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.0:02 – 0:109 turns
I would like to call the special meeting. Of the budget workshop for the city of Camarillo City Council June 10th 2026 to order and if our esteemable city clerk would call role, I'd appreciate it
councilmember Santangelo here vice mayor Martinez Bravo
Thank you Councilmember Santangelo. Are there any changes to the agenda?
No changes.
Seeing none, we will move forward. Item A will be the fiscal year 2026-27 proposed budget review And just as an initial for the rest of council, I've discussed with city staff and what I would like after the initial presentation from the City Manager and the Finance Director. And the Assistant Finance Director, our local school teacher that breaks things down for us, Pam Townsend.
She will break during her presentation after major parts of it. And I'd ask City Council to hold their questions or comments and tell Pam's natural breaks, and that's when we'll ask for council comments. And if everybody agrees to that, we'll move forward. So Mr. Ramirez, if you'd take this away...
Thank you mayor, as you mentioned this is our annual budget workshop for fiscal year 26-27. I just want to take a brief couple seconds to thank staff and everybody that put work into this they've done an exceptional job every year we seems that things become more expensive and it's harder for us to manage our scarce resources but staff always finds a way to do it and so at this point I'll hand it over to Mr. Uribe
Thank you. I just want to say that the budget document is arguably the most important policy document that a local government produces. It establishes how taxpayer dollars are allocated to vital services to the community, and it's closely aligned with City Council's goals and objectives. And we'll turn it over to Pam Townsend, our assistant director for the presentation.
Take it away Pam.
Thank you all right good afternoon, it is my absolute pleasure to be here to discuss the budget for FY 27 this has been a very large endeavor we're going to cover a lot of ground I think will have a lot of points natural stopping points where you can jump in and ask some questions so let's dive on in quick overview Then we'll go into the general fund and the water and sanitary funds that will take a quick pivot over to community funding where we'll talk about community grants and community events. Then we'll do a deeper dive into C I P and then we're going around it out and talk about pensions.
So a quick update of how we got here back in December, Good morning, everyone. My name is Jessica and welcome to the city council meeting back in May we have the strategic plan and City Council goals and objectives session one. Today June 10th is the budget workshop or here we're doing it and later tonight we're going to bring session 2 of the strategic plan and City Council goals and objectives to you.
In 2 weeks we will be back in front of you for City So. We wanted to first give you a quick update of some of the things that we're seeing. The first is that we want to note that we still have pretty healthy general fund reserves, however as you're going to see in just a minute, we've committed a lot of those reserves for strategic commitments and will walk through what those are.
We're also seeing a slowing economy. We see more cautious consumer spending and that could impart be related to some sticky inflation But we do know that we have some upcoming revenue streams that are expected to offset some of the economic slowdown effects that we're seeing. So the expenditure budget that we're going to propose to you today is $161.6 million. The largest component of that is the general fund at 62.2 million. The general fund is our largest and most discretionary fund.
Next, it's followed by our water funds. That's 27.1 million. Followed by our sanitary funds at 25.7 million. And then we have our internal service funds followed by our capital funds at 17.3 million now I do want to know really quickly that the capital funds that we see here do not include the capital related to water and Santiago those are reflected in the respective water and sanitary funds and we'll go through that a bit more detail.
Then we have our internal service Then we have special revenue funds. We have transit and then very small funds like solid waste debt service and Camarillo ranch. On the revenue side, the revenue budget that we're proposing for you today is $153.2 million. The largest portion of that comes from taxes at 56.6 million. Taxes is the largest funding source for The next largest component is charges for services at 54.1 million charges for services is the largest funding source for both water and sanitary funds.
Next we have grants and subventions so this could be not just grants but it could also be any kind of funding that we receive from federal or state agencies to think We're going to talk a little bit about. Interfront internal Those are all of the internal charges that fund our internal service funds. And investments and contributions at that's a pretty significant portion there.
And we really want to highlight the fact that we're sitting on pretty healthy reserves as those reserves sit in the bank, our money is earning money. Some of our investments and our money working for us and making money. Next we have licenses and permits fines and assessments and other revenue sources as are smaller portions of revenue. So we wanted to show you by category. So operational charges is the largest portion of our expenditures and operational We're going to go into a little bit more detail on the city's operating costs. Materials supplies chemicals, electricity professional services truly most operational charges you'll see right here in operational charges.
Next we have salaries and benefits at 40 million dollars that's all of And internal service charges. Those are the expenditure side of all of the charges that we charge out to all of the different funds that help fund our internal service charges things like fleet I T etc. And then we have a couple small capital purchases. I think that might be does anyone have any major questions I
0:10 – 0:218 turns
I have a couple quick questions. If you could go into a little more detail, I have an understanding of ISFs but I'm not sure everyone else does and when you talk ISF's that's funds to other departments within the city if you could cover that a little bit I'd appreciate it.
I'm going to turn it over to you. Thank you so much for your time. Sure so an ISF or an internal service fund is one that is established because we need a place to centralize the costs for something but it would be very difficult to charge all of the different funds for those components, so I'll take. I T as an example in information technology affects every single department here at And then find a way to expense those costs amongst all of the other funds. The internal service funds give us a method by which we can do that, so we centralize all of the costs, we centralize all of the expenditures and all of the salaries and all of things related to running say IT, and then we divvy out the cost based off of some metric that's appropriate for whatever the charge is.
So with IT perhaps it's So when you talked about ISF's, you gave some specific examples. It also includes facilities, correct?
All right. When you talked about revenues, revenue streams and you mentioned that we have potential new revenue streams what were those?
We have some economic development initiatives that are happening and we see some new businesses that are coming in. We anticipate that's going to have an impact on both transient occupancy tax, so as more hotels come on board we expect those things in the future. As larger businesses and wholesale organizations come We expect to see an increase in sales tax related to those things and small bits of property tax related to those developments as well.
And Costco obviously will be a big player in this
absolutely
all right, thank you no other questions continue please
So the general fund revenues that we are proposing our 59.5 million dollars this excludes transfers at the largest component of that is taxes at 49 a 0.1 million dollars, that's about 82% of the total general fund budget more specifically Franchise fees at 2. And business tax at 1.7 million and then there's that investment investments and contributions line again again because we have a very healthy fund balance within the general We also have charges for services, licenses and permits. And some smaller categories like internal charges, fines and assessments, grants and subventions and other revenues. But again the main story here is that the general fund is primarily funded with taxes.
