading up to those events as well to make sure that folks remember to get those on their calendar And then just talking briefly regarding SB 1383, I frequently do get questions from customers when they may receive notices in the mail about maybe having a contamination or overfilled containers.
And I wanted to show you just briefly how we go through that process. So it starts with our waste management smart truck technology. Our trucks are full of cameras at all different angles which will capture the container before service during service and after service If a customer does overfill their container or we do see any contaminated materials that shouldn't have gone in there, it's detected first by AI which is then sent over to our smart truck team who will review the videos and make sure that they were correct. And then the third step of that process is when we notice customers. So here in Solvang, we do a two-warning third time charge so that would mean that the very first two notices have no overage or contamination fees whatsoever they're used as an educational outreach attempt in hoping to educate the customer on what container it was it should have gone into or what container was contaminated or overfilled and you'll get to see that example Let's see if our video plays here, Randy.
Perfect! So this is what the drivers can see inside of their trucks on their monitor. You can see the rear view, the top of the hopper where it's dumped into the truck. You can see the curbside view. You can see the angle from both the side and the hopper. So these are all tools that we use in figuring out if maybe there was a service issue. Maybe the containers weren't placed out on time. These are what we see and we also use these to notify our customers if something went wrong or to verify that a service was completed.
If you want to hit the next one. So here's an example of a notification, let's say that a customer had overfilled their container so as you can see there on the right hand side those are examples of overfilled containers where the lids were not completely closed and then the letter on the left there is an example of what a customer may receive if they do paperless they'll receive this via email if they are printed statements they'll receive it in the mail where it will still have And then what is an overage? So we want to make sure that the lids are completely closed on these containers so that we can prevent any littering or spillage while we're servicing on the streets and in the alleyways here in Solvang. And then you also can tell a lot of times that the cardboard may not be completely broken down And this is a really great example for what we offer here in Solvang, for the community to come to the different recycling locations.
We have a lot of businesses here in Solvang that are utilizing that service and if everyone were to break down those boxes, we could fit a lot more material inside of the bins. And then this is a quick example of some things that print out on our education outreach material. If you visit WM.com to Solvang's homepage, you'll also find these types of sorting guides which can be very helpful as a reminder on your refrigerator at home or even in a business break room or a sorting area and there's lots of resources at WM dot com that anyone can utilize at any time that pertains specifically to the city of Solvange.
And then at your door program, this is something that I don't think a lot of our residential customers are fully utilizing. We offer hazardous and electronic waste removal curbside from your home. So although you do have many different drop site locations like Fox and Canyon or Tajigas where you can go on particular days to drop off those materials for free. We also offer this quarterly collection, so if anyone does have any electronic waste or hazardous material, you can see here visit our www.wmatyourdoor.com and you'll be able to schedule a collection for free and we'll pick those up for ya.
And I just want to say thank you all. It's been a pleasure to oversee your services and work directly with Solvang City staff, and if anyone ever has any questions feel free to reach out to me anytime. I'd be happy to help.
Thank You Jessica. Any questions? I had a quick question
yeah
10 tons of material how many truckloads is that equal
So the 10 million, so we do measure standardly in the world of trash. We measure in tons but for those that aren't used to that sort of math I broke it down into pounds. I can't even estimate how many trucks because there are so many days where the weight could fluctuate. I mean, you have events here in Solvang where you come on a Monday after a holiday weekend and it's going to be a heck of a lot heavier than an off day.
We just talked about public works. I just want to make sure our roads are adequate to maintain the number of trucks that come through. So
yeah, we do try and fill our trucks to the heaviest capacity as possible So we can get as much collection, which means less wear and tear and less traffic on the street.
Thank you. 10 million pounds. Obviously a standard truck, a semi can carry 40 tons which is 80,000 pounds so if you think about it that's a lot of truck loads if you divide ten million by eighty thousand.
Good did you adequately share with us what SB 1383 was or
Yeah so SB 1383 has been on the radar for quite a long time. It was part of the reason that the City of Solvang has an exemption because of the low population we discussed it I think it was two years ago, quite lengthily But SB 1383 was the state law that passed in California that prohibits organic waste from going into the solid waste stream, into your trash. So the idea was to divert that type of material from the landfills to cut down on greenhouse gases and the City of Solvang is currently exempt from SB 1383 laws because you do have the exemption waiver for low population which means that City of Solvang residents and commercial businesses If they were to put organic materials into their trash, that there is no penalty for that.
Of course in the long haul of things the long-term goal is to divert organic material so that it can be composted and do what SB 1383 is meant to do but at this time the City of Solvang is still exempted.
The reason for that is organic contributes or when it decomposes, it creates methane. So it's an attempt to keep methane production out of the landfills.
0:53 – 0:5912 turns
Waste management. Last December they were recognized by the Chamber of Commerce as one of the best operators in that city, I think it was.
Yeah we got large business of the year presented as Solvang Chamber which is such an honor. I got to be the person to accept that award and we try and stay as active and involved as possible in the communities that we serve. And so part of my close working relationship with the chamber Trying to attend Music in the Parks, be a financial supporter and being on one of the highest tier member level ships with the chamber. And being part of that chamber keeps us involved with the city and it's such a valuable relationship so it was an honor thank you.
Thank you I
wanted to make one other comment she talked about overages that's a problem One of the things the city is looking into is possibly doing a mandatory collection. Right now, if you self-haul, you're not required to have Waste Management Service but we have a lot Businesses and individuals that don't live in the city that come into town and put their trash in dumpsters around the city, in the downtown trash receptacles.
And it's a major problem. I just got an email today or Friday actually from an owner of one of the apartment buildings that is constantly getting Overage charges from waste management because people are dumping the trash in their dumpster out behind Valley Fresh, I think it was. They had dumpsters out there where people were putting their trash in there. Technically that's illegal dumping because you it's not your trash receptacle so we're looking at options and hopefully this stops but because it's not fair to the business owner or in some cases a city to have to pay for somebody else's trash
And Randy, I will work directly with the business owner who reached out and we can make sure to figure out what's going on and come up with a solution. And just for anyone whoever does have concerns about their services commercial or residential if you feel that you're being a victim of illegal dumping and you have folks that maybe don't live in this community who are taking advantage of your service or coming by and dumping things in where they don't belong please reach out city staff will direct you to me So I can help resolve these issues and come up with solutions to prevent it from happening.
Thank you.
All right, thank you everyone.
Okay we're going to move on to public communications for non-agenda items would you read that into the record please?
At this time you may address the council on items not on the agenda and on consent at this moment time limit is three minutes and we will start with in person public comments first
Okay, yeah she said three minutes. It's actually going to be two and if somebody says something that you agree to it's okay just say ditto so we don't need duplicity if somebody has made the comment or the remark that you have on your agenda. So we're gonna start with Mr. George Fleming and he's gonna be followed by Rob Kennedy
Good evening Council, Mayor, members of the City Council. Elizabeth you're our rep welcome. My name is George Fleming. I've lived in Solvang for 10 years, Rancho San Yanez Estates down at the end of Fjord and I'm speaking about my and others' concerns regarding the proposed Glenway Apartments high-density development at the intersection of Allisaw Road, Fjord Drive, the Glenway bordering the Allisaw Glen neighborhood.
I'm not only representing my own opinions tonight, but also those of our president of the Resident Association Denise Rose and the concerns of many of our association members. At our resident association meeting recently when the topic was brought up everyone in attendance expressed their concerns and objections to many aspects of this proposed development While most of us support thoughtful planning, planned housing development in appropriate locations our concern about the project includes the following detrimental impacts.
Size and scope of the preliminary plans this project size and design is inconsistent with long existing Many homes were built in the early 70s. It would also destroy one of the last existing open spaces in Solvang. have beautiful views that are going to be wiped out in one fail swoop. Traffic and pedestrian impact, though there's not enough parking spaces in the proposed plan for the number of residents that will be residing there, this will require on-street parking mainly along...
Thank you George.
With so many people I'd like everybody get a chance. Next is Rob Kennedy. It's your time, we can be here all night if you want. If there's time afterwards we'll bring you back up would that be alright?
0:59 – 1:0911 turns
Sounds like everyone's ditto. Okay, thank you council for allowing us to talk tonight and my name is Rob Kennedy I've lived in Alice all Commons area for 29 years and love it and the change that I heard about a couple years ago, brought me to the meeting which I discussed my disappointment that how our neighborhood was communicated about the rezoning. There was a sign on the corner of Glenway and Juniper about this size on the corner announcing the rezoning and the meeting that was coming up And I talked to several of my people in the neighborhood, didn't even know about that taking place. And tonight we have more people here because the word got out a little bit more but my main concern is where we live is it's not extremely high density but it will now and if there was an emergency in our neighborhood to get out at a safe speed and being only really one way out, Allisaw Road because Nahui half of the year it is closed And then the residents from the Mobile Home Park who go down Fjord, most of them turn on Glen Way to go out Juniper because of the visibility on Fjord and Allisaw from the bridge.
That traffic moves so fast that they avoid that. So many of them do. You could go down in the Greenbelt every day and see how many cars do that. It's amazing but they're doing it for their safety which I don't blame them. Safety is the most important thing. I have two young kids that play ball Basketball all the time and I am worried about the ball going in street, excess of traffic.
And so far it's not bad but when we get 88 new units and people parked all over the place there is a big concern for us in our neighborhood. So...
Thank you. I thought you'd save that for when you come up to speak but that's okay. If it's a group endeavor here, okay, I'm all right with that. Next is looks like Jan Paul and after that is Ray Schmitter.
My name is Jan Paul. I live in Alisau Glen and Already it's already ditto. I want to express my opposition, I'm going to read this because of my two minutes. I want to express my opposition to the proposed apartment development in our neighborhood of Alisaw Glen and the surrounding area. I understand Solvang needs to meet a housing requirement however i feel this project would have detrimental impact on our neighborhood and the community First of all, the planning in the project is simply too large for our area and the increased population density would put an added strain on already overburdened infrastructure leading to increase traffic flow on Alisal Road and the surrounding streets.
