City Council — April 8, 2026

I would like to call this meeting of the Camarillo City Council and Camarillo Sanitary District of April 8th, 2026 to order. Would our city clerk please call the roll?

Thank you mayor and council we have one item on closed session the OPV coalition versus Fox Canyon groundwater management pursuant to government code section 54956.9 d1 and if there's any reportable action I'll make that report.

We will reconvene the Camarillo City Council meeting, Camarillo Sanitary District meeting of April 8th, 2026. And I would like the record to reflect that all council members are still present. None of them ran away. I'm going to ask Mr. Tremblay to lead us in the pledge.

Would you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag?

Thank you, Mr. Tremblay. Are there any changes to this evening's agenda? Seeing none we will move on. We have a presentation tonight from the CEO of the Museum of Ventura County, Elena Brokaw but before she steps up and talks I'd also like to recognize board members from the Museum of Ventura County, Mr Jim Scanlon welcome Mr. David Fukutomi, a member of a longtime Fukutomi family here in Camarillo and his eminence the President Emeritus of California State University Channel Islands Dr. Richard Rush so welcome Elena please come forward the time is yours

Thank you so much for allowing us to come here to present tonight. As the mayor said, my name is Elena Brokaw. I'm the Barbara Barnard Smith CEO of the Museum of Ventura County and I'm here to share a little bit of what we do with you. So for those of you who don't know, we are an art history and culture museum. We were founded over 100 years ago. We have four sites to in downtown Ventura one in Santa Paula and newly an office suite here in Camarillo about a mile mile and a half from here.

We are guided by the wisdom of our incredible board of directors. Thank you Mayor for introducing the three Camarillo residents who are here tonight, Dr. Rush, David Fukutomi and Jim Scanlon. We also have over a hundred voluntary advisors. These people are from all over the county and they are the ones who guide the museum in all that it does. So that's who we are. Here's what we do.

We collect our art, artifacts and archives in order to guard the unique identity of our region. The region of Ventura County. Our goal here is to make everything as available as possible. I just want to point out this. This is a site on our library and archives where you can go and look up digitized files. Seven years ago we had zero things digitized now we have over 8000.

We use those collections to create exhibits in our six galleries that we have across the county. We have rotating exhibits there. Our goal is to bring as many people as possible and, to that end, we have made the museum entirely free. We're able to do that through sponsorships which has almost quadrupled our attendance at all of our sites and this is who comes to the museum. We have about two-thirds of our attendance from Ventura County And then about 25% from other places in the state and 8% from outside of the state, including international visitors.

We're an educational institution. Education is very important to what we do. We provide school tours free for all Title I schools for second- and third-graders. We have bus subsidies. We've realized that that is one of the biggest barriers to getting kids to our site. So with a recent grant, we are now able to provide free busing for every Title I school who wants to come.

We're very, very thankful to a grant that we got a few years ago which created a paid internship program starting with students here from Cal State University Channel Islands. Many thanks to the President Emeritus for helping us with that. All of those interns are paid a living wage which right now is $20 and 4 cents an hour. Our goal is to get students who have to work in to do something that's going to be a career pathway for them.

And this is where we are doing our education and engagement. This represents where we have tours, where we have interns coming from, where we have scholarships, and as you can see it's all over the county. So these collections, exhibits, programs, and education all serve the museum's foundational principles which are these. Our mission is to engage participants in meaningful experiences and our vision is to build community and connection.

And one of the ways that we build that connection is to highlight our shared history. And to that end, tonight I would like to use our collections to help all of us understand the city of Camarillo who it was and why it came to be the way that it is today. So before we begin with my little history lesson I'd like to say that everything that I'm sharing with you comes from the museum's archives, the library and publications. All the photos are from our collection.

So I'm going to start with a little short history. This will be really quick. We all learned this like in fourth grade, but I don't know about you. That was a while ago for me. So, I think we need a refresher since prerecorded history. This has been the home to indigenous people here at the Chumash. There were at least three Chumash villages here in what is now Camarillo In 1542, a sailor named Cabrillo came here, visited the coastline and took this whole region including Mexico and all of California up into Oregon and further east as part of new colony of Spain.