On the expenditure side, we also have operational charges. That is the largest component of the general fund. One thing that is worthwhile to note here is that because we are a contract city and we contract out for police services $22.3 million of that 39.2 million is related to the police contract. We also have salaries and benefits at 17.3 million So one thing we wanted to highlight, I mentioned earlier that while we have very healthy general fund reserves, we've also committed those things. So every year we bring to you a list of commitments.
The first line of that commitment is the general fund reserve policy goal. So the city council has adopted a policy that says we want to make sure that we have 50% of our operating expenditures available in reserves. So this is that acknowledgment of the FY 27 operating expenditures noted as a policy goal and noted in commitments. The other ones that I want to draw your attention to, wonder if I can use my thing down here for facilities improvements. I mentioned that a few years ago we moved the facilities from its own ISF into the general fund.
This expenditure here or sorry this commitment here is intended to cover some of those capital expenditures within facilities You may also recall that last year we took a surplus that was left, it was about $9 million and we committed it to facilities improvements. This year, we're acknowledging that not only is facilities a very significant expenditure that we plan to see in the out years. We're also seeing that IT projects are becoming very expensive as they become in 21st century organizations and so we are recommending that we take $5 million from what used to be this line and move it one down The city of Camarillo is committed to creating its own separate information technology reserve we have some significant projects and we'll talk about those in a bit.
The other thing that I want to note just below that is the continuum of care at 3.8 million dollars. That is as it stands today right now, however, I do know that later this evening council we have an item And lastly is the one down at the bottom for the loan to the water utility so many months ago, the City Council committed a 15 million dollar commitment. In case we needed to loan the water. A general fund loan to water and we're going to talk about what that might mean and what that might look like and whether or not we need it in just a minute but I just wanted So.
Every year we bring you a 5 year forecast so just to help orient you to this chart down at the bottom, you're going to see fiscal years. So we're going to start with FY 26 that's the current fiscal year it's the one we're in FY 27 is the one we are bringing to you we are proposing and then we have 4 additional out years up at the top or sorry up on the left-hand side you're So that looks very, very small. That looks like not a whole lot but we did just say that we had very healthy general fund reserves and indeed we do.
This graph right here shows our committed fund balance over the next few years. Now you do see a significant decrease over the next few years of that commitment, but it doesn't really impact our unassigned fund balance because that commitment is intended to be used for specific purposes. We're estimating some money is going to facilities projects, some money's going for IT projects and some money's potentially going out for the water loan. So all of those things are included in that commitment, and that's why you see the total fund balance line going down. But it's the committed part of that fund balance that's going down not to the unassigned fund balance.
I wanted to throw in here operational expenditures so again 2627 that's our current year and are proposed here. You'll see a little bit of dotted blue line, those are one-time expenditures that we're also proposing so in my mind I wanted to present them This line here shows our CIP slash reserve transfer out. Essentially, this is everything that's going to impact our commitments. So here we are proposing to take money out of the commitments for specific intended purposes. Things like the facilities projects, the IT projects, potentially the water loan, those things.
This line right here shows revenues so. Anytime we see revenues dip below the solid blue line we would see a decrease in unassigned fund balance you We are seeing a slowdown in the economy, our revenues are changing, our revenue estimates are changing. And so we are going to be coming to you over the next few years with cautious expenditures. I want to show you this same information with a little bit of history so that we can get some context. This is the exact same format, it's the exact same chart. All we're gonna do is show four years of actuals because I think it helps paint a picture So here same thing this is our unassigned fund balance.
And here you see are committed fund balance so you see that over the years not only has our fun balance grown, but we've also added money to the commitments we have made a specific allocation and dedicated specific monies for And our cip and reserved transfers out so these are things that are essentially coming out of our committed reserve. As the total expenditures over the years.
And here you see revenues, so one thing that I really do want to highlight in a fight 24 you see that big bump in revenues that's because we moved the facilities fund But another thing we want to highlight is that in all of those years we had seen 2.3 million dollars in ARPA funds that It is expected that that is going to be a relatively flat
0:22 – 0:3214 turns
Just a note in this, thanks Pam. This goes down on the weeds a little bit but in the executive summary on page 19 the water and I realize I'm way down in the weeds but the loan to water funds are referenced at 14 million dollars. I think that's incorrect it should be at 15 million unless you're telling us that we have a 1 million dollar incremental because I know those loans will be incrementally staged
That is a great question so one thing that I'm sorry and send you on a journey
you're going to cover them in anyway,
I was not but it is a that So at the start of FY 27, we are acknowledging that we have not yet touched the general fund loan. When we gave that presentation in the executive summary, we are intending to use $1 million of that loan.
Just a suggestion you may want to cover that in the executive summary and make sure it's referenced.
That's a fair point. Thank you, Mister. Mister killed the
yeah can could you go back to that what never mind go back to when you were I want to talk a little bit about them for information technology reserve now that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to spend all that 5 million dollars right so if that's
That's a great question. So all of the monies that you see here are essentially imagine our unassigned fund, imagine our fund balance like a savings account and we are just trying to identify where we think those moneys are going to go. This rolls over year-to-year if we don't spend it. So all we're acknowledging here is that we want to earmark 5 million dollars for I T projects. But let's say we get to next year and we spend a million dollars of it or we don't spend any of it that 5 million is only going to adjust as we reduce from that commitment so next year if we use a million, we will bring that to you next year a 4 million dollar commitment here and if we don'
Okay, so then the opposite would be true as well. We're suggesting $5 million not to exceed the 5 million. Let's say we come in over a five-minute with that have to be a midyear adjustment or another and I'm not suggesting we do that.
Yeah, so all this is simply saying that we want to allocate $5 million of our savings account to I T projects. But that doesn't mean that we're only limited to $5 million in I T One quick question go go ahead.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. One follow-up question of him and that is it to follow up on what Kevin asked this is not simply a rollover situation because under Gatsby 54 we have to make an annual commitment of each of these funds so it requires the council to take affirmative action in my understanding that correct. Yes,
yes, and that is what we're asking here isn't
One quick question. You mentioned the contract with the sheriff's office at $22.3 million you came from a full service city so 22.3 million dollars is a little over 30% of our General fund budget. What would we see in a full service city with their law enforcement? And I'm going to guess it's closer to 50%, but I'll let you answer that with your experience.
Yes, that is an excellent question. It depends on the organization Thank you so much for your time. I just want to make sure you are correct it would be closer to 50% or maybe even more than that the one benefit that we see safety within CalPERS is very expensive. That's something we've been statewide and so that is something that full service organizations are really struggling All right so that is the end of the general fund.