The type of housing being proposed is simply not in keeping with the character of our neighborhood, which includes the homes on Fjord and the cul-de-sacs as well as the mobile home estates on the end of Fjord. The increased number of tenants will lead to other negative social effects. It would also drastically alter the aesthetic The addition of more cars will likely overflow on our streets, which would Concluding, I strongly urge you to reconsider the proposed apartment development sandwiched between our golf course and a single-family community.
While I recognize the need for affordable housing, this project is simply not the right fit for our neighborhood and will greatly change our demographic and our value of our property. And as an original owner it was enticing that that area was designated as a park. Thank you.
Thank you. I
live down in the Glen, 40 years. Real quick, diddle on most of that stuff. Part of the problem I have is that your own city map shows it's a fire zone down in that area too so I want to submit So it doesn't, as for the Environmental Act, it doesn't qualify for exemption. All right? Problem is and I add all these things there's no facilities down there for food or anything like that. No stores, no nothing. They have to go through Solvang to go to any store so whoever goes and lives in that 88 complex will be driving.
There's average 2 cars plus for every family, not counting teenagers. So 138 spaces is what they said. 138 double 88 you know where you're at on that. So other than that I'm just saying safety wise I'm old, I'm 75 now but there are older people in the mobile park home. So there's a lot of aged people that drive through there all the time and I just think it's going to be too confusing and too much traffic so...
Thank
you.
Okay. Thank you Ray. Barbara Montgomery followed by Jim Flam.
Hi, I'm Barbara Montgomery and this is regarding the proposed three-story apartment buildings going in opposite the golf course on Alice Hall. I live on one of the corner houses on Juniper and Glenway and during the week I see between a hundred walkers and runners going down and enjoying that environment And then the other thing to mention is, there are three of the hugest owls I've ever seen in my life. I believe they're called horn-rimmed owls or horned owls and that's their habitat. They, I hear them every night almost every single night those fields are their hunting grounds. I'd like to find out if they're on protected species list and if so that's another reason why There should be no development there.
Also, I'd like to also call in one of the Chumash archeologists because we have found in the dirt on the side of those fenced-in properties arrowheads so it can also be a cultural issue. So somebody needs to draw that attention to it And then also if it is under eminent domain that you guys are doing this, I think something could be done about that especially with who we elect as our governor.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Jim, followed by Michelle Bischoff.
Everybody has covered things that should be spoken about in terms of infrastructure and safety, and just killing it for the people that live there if this thing does go through. I wasn't aware of this. I've been in Solvang since 2011. The reason I'm here is that from 2008 to about 2011, I had a little ad agency in Santa Barbara. I was hired by the city of Solvang and the Convention and Visitors Bureau to help bring tourists and tourism Sorry about that. Um, into town. And my first meeting here with Tracy Farhard who was my client directly at the time she said well let's take a walk around Copenhagen and in the town I said you know Tracy I've done that many many times you know just as a tourist coming up from Santa Barbara She thought for a minute there were a couple of aids that she had with us and she said well let's take a little walk and we walked down from the center of Solvang Down Alice Hall Road, down to about that entry road to the Alice Hall River course and we stopped at I guess it would be the eastern end of what is the proposed development area.
And she said take a look and I took a look. I grew up in Queens New York in concrete and I was looking and I was bubbling over never thinking I was going to be living in Alice Hall Commons or Glens whatever it's called. I'm on Manzanita Drive The pride that people have in the area, the way it is used to enjoy the spectacular historic views of the Santa Ynez Mountains.
Relative to what the rest of the world has to deal with, it's God's country. It's perhaps Eden. There are many places in the valley that are probably even more spectacular but this is an area that please don't let the people, the developers, the banks rule this one. Let's be sensible. Thank you.
1:09 – 1:1617 turns
Michelle? How do I pronounce your last name, Michelle?
Bischoff.
Bischoff, thank you.
Not like the cookie. So I'm glad I got to see everyone here tonight. I was nervous about coming tonight not sure if people would be here so I'm really glad to see everyone here but the main thing one of the few things is transparency when it was brought up this was going to be rezoned there were nothing that got notified to the homeowners. I never got notified After I sent a letter to the county office, I did see these green little things posted that were tiny in the corner. So very much not wanting to be seen. Green within green vegetation is not calling attention to anything.
And if we can't have transparency on a project like this, how are we going to have transparency and trust you guys to do the right thing for our community? And I think we need a good foundation before we move forward on anything. We have a project that isn't finished up on the corner of Alice Hall and 246, we have a project that's not finished on Fifth Street and the 246. We can't absorb the traffic that comes in there should be a turn signal on Fifth Street and 246 so unless you can have foundational stuff that makes our city move freely safely We can't trust you to do these sorts of projects. I don't want this sort of project to disrupt anything in my neighborhood. My husband has PTSD, we moved up here because it has the openness and serenity and that's going to be wiped out if a project of this magnitude gets put there.
We live there. I don't know if any of you guys live there and I think if you did, you would not wanna be living next to this thing so that's mine.
Thank you. George, if you'd like to come back. George, if you'd like to come back and finish.
Okay, let me finish up here. One two three at least three bullets here traffic and pedestrian impact we've already talked about that okay there's going to be a ton of traffic in that corner they're all going to be utilizing entrances and exits from Glenway that isn't gonna work there you're gonna probably have to end up putting a traffic light somewhere up Ellis Hall which there's already two or three stop signs before you get to 246, so that's gonna be a pain. It will impact egress and ingress of vehicles as well as pedestrian safety, fire services could become a nightmare and not to mention parking up and down Allisaw. Not only will they park on Glenway which is small little side street it'll be like one of those things where we have a big oop-dee-doo Environmental impacts will affect the property to be developed.
Nearby sensitive ecosystems in the San Ynez River, which was discussed about the owls and stuff. which is steps away from the development footprint. Overburdened infrastructure, Solvang already has a city population and tourism pressure on its water delivery and sewer treatment facility. And this large development will exacerbate the existing infrastructure pressures.
In conclusion, we respect and urge you to reconsider this housing development which is not a right fit for our neighborhood. Thank you. Do
we have anyone on Zoom that wishes to speak on this? Okay, that's all the slips I have. Is there anybody else that wanted to say something on this? This is okay non-agenda items. Yes sir and your name
please. My name is Joe Jolliffe. I also live in the Alice Hall Glen area you know ditto to what everybody else has said but especially looking at the plans something that concerns me with it being three stories tall is living on First Street It looks like that there's vantage points right into the backyards and right into the homes of the people on First Street, and it doesn't seem like it's an appropriate size for our small community. So I strongly encourage the City Council to reconsider this and appreciate the time. Thank you.
Thank you. This gentleman wanted to come up? Please state your name.
My name is Phil O'Neill. Mayor Brown and Council for allowing us to talk. I knew tonight was going, this was not on the agenda so I wasn't planning on anything to speak about this. I echo everything that's been said but I wanna reiterate the whole transparency thing. We need to be notified of what's going on so we can have a say, we can hear, we can talk and have dialogue. So that's pretty much the main thing that kind of bugs me about most of this.
I'm a pro-development person, I'm in construction anti-building something if you want to put something there, but this is just not right. So please communicate to us that's all I ask.
Thank you
thank
you. I see someone in the back has their hands up This is for items three on the agenda public communications for non agenda items
I live in the community also and thank you for letting me speak. I'm very concerned about fire and
the lack of infrastructure to accommodate people if there were a fire
we had to evacuate There would be no way out because if you have people going even down Alice all either direction. You would have to sit in a line and wait to cross the freeway if you're going, you know past Alice all ranch so I'm just really scared about the lack of planning it. I would hope that there will be some sort of exit plan made. That's all I really want to say thank you. Thank you.
Okay, I apologize. I've just got some more slips so those of you that thought you didn't send it, I just got some more. Next is Cynthia Joyner followed by Dennis Beebe
1:16 – 1:237 turns
Good evening, thanks for letting us all speak. Everything that they've said I agree with totally. The one thing that they are talking about is the traffic down there but there's also the traffic that's going to flow onto 246th. Since Solvang has made December the happiest place on earth That is going to affect everyone. It is so difficult at this point to get from this end of town, to the other end of town even with your crosswalk people that you have set up which also is another problem. It's not fair and I just wish you guys would ask yourself like what do you love about here?
Ask your own individual selves why are you here? Why do you live here? And I think a lot of us live here because it's such a beautiful place to live, and we love it the way it is. And if there's some way that we can before we get to this point really get together and talk about how we can handle this better. I think you're gonna end up with all of these people, I think are here for the same reason because they love it here and they don't want all of this to be happening.
That community down there is such a neat group, such a neat community. I don't live down there anymore. My children live down there and my grandchildren and they moved up here from Santa Barbara into an existing house not one that was built That's been there for I don't know how long and they love it here. Let's keep let's keep it like that, let's keep it and if you ask people why did they move here? It's like because it's small town well okay because my kids are gonna I love where my kids are going to grow up. Why do you love that?
Let us keep what we have. Buelden didn't let people keep what they had. Let us keep what we have and Randy, thank you for talking to me the other
day. Thank you. Dennis Beebe?
Good evening Mr. Mayor I'm the only one here probably that's not going to talk on the Alice O'Glen apartments so I'd like to contribute my time to those that want to
Thank you. Phil O'Neill, Denise Alameen followed by Joe Joffer.
Hi, my name is Denise Ellamine and I live in Skip Mesa but I'm ditto with all of you people because during Christmas time it is the happiest place for tourists. It's a very sad place for residents. And I think that we should take residents into consideration because just making money, making money. How much money do you need? And we need peace. I moved here because I like a small town and I like peace and I like to come out to the main street and be able to turn without waiting 30 minutes.