In 1769, the missions began to be erected here in California and Spain began to colonize this area. In 1824, the Mexican people revolted against Spain and miraculously they won just like the revolution over on the other side of the country. It was incredible. So from 1824 until 1848, where we are standing right now. We were in the country of Mexico. In 1848 there was another war with the United States. The United States won that time. We became part of the United States which we remain today and in 1850 we became a state. Okay no test on that but that's a little bit of history to kind of... There you go mayor's got it! To kind of establish where we are in time So when Mexico had governance of this area, they were very eager to populate the region because they didn't want it to be taken from them.

There were English, there were French, there were Russians all who wanted this territory and one of the ways that they did that They lured people to come here as they provided ranchos, these large land grants. So the Mexican governor, California governor rather who was appointed by the president of Mexico would award land grants to people. They could be soldiers who'd done something great. They could be you know somebody who had married their nephew whatever or niece rather. Yeah because there were no women who were rancheros. Sorry there was one. So 19 ranchos were established in Ventura County And they roughly correspond to the cities that we have today.

Can you all see that on your screens? You can probably see it a little bit better, but you can see it there. Here's the ranchos, the 19 ranchos. They're huge. Most of the cities are much smaller than the original ranchos were and part of the reason for that is in the 1860s, 70s and 80s almost all of the ranchos were sold And almost all of the new owners subdivided them and sold them off into small lots. So you had one ranchera who owned, let's say 50,000 acres that was all turned into little 100 acre lots and then you had first tens and then scores and then hundreds and then thousands of owners in a spot that had been owned by one person but that is not the case in one Rancho and that Rancho is Rancho Cayegas and we're standing right now on what was Rancho Cayegas In 1837, the California governor granted 10,000 acres to Jose Pedro Ruiz.

And that was Rancho Cayegas, and now most of that rancho is the city of Camarillo as you can see. So what happened here? Why is Camarillo actually larger? It's 50% larger than it was when it was Rancho Cayegas as opposed to all the other cities. There are a lot of things that led to that but one critical factor is who bought Rancho Cayegas from Jose Pedro Ruiz and that person was a Mexican immigrant named Juan Camarillo So Juan Camarillo had come up from Mexico City in 1834. He was on a specific expedition filled with teachers to educate the new kids that were being born in this newly populated area.

When he came up here, he became very wealthy because he did not become a teacher—spoiler alert!—he became a merchant. He had stores in Santa Barbara and in Ventura and by 1875 he was ready to expand his Holdings, and he purchased Rancho Gallegos from the family of Jose Pedro Ruiz. That family had used the rancho to raise livestock as almost all the ranchos did.

But extreme weather events in the 1860s ended the livestock industry in Ventura County and the rancheros had to sell their property. So in 1875, the Ruiz family sold 10,000 acres to Juan Ramirez for $3,000. Which by the way is worth about $81,000 now and that was pretty much the going rate that they were going for. Juan Camarillo did not have long to appreciate his new purchase he bought it in 1875. He died in 1880 leaving the management to his 16 year old son Adolfo Camarillo Adolfo co-owned, managed and lived on the rancho from 1880 until his death in 1958 which is almost 80 years. He used it to grow dry crops. He grew wheat, barley, lima beans. Here he is in the middle finding a new artesian well on his property.

By 1909 the LA Times wrote that Rancho Cayegas was the largest bean ranch in the world. It was very successful In 1892, he was able to build what has come to be known as the Camarillo Ranch House for his growing family. By all accounts, Adolfo and his brother Juan were extremely generous and benevolent employers, landowners, et cetera. They donated hundreds of acres of property for roads, for schools, for churches, for the railroad, and for much more.

And their solo ownership of this huge piece of property, 10,000 acre piece of property meant that they controlled who moved there. So people were moving into the land right around it like Springville was not part of Rancho Cayegas and so homesteaders were moving in there and there were some people around the edges but nobody was moving onto the rancho unless they were employers or family members of Adolfo Juan and his family.

And you can see they managed all the growth and they liked it like that. So, you can see that from this postcard that we have. This is a postcard from Camarillo spelled Carmarillo. I just noticed that in 1927 this is downtown Camarillo. Now let's compare this to this photo downtown in 1905. Over 20 years earlier, anybody want to guess what city this is? This teeming metropolis?

Santa Paula. Santa Paula! There you go. So it was not until Adolfo Camarillo died in 1958 that the community really grew. Two years after his death, the Chamber of Commerce formed an incorporation committee and in 19- well you know it's all over right? In 1964, Camarillo was incorporated and then it starts taking off. So I'm going to skip through, I hope to talk a little bit more but I'm not gonna be able to talk about this This is a population chart, starts in 1910 before we have any census data for Camarillo. But it shows how the cities grow and I want you to sort of watch Camarillo which is right here now because we're talking to you see how it goes up and down and you'll start to see the numbers start to get there in about the mid 60's.