And now let's take a look at water funds. Now I do want to highlight that during this presentation, we're actually showing 5 different funds that were rolling up in this. So the largest is the water utility but then we also have reclaimed water. We have the Water Conservation Credit, Water Capital Funds and the Water Debt Service. The largest part of that is going to be our operations and our capital funds but I did just want So as I mentioned earlier the largest component, the largest revenue source for water. Oh gosh just kidding is charges for services our total revenue budget is $27.4 million and charges for services represents $26.1 million of that we also have some other smaller I do want to highlight investment contributions.
I want you to see that that dollar amount is only 0.4 million dollars when we go to look at Santiago we're going to see a very different picture and On the expenditure side, we're proposing a $27.1 million budget. The largest component of that is operational charges at 14.6 million followed by salaries and benefits at 7.2 followed by internal service charges at 3.2 followed by CIP. We're going to go into the detail of what makes up that 1.9 million dollars in CIP and then a small little bit in capital purchases.
Now. We've talked quite a bit about water we've talked about a 15 million dollar loan and what we wanted to do is provide a little bit of history and update of where we are with the water fund so this will be a similar presentation to what I showed you in the general fund, although instead of looking forwards were looking backwards now so you see that we're going to start in fiscal year 2020 This is our recommend or sorry. This is the actual cash balances through 2025 and are estimated cash balances at the end of 2627 now you'll notice that that goes a little bit in But to explain how we got there it might be easy to look at the expenditures so we have our operational expenses here you can see that those have been increasing steadily over the years as operational expenses do.
We also have capital in there, so some large expenses in 2021. That was the desalter was the big project that we worked on during those In 2024, however we repaid about we defused a bond. Now you'll see that there was a pretty sizable drop off in the cash balances between 2324 that's area chart the green in the background and a lot of that is related to that 10 million dollars And we also wanted to pair that with revenues. So when we see revenues, any time you see the yellow line go below any of the bar charts there's probably going to be an impact on fund balance but anytime that yellow line chart goes below the blue line it goes below the operational expenses then we're in a place where we are in a structural deficit essentially where our revenues are not meeting our expenditures So in 26 you can see that we have some significant expenses within capital, but in 27.
We are finally coming out of that as you know last year we implemented 24% rate increases beginning July And you see that the expenditure budget is $26.5 million, which includes capital and we will have anticipated revenues of about 26.6 million. Now this chart is only showing our water operations and our water capital mainly because the other funds are not only smaller they're also ones that are We are starting to come out of that revenue over expenditure deficit. But we wanted So that is not presented in here and it is still available to us so as you mentioned in the executive summary we were planning to potentially draw down and use that one million dollars which would get us out of this red here, but we also wanted you to see what it would look like if we didn't.
0:32 – 0:388 turns
Yes sir, Mr. Cold.
Have we seen an uptick in water use in the city in the past six months or do you have any of that data available?
We have in the last few months, so as you may recall in November and December we saw a pretty significant decrease in water usage. And that was related to the fact that we had a really wet winter and we thought for sure that that wet winter was going to continue and it was going to be a very wet year and people were just going to stop using water. What we saw is that that was partially true In November and December we saw significant decreases in water usage. Now that we're in past January, we were seeing usage very similar to what we had seen in the past so it seems to have corrected.
We're seeing is a little bit
Quick question. Normally when you look at a budget, the largest single expenditure is salary and benefits but in the water fund it's operational charges if you could cover just a little bit of what the operational charges are.
Sure, so in the water side we have a large expenditure within water is the administration of our desalter and because that is a contract that's represented it represented in the operational charges. So we don't see the salaries and benefits for that staff represented in salaries and benefits because they're not our staff. And so you see that significant expenditure on the operation side
Thank you continue.
So again a similar story to what we saw in water, the largest component of the revenues is charges for services out of a $29 million revenue budget. We're looking at 24.1 million dollars for charges for services and When we discussed water. I mentioned investments and contributions so you see we're looking at 0.4 million dollars within water and here we're looking at 2.6 million dollars in investments that is a result of the significant cash balance that we have within Sani and I'm going to show The next is taxes so does have an allocation on the property tax rolls.
So we people when property tax rolls run, we receive some of that money for debt service related to some are Santiago. We also have other revenues which On the expenditure side here is where you do see salaries and benefits being the largest component of the expenditure cost followed by operational charges at 6.5 million dollars capital at 6 point 4 we're going to go over capital in a bit internal service I think this presentation helps me see the bigger picture.
So what we did for water, I also wanted to present to first Annie so that you could see both sides of it again down at the bottom we're just going to show a couple years of history and immediately. You can see the difference so this is So here we have our operational expenses just like we showed in water. We have debt service within Santiago so we're representing that here.
That's the total cost and here we wanted to show revenues so you can see that in some years within Santiago we have more We are about to begin the largest capital project within Camarillo's history. And what you're seeing here is us preparing for that, so the wastewater, the water reclamation plant is going to be the largest project that we have ever seen. Now we will not be able to pay for all of that with this cash. We look at this cash balance and we say oh wow 60 million dollars in cash is quite a bit and it is.
This is a large project. We are going to look for many different ways to fund it we will look at bonds, we will look at with your funding we will look at every funding opportunity we're going to also take a look at grants. We have financial advisors available to so that they can help us decide what is in the best interest of the city but realistically all Any questions on any.
Questions from the council. One quick question sure sorry.
0:38 – 0:4410 turns
It also so on the general fund side we noted that we had a 23.2 million dollars in property tax that is both secured and unsecured. In the proposed year what we are bringing to Council is 3.4 million dollars in unsecured which is about 15% of the total property tax that we expect.
And on the Sandy side, is there also unsecured or is that just secured property taxes?
That should those are specific assessments and they don't show up as you know what let me get you an answer on that.
Just for a bit of clarification, the difference between secured and unsecured is that the secured are what you typically think of the land. The properties that are affixed to a piece of property. The unsecured are things that can be moved such as heavy equipment in manufacturing and also what is primarily driving the City of Camarillo's revenues are the airport values, the aircraft values.
Thank you. Continue.
I will continue now with community funding and give Pam a little bit of a break. City Council has a goal of providing a safe and enriched environment where people can live, work, and play. And under that goal there is Objective, thank you. Objective to explore potential changes to the process and sources of funding with the objective of increasing the level of city financial support for non-profit organizations serving the community.
Now City Council also has a policy 1.3 on community grant funding which guides the community funding process and under that policy there are 2 specific areas that have a clear outlined process one is the community service grants and one is the community events and I'll touch on each of those in a second Both of those 2 programs community service grants and community events have a defined application period, a review through the finance committee and then a recommendation for the budget that we approve each year.