So I'm here today and I agree, and I am so glad. And I welcome you guys because most of the time the City Council says nobody complains that's their main thing to tell me. You're the only one who complains Denise! Nobody else complains So I appreciate you guys letting them know that more people complain. And yes, it needs to be more transparency. Where I live and what I come to talk about is on an agenda but it's so small. It's at the bottom. I really can't understand. I really have to come to this building two or three times a week just to get information that I need. That should be transparent and large. When you're running for city council or mayor, you make large campaigns. I saw your picture way at the front when I came in, blown up! Why can't we do that when we're gonna make a change and bring more traffic in for the residents?
Let's be consistent. Let's be consistent here, that's all I'm asking is for some consistency okay and thank you guys again. I appreciate you guys being here. Thank you.
If there's no nothing else, I have no more slips. Is there somebody else that felt strongly need to say something that hasn't been said already? Yeah, I want if you have something new to add please please step up Please share with us your name and
Shorty Patricia Rainwater and I recently moved here from Los Angeles so I can empathize. And I am a comrade with my team here about peace peace and beauty. And it's really hard because we invested pretty much our retirement into building and beautifying A 1952 year old house. So with all the concerns with putting a building there, we won't be able to have the same views environmentally I think there needs to be some checks. I was here previously for some other meetings and the notifications as well as you know there was a misstep in timing with the government With the state government and having to put that building there Where we missed some months, and then we were rushing through Trying you know saying this is the land that we're gonna use for this low-income And so I think we are kind of victims right of missteps and miscommunication from the city of Solvang.
So I stand with Our city, I love this place. Like I can't tell you, I never want to go anywhere. I don't want to leave but it's creating a lot of traffic. It's a safety hazard as Susan was saying if there's a fire how are we going to get out of here? So i don't know if that has been studied well enough to actually say okay we're gonna put 188 apartments and hundreds of people here And there's walkers, there's elderly. There's a lot of things that I think the city needs to take into consideration still before they actually take that next step but I love it here. It is Eden.
I don't ever want to leave. I love this town so please take that into consideration. Thank you.
1:23 – 1:3729 turns
I'm going to close public communications right now if there's nothing else. Thank you very much we have one more oh you've spoken already okay thank you and now we're moving on to the city manager's report wait did we miss anybody on zoom? No. Okay
The only thing I had to say, Jessica already commented about the special cleanup day this Saturday over here at Lot 5 adjacent to City Hall and in respect of all of our time late into this meeting is gonna be a little longer so I'll save my comments for another day.
Okay any questions of the city manager? Well why don't we wait until Block party.
We just ask
you guys, if you guys live outside of town to be considerate
please.
Okay, would you be kind enough to shut the door so we don't get the noise from the hall? Thank you. Okay any questions for the city manager or his report? Okay getting off easy all right next item is uh item five would you read that into the end of the record please
Government Code Section 532.32.3D aka AB 1234 and Government Code Section 84308 aka SB 1439 report out. Ex parte communications council comments requests.
Thank you. Who would like to start? Anybody? Mr. Irfante, go ahead.
Okay, so in the last couple of weeks I have attended the Friends of the Library meeting. The group that is trying to support everything that the library needs. Other than that it was a couple of concerts and things that went on and fundraisers that worked out really well. That's it.
Thank you.
Alrighty, so me and my staff collaborated with Visit California. They are doing a campaign about all the wonderful places in California that you can visit while You are enjoying some of the playoffs for the Soccer World Cup and Solvang is in the map. They'd love to see some horses and ride a mokie, and have some of the fabulous food. So yeah thank you to Visit California for picking us as a possible destination for it. We're not the only ones there showcasing all of our beautiful state.
World Cup?
World Cup,
yeah. And then the Olympics to follow that?
Oh we haven't even started talking about the Olympics.
I have just one thing to report. I was just kind of preparing for and attended one meeting in anticipation of the efforts in the ad hoc committee for the joint use agreement for the aquatics facility with the high school, and I did just want to comment. Yeah it's always so many things that go on we can't list them all out. I did just want to comment on...I think I am the one council member that lives south of Mission And I do share a lot of the sentiment about concern over traffic, parking, loss of open space that this the community just voiced. It's a big concern and we don't have there is an element of safety concern already Turning left onto Alisal Road from that neighborhood and single choke points for getting to Mission, it's difficult.
And so these are things that there is a high level of consciousness. There's even some consciousness that we don't have a Valley Transit stop south of Mission. So there's some areas of improvement but I did want to emphasize there are very, very few things That the council and the city have been a very, we've been given an extremely narrow envelope of decision-making. In fact, we've been really guided to enable development in the community as a function of the housing crisis in the city and across the state.
So things like traffic parking infrastructure evacuation plans were explicitly removed from our decision-making process when we had to finalize the housing element plan. So they were conditions that we could not consider when we had to rezone and identify the open space. Not pushing back, I share this sentiment. I just am trying to inform these are the conditions that we had to operate within.
And I'm very concerned the evacuation plans when we have a safety issue, very concerned about the high risk Classification we've just received in the southern part of Solvang. These are things that are, we operationalize but the county is responsible for those defining and orchestrating the evacuation routes and we implement those plans But it is all of that is on our radars And we have to think about that but in the context of we need more housing I know for sure LSL guest ranch needs, workforce housing and we just don't have a lot of space in the city. And so I'll just put one more comment out there which is why we are serious about expanding the boundary of the City of Solvang and moving towards a bigger dialogue on the urban growth boundary discussion and I would encourage the public to attend those workshops and the meetings that are scheduled for the rest of the spring.
If I may add one more thing to that Mr. Mayor excuse me one of the things that everybody said was an evacuation route when I first started running for the council five six years ago Matt Vander Linden was here and he had proposed an evacuation route that took Fjord Road all the way out to Mission. So it went by the lumber yard and everything. Would have been a perfect evacuation road. Many of the people that were here complaining about traffic and no evacuation were ones that I saw that said we don't want to extend Fjord Road so there's a little bit of a change of ideas. Thank you
I just look we just needed we were smarter together when we listen to all the ideas but I think what I want to make sure is communicated is that we're taking all of that in. We have a limited decision making, but those issues are very real and we have to take them into consideration.
Yeah, I would just like to say thank you to everybody that spoke tonight. We really love to hear from everybody because we do love this town. That is why we are here and to sort of just bounce off of what Councilmember Arona said is that We are limited in some of the things that we can do, but we are looking at all of this because we do care. We understand fire hazards. We want evacuation routes. We want to make sure that everybody is safe. But I just really love the fact that everybody comes out and supports a community and lets us know what you think because that's what we need to hear from you.
So thank you very much.
I'm sorry. It's closed, yes, public comment.
Yeah and I just wanted to add that yes we appreciate the comments and input that you come over here but I would encourage everybody to please don't just toss the piece of paper that comes with your water bill. I know a lot of this stuff is very dense and cryptic It seems so interesting. But every time we publish the agenda, you can see what we're discussing. Every time that we have a public workshop, we have an opportunity to not only hear you but also shape the conversation.
Earlier in the year, we had the council goal setting session which we're discussing tonight. That's another great opportunity to see how we are trying to address all of these issues that we have. finance workshops. There's a lot of opportunity to really get deep into what the city is trying to accomplish and make sure that those goals reflect what you like to see so I know that everybody has a lot of things going on but i would encourage you to please come to the workshops, please read what we're posting, please read your seating notices and we'd love to come see you more often and be part of the conversation which not only involves the city but also things that happen at the county level and also at the state level. A lot of the things, the guidelines that we have to work with come from Sacramento it's not just us trying to shape the city so there's many many opportunities to you know be part of the discussion so that we can shape our city together
Thank you. And I'll say ditto on a couple things here as well but please if you have something more that you'd like to add, please email us let us know we do read those emails and communications. So be happy to do that. A little bit of a, I was at the had a zoom meeting with the APCD air pollution control district talking about budgets on the 29th. Attended the Vista Dories parade on Saturday the 2nd also went to St Mark's classic event that they had with A lot of Solvang residents.
Went to Lulu's birthday on the 3rd. Lulu is our troll, our resident troll. The Thomas Trombo? Dambo Troll. It's the key features about it. It's made out of all recycled material and it's the only indoor troll that they have. All the others are outdoor I take it. I had luncheon with Shelby Sims of VisitSYV, talking about current trends and what's going on with visitors.
Attended a realtors meeting on the 5th Cinco de Mayo where Mr. St. George was a guest speaker and Mr. Josh Richman was scheduled to speak but was not there And we learned more about his endeavors in the community. Went to visit the Rancho Vistadores on the 5th, again Taco Tuesday if you will or Cinco de Mayo and then enjoyed a lot of nice positive feedback from the marathon.
Thank you to Jenny and her team very much appreciate that And then also a great job with the parade on the Vista Dories. Our associate council member, Claudia Rona is our 3CE delegate and representative. And while I can't go to the grand opening facilities that they have in Santa Barbara on the 18th she's told me that she'll be there so we'll be well represented and that's all I had. Did you have a question Mr. Manager?
You sure? Okay, we're going to
move on to item 6 consent items. Would you read that into the record please? Madam Clerk?
Consent is for routine administrative city matters and is approved with one motion These items are discussed only on request of council members Members of the public were afforded an opportunity to speak during the public communications portion of this agenda
Thank You Anybody have any concerns or I'd entertain a motion to accept the consent.
I'll make a motion to accept and approve of a consent item 6A through 6H.
I'll second it.
It's been properly moved and seconded to approve consent items A through H. Roll call, please.
Roll-call vote Passed 4–0 moved and seconded to approve consent items A through H. Roll call,
Show transcript
1:37 – 1:449 turns
Motion passes 5-0
Thank you. There are no public hearings so we'll be
moving on to item 8, our discussion items. Item 8A would you read that into the record please?
Discussion and possible action to adopt resolution 2613.16 initiating intention of the annual assessment for Solvang Mesa Landscape and Lighting Maintenance District number 2004-1 for fiscal year 2627, and setting June 8th 2026 as the date for the public hearing.
Thank you staff report please
Good evening, council. Tonight we will have Anthony Hernandez who is with Francisco and Associates doing the presentation for the engineering report and he is online to present that to us. Which phone number? The 352. Good evening, everyone. There we go. Thank you.