So Ventura's largest, Oxnard. And then Santa Paula overtakes Oxnard which always blows everybody's mind. Oxnard goes up there to the top and stays there. Here we go. Camarillo starts growing. Now it goes really fast. I'm going to share this PowerPoint, you already have the PowerPoint so you can actually watch it on your own but if you go back and look at it between 1970 and 1980 Camarillo grows by 350% that decade and relatively Oxnard less than doubles. So that 1970-1980 just been incorporated It had not grown at all. That is when everything happens, and that is what creates the type of city that you have today. So I want to be very clear that this is only one piece of the puzzle that went into creating this city that you call Camarillo. There are other people that established Camarillo.

I talked about the homesteaders around the country Around the borders of the Rancho Cayegas, there are other events that happen. You're very lucky here in this town you have other historical associations. They have also collected history, The Pleasant Valley Historical Society, The Camarillo Ranch House Foundation. They also have source materials that can tell even more of this story and tell other aspects of this story.

I do want to say that we share their goal to protect and preserve These records, these artifacts, these archives and our hope is to complement what they have with what we have. I'm really happy and proud to be able to share that the Camarillo Ranch House Foundation and the Museum of Ventura County are in conversations to accession some of their archives in order to protect them and get them into climate controlled environment in order to make sure that they are here in the future. So in closing, I want to thank you for letting me tell this story, talk about who the museum is. And I do want to say I have an ask.

So I've talked about, you know, the history over a past 175 years. One thing I hope we take away is that it wasn't always this way and it won't always be this way. It's going to look very different. You were incorporated 60 years ago, and our goal is to collect our history now so that 60 years from now none of us is going to be here. But somebody will be wondering what happened to create the community that we know then. And our goal is to gather that and protect it. So I have a few requests that I would like to make of you which is to help us identify oral history participants, to help us identify partners who can both share their history with us and help us expand the storytelling that we are able to do.

So this is our ask to you, to help us connect the past present and future. We would love to partner with you formally informally whatever it might be to help share the story of our of this city and of our entire region. And that's it thank you.

Thank you Elena before I open it up to council I just want to congratulate you On being named Woman of the Year by Senator Monique Lamone. Congratulations, well deserved. Now any council members? Vice Mayor.

I actually have a question and a comment. The first question is or actually start with a comment. Thank you so much for you said community and connection. You are building that. That is you as the leader but also your board And the fact that you're just doing such amazing work, I'm personally so proud of that. And the mayor kind of took the words out of my mouth too but I, you know, I am so proud that you were also selected as one of the five women of the year by Senator Pro Tem Monique Limon and I mentioned that at our last council meeting but I'm glad to share that with you in person as well yes.

The question that I have is Have you formed any partnerships with Kids Dream, Emerging Children's Museum and also with the Pleasant Valley Historical Society?

I meet with Michael fairly regularly. Michael Shanklin, the ED of Kids Stream. So we've taken tours. He's taken tours of ours. We are very We're very much like whenever you're ready for a partnership, let's have a partnership. So and he knows that our resources are there to help him in whatever way and vice versa. So we don't have a specific partnership yet. Pleasant Valley Historical Society I have gone and done a tour of the program before of the museum before they closed it. And I've been in touch with Joy Todd recently just to say let's get together and let's see how we can work together. So nothing specific yet but conversations are open.

OK. Well, thank you so much and thank you for everything that you do. Really appreciate it.

Go ahead Mr. Kildee speaking of history quickly. Thank you.

Thanks for being here. Look forward to working with you really closely. I was able to go, I think it was a major funders year had last year and I had a really good time and I was able to tour the museum and you've done some pretty incredible work there and you have a great board of directors and a lot of support so anyway we can help you achieve your goals. Of course we're always here to help in any way shape or form. So congratulations on your award happy for you. Thank you.

Susan.

Thank you so much for being here tonight. You know, you shared that you shared your mission with us and what stood out to me was that You want to engage in meaningful experiences. And so I wanted to thank you for bringing your mission here tonight, because that was pretty meaningful for me to have a short little history lesson to go back in time and relive my fourth grade memories about the missions and the land that we live in today. So thank you for the work you do and congratulations on your award. Thank you.