In relation to the objective The policy 1.13 was changed in 2024 to remove the maximum amount of funding, which was a limitation previously that is no longer in place and in 2025 we increased the outreach. We went to two separate nonprofit So we were able to reach a lot more nonprofit organizations informing them about these the programs. On the community service grant side, this chart shows you the last two years in dark blue and the proposed budget year in the lighter shade of blue. And you can see that the funding amount has increased by about $50,000 in the two years. The number of organizations totals 19 and that includes five new organizations for fiscal year 26-27 as proposed.
Moving over to the community events side for the past 2 years in the proposed budget year. We're starting off showing the 4. Groups that have received funding in each of these 3 2 new organizations that began with this current fiscal year 2526 and are also proposed for next year 2627. And also in 2627 we have one new organization, the Pacific Pearl Music Association. So we're showing that we are increasing the number of organizations that are holding community events and also the dollar amounts moving from $131,517 to So when you combine those 2 programs together we see in the previous 2 years a total of $282,701 and in the proposed budget year $382,021 an increase of approximately $100,000 over the two-year period.
So I will pause there to see if there are any questions on community support.
Questions from Council comments come questions go ahead,
Mark thank you very much if you go back to I guess this shows part of it that the funding that goes Yes, so the 160,000 that's just for the application process that doesn't include for example. The $70,000 we provided to food share as an emergency. Grant correct
correct the 70,000 for food share was in this current fiscal year 2025 26 which is the middle bar. But yes you are correct that that is separate and above this community service grant program. That was a separate individual request,
okay because I know what and I know this isn't necessarily touching on our goals and objectives but one of the things I know that we had some information as to the amount of support that we give to the nonprofit sector not only including. The service grants, but I know we provide a service to interface for example in 2, 1, So if we can get a summary of that I think that would be helpful
0:44 – 0:5330 turns
I've been talking about this for a while and we don't have to make have a discussion on this now. But as one council member, it would be helpful for me if I had not to exceed budget number on You know a significant increase. In our expenditures on this but I personally would like to It seems to me that we're getting more requests, which may be a good thing. But if we could have a number that at least were comfortable with and have a little bit more of a discussion here so I am not spoken to any other council members on this That at least I can feel comfortable with like we do a lot of our other departments in the city that if we have.
A number that we could say perhaps not to exceed it would just be it would be helpful for me.
Go ahead Mister Trimbley
on on that same note more could you go back And if I recall correctly, the maximum amount of funding limit that was a limit that was in place for years. Wasn't it? It wasn't like 10...
Yes. I
want to say 10-15 years funding limit with no account for inflation or anything else right?
It was a very specific formula linked to assessed values of property.
Right and so we thought at that time, the council thought at that time that was arbitrarily low. It just had not kept pace with inflation nor did it keep pace with what we thought the value was for non-profits. I'm not specifically advocating... We now don't have a limit. My view on this would be we could talk about a not to exceed, but I think what we ought to do is put it in the line of what maybe an aspirational limit would be rather than tie ourselves into a specific ceiling. Because what happened is each and every year since I was on council, I think it was eight years I spent on the council, and the ceiling was always there.
And it limited us. Without a lot of value, and I know we agree there's a lot of value in what the nonprofits do for the community and services that they provide. I just don't want to see us have some sort of artificial barrier that prevents us from thinking so. That's in line of more of an editorial
comment. Thank you. I appreciate that. Mark, when we changed the policy it was because it was pretty static for years and years and years. And every non-profit that applies for the community block grants goes through a specific process correct?
Correct
And it goes to the finance committee first, correct?
Correct.
After staff has gone through all of the workshops and Zoom meetings and everything like that so we do have some checks and balances with it coming to the Finance Committee who then recommends to the entire Council.
Correct.
And part of the policy changes that we made were My vice mayor said we need to support more nonprofits and things like that, and that's why we made that change. And I think we all agreed with it. That our non-profits provide tremendous services to our community. So there are, we don't have a finite number or a not to exceed number but it's vetted through city staff and then it's vetted through finance committee is that correct?
That is correct.
And then it comes to the full council and we decide so the not to exceed is our entire council setting up here
Correct.
One quick question, we still have a policy on pass-throughs when it comes to community grants. We do not unless the policy changes we shall not give city money to any pass through nonprofit correct? Correct. Thank you
Well actually if I can add to that just to clarify. We can give it to organizations who are pass-throughs but maybe they're having an event like the Meadowlark, correct? Like we're not giving it to Meadowlark's to give as a pass through to the other organizations they funded. I believe the funding that they applied to was specifically for an event
Correct. Under the events category is a little bit different, that it does have that ability to put on an event for an organization that does contribute to other non-profits.
Correct. Yeah.
We were speaking under the community service grant program where any specific organization that would submit an application for a specific program would be something that we would look at as to not be a pass through to another agency.
Correct.
Thank you continue.
Can I
follow? Yes, go ahead Mister Cold
okay. I support nonprofits. I think it's great. I'm a businessman okay. I set budgets. I cannot spend as a private businessman. I cannot spend money that I don't have okay so I think what would happen if we keep this policy like well let's say if it goes twice as much As we did the next years, how comfortable with the council be maybe they'll be real comfortable with that. I don't know on simply asking is to have some sort of a road map here so comfortably we can come Without causing a whole bunch of real significant discussions up on the Deseo here. That's simply what I'm asking for now, I'm only one council member maybe there's a disagreement with the other council members and that's fine.
But as you sit on the finance committee, I like to have a number. I just like to have a number that we can all feel comfortable with, that we can explain to our citizens, the nonprofits and especially the other council members so they can be comfortable in what we're doing, why we're doing it and what is our intent? That's simply what I'm asking for now. I'm one council member. Maybe everybody else is totally comfortable with it. But I just want to bring this up. I think it would be somewhat easier if we at least had some, not to exceed 10%, not to say 20% of last year, just something so I'll drop it after that.
Thank
you Mr. Kildee, yes Vice
Mayor? I can add a little bit to that and Council Member Kildee thank you very much for your point of view and your perspective um i think what we have agreed on as the council is yes to increase support for the non-profit sector given that for every dollar that they get that we give they get five back in return And so there's definitely an impact there. I think what may help to clarify for me and maybe for you as well is, I want to fully understand how much as a whole including events, including the system we have in place I think it's important for us to be able to evaluate and including the other additional funding that we provide to the nonprofit sector how much is the city contributing. And how you know then we can try to evaluate okay are we comfortable with that entire percentage or we want do we want to decrease it, I think I think it's important that when the numbers come we're the ones that get to decide on that on that cap.