Sorry about that. Good evening city staff and city council. My name is Anthony Hernandez and I'm with Francisco & Associates. We're a consultant for the City of Solvang and we assist the city with the annual administration of the Solvang Mesa Landscape and Lighting Maintenance District which is what the agenda item that we are discussing tonight. And I have just a brief presentation I wanted to present to you guys.
So the Solvang-Mesa Landscape and Lighting Maintenance District, number 2004-1 which I'll refer to as the district going forward was formed in 2004 under the Landscape and Lighting Act of 1972. The district was established upon the maintenance of landscaping and lighting improvements associated with the Skeet Mesa subdivision. The Landscape & Lighting Act Set forth specific requirements for the annual approval of the district assessment, including the preparation of an engineer's report through a two-step city council meeting process.
Tonight is the first step where City Council is being asked to adopt a resolution initiating the Annual Assessment Renewal Process, declaring its attention to levy assessments, preliminary approve the Fiscal Year 2627 Engineer's Report and set June 8th, 2026 as the date and time for the required public hearing. And the second required action item is where it's going to be on June 8th, 2026. Where city staff will recommend that City Council approve the engineers report, the final engineer's report and hold a public hearing.
Additionally, staff is aware of Assembly Bill 1572 related to non-functional turf and drought tolerant landscaping requirements In response, the city requested a preliminary estimate from the district's landscape contractor Brightview to evaluate the potential cost of converting approximately 65,000 square feet of turf to drought-tolerant landscaping. The estimated cost was about $860,000.
Following additional review, City Legal Counsel determined that AB 1572 does not currently apply to Landscape and Lighting Maintenance Districts such as this district However, staff will continue monitoring future legislative changes that could impact the district and may evaluate conversion options further if supported by property owners and directed by the City Council.
In addition to all of that, and in addition to the routine maintenance activities, the city has identified several sidewalks and street edge areas within the steep mesa development that require repair including portions of the entry corridors To help clarify maintenance responsibilities, the City distributed informational materials last week including mailers, newsletters and social media outreach.
Under the Solvang Municipal Code and the Skeet Mesa CC&Rs, adjacent property owners are responsible for maintaining sidewalks and related frontage improvements adjoining their properties. Where city-maintained streets are contributing to sidewalk damage, the City may assist with root pruning or tree removal prior to the repairs. The district is eligible to fund repairs within certain entry corridors and street edge areas identified in the district maintenance map, which is I believe attachment C on this agenda item.
And the estimated cost of that construction's about $200,000. This work is anticipated to be performed during fiscal year 26-27, which is shown in the budget table within the engineer's report. Since formation of this district, the city has maintained a reserve target equal to approximately 25% of estimated infrastructure replacement costs. Staff anticipates reassessing district infrastructure inventory and replacement values in the future to ensure reserved levels remain appropriate for long-term maintenance obligations.
If that analysis determines that higher reserve levels are warranted, future annual assessments may be adjusted as necessary to maintain the long term financial stability of the district For fiscal year 26-27, city staff is recommending a 3% assessment increase to help offset rising utility costs and maintain healthy reserves. This would result in an annual assessment of $1,472.54 per parcel which remains well below the maximum allowable assessment of $3,772.70. So tonight staff recommends that City Council adopt the resolution of intention Preliminary approve the engineer's report and set June 8th, 2026 for the required public hearing. That concludes my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.
Thank You Mr. Hernandez. Any questions of Council? Okay.
I'm sorry what was the gentleman's name? Anthony, thank you. Anthony can I ask a question on what is the procedure? What's the process that we go through to identify and classify the repairs that make them a requirement to take action as opposed to just sort of doing a walkthrough and seeing a crack in a sidewalk? How do classify the requirement?
1:44 – 1:4920 turns
That's a good question. Okay,
thank you Bridgette. Yeah I was just going to say that I could take that question so currently it was just a visual inspection that we did on site and we use the CJPIA criteria for inspections of our sidewalks
So can you just double click on what that means? I'm not sure I know.
It's usually related to the difference in grade elevation between two points, so. When
it comes to safety concern or risk concern. Yes
as well as a gap.
It is a walking sidewalk these are walking sidewalks okay correct and what At what point do we, I know it's probably a net zero sum question but at what point do we determine that work would come from the capital reserves versus needing incremental LLMD maintained
areas Per our city code, are required to be maintained by the property owners themselves. So a lot of people don't probably realize this but in front of their house, the frontage, the sidewalk, those improvements are ultimately their responsibility to address and take care of. Now, what we do try and do, and this was really kind of started more so with Roger Olds, the previous public works director is it is our plan that within our pavement management program that we are going in early to locations where we're doing road rehab and trying to address some of those neighborhood by neighborhood as we can.
Question about immediate repairs.
And under what conditions do we use the reserve, the 25% reserve budget?
Oh excuse me. Yeah so the 25 percent reserve is basically to it's just a cushion that we would use to replace the infrastructure itself. So if the backflow preventer you know
Okay, I'm just going to ask my question really pointedly. Can we use the reserve for the $200,000 repair and not increase or shrink the amount of increase that we are burdening the tax?
Yes, and that's what we actually did.
Okay, that was not clear in the report. I think what was clear is that we could increase to a much greater degree but we are not, but it wasn't clear. It felt, I interpreted as part of what was driving the increase was the $200,000 need for repairs.
That if you see the red number there to decrease that's right we're decreasing the reserve by that amount. We could have built it into operational budget but the decision was made, we had adequate reserves so that we determined that we would use a reserve and then further we did not include the reserve in the Recommended operating reserve, typically that would have increased that amount.
We kept it as low as we could.
So that decrease is equivalent? Is it meant to offset the repair
requirement?
Or near exactly?
Yes,
essentially yes. And then does that mean that we're at the end of this year's cycle? Will we still have 25% on reserve?
That was the primary concern now there is a caveat that the estimate of value of all of the assets, LMD assets. That amount is several years old so that needs to be updated based on current valuation and so there's a good chance in the not-too-distant future that that 25% reserve will be greater than the current amount $249,000 or thereabouts is what 25% of the current valuation is. So that's based on a valuation just under a million dollars and so one of the things we discussed is you know re-evaluating the current asset amount.
1:49 – 1:5512 turns
Thank
you. You re-evaluated that on price or current book value? Replacement or book value?
Replacement value, yes. And as Anthony pointed out, currently AB 1872 does not explicitly state LOMDs as required to be compliant with that law. I think it was an oversight of the State Legislature because HOAs and cities and all the other public entities essentially are required to not use potable water on what they call non-functional turf And that whole parkway, the first couple of phases in Skip Mesa is non-functional turf.
And I think at some point somebody in the legislature's going to realize that was an oversight so I would expect in the next few years probably somebody to go hey by the way LOMDs need to comply as well
Well, we'll take it. And then with irrigation at $91,000 your payback's not that... your return on investment is not so bad if you can minimize that irrigation cost as well. I assume that's for water?
Yes. Okay. So $91k is what the current cost for irrigation of. That's...
Thank you.
But you're saying that's potable water?
Yes We currently don't have any recycled water, nor do we have an infrastructure that would allow us to distribute it if we did in fact create recycled water.
Yeah and wouldn't that be more expensive because you'd have to treat water in order to reuse it so between the treatment, the redistribution, it would actually be more expensive?
Well, if you recall that when the original design of the wastewater treatment plant remodel was four million dollars to do recycle water but that didn't get it out into the city. That just created a process.
Okay if there's anything else on the dice we'll open it up to public communication and I have Cynthia Joyner and she can followed by Carla Colton
My name is Cynthia Joyner. I live at 629 Valley Oak Road in Skid Mesa and first of all, I would like to thank Denise for representing at the last meeting. I actually walk up in Skid Mesa every single morning and am able to look at all the landscape I'm glad that she's been here to represent those of us that have concerns, and there's quite a few. So, I recently noticed that the weeding in our area is just out of control, and it has been for awhile.
contacted Johnny Flynn, and he was very helpful. He offered to come out and talk to a few of us so we could show him exactly what we were talking about, agreed with us on what the problem was, and did get Brightview out there to start work. However, they were slow in coming, and we shouldn't have to hound them for what we're paying. And I know it's hard work. I've seen those guys working and I thank them for doing what they're doing, and not in any way want them to think less of any way of them. But the work is just not getting done. The parkways are a mess. The weeds are crazy bad. And it's for a long period of time And then the mulch or bark or whatever you want to call it, I don't know how often they're supposed to replace that but it is not getting replaced very often.
Since this has been on the agenda, I will say they have moved very fast to get a lot of things done. on our street, but there's still streets that just aren't getting the work done. So having a hard time seeing how we pay more money when the job is not getting done. I think it's hard for residents to see that. I did talk to Brightview also and Brightview told me After hounding them a week straight and saying, when are you going to show up on our street? Because I was told you were going to be here.
Said well their guys showed up on our street and I said do you need to come look at our street? He goes well they sent me pictures and I said oh I can send you pictures right now and I can show you that they Somebody's taking pictures somewhere else and it's not on our street. So, it would be nice if the residents up there could maybe meet quarterly with City and Brightview to maybe all of us get on the same track so that we can see things happening maybe at a better rate than what is happening because it's really slow It's something that needs to get looked into.
1:55 – 2:023 turns
Good evening. Thank you I'm Carla Colton and along with my husband Jim and the other Skip Mesa residents here, I'd like to say that I'm speaking regarding the Solvang Mesa Landscape and Lighting Maintenance District for fiscal year 26-27 continuation of assessments. Our residents in Skid understand the importance of maintaining landscaping, irrigation systems and public lighting infrastructure what many residents are questioning is whether the city is providing adequate oversight to ensure assessed property owners are actually receiving the level of maintenance and service that they were paying for We're being taxed and we want to know that the contract is being complied with. Over time, residents have observed recurring deficiencies throughout the district including inadequate weed abatement, inconsistent edging and mulching, delayed irrigation repairs, overdue tree and shrub trimming which also results in sidewalk damage, failure to replace dead or deteriorated plant material and concerns regarding whether the minimum staffing levels contemplated under the maintenance contract actually spelled out in the contract including the expected three-person crew operating two days per week are consistently being provided.