Mr. Tremblay Oh boy, we have a tradition on the council that if our colleagues have already said what we were going to say, we don't extend our remarks. We just simply say ditto. That would be uncharacteristically succinct for me, though. I'm going to say one or two things and then say ditto. First of all, I'm really delighted that the museum has offices now in Camarillo.

I am thankful to the museum and to the Board of Directors for the foresight and the work and the efforts that you've made in preserving our local history. We all know what the importance of the museum is so And just to bring it back to Camarillo, you have office space. What do you envision for that? Just office space or do you guys as an organization and a board have a greater vision for your presence in Camarillo?

We have this board has lots of vision, as you can imagine realistic big dreams. Our goal so we are out of space to collect which is one of the reasons we're focusing on oral histories because they were digital right and they don't need physical space they need cloud space and we have to expand our collections. So right now we are exploring expanding our entire collections here into Camarillo and moving what we would call our research center. So all of our collections, our reading room, our archives, everything is centrally located. We're really close to two institutions, three if you count Oxnard College Institutions of Higher Learning.

We feel like we can really expand our mission if we are located here so that's our big dream.

And what's the size of your footprint right now in Camarillo?

Right now we're in 4,000 square feet of office space and we are looking at 18,000 square

feet

of office space.

Great.

Or space, excuse me, space.

Space. Yeah. Well thank you very much Elena and thank you to your board members that took out of their busy schedule instead of going to Ralph's shopping. Dr. Rush is here. I appreciate that have a wonderful evening.

Thank you.

You're allowed to leave now, Dr. Rush if you'd like. Madam Clerk do we have any speakers on any items not on the agenda?

Yes, there are six requests to speak under general comments. If you'd like to speak but haven't submitted your name please see clerk staff in the foyer. Each speaker is limited to three minutes. The City Council will receive general public comment for an initial period of 20 minutes. Speakers who sign up during the initial 20 minute public comment period but are not heard within that time We'll be given an opportunity to speak following the completion of action on all other agenda items. Your time will be displayed with the video on the displays when your time is up, the microphone will be muted and

Welcome Spencer.

Hello. I am Spencer Richie good evening to you all. Few few few different one tiny little correction Rancho Cayegas is Western border. Was actually a basically just West of what of an of what is Lewis. What we're standing in now It's called the Gore it's often called the Gore after like a cut of fabric, but basically we're Springville and what was in where most of Camarillo is now including us that was in the.

Basically that triangle just to Rancho Callegas is West That ended up the the reason that was open to homesteaders was because that ended up not making it into any of the land grants that were registered by first the Mexican government and then the U.S. government anyway so on But again thank you for the Ventura County Museum, and I could not be happier that it plans to one day move its research center to Camarillo because getting a downtown Venturas is hard for me as someone who can't drive especially because our public transit is lacking.

All right now to my main concern so As of 9.20 a.m. on April 6th, so two days ago Monday, ICE has so far again as of 9. 20 a. m. on Monday April 6th two days From the 805 area code, 1,824 people. ICE has kidnapped 889 people from Ventura County so far and from Camarillo alone it has kidnapped 471 people. Again these are neighbors, these are students, these are workers And these are our tax base.

You know, since you like people paying taxes and stuff. So again not even scolding VCSO for picking up people who have just been released from our jails. No letting ice do that and also like not even tolerating people just observing ice. That's not great, please do better thank you have a nice day.

Thank you Spencer.

The next speaker is Diana Bradley followed by Jordan Blake.

Welcome Diana.

Which one do I use? This one?

Either one.

Okay, hello. Oh good. Hi I attended your council meeting two weeks ago March 25th hoping to see the Camarillo mobile home rent stabilization ordinance passed That did not happen. Councilmembers Santangelo and Martinez-Bravo are the committee members pursuing this ordinance to help us mobile homeowners, who are subject to unfair land lease raises by park owners.

Their committee has done extensive research over the last year They provided verified statistics that IPG is gouging their tenants. The land rent chart that was displayed by the committee, really all you need to know about the park owner IPG. They raised their land rents without a care about their senior tenants which I am one and their lower income and family tenants.

I personally know of two senior tenants in the past three years who had to just walk away from their homes. One is now living in his car The two female Council members voted in favor and all three of the male members opposed, noting that they wanted changes to the draft ordinance primarily, it's my understanding, to the vacancy control which is the ability for park owners to raise land leases substantially to potential buyers.