But having said that I think having a more full picture of what and how we provide support to the nonprofit sector even including in kind donations of any space. That we provide to to the nonprofit sector, I think gives
0:53 – 1:008 turns
Thank you very much. Go ahead, Council Member Santangelo.
I sit on the Finance Committee so I just wanted to share my experience because I went through the process of these applications and the committee actually spent a lot of time with the applications and invited them back and did a lot of presentations with the applicants But I didn't have a problem. I wasn't as uncomfortable as it sounds like Councilmember Kildee is with the amounts and with determining whether the amounts were okay, I was pretty comfortable with the process. I just wanted to share my experience.
Thank you let's continue
All right, and back to me. We wanted to also go through CIP. So we mentioned that CIP is a pretty significant part of the budget. Here, we're going to go through the dollars that we've assigned in the FY27 budget for each functional area within CIP. So what that looks like as a whole, we're looking at a CIP budget of around $28.3 million. Of that, the largest component is transportation at $10.3 million.
Followed by water at 1.9 million Santiago at 6.3 million building in grounds at 6.8 million We're going to be talking about information technology at 2.8 and storm drain now I do want to highlight that it is something you've never seen before in the 5 year plan we decided that historically, we've had these big projects that when it comes to accounting they are absolutely capital projects but we've never really had a mechanism to say here are all of the major projects felt like the right place for it so that everything is all in one place. So this is your first time seeing IT as a function of CIP, but we're excited that it's there and we hope that it provides a little bit more clarity of some of the big things that we have going on.
So there's a lot of information on this table and so forgive me, I want to walk you through bit by bit because it's easy to get overwhelmed with it at first. As we go through each of these, I'll show you the project numbers and the project names Then we want to show you the prioritization ranking so as you may recall last year, we went through an initiative where we wanted to identify what what is the priority for all of these projects. We want to have a metric by which we can say this project is more important to the city and to the City Council into city leadership than this project. This is this is a larger benefit to our community than this one. And so what we did was we went through and we graded all of those projects with an appropriate So we started off with the matrix that we designed then after we assigned them all a score.
We went through and we said OK, The first thing we did was look at which project is more important than the other and so then we did a second analysis and said here's our forced ranking, here's our prioritization ranking for every single project. So that's what you're seeing here now generally speaking you will not see duplicates on the prioritization That's because those are all resurfacing projects. We think resurfacing as a whole is the second priority.
They're only separated by different projects because we find it easier for us to be able to track the expenditures for each project related to resurfacing. Then, we wanted to show you the budget. So great! We've graded all of the projects and we've also assigned dollars to them. What are those dollars? This is what we're proposing in our FY27 budget for each project And this column gives you a little bit more insight. This is looking at the percentage total through year one, year one is FY27 and so the way that you would be reading this is after for the first line, after FY27 when we allocate that additional $1 million to this project, that means we will have funded and expected to complete 11% of this project Now in total that project is a $29 million project.
But through FY 27, we will have appropriated 11% to that project. So here are all of the projects that we have for transportation. Transportation is our largest category. It's also the one with the most number of projects. But we also want to highlight that this particular table is only including projects that are budgeted in FY 26 and 27. So the prioritization ranking column may not show all of the projects in the sequence if there are projects that are currently only budgeted in FY26 or if they're looking out to year 2, which is FY28.
We also have some water projects, so we mentioned $1.9 million in water and those are for AMI, Charter Oak Pump Station, Well D & E and the replacement of Reservoirs 1 & 2. We have some Santiago projects at 6.3 million dollars, we have the Pleasant Valley Road Sewer Force Main and the rest of the projects are highlighted here if they do not have a ranking then that means that we just did not either that project was already nearing completion at the time we were grading them or it just has not yet been graded Next we have buildings and grounds at 6.8 million dollars. So you will see some larger projects here the courtyard that is a small dollar amount of $350,000 but you'll notice that the percent through year one is 100% the way that you would be reading that is after Storm drain is the smallest component of all C IP it's only $250,000 just a couple small projects for storm dream replacement and improvements.
And here's the one that you've never seen before this is new this year. We're highlighting I T projects so we have data governance at 235,000 e a m which And I think that's a good time for questions and also for break if you'd like
council members questions. Yes, Sir Mister kill you said
about 2 and a half million dollars to you foresee that money being spent this year.
For I T
yes.
1:00 – 1:129 turns
Thank you. Vice Mayor.
Thank you when we are prioritizing projects are we taking into account safety. That is one of them, yes
and each a functional area has a different rubric by which we great to them. So safety for say water may and I T
Yeah, so the reason I was bringing it up. I think if you go back to the 4th. Go back another. Talks right there's a pleasant Valley bike road lanes and I don't know what it looks like over by Central Avenue for those proposed bike lanes. But I do know I know it's like a number 4 on
Nothing else. Then I think at the mayor's discretion. They're going to take them to
the mayor,
yes
we do one have a we do have one public comment
we're going to take a quick recess for Council comfort and staff comfort and then We will reconvene this special meeting of the Camarillo City Council. Would our Assistant Finance Director continue? And if you're done, let me know and we'll go to the city clerk.
1:12 – 1:215 turns
The next thing we have on our agenda is to talk about the pension funding status so this came out of last time we had a budget workshop. And it was requested that we give a little more information Unfortunately for everybody, I could talk about this for hours and nothing would bring me more joy. So if you give me the opportunity, I will talk about this a lot. All you have
to do is travel with her to a
conference
for about three-and-a-half, four hours and you will hear her passion for this.
I love this stuff! And so we intend to bring this back probably to a committee or if at this Council recommends that we bring it to the full Council, we can do that as well. But we did want to give you just a very high level overview of what we're seeing. So I wanted 3.16 for the pension rate stabilization program and that guides our pension trust investment specifically it says that annually through the budget process, the City Council will determine the Paradise Trust annual contribution amount and the City Council is committed to attain and maintain a fully funded status within a 20 year period and that would mean a fully funded status in FY 37.
So we want to give you a little bit of background of where we are now. Now I want to highlight that really quickly because the June 30, 2024 is the most recent valuation report. It takes CalPERS a long time to put these valuation reports together so we actually received that report in August of 2025 which means we are already many months into fiscal year 26 So it is the June 3020 24 valuation report that drives the budget estimates for f y 27.
So at the time we had a 152 active members, our total accrued liability was 148 point 7 million. That's essentially everything that were on the hook for its what All of the assets that we have in the system. It's all of the contributions from the employer us, all of the contributions from our employees and any investment earnings that have been made on those contributions over the years.