These are not isolated aesthetic complaints. These issues directly impact landscape health, water efficiency, neighborhood appearance, long-term infrastructure preservation and public confidence in how assessment funds are being managed From what we can see, we have almost a half a million in our fund that we've been taxed every year of the supplemental tax.
Residents are also increasingly concerned about water costs associated with the seven irrigation meters serving the LLMD. With rising utility costs and statewide water conservation expectations, the city should be proactively monitoring irrigation efficiency The leak response times. Residents should not have to repair leaks that Brightview is being paid to repair.
Okay, system performance and monthly water expenditures. Property owners should not be asked to absorb rising assessment costs without clear evidence that irrigation systems are being actively managed and maintained responsibly. Perhaps most concerning is the apparent lack of documented city oversight of the contractor's performance. The Brightview contract includes regular oversight responsibilities and bi-weekly meetings between the contractor and a designated city representative or monitor that's in the contract Yet many residents see little evidence that this level of active contract administration is occurring consistently or transparently.
If these meetings are occurring, where's the documentation? Where's the proof? You know we see it. We walk like Cindy mentioned. We walk every day and we see the lack of landscape you know maintenance that's occurring The council has a responsibility not only to approve assessments but also to ensure accountability for how those assessment dollars are spent and we'd like to see more transparent reporting. I do disagree, Cindy that i don't feel that the residents should have to meet with the contractor or hound the city. I feel like there's a contract it's clearly written it's very specific in how they should trim the trees how they should replace the vegetation and the landscape Thank you.
Thank you both. I have been labeled here that I'm the only one complaining about Skid Mesa by the city manager and he said he would no longer take my complaints regarding Skid Mesa due to, he labeled me, I don't know what my label is this week but I really don't care. I'm here to say that, um, I have a problem with Brightview and I told Randy in an email that they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. And Randy said that he has no way to enforce what they do.
So they do what they want to do, which is nothing. It's spelled out specifically in a contract and I know contracts because I've had contracts. I've had to follow contracts and I've had to make contracts. And if you say that you're going to deliver mulch to a resident or to the Skid Mesa area four times a year then that means four times a year. We don't get mulch if we get it once a year We are now, what they did is they piled up enough mulch for one street and it's like a picture there. We get to look at it but it's not enough for the entire development and it never will be. And they will just stop doing it because there is no one here at the city who cares because they don't live in Skid Mesa I thought that, and I wrote an email to Mark Ifani because he's district one but he made it very clear to me that he is not my city council person.
He says that he's just a city council who lives in district one so he can't help me with my problems either. He said it has to be at least three of you guys So and none of you guys live there. So my thing is, is that I can no longer complain to the city manager. I can no longer complain to Markey Fonney District 1 And I would like to know and I'm not going to be complaining to a company that's being paid $8,000 a month about what they're not doing. I need to know Legally, what am I supposed to do when I'm paying $14,000 a year for absolutely nothing?
And we are the only LLMD in the city of Solvang. The only one! All of the other developments that look like ours, the city pays for everything for them. They do the abatement, they pay for the lights, they have the water and they look good. I looked at Nyberg the other day and they look better than we do and we pay $14,000. Thank you, have a great day.
Thank you. Is there anyone on Zoom or anyone else in the audience that would like to I'll chime in on this. Okay, I will then close it to public comment and bring it back to Adaios for questions or comments. I'll have a comment with staff the contract that we have with Brightview runs for how much what was the term of this contract?
2:02 – 2:0931 turns
I believe it's through December of next year, 2027.
Are they in default of the contract?
We're required to notify them that they are not providing the correct service and we have recently done that. They've committed to addressing those concerns and that's only been a week or ten days so they have some time to cure.
Can I ask a question on that, Randy? When you notified it then noticed did it include a list of the things said?
Yes.
Okay so they have an outline of what they need to do to remedy. Do they have a time frame to remedy?
They have not communicated one to me. Have they to you?
No, they haven't had a timeframe but we are withholding payment until they've completed everything on the list
Okay. While we're on that topic, I did notice something I should have asked when I was asking questions. There's a map in here that actually includes kind of the green areas and I noticed that there is an annual fire abatement sort of area you know sort of outline of what they're supposed to be doing are they doing that fire abatement because it looks like it's supposed to go all the way down 246 to Mission, right?
There's a
10-foot wide at the top and a 10 foot wide at the bottom but the area in between is not part of that. That's actually Caltrans property. Okay,
that's why I don't drive through Skip Mesa very much. You guys are happy that I don' go through there or that bunch people don't thoroughfare through there but I don''t get to see it. But what I do see on Mission Doesn't look right, but I understand there's easement and then there's other things that it doesn't look like that fire abatements getting done. So is that also getting done?
It will be they haven't done it yet this year
Okay, so I mean we also had some emails come in. There are other people who aren't here speaking. I think we have to listen to the people who do look at this every day and are disappointed with the results from the contract. It just seems like we need to increase the level of inspection. I'm happy to hear that we put them on notice but let's give them a chance to react and respond but it feels like we need to Do we actually have in the contract that we're supposed to be monitoring them
or meeting with them on a regular basis? Yes.
Yes, we do.
Who's responsible for going out there and meeting with
him? Jonathan Lynn.
Okay but he is going out and checking with them?
Yes, yes. And
he comes back to you I presume with the results of the meeting?
Yes yeah and there's a checklist that they provide a weekly checklist that they provide to him
of what they've done. But are
we doing, sorry I'm sorry
Mark. Does he verify that it was done or is he just taking their word for it?
Well, so as of late since I've been involved there's been a lot more we've been following up a lot more with everything. And Brightview the one of the staff that they've had overseeing the project is no longer working on the project. We do hear residents and we are taking their concerns seriously, and we do want to right the ship here as much as possible. And if necessary, we may have to end the contract if we cannot get the level of service that is needed. I will say that for the contract itself, the $8200 a month for Brightview is roughly about 20 to 25 hours labor hours per week.
And it is a large area to cover in that amount of time. I'm not making excuses for them, but just so you have a little bit of an understanding of the breadth and depth of the neighborhood itself and what's required. When we did the assessment for the turf As Francisco and associates mentioned, that is 65,000 square feet. So over an acre of turf just in the parkway itself. And that's just for phase one and phase two.
It's a significant effort. And I know that a lot of residents do a lot of their help out a lot with Weeding and things like that in front of their house because it is well,
that's their responsibility right? The homeowner's responsibility is the yard Please
let me finish in the parkway. It is
what the Parkway not in front of the houses
Right, yeah. So the parkways and then as Elizabeth mentioned there's areas it's the third exhibit or attachment C on this you can see the diagonal line like hatched areas that's also maintained so it's kind of that open space area along the park and the three parcels along Chalk Hill.
So we've got residents out doing work that Brightview should be doing?
Yes at times.
2:09 – 2:149 turns
Ms. Ellermann is correct, I did tell her that I was not going to respond to her questions about Brightview. I invited her to talk to me about other things but because she was the only one raising any level of concern about Brightview and often her comments and concerns were incorrect as she stated just now about the mulch being replaced four times a year. The contract does not say that.
Contract says the mulch will be checked, and if it needs to be replaced would be. But it doesn't say specifically for... I mean those kinds of things. So in a sense it became A Boy Who Cried Wolf where she made comments often enough And I publicly apologize to you Denise You were correct On this particular issue, we have heard from several other residents since I sent you that email. So I apologize for disregarding your concern.
I promise to do better in the future but I wanted to share that With the contract, this contract was brought forward March of last year. We had extended the contract from the prior December. The community knew about it just like they knew about this conversation. They were notified via the normal channels. We now have a newsletter so we're doing a better job communicating to the community.
The point I was trying to make is nobody Not even Ms. Al-Hameen came when we had that meeting in March of last year to extend the contract, so they were the least expensive option for maintenance. We had I think three or four bids and so we extended the contract through December, I'm pretty sure of December of next year And they were the least expensive. They did not have an inflator for the subsequent, there's no increase from one year to the next in their 8500 or whatever that amount is. So to the extent we have to find another contractor it's going to be more expensive.
And, you know, we are aware of the issue now. We're hearing the community and the neighbors there and we've redoubled our efforts to hold them accountable so this effort will improve for
sure. Thank you. Go ahead. I'm not gonna
ask my question. What I will ask is a request which is When we do those inspections, Bridgette, and we're detailing reports or what the findings are when we do those weekly reports. Can we collect that in the form of trending metrics so that when we say there are a lot of weeds? That's pretty subjective. We need something constructive to evaluate whether this contractor is performing and where they're not performing It will help us when we get either around to you know having to.
Withdraw the contract and find a new contractor, but that evaluation criteria needs to be created and structured as a science as opposed to as much away from subjectivity as we can so we can measure the performance. That would be my request. And then to make sure that data gets collected so we can see it in a report format or a trend format. It should be transparent.
Anything else? Okay, I think overall what we're trying to achieve is that we get full value for what we pay and get the services what we contracted for. What's on the agenda here is the budget for next year So I want to bring it back. As contractor, we're holding them to task at this point forward and we want our value for what's paid out and we're also discussing whether or not we should go forward with the assessments for the coming year. Now I think I think if we read back a transcript, I think Ms. El-Amin said it was 14,000 a year. It's actually 1,400 a year is it not? Not 14,000 so I'll correct that fact.
That's 1,400 a year total for all parcels.
Each parcel.
1479, it's going up about $43 from what they're currently paying. 3%. Okay
well I know that that's right. I just want to get factually
correct.
Now going forward is there any other discussion that we need for this that is necessary for the resolution that's in front of us?
2:14 – 2:2520 turns
So just to be clear, we are setting the details that will be disclosed in the public hearing. Correct?
Yes you're accepting the engineer's report and setting the public hearing for the meeting on June 8th.