Ventura County parks limit vacancy increases to 15% once every four years. And Ventura City Parks do not allow increases to a new tenant. The mobile homeowners want to protect their home equity. This ordinance can protect the equity of 500 homeowners that have built in Camarillo's mobile home parks. The loss of our home equity, I think is directly tied to the vacancy control.

We're asking you to pass this ordinance, protect our equity by limiting park owners raising land rents exorbitantly to potential buyers during sales and transitions. Controlling vacancy increases is a priority for mobile home owners. Homeowners need monthly rent stabilization as well to protect our seniors living on fixed income. We mobile homeowners and tenants respectfully ask the City Council to pass this rent stabilization ordinance. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jordan Blake, followed by Shirley Edwards.

Welcome, Jordan.

Oh, thank you. Hello. Taking the time to listen to the issue regarding the rent control and vacancy rate. I guess I'll read a little and speak a little. Camarillo prides itself on taking care of the senior community, however unfortunately without ordinances the rent control and vacancy rates has directly affected the senior community. And, mobile home parks are traditionally fixed income communities. They are crucial for affordable housing and should be a lower cost path to homeownership for low-income residents and seniors.

So the lack of ordinance in the city's law has allowed landlords to take advantage of the vulnerable low-income and senior communities because there is no rent control or vacancy measures in place, the rents have skyrocketed as you know. If the city adopts like a 6 or 10% vacancy rate like you were talking about at the last meeting, the new rents, the landlords will most certainly increase to the maximum.

Because the rents are already higher than the L.A., City and Thousand Oaks areas, adding 6 or 10 percent to the vacancy rate would be ultimately a much higher rent than the other 55 and older senior parks and also just other mobile home parks in general of all ages. So I propose that we do some type of sliding scale where maybe the first or second year is at zero percent and then You go years two and three to 2%, then 4% ultimately ending up around 7%. And I think that this graduated increase, you know, would no longer allow the rents to be increased 20 to 50% when a home sells which is what's happening now. You know, you're paying $1,000 and then the rent is $2,060 to the new prospective buyer plus three times income for a senior.

And I think that's it. What I want to say to what the prior person had spoken about is that the vacancy rate is directly affecting the sales, the comparables if you pull for the last five years in like Camarillo Mobile Estates versus Casa Del Norte which is far less and also Rancho Adolfo which has 11 land-owned, I mean our park-owned spaces that they rent and their rent there is only $15.95 in Rancho Adolfo including the homeowners and all of those sell for much higher.

The average for Camarillo Mobile Estates I think was like $97,000 Casa Del Norte was like $137,000 Lamplighter was like $237, but I think that's because it's you know all ages And, you know, they have two incomes versus Camarillo Mobile Home Estates, which is for seniors and elderly. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Jordan.

Shirley Edwards, followed by Sid Hearth-Rotra.

Welcome, ma'am.

Hello, I'm Shirley Edwards. I live in a mobile home park here in Camarillo and I rise in support of the rent ordinance stabilization ordinance including vacancy control and I urge all council members to vote positive on this when it comes up for the next voting process. I say ditto to the last two speakers because I agree with everything they said. An owner in a mobile home park Like me, for instance on a fixed income. If I wanted to sell my home, I may have to devalue it in order to be able to sell because new owners are very turned off by the high land rent. My place will probably go very much higher a month than it is now. My lease expires at the end of this year and I'm very concerned about what the price is going to be. Am I going to be able to pay it?

What are my options going to be? Sell, hopefully or walk away. Those are the options so I strongly request that you vote for the rent stabilization ordinance with vacancy control to help protect those of us who live in this city and devote a lot of volunteer time to the City of Camarillo. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Siddharth Medhotra followed by Devo Brown

Welcome. Council, fellow citizens, I believe the speakers before me have spoken most wisely of all. I add my voice to theirs, to all their remarks and I add this also. Council we are coming to you for protection. Protection from being turned out of house and home in some cases Protection from being attacked, abducted, bullied, beaten, carried away to a face worse than death in the other.

Protection in a third case from pollution and the excessive heat it is imposing on this city as well. These things are the largest troubles our nation faces and our city as well We come to you asking for your aid in putting an end to them. Above all, perhaps most urgently, all three of these must be done but most urgently, ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement as they call themselves, the occupying force invading and threatening us, the invading force imprisoning people merely for looking at them as Spencer pointed out Why they must stop and they must go. They must stop all they are doing, and they must go from this city, from this county, from the state never to return.