And then there's the unfunded liability which is essentially the delta between the two of them. And when we're talking about pensions, there's a lot of emphasis that tends to be put on the funded ratio which is essentially just the market value of assets over them. The total accrued liability right now And I wanted to give a little bit of context as to what that means compared to some of our neighbors so there's going to be a lot of information on this chart. So I want to help orient you to the start really quickly on the Y axis that's this one right here, you're going to see funded ratios and down here, you're going to see total unfunded accrued liability.
So, here's where Camarillo is. Now it's not necessarily a bad thing you see all of these other agencies that are out here to the right. The size of the bubble indicates their total liability so because I'll take Oxnard as an example. Oxnard is over here with a very significant unfunded liability but they're also the largest agency in the area. They have the largest liability in general so it's not surprising that their underfunded liability So we're going to talk a little bit about how agencies can get in line with the size of their liability. So it's not necessarily a problem that agencies are far off to the right, but it would be a problem if we had an a small button or a small dot over here to the right and likewise Thank you very much.
Thank you. Compared to the other agencies 1000 oaks is doing a little bit better than we are more Park is doing exceptionally well, but this does not include our Paradise trust this is only the world as CalPERS sees it so CalPERS says were 75.3% funded but We would actually look something like this. We would actually be closer to 80.6% funded, and so the question is what do we want to do with that? We could take a number of approaches. We could either say all right well we want to leave CalPERS as it is. We're going to continue to make contributions for our normal payment and our regular UAL schedule Or, and we can at the same time continue to contribute to Paradise and keep those two things separate.
Or, we could take some of the PARS money and apply it to our UAL at CalPERS. Now when we do that, that is what's called an ADP. It's an Additional Discretionary Payment made to CalPERS. Think of it like if you have a mortgage and you have extra money in your savings account and you want to make a one-time payment against your principal. That's exactly what an ADP is.
So we could take some of the money from the purse sorry, the pars fund if we wanted to apply it to an ADP or we could not and we can continue with the way that we're doing it. There are benefits to both, as there are disadvantages. So a pro of making an ADP is that it would improve the funded ratio. Again right now according to CalPERS our funded ratio is 75.3%. Internally we think it's more like 80% because we have this trust that is intended for that sole purpose.
Another thing that's noteworthy about an ADP is that if we were to make a one-time payment to CalPERS, we would see an immediate reduction on our annual pension costs. Because much like you make a one time payment against your principal, if you were to call your bank and say hey I made a significant payment can I reamortize my payments? CalPERS will do that automatically so we could take some portion or none and apply it and see an immediate future benefit to our CalPERS.
The downside, however, is that it's cash out the door and we can't get it back. Just like if you were to make a payment to your mortgage, you can't call up US Bank or Wells Fargo two years from now and say I kind of want that money back. Once the cash is out the door, it's out the door so we need to be mindful of if we were to make that decision, it would be permanent.
On the PARS side, however, where PARS really shines is that it provides a lot of flexibility with investing. When it comes to CalPERS we don't really have a whole lot of say on how CalPERS invests their money but on PARS we have a lot more flexibility with how we want to invest that money. I do want to note however that CalPERS is a very large player in the market. CalPERS has a lot of investments, it has a very large investment team and this is their job so when CalPERS moves money markets notice we're talking about 400 million dollars within CalPers We're going to talk a little bit about how CalPERS is investing in the city of California.
PARS allows the city to make normal costs and the UAL from the trust. So for example, let's just say we get to a point where we are 100% funded and we want to use our PARS Trust to pay our regular normal payment for CalPERS, we can absolutely do that. That's a benefit of PARS and it's incredible flexibility. However, it does not reduce the city's liability. So again according to CalPERS we are funded at 75 not 80% because it is not recognized nor does any contribution we make to Paradise reduce our annual UAL payments So all of these things are to be considered now this is a very high 30,000 foot view. I have so much more information to share on this subject and I would really like to go into a lot of detail if you give me the chance at some point but I don't want
1:21 – 1:4212 turns
I think at some point we will give you a chance, but I'm going to allow Mr. Tremblay to ask a question here. I have about
three hours' worth of questions and discussions on it just because I know. But just a couple of the nuances here. A few years ago there were PERS entities that were making ADP payments. But not seeing the benefit come out of those payments in terms of a decrease in their annual UAL payments, correct? That has been an issue. In other words, PERS takes the money in and it's gone.
That has been an issue relative to Pearson. But on the upside when we established the Paradise trust do we know what our Do we know our rate of return over the last five years and our rate of return since inception has been on pars? And can we, since I love compound questions, can we contrast that with what our increased liability has been from a per standpoint.
Short answer to all of those questions is yes. So we will have PARs coming in to do a presentation. Separately, we are also taking a look at our pension funding and what our strategy looks like. So we are going to take a look at what the cost benefit analysis of both is going to be. That's something on our agenda for the next few months. And we can bring that back to you if you'd like with more detail about how the ins and outs work for both CalPERS and PARs.
Okay and very quickly, thank you. It's a section 115 trust so it's irrevocable but we all those funds are invested pursuant to state law and state not even guidelines they're pursuant to state law pursuant to government code correct? Correct in terms of the vehicles yes okay thanks I'll forgo the additional two hours and 55 minutes Mr. Cold nothing
Oh, wow. I'm going to ask a couple of quick questions. The slide that you have right now talks the pros and cons but none of them include any projected lessening of our CalPERS contribution. Correct. If we were to take some Paradise do we have any figures whatsoever? Yes So that'll be at a future time we talk about that, because it's more in depth and it will be a hoot.
It will. And in fact, I will after this, I will stick a pin in that if we find ourselves with time. I do have slides that are backup slides where I could show you what that impact would look like or but I don't want to...I know Eric has some things he'd like to discuss so I'm going to turn it over to him and we can always take that as a later
time. One more quick comment before you turn it over to him. I belong to a public pension I'm a public pensioner and our pension is 99.2% funded and when I look at us at 70, what were we? 75.3.
Yeah
through CalPERS and I'm saying why is my Vista pension so well-funded and why is CalPERS so underfunded and It just is a question I have, and I look forward to future conversations. And maybe we can have another presentation on our CalPERS and our unfunded liability because that always concerns me. Wonderful job. Thank you very much. Any other council members with questions? Let's continue.
All right.
Take it away, Eric.
Thank you, Mayor and Council. A few weeks ago during our goals and objectives setting session, I brought an item to you on looking at drone as a first responder as a way to enhance public safety in Camarillo. And tonight I've got that proposal here that I'd like to share with you all. The whole idea around drone is a first responder we are We're new to this as an agency, but law enforcement is not new to this. There are a number of agencies around the country and here within the state of California and even here in Ventura County who have already implemented drone as a first responder programs.
And they're seeing some really good successes in enhancing public safety both in reducing response times in de-escalating certain calls and reducing the need for law enforcement officers to respond to certain calls. And so my job as your police chief is to continue to look for programs that might enhance public safety, and so that is the idea behind the DRONAS First Responder Program for us here at Camarillo.
Just as a little history, we've been using drones for over a dozen years here in Ventura County at the Sheriff's Office. We have a patrol-led UAS team, Unmanned Aerial Surveillance Team and the way that works right now is we have a small drone riding around in a patrol car with one of our deputy sheriffs who has trained as a pilot through the FAA If we have certain calls for service that would be benefited by an eye in the sky, that deputy if he happens to be working a shift will respond to the call for service. Takes him as long to get there is depending upon where he's at in the city and where the call is. He pulls the drone out of the trunk of his car. He launches it. He has another deputy sheriff who has to go stand with him and be an observer and who can get on the radio And report what the eye in the sky is showing them and it's been a very successful program for us.
I believe we have about 20 to 30 pilots, deputy sheriffs who are trained as pilots right now throughout the county who can deploy. It's assisted us on a number of calls here in Camarillo. We've caught thieves with the drones, it's assisted us in search and rescue operations. It's assisted us when we're looking for missing persons so it's been a very beneficial program to us and the next logical step for us to enhance public safety is to look at a drone as first responder. And so this slide here really shows the differences between patrol-led UAS that we've been doing for about a dozen years and drone as first responder.
Some of the things I'd really like to point out on this one are the pilot location. As I explained for a UAS program, it's a deputy in the field along with a deputy as an observer. The pilot location for drone is first responders is actually down in our dispatch center in a real-time information center. The pilot launches remotely using some semi-autonomous program through Skydio or their partner company, Axon. They listen to calls for service as they're coming in and if the call for service matches a certain criteria or meets a certain criteria, the drone is launched. These drones can be on scene of calls for service between 90 and 120 seconds. The agencies who have implemented these, some have reported that the drones are actually on scene before an officer even gets dispatched to the call for service.
And as I explain one of the platforms that we're looking at to go along with the drone program, I'll tell you a little bit more how that works. What they're also seeing when I mentioned a reduction in deploying actually officers to the scene some agencies and we're not proposing to do this with our program at least as we start some agencies are actually clearing calls for service before their officers get on scene so it reduces the need for officers now The cost is obviously a big deal. The cost of a little drone out of a trunk is much less than a full-fledged drone as a first responder program, but we think the benefits far outweigh the costs So what DFR delivers I mentioned the faster response time 90 to 120 seconds. There is a program that goes along with drone as a first responder, it's called prepared 911 prepared 911 isn't is an AI platform that partners with our CAD system.
So when a resident calls into our dispatch center on a 911 call, the dispatcher is trained or the call taker is trained to ask certain questions of the caller and once the call taker feels like they have enough information to get out into the field, they send that call for service over to a dispatcher and when a deputy's available in the field, the dispatcher gets on the radio and dispatches a deputy sheriff Prepared 911 is the use of AI to listen to the call as it comes in and automatically transcribe that call for service. So our pilot in the DFR program is watching as this call is automatically being transcribed by prepared 911.
So before that deputy sheriff out in the field even gets the call, if the drone pilot sees that this is a call for service that's worthy of the drone where it can be dispatched and help out they can launch that drone. Many agencies have found that the drones actually on scene of calls for service before the deputy even gets or the officer even gets dispatched to it so not saying that happens in every circumstance but in many circumstances that has happened at other agencies One of the big things is enhancing officer safety and public safety.
There are a number of drone videos that agencies have shown where a call comes in, a certain call comes in, a person with a gun and the drone gets on scene and it's able to put eyes on that subject with a gun In one instance in Dearborn, Michigan there's a video where the call comes into the subject of the gun. When you're a law enforcement officer, a subject with a gun is a very high priority call. It's one that tends to get the adrenaline flowing a little bit.
Your response is much quicker and it ramps up that call for service. We're going to send a lot more deputy sheriffs to a call of a subject with a gun. This call in Dearborn, Michigan that was captured on video was that exact call. The drone got on scene within just a couple of minutes and very quickly what it noticed was there's three people standing around they saw the man with the gun they saw him pull the trigger and it was actually a lighter and he was lighting cigarettes with what looked like a gun That drone pilot was able to provide that information to responding officers, allowed them to plan a little bit differently about how they were going to get on scene and handle that call. And so in that situation it was really used to de-escalate drastically what would be a typical law enforcement response and everybody was safe both public safety and officer safety was enhanced.
That kind of goes along the same lines of more efficient deployment, better incident resolution. When I look at increased transparency and accountability you see here all of the flights for a drone program if we were to go with it would be published to a portal that would have each flight logged on it so it would have the call for service what the call for service was about The date and time the drone was launched, and the duration of the flight that would be available to the public. After every single drone launch, so the transparency is very good we would propose recording the entire flight so from the moment the drone is launched from its dock it will be recording.
The camera would be launched or would be facing horizontal out to the call for service, and it would not start looking down until it got on scene for a call for service. So the privacy issues that some might have would be mitigated by how we actually use it, and that would be written into our policy as well. As I mentioned, there are a number of DFR programs throughout the country throughout the state and even here in Ventura County. I've spoken with the Oxnard Police Department about their program and they have found it to be incredibly successful.
Most of the data comes from the law enforcement agencies. And so with how new drone programs are, there's not a lot of real in-depth studies but the agencies that we've talked to have definitely reported that it has enhanced public safety within their communities in terms of deescalating calls for service providing real time situational awareness to deputies and officers who are responding to scenes Identifying criminals faster and being able to track and take those criminals into custody much quicker.
I'd like to show you a video, this is from San Francisco Police Department of how their drone was able to capture some suspects in a vehicle burglary. This is a crime that we see here in Camarillo. I won't say regularly but we see more than we'd like here and it just shows how this drone technology was used to provide information to stay far above and away from a situation so as not to tip off these suspects and to be able to take them safely into custody.
San Francisco Police Department uses flock cameras as well. All of this footage you're looking at was captured by their drone and information related to the responding units I'll end it there. I think you get the picture from that video. There are law enforcement agencies all around the country who are posting videos, just short one and two minute clips of success stories from their drone program. That was from San Francisco Police Department who has a very robust real-time investigation center paired with the use of technology, ALPRs like the flock cameras that we're using Along with the drone program, San Francisco PD is reporting some incredible numbers.
Their drone in Arctic have been since 2025 in the last year have been a part of over 500 arrests. Their vehicle burglary crime rate has dropped over 34% in the last year alone and they attribute much of that to the technology that they're using and the partnering with the real time crime centers. So some of the things that we need and that are key to building out an effective DFR program is locations, so we've had our partners who are providing us with potentially providing us with DFR services over at Axon. They've analyzed all of our calls for service in Camarillo for the last five years And their estimation is that we need four drones positioned in two different places here in Camarillo. One location that we would potentially use is right here at City Hall, the rooftop of City Hall and then we will find a partner on the east side of the city that will provide us with maximum coverage Each of these drones has about a 40-minute flight time, has about an eight mile range.
And by positioning two drones, two docks in one location it allows you for nearly continuous coverage on a call for service when a drone, when its battery reaches a certain point it automatically comes back the next drone is headed back out to the call for scene or call for service if it lasts that long The drones take about 20 minutes to recharge their batteries fully, so you can have nearly continuous coverage at a call for service.
And that enables rapid deployment to incidents anywhere throughout the city. I mentioned to you the prepared 911, the AI-powered call processing that really makes for an effective DFR program. So the big question is what does the investment look like here in Camarillo? Up front, we plan to partner with the City of Thousand Oaks on a DFR program. So my peer up there, Commander Paris is going to his city council to make a similar request. I don't want to get too far ahead of him. Their drone program would be a little bit bigger than ours because they have a much bigger geographic area that they have to cover in their city.
We have looked at the calls for service differential between the City of Thousand Oaks and the City of Camarillo They have about 60% of the calls for service. We have about 40% of the calls for service, so in areas where we can cost share between the two cities it would be at a 60-40 split. So for the City of Camarillo for four drones and their docking stations for the installation of all those docking stations, the training.
It's gonna be about $354,000 each year for those. That's a fixed cost throughout the term of this contract. We are proposing that we term this just right alongside our body-worn cameras, our tasers in the Fleet 3 live streaming or the Fleet 3 video and LPRs that we have in our patrol cars The prepared 911 portion of this, that's the AI powered call taking is about $42,000 each year.
Camarillo split of that at 40% would be 17,000 per year and the only non-fixed cost would be the cost of a DFR pilot. So as we start this program off, we would propose to provide 12 hours of pilot coverage every day. That's 84 hours of coverage every week. We would We would have that coverage during the busiest times of our calls for service. We've already done an analysis on that, so we know when that 12 hours of coverage would happen.
The total annual cost for 84 hours of coverage is $630,000 and Camarillo's split on that would be just over $251,000. When I say that's the only non-fixed cost, as you know costs for salaries and benefits go up every year. And we get those contract rates every year from the County of Ventura. And so sometimes those costs go up one or two percent. Sometimes they go up three or four percent. So we don't know right now what that cost is going to look like in 2 years or 3 years or 4 years but they're generally within that 1% to 3% range.
So, investing in a DFR program for the City of Camarillo with four drones positioned in two different locations throughout the city would be a total amount of $623,000. Just over $623,000 this first year. Again, the first two portions of that cost, the axon and prepared 9-1-1 costs remain fixed through the life of this contract and the only other adjustment would be made for the cost of the pilot.
And so with that, I'd love to entertain any questions you all might have about this program.
1:42 – 1:4821 turns
Thank you, Eric. Help me with the math will you please? Yes sir. So I'm seeing it's 350 about three and I'm going to round up the numbers about $354,000 per year for the total investment annual cost at $16,000 how does it get up to the total cost of $629,000? How do we get up to that
So if you take the cost for the drones and the training and all the equipment, that's $354,000. If you add to that 40% of the prepared 9-1-1 costs which is around $17,000, and if you add to that 40% of the cost of the DFR pilot which our 40% cost is $251,000 and change, you get $623,000 in change.
Okay, so our City of Camarillo's yearly cost is $251,000. Am I right on that?
For the cost of the pilot alone. Right,
okay. So do we lease the drones or do we own them?
So we're buying the drones. At the end of this contract, the drones would be ours if we decided we're done. We don't want to do this anymore. The problem is that the platform that we use to pilot the drones where we do all of our logging of our flights The evidence storage from any evidence that's gathered through those drones. That comes through axon so we'd have to find another way to do those things, but the equipment is ours. What I should also mention is that Technology is changing rapidly as you all know. This includes every two and a half years, a refresh of the equipment so that means in two and a half years we will get a brand new drone that's built into the cost of this and we'll get brand new all of our equipment will be replaced with the newest latest technology that they have At the way technology is changing right now, there will be some differences and there will be better products out there in two and a half years when we have our refresh.
And so that would get us three refreshes through the life of this contract.
Are there any maintenance costs? Those are included. Those are included?
Yes.
Are these left out in the elements, or are they covered
at night? So each one of these has a dock and I probably should have had a video of the dock. The dock's probably about three feet tall and it's probably, I don't know, three foot square. And it's got a cover that completely encloses the drone. And when it launches, the cover opens mechanically on its own and the drone launches. Once the drone comes back, it's covered and it's completely weatherproof. Although these drones are capable of flying in inclement weather as well they're capable of flying in wind and rain.
Is there a financing mechanism for this, or would it be a one-time expenditure of monies?
This will be an annual invoice. And so what we're proposing is that this runs through the Sheriff's Office like our current contract with Axon does. So the contract would actually be between the County of Ventura Sheriff's Office and Axon, and then we would invoice the city that yearly amount on a monthly basis. Or we can invoice it at one time depending upon what the City Manager would like to see with
And refresh my member the total out-of-pocket expense for the City of Camarillo if we
implement this program. $623,492 first year and the increase would be the increase in contracting for the cost of the pilot.
And what's the downside if we don't do this?
The downside is that we lose out on an opportunity to enhance public safety. The drones are expanding at a high rate, drone as first responders programs are expanding throughout the country. Right now there's 1,700 law enforcement agencies who use UAS. 15 years ago there were very few and what we found is that the use of the UAS provided on a limited number of calls an ability to provide situational awareness and real-time information to our deputies on the street. It made them safer and it made people who we were dealing with much safer in that instance of that person with a gun that I told you about from Dearborn Michigan. We have those kind of calls for service here in Camarillo And they can have a very different ending if