I'll move to adopt Resolution 26-1316
I'll second it. It's
been properly moved and seconded to accept the Resolution 2613-16. Roll call, please.
Roll-call vote Passed 3–0 moved and seconded to accept the Resolution 2613-16. Roll call, · 1 under review
Show transcript
to accept the engineer's report. I have some concerns about the contractor but that will be addressed I think separately yes
Mayor Brown.
Yes.
Motion passes five zero.
Thank you. Okay, and then we're
moving on to item 8B if you'd read that into the record please.
Adoption of the 2026-2028 City Council vote.
Thank you staff report please.
Good evening mayor and council So I'm here to talk about the goals for 2026 through 2028 and before moving into the list, I want to talk about why this work matters. Clear goals give staff permission to prioritize. Research on public organization shows that vague competing goals without clear hierarchy produce compliance and not results. Psychologists who developed goal-setting theory replicated in organizational research found that specific difficult goals drive higher performance than vague goals or no goals at all.
And the Government Finance Office Association encourages inclusion of a strategic plan, planning framework in the public budget document. Budget initiatives can be connected to how they support one or more of the key focus area and that's how high-performing municipalities operate. This process reduces the goals from 33 to 10 top 1 priorities, and the object is discipline.
When everything is a priority nothing is a priority. Tonight's adoption authorizes how staff deploy city resources for the next two years And we got here through a pre-session with Raftelis, with the consultant from Raftelis. She met with, individually had conversations with each of the council members as well as with the management team. And then there was a public survey which yielded 219 participants via flash vote and these results were presented at the session where council and the management team and the public were invited to have a conversation around the goal setting.
At the February 7th session, with the exception of Council Member Infante all worked together to create definitions for key focus areas and identify corresponding outcomes. And council not staff voted on the top 10 goals This is a presentation I made for myself to help me. We have so many things going on within this staff report and attachments that I wanted to keep us clear.
There are five key focus areas, and they were council ranked as follows. First was housing and affordability. And the narrower focus was to ensure a diverse range of housing to meet the current and future needs. Second was reliable infrastructure, building and maintaining a reliable sustainable and connected community. Then there was community character preserving and protecting what makes Solvang unique and special.
There was holistic safety creating a community that is and feels safe and financial sustainability responsible stewards of our financial resources There were ten priorities and these were the top one goals for each of the key focus areas. And you will find those outlined in your staff report on page two of the staff report. Some of this work is already moving forward The urban, the key focus area number one has the UBEC, the Urban Boundary Exploration Committee. A 13-member committee which is currently active has had two meetings and has three meetings remaining and a recommendation to council will come in August The KFA4 is the EOP update, the Emergency Operations Update. That one's currently active with Atlas Planning Solutions and that's related to holistic safety as well to adopt a workable evacuation plan and update an EOP with integrated community communications There's also the goal for grant pursuits.
Although staff had been working on grant pursuits implicitly, this particular goal brings it as an explicit Tier 1 priority and also directed directly tied to that is the wastewater treatment plant and water infrastructure goals. And related to the wastewater treatment plant reorganization, there's active discussion with the Los Olivos Community Services District and the USDA Rural Development Financing is in process.
I want to point out a note about goal number seven and that has to do more with process. Goal number seven says to evaluate the Sheriff's contract for transparency value representation and return on investment Tonight, we'll recommend to adopt the goal as a framework and no action on the law enforcement provider. In two weeks staff will bring an item to the council regarding law enforcement services delivery options So regarding accountability, 33 of the prior goals are all accounted for in that last page of attachment B.
All of the 33 goals are referenced and indexed. Six are carried forward as Tier 1 priorities, 11 remain active as Tier 2 priorities, six are retained as lower tier reference items and 10 are not carried forward. Tier 3 and below retained in the document for reference and are not recommended for active staff assignment during this cycle, but council can revisit any of them.
Going forward, staff reports budget requests and agenda items will identify the relevant key focus area and make priorities visible day to day. Tonight's adoption precedes the budget development. Staff will use these key focus areas and ten tier one goals as the organizing framework for the fiscal year 26-27 and 27-28 budget recommendations. Without adopted goals, the budget decisions default to inertia what we funded last year or what surfaces with the most urgency in the moment Staff recommends the adoption of the city, of the City of Solvang 2628 goals as presented.
And that concludes my report.
Thank you any questions of staff? Mark you went there you should have the most questions. Okay Thank you. That's a nice summary of what we did for the workshop and those that were there I think would attest to that. Mr Murphy?
I wanted to highlight one thing she said early on. If everything's a priority, nothing is a priority. She did a very good job summarizing Raftelis' effort and tying it together with the 33 goals that we had been working on although technically we're only working on the top 16. Some of them lower down the list like the newsletter was completed and that's why a few of those dropped off because they were done The other thing I wanted to point out is the items on this list are going to consume most of the available staff time this next two year cycle. So, the idea might come along to add I will come back to Council and ask which of the ten goals you are adopting tonight get deleted or pushed further down the list.
It's a matter of having adequate time for us to be able to accomplish it and still have a little bit of home life because otherwise we could be here 24-7 and not get it all done.
If I may, do we have a budget associated with each of these goals?
Not specifically, but we're building the budget around these goals and pending a decision tonight may make adjustments.
Thank you
And as was mentioned it is best practice for a city to identify its goals in strategic plan within its budget and within its budget summary ahead of its goals so that the work is guided by these priorities
2:25 – 2:306 turns
I'm going to ask the peers to help me because I had two struggles with this when I reviewed the top 10 and maybe it's because we've narrowed. When we did the exercise, we had five categories and then we came up with three goals but what we're reporting out is two goals in each category not three. But I remember that we put traffic and parking really with a lot of emphasis, and it didn't end up in this top ten.
And I'm just asking everybody to help me remember or to concur did we just let that fall off the list? Because we spend a lot of energy and the communities Constantly reminding us that in a lot of ways parking and traffic doesn't work. And I was just surprised that it didn't hit the list. In my notes, Olivia, I had it as a number three in the infrastructure category but I kind of don't want to leave it off the list so I'm putting it out there to say are we sure this is how we want to proceed?
That's correct, it's number three in the infrastructure goals. And again these are for either adoption and the second suggested recommendation in the staff report is to make changes or bring the item back.
And so are we going to stick to this discipline? So are we gonna say if we feel that that deserves more prioritization that something has to give
What I think we should do that at this meeting. Yeah, if that's what you think yeah, I Think I'd like to get public comment now sure if we may will open it to public comment Either in person or in zoom. I have one slip here for Denise Alameen For item 8 B
I got it. I'm sorry, I said 14,000 instead of 1400. I didn't know I was before a council who makes no mistakes. Excuse me and I apologize. I won't make another one. I am here because the last meeting on the 27th of April and I think it's still recorded so you can verify. The city manager was talking about a loan that needed to be taken out to do Water treatment plant he said it is in compliant But we need to do some upgrades. So I I don't understand that but He said that they were looking into a loan for and I'm hoping up close, $18 million. If I'm wrong, I apologize but that's what I remember you can look at the video for April 27th and you can get the correct amount. And he also advised us that they were looking to get a grant from the federal government for 1 million So I'm at, and I know I can add correctly 18 million minus 1 million will leave $17 million to upgrade our infrastructure.
And I've been here 12 years and I've been coming to the City Council and this has been on one of our priorities for those years and it's still not complete. It's still not completed. We have the highest water rates in this valley. And if anybody wants to argue that point, please tell me I'm wrong. And if we borrow $18 million to upgrade our wastewater project then it's going to fall on the residents.
$18 million is a lot of money because we only have about 7,000 residents here. And I don't want to do the math because I might mess up but it's a lot of money that will be put on our water bills. People are having a hard time living here in this area due to the high cost. And this is a two-year plan and some of you, or maybe the majority of you won't be here for two years so the people who come in they may have different priorities which they probably will have different priorities So what I'm saying is that I don't know why we have ten priorities. We actually need to get one done and before we waste all of our time for 10, one would be where I would start and finish it and then move on.
Thank you.
Thank you. Do we have anybody on Zoom or anyone else in the room that public comment.
2:31 – 2:378 turns
I don't remember us talking about priority connecting with our sister city in Denmark. Struggle with how that drives value for residents. I had when we were talking about driving more community and civic connection, it was more around arts and culture and creating more civic community things to do or events. And it was all around historic preservation in our brand but if I worry that spending time encouraging a foreign friend to spend time with us feels like a bit of a boondoggle. I don't know how it drives value for our residents and so if that's all we're doing, I would rather trade that goal for something that's more meaningful for the people who live here like parking traffic and becoming a Firewise community I think that's meaningful.
I will chime in because I do remember, I was talking about the Sister City program. Candice mentioned that this was already on the works and I'm just going to mention that we just had the National Girls Choir come into our city While I recognize that yes, the history of Solvang and you know the Danish founders is what kickstarted the city. I did think that it was important to keep to preserve a cultural relationship with Denmark because then we start forgetting a little bit where we come from and cultural appreciation becomes cultural appropriation. So I thought it was important to keep that connection, We've had visits from the consulate. We've had visits from the royal family before that refresh what Danish heritage means in town, not just the fact that we were founded by Danish people but there is a consistent relationship and personally I think in a world that constantly gets polarized it's important to keep our ties with our I have no argument with putting a high value on it.
It's something we value and something we care about and something that we do, but is it take priority over other things with their time? If it's in the top 10 I just don't buy in. I don't remember it. And maybe we did have consensus but I can think of probably three to five things that might be more important.
I remember that traffic was a big issue and I am sort of surprised we are not seeing it on here.
are our cultural roots, if you will. But we've already seen it as a positive when Miss Aruna announced the fact that we have the World Cup talking about us and including us into those items I think those relationships stem and expand so much like a family tree, it has other tentacles that go out and help in our own community in vibrance if you will. And I think that'll also expand to the Olympics and other things of that nature. So, I think while it may not be sister city, I guess it's strengthening our cultural and civic connections not just at Denmark but all our visitors for that matter.