That is the bare minimum. The bare minimum any city must offer its people. The safety and the confidence of a place to call home If these threats of high rent, occupying armies and pollution continue we shall have none of these. We shall not even have a city. The borders of this land have been as our executive of the museum pointed out been drawn and redrawn many times over the years.

And they may be redrawn again but there's no cause to mistreat our own people on those grounds whether those borders are drawn by nations or landlords When I have said that, I have said everything. Pollution and high rent and customs enforcement as they call it must stop and must go. That is all. Thank you.

Devo Brown?

Welcome sir.

Thank you sir, very much. Mr. Mayor I appreciate it. Vice mayor, council members, Mr. Ramirez city manager and all the amazing city staff. I don't say those terms lightly it's not just a gentle colloquialism it's truly an expression of my opinion of everyone on this dais. I appreciate it. I'm of course talking to you what I always talk to you about so far the last several times we've spoken but I have a couple of new thoughts I'm not going to beat you with Figures and those sorts of things. It's just well, I'm gonna give you a couple just a couple the main figure that I was thinking of is Well it really has to do with With vacancy control and I think that's what we were discussing the three non Ad hoc members of the council were really really drilling down on last time at the last meeting The thing that I didn't hear Any of you mentioned, I heard all of you mention return on investment for the park owner many times.

And I noticed in the agenda report it's mentioned 17 times return on investment. I also understand that it's a state law, that it has to be there and I find that your due diligence is refreshing because that tells me your due diligence on things that we don't discuss is probably just as high and I appreciate that so when I say thank you for your service I'm thanking you for that attention to detail as well. The one detail that wasn't attended to that I haven't heard yet it's not in It's not in the ordinance itself, which by the way does mention return on investment for the park owner 12 times.

Was return on investment for the homeowners? In this particular place in this particular situation there are two owners. For every. Every parcel if you will, there's the landowner and then there's the homeowner. Now it's a standard stick and mortar home. It's one owner. The one owner owns both the home and the land. Now I don't know if you know this or not, but there's a symbol for fair because fair return is the term that's used quite a bit. The term fair in American sign language is this.

Sign language is kind of a visual onomatopoeia. What that means is there are two entities and they meet at a level ground and so far what I've noticed The particular side of this that has the most money gets the most fare. They get the most mention of the term fare and the ones that have the least amount of money, the individual homeowners aren't getting the term fair toward our return at all. It hasn't been mentioned.

I'm hoping it's being considered after I speak to you today. That's the least I can tell you. That's really all I wanted to mention is that I feel like we're being left out. Collectively, the homeowners in the city amount of time. Thanks for letting me share.

Thank you very much.

There are no more speakers,

thank you very much we will move on to council staff and intergovernmental reports and I would like to welcome Mr. Gerardo Gonzalez with Interface 211. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members and City Manager. Thank you for having me here today. I'm Gerardo Gonzalez, Community Information Associate Director with Interface 211 and I'm here to share how 211 has been supporting Camarillo residents throughout this past year For those who may be unfamiliar with our services, 211 Ventura County operates under Interface Children and Family Services based out of Camarillo. We serve as a county-wide information and referral hub linking residents to more than 2,000 health and human service resources throughout the region. Last year in 2025, Received over 18,000 calls and text in our website. Welcome more than 25,000 visitors.

Each of these interactions represent someone finding their way to the services and the help that they need. In 2026 we celebrate over 20 years of providing two on one services to the community. 2-1-1 represents just one part of Interface's broader mission. Interface runs 30 distinct programs across six core departments, domestic violence and child abuse prevention, human trafficking prevention and intervention, justice services, mental health and trauma treatment and youth crisis in homeless services.

This broader network allows us to be able to directly refer to our interface programs for individuals who can benefit from our services. 2.1 one stands as the county's most extensive and comprehensive information and referral resource for residents seeking help our team assist callers in locating and accessing of the service at that the services that they require from housing to food programs mental health support to legally we're available 24 7 every day Accessibility is central to our mission. Residents can connect with us in three simple methods, and that's by dialing 2-1-1, texting their zip code 2898211 or visiting our website at 211ventura.org Regardless of how someone connects with us they'll be connected to a trained community information navigator Now I'd like to share some specific data about how we served Camarillo residents in 2025.