But...
I think if we're going to talk about goals for the city The part of this, I asked about the budget. I don't think we should spend a lot of money doing something like that. I have no problem with sending off letters and things like that to our sister city, Aalborg or talking to anybody like that but for what we need to pay attention to and address, I would have to agree with Councilwoman Arona that's not high on my list
I will chime in, and I think the way that we ended up with this list has to do more with the methodology because there were a lot of goals that fell into a certain category. And rather it seems like where we have presented two goals for each category. So I think it's sensible to say you know we want to focus on these particular areas and these ones you know will happen present but we won't spend as much time on them maybe that's how we ended up with these
It's okay. Part of the exercise drove us into these, you know sort of like we might have ended up in a corner and not realizing now we get to sit back and say are those really the ten? Because there was categorization of those ten so it's our chance to say did we get this right or do we want to make one or two changes?
2:37 – 2:4222 turns
Parking and traffic, that's ongoing. But the
staff is going to take this as direction, right? Randy just said this is where we're spending our extra energy so if that's how we think about this in the frame of that we're handing them these ten, this single page, that they are spending their extra cycles then we need to be really explicit that either we do or we don't want them to spend time on that
Mr. Murphy, how would you document that? I understand what feedback you've gotten here. How would you reconcile all of
that? One thing I wanted to note about the discussion around community character in addition to it being about the relationship with Denmark From the discussion, I remember this component being very relevant. This area emphasizes a sense of belonging and unity ensuring that the city's brand and neighborhood aesthetics remain consistent predictable in a source of local pride. So there was around that discussion of character it encompassed a lot more than just relationships with Denmark. It encompassed the community feeling like they belong and like they belong to this identity that was established which kind of runs through all of the different disciplines in City Hall.
I don't think anybody would argue that that's still a sentiment and it's a value we hold high, and that we want to have a sense of place and it has... And the visual and the design characteristic of the city and its cultural roots all contribute to that. So then we ask ourselves yes do we put a high value on that? Absolutely! Is it a goal? When you define it as a goal, there's something of action behind it. So then you have to say well what are we doing and to say we're going to strengthen our sister city relationship doesn't... I don't see the connection. I don't see an outcome that says we're giving our own town a sense of place because we're focusing 5,000 miles away.
And the other thing is the design guide is there
The design guide helps.
And that makes a lot of sense.
That absolutely gives me a direct connection to the value that you just pointed out, right? Design guides going to give us here's where we're working and let's clarify those characteristics and everything we do has to really operate or live within those guidelines. That's easy to check off.
Let me make a suggestion that we move item 5 to an item 11 and add parking and traffic as number five. but under KFA2, right? Under infrastructure.
I think you need to understand these are not in priority order they're just numbered for
reference. But you know here's the good news let me put this other bit of context and give you all a compliment because the last time we did the goal setting we had 30 and you guys worked those goals. I mean you reported out on it you worked them in and we delivered some results but you had a guide you had a roadmap of what we wanted to go do and you worked it.
And I'm thinking of this in the same way, right? So if this is the roadmap, we should be sure we're giving you the right directions. And so I would agree that parking, I won't feel good if we walk away and say parking and traffic is not anywhere on this list. I won't feel good about
that. I would agree with the mayor. We want you to feel good.
Yeah, so
we couldn't have 11 goals?
Eleven, yeah.
One for reference parking was your number one goal the last time around.
Yeah. So I mean like I said I think Can we table this for the changes and then bring it back, or should we go ahead now? What's
your... I think we have your direction. I think we're ready to go with this list of 11 adding traffic and parking as somewhere on the list probably technically number one like you said that's what number one was last time yeah so I would say we could run with eleven
Okay, any motions for that? So
I'll make a motion that we adopt the City Council goals with an addition of one more to make it 11 so that we've got parking and what was it traffic and traffic and parking there you go thank you. And we'll go that way. I might make that motion. And I will second
It's been moved and seconded to accept the City Council goals for 26-28 with modifications of addition of parking and traffic. Roll call, please.
Roll-call vote Passed 4–0 moved and seconded to accept the City Council goals for 26-28 with modifications of addition of parking and traffic. Roll call,
Show transcript
2:42 – 2:4924 turns
Motion passes 5-0 Thank
you We're moving on to item 8C. Would you read that into the record, please?
Adoption of promotional items policy.
Thank you. Staff report.
Thank you Mayor, members of Council. The proposed promotional items policy I have before you here tonight establishes clear guidelines for the purchase inventory and distribution of city-branded merchandise to ensure accountable use of public funds. And city branded meaning the city side with a mermaid logo and then tourism side with a windmill logo. This policy is intended to support the City's public outreach The policy limits distribution to official city business, including city-sponsored events like Yule Fest, Bricks and Build, public outreach activities and authorized conferences or meetings.
The policy explicitly prohibits the use of these items for personal political or other non-city purposes. In addition, the policy establishes standards for the purchasing and oversight of these promotional items. They must be purchased through approved budgeted funds and comply with the city's purchasing requirements and display official city branding. There will also be a tracking system that keeps track of the inventory to ensure proper oversight.
The policy also includes provisions to ensure legal compliance, including restrictions on the use of elected officials' names or images on publicly funded items. So staff recommends that the City Council adopt the promotional items policy to establish clear standards for the purchasing inventory and distribution of city-branded promotional items. With alternatives, you don't need to adopt the policy. We can continue with current practices or you can provide direction to staff and we'll return with revisions.
Thank you.
Any questions?
I had a question does this would this also include trophies and awards plaques things of that nature
No, it's more like you know the keychains and stickers and thank-you cards. Swag. Swag exactly yes.
Okay with the exception of clothing and hats that we use just for employees?
Yes that is separate that would not be considered part of this policy okay I'm in the light item and is under city hospitality and the tourism budget.
Okay but not so trophies and awards that would be a separate category correct okay and not part of this policy
Correct.
Okay, thank
you. Yeah I have a question would this apply to say the Solvang map?
No the Solvang map is something different that one's actually done through the chamber
okay so stuff could have the city logo say because the city sponsor it or something but that doesn't mean that it falls under this category
Right, it's not really in regards to the logo or the city seal. It's in regards to sway that spot That's given away for free to promote the city or promote like tourism side or city side mm-hmm
if you remember at the At the state of the city there were silver keychains in a little box with this with the mermaid logo on it and Everyone got one that attended the conference. I know, I like to use those things. I was at a second grade class giving a talk on Solvang and Candace was nice enough, I had to pivot because they changed it on me but I had to do an audible The city I was invited by the city to share with them. But it's not a city
function?
It's not a city function, neither is the... Well there are a number of different things but when we host The retired group that was here a month ago, the Retired County Employees Retirement Association was here in town. Those would be examples of what we might use it for when we're out there in the public
I think actually moving forward with this policy, there would need to be a city nexus like really there would have to be a very specific reason why we're getting giving the swag out since we are using public funds. So not everything that probably has been qualified as we've been moving forward with City Swag it will not continue that way
So how do we differentiate when, say the mayor or any of us are representing the city and in that case it would be appropriate to distribute swag? Wow. versus any of us campaigning. How do you make the distinction of us serving as a city representative capacity, versus being in charge but not necessarily representing the city?
Well, according to the policy we'd be following it would need to be city-sponsored first off. So it would have to meet those requirements. City sponsored in regards to a meeting or conference an event that we put on something maybe that Parks and Rec puts on but not necessarily one of us going to a school outside of like maybe, oh, psychomania. Right? We have psychomania coming up and that's us in conjunction with Solvang School so that would be a city nexus where we would maybe provide swag if the school asked us but if it was just us going into someone's classroom and we're giving a speech on being part of council that wouldn't maybe not necessarily count I'm going to open it up to public comment.
2:50 – 3:0448 turns
I'll assume you have something to say, that you're now at the microphone. Ms. Denise Alameen?
You may proceed. Yes regarding this, I'm glad you guys are getting very specific because we do have the mayor with his app charging and I'm assuming that he won't be able to do that And we also have the trolley that doesn't pay the city anything. That takes up five to six, maybe I'm wrong, let me go three to four parking spaces and is able to advertise on the trolleys here in Solvang. And I am confused that if they're not paying Solvange any money are they considered I'm very confused about that.
Free Solvang ice cream, if you rode the trolley is that considered swag or is that considered a business opportunity? And I'd like to know if the mayor's app that he charges certain businesses to be on. Is that considered legal? Or is that considered not, if that's not what this policy is talking about? Because I am just a resident and I don't have a business here in Solvang. So I'm not here to try to make any money and I don' want to receive something from somebody and I'm not supposed to have it. Somebody could give me some swag and I can be walking in Where I walk downtown, and it may be misconstrued that I am.
promoting this swag that I'm walking around with. So, I'd like to have a little more clarification. It's not clarified good enough or legally clarified. I'll say legally. It's not legally binding or it's not clarified enough for normal residents and those are the things that I would like to have answered. Thank you.
Anyone else on Zoom or otherwise? Okay, I will close it then to public comment and move back to the council for further discussion or questions. I
have one more question Candice. So to receive SWAG for a city nexus event, SWAG being something that has a City of Solvang specific seal emblem or something that represents the city Entity our public entity not solving the you know a name of a location The city entity Do they come to you? Who controls access to that swag? So is now our, because we're gonna put a policy in place and then to enforce the policy, we need a level of control. Is that how it will...
That would be me with obviously city manager and then there'd be the inventory and we would document how much was taken out for what event.
Inventory's hard for
swag.
But if we have a central, a single point of control, then you can actually make a decent attempt at controlling inventory. Any
other questions
or concerns? I'll make a motion to adopt the promotional items policy that establishes clear standards for the procurement, inventory and distribution of our city branded promotional items.
It's been moved and seconded to accept the policy as presented for promotional items. Roll call, please.
Roll-call vote Passed 4–0 moved and seconded to accept the policy as presented for promotional items. Roll call,
Show transcript
Motion passes 5-0
Thank you, thank you Candice Okay, we're
moving on to item 8D. Would you read that into the record please?
Adoption of resolution 261315 waiving formal bidding requirements and authorizing the purchase of four Chevrolet Colorado trucks from Rio Vista Chevrolet.
Thank You staff report please
Good evening Mr. Mayor, members of the council and members of the public. Tonight we're asking permission to replace four vehicles three for maintenance and one for wastewater these vehicles are anywhere from 16 to 24 years old Significant Repairs Vehicle 619 requires $5055 in repairs. Vehicle 634 requires $4750 in repairs. Vehicle 622 requires 4716 in repairs and 631 is unidentified because we haven't gotten the quote back yet.
And vehicle 634 has been removed due to those repairs. The replacement of the vehicles improves reliability and long-term fiscal sustainability. The four trucks would come from Rio Vista Chevrolet. The vehicles were offered at a base model pricing with upgraded specs of an advanced trailering system, bed liner and 220 amps for the towing and a high-low 4 wheel drive.
The vehicles are offered at a government fleet rate that is given to the public agencies and the immediate availability avoids the long lead times to replace those vehicles. If Council adopts this tonight, we will sell the vehicles for an estimated revenue of... Several ways to sell the vehicles. We can sell them at auction on the government deals website and the auction estimate for vehicle 619 is 800 to 1500, and the Kelley Blue Book estimate is $4,770 to $5,610. But the Kelley Blue Book doesn't take into account of the substantial repairs that each vehicle needs.
Vehicle 634 can estimate a $1,500 to $2,500 sale on the auction and the Kelley Blue Book is $4060 to $4635. Vehicle 622, the auction estimate is $1,500 to $2,500 and Kelly Blue Book estimate is anywhere from $4,870 to $5,720. And vehicle 631 because it's 2010 so it's the newest of the four that we're replacing can estimate $4,500 to $5,500 at auction and Kelly Blue Book estimate is $5780 to $6455.
And with the auction typically it can always generate more because it's an auction and we did sell one of the city cars on auction And we estimated that we'd get like $2,500 for it but people got into a bidding war and we ended up getting like 3,300 for a car so we got more than what it was valued at. And I talked to Steve, our representative from Government Deals today.
And he said a lot of people who purchase the vehicles from the government deals are mechanics and they buy the vehicles to fix them because they can fix them for cheap and then resell them so it's there's a potential of earning more City Purchasing Policy Council Approval for Equipment Purchases Over 100,000 It requires formal bidding which is normally required for purchases over $50,000 unless Council waives the bidding requirements with a four-fifths vote.
Immediate vehicle availability and government fleet pricing support the waiver of approval and the government fleet pricing is available at other dealers but would delay purchasing the vehicles. And Rio Vista is a local dealer. The financial impact to purchase the vehicles would not to exceed $167,000 and each vehicle will require light bars. That will cost a total of $4800 and the project cost is estimated at $171,800.
It's funded through the City Vehicle Replacement Fund and currently there is $1.695 million in that fund, and the way that vehicle fund gets Item 6.1. So staff tonight is asking for adoption of the resolution 26-1315, waiving formal bidding requirements and authorizing the purchase of the four Colorado trucks from Rio Vista at an amount not to exceed $167,000. And with that I will... That concludes my report and goes back to council for questions.
Thank you any questions?
I do have a question. Do we know the make and model of the vehicles that we are looking at?
Yeah, they're 2026 Chevy Colorados,
four-wheel
drive.
Okay. Yes. Thank you. So they would all be brand new vehicles?
I'm curious, if I recall a couple of years ago, a state code or state requirement came out that all cities should buy electric vehicles if at all possible. We're not going electric?
We are not going electric. The Colorados are actually under the GVW requirement of 8500 pounds. Okay
thank you And the requirement kicks in for new purchases 2027 and later, not this year.
We're sliding into her okay got it thank
you
And this number is, includes license and tax or we don't, we're exempt from tax and license?
We are. We have to pay a, we have to pay sales tax and the total fee is $130.75 for like DMV but we get exempt plates so we don't have to pay registration on an annual basis
Okay, and are there any sales costs? Or is that net of on the auction? That's net
of... No we don't pay any cost. The buyer pays the percentage it's like I don't know three or four percent but the buyer pays for that.
Thank you. Did you have a question?
I just wanted to point out that any revenue we receive in the sale of the used or older vehicles go back into the fund so it replenishes. It won't be a lot of money, might be you know five to ten thousand dollars total maybe a little more but that goes back into the
fund. Wendy who gave us the estimates on the repair costs?
Solvang Auto Wendy, what's the warranty on these cars? The new cars.
Three years, 100,000 miles I think.
Okay three years and then what's the use we have gone past a depreciation cycle but what do we typically get as useful life for these vehicles?
Useful life on the books or useful life as in the vehicle? The vehicle because
it sounds like we're 15 years past a depreciation yeah
so is that typical? We well get our money at well worth our money out of the vehicles
Again, I wanted to hear you say that. Just, I know we're not bidding but did we just make a call to the other local provider for an equivalent vehicle to know that we're getting best price?
Jonathan actually got the prices but their government pricing so the government pricing is the same for like any dealer.
Well, I just noticed that we bought two Chevys and two Fords before
Yes. So we bought,
I think in 20... We spread the love around but now we're not.
Well last was it 23-24? We bought two vehicles, I think from Chevrolet so okay Okay
if there's no other questions i'll open up to public comment and uh we have Miss Denise Alameen to item 8d
3:04 – 3:096 turns
Yes, I was just surprised that you wouldn't do any further bidding and with another Cardock dealer, I mean that's basic one-on-one. You find out whether you can get a better deal somewhere else but I guess you are bringing it to the city council today because you don't either wanna have time or you wanna go with somebody that's close because this is an election year? I don't know, I don' want to say the wrong thing So, what I'm thinking of and why I'm looking at this is that we were told today that we were going to resell them through a bidding.
We can get this amount of money but none of that was listed in the paperwork. I just have a problem with when people give the report and they say these numbers, and it's not on paper. Why is that? When I make a mistake you correct me right away. I would not know whether or not she was making a mistake and be able to correct her because why not? It's not on paper. It's just coming out of her mouth And everybody's believing it, and like I make mistakes and said 14,000 instead of 1400. You bet your bet the people who give their thing they make mistakes also. I'm not the only one that makes mistakes. So, I'm asking for transparency that maybe when we do sell and go with whomever we go with the person we don't want to bid anymore. We'll just take whatever he say that you put the actual figures on the numbers when you report it back to the residents here because it's not free money is money that comes from our taxes And I would like to know, and we're buying.
Like I said, I'm with why isn't it electric where we should all be going electric but we have six months of not needing electric and we're gonna go with gas and gas is almost $6 a gallon. And we have no way of knowing if it's gonna go up any higher, but we're ready to buy four new gas trucks for the city. So I would just like to ask for you guys to consider another option electric or maybe get two from one dealership and give another dealership a try Mr. Murphy?
To assure the public, the state bids all kinds of stuff. They bid vehicles, they bid services, they bid other types of equipment and this... process was carried out by the state. This was the contract price that Chevrolet gave and Ford does a similar thing, they all bid on it and this is the price that was guaranteed as Wendy pointed out. We're getting it for the base model price but we actually have a few options that they're not charging us additional money for.
So all of that was, it was publicly bid but the state did it and we're able to tag on to that process to be able get that price.
Thank you Okay, and Wendy thank you. I do appreciate the additional feedback on resale and so forth that asked a city manager earlier today for that information. I appreciate it gives me an idea of what the net will be at the end of the day. So appreciate that any other questions or they wish to make a motion?
I'll move that we adopt Resolution 2613.15, waiving the formal bidding requirements and authorizing the purchase of four Chevrolet Colorado trucks from Rio Vista Chevy.
I'll second it.
It's been moved and seconded to adopt Resolution 2613.15. Roll call please.
Roll-call vote Passed 4–0 moved and seconded to adopt Resolution 2613.15. Roll call
Show transcript
3:09 – 3:1423 turns
motion passes 5-0
thank you okay finally 8E on our agenda package would you read that into the record please
Introduce for first reading ordinance number 260395, adding chapter 7 to title 5 public health and safety of the municipal code to prohibit public urination and defecation.
Thank you staff report please Thank you Mayor, members of the Council. I'm happy to be here to bring you the really exciting agenda items for the evening. I am informed that as a result of a recent incident staff became aware that these activities in public are not currently illegal And so either under state law or under the municipal code. And so this is simply an ordinance to make these activities in public a violation of the municipal codes, so that the sheriff can cite in those hopefully limited situations. Be happy to answer any questions you may have.
I guess my only question How is it that hasn't been on the books in the previous years? Why is this part of our... I understand it needs to be done, I'm just saying.
As I said to the city manager earlier, the legislature adopts approximately 900 laws that the governor signs every year and it's hard for me to understand how this has never been on the list. That's what we
discovered.
The funny thing about it is that I have been hearing stories of urination on the edges of the parking lots when we have heavy events over near the village collection I don't think
Number one was the issue here. It was a very unfortunate set of circumstances that it came to my attention and I promptly notified our city attorney that we needed to get this code on the
books.
If there's no other questions, I'm going to open it up to public comment if they dare on this subject. Is there anybody on Zoom? If there's no other
comment,
I will then close it to public comment. Seeing none, bring it back to the council for discussion and I really think this is a no-brainer. I'll make a motion to approve or introduce for first reading ordinance 260395 added to chapter 7 to title 5 If there's a second.
Can we just say ditto?
Can I just
say
number two? Please make it formal, I
appreciate
that.
I will second that motion.
Thank you. It has been properly moved and seconded. Roll call please.
Roll-call vote Passed 4–0 moved and seconded. Roll call
Show transcript
Motion passes 5-0
Thank you. Going to item number nine, any council closing comments? After that do you really want to say anything I don't know we could no potty jokes please so okay then if there's no other issues before the council we are adjourned at 9 0 8 thank you very much everyone