So, we took 1,509 calls from Camarillo residents throughout the year. Let me give you some context around this figure. A significant number of our Camarillo callers reach out to us more than once so the actual count of unique individuals is lower than the 1,509. What this shows us is that residents trust 211 enough to come back when they need additional support. Someone might contact us initially about finding housing and then give us a call back a few weeks later when they need mental health services or perhaps give us a call a third time when they need food assistance. We collect demographic information from every caller to help us understand community needs and trends, which is why you're seeing the total call volume rather than a count of unique individuals.

Looking at the demographics of those that we served, 457 were first-time callers to 211. 105 were families with children under five years old. 22 callers indicated the person in need was pregnant. 100 calls pertained to someone who reported they were at risk of becoming homeless and 142 calls pertained to someone who reported that they were currently homeless.

These numbers give us a snapshot of some of the challenges facing some of our Camarillo neighbors within the context of 211, particularly around housing stability and the need for comprehensive family support. Behind each of these calls is a real person navigating a difficult situation. Let me share an example with you, a few months ago we received a call from a Camarillo resident, let's call her Sarah facing a crisis that was affecting her entire family Her 15-year old son had been refusing to go to school, becoming verbally abusive at home and showing signs of serious mental health struggles.

Sarah had contacted the school and they referred her to a mental health provider but she was overwhelmed trying to navigate the mental health system while also managing her own stress and anxiety about her son's well being. When Sarah called 211, our navigator recognized that this wasn't just about finding a mental health provider. It was also about supporting an entire family in need. We connected her to mental health services that accept Medi-Cal for her son, linked her to family therapy resources so the whole family could work through this together.

And provided information about support groups for parents dealing with similar challenges. When one family member struggles with mental health, the entire family often needs support as well not just individual in crisis. 2-1-1 is here to help families access the comprehensive services they need to be able to heal together. When we look at the top categories of needs expressed by Camarillo Callers in 2025, housing ranked number one. No surprise there. Second was individual family and community support encompassing services like the Area Agency on Aging, case management and programs like holiday gifts and toys. Third was mental health and substance use services reflecting the significant need for behavioral health support This slide here shows how Camarillo compares to other cities in the county.

As you can see, housing is a top need across every community. This is a county-wide challenge not unique to Camarillo. What we see in Camarillo is that mental health and substance use services rank as the third highest need This reflects a pattern we're seeing in several communities across the county where behavioral health support is becoming an increasingly prominent need alongside housing and family services.

And lastly, to wrap up in addition to linking residents to existing resources we operate several specialized programs delivering direct services over the phone to residents through VITA our volunteer income tax assistance program. We offer appointments for no cost tax preparation This is an opportunity for us to provide additional support. To qualifying community members helping them claim maximum refunds in access tax credits that they're entitled to or psps initiative supports the acts of functional needs population in advance of public safety power shutoffs via case I'm here today to talk about the P.S.P.S., and this is made possible through our partnership with Southern California Edison.

Ventura versus hate assists those who have experienced hate incidents in filing reports Our team delivers comprehensive case management to eligible Gold Coast Health Plan members, helping them address both their health needs and basic needs through coordinated care. These initiatives allow us to offer hands-on assistance to some of our most vulnerable residents in our communities.

I appreciate your time this evening and thank you so much for your continued support of the work that we do here in Camarillo through 211. If you or anyone you know ever needs assistance, please remember that we're here 24-7 again. You can reach us by calling 211, texting your zip code to 898211, or visiting our website at 21ventura.org Thank you so much.

Thank you Gerardo. I said it right. Yes, any comments or questions? I know the vice mayor will have something.

Thank you Mayor. Gerardo thank you so much for your presentation and more than anything thank you to 211 for the critical work That is being offered to our community members. I know you mentioned that housing is the top need and mental health is, I believe number three. And I would probably assume that When people are asking for mental health support is when they're already acknowledging that they need that support. But unfortunately, if people are facing housing insecurity, they're probably already in need of some mental health services.

When people are seeking housing services, are you able to make that connection to any mental health support as well?

Yeah, yeah we are. So our approach is to be as comprehensive as possible so when someone calls we make sure to assess their situation but what we want to do is of course acknowledge the stated need but also look out for unstated needs right? So oftentimes we're able to provide additional resources to try to again Kind of make sure that they're taken care of in every aspect.

And depending, you know, depending if they're able to take all that information at the time we're able to share the resources that they need and if not then we'll follow up with them or they'll know that we're here 24-7 so they can connect with us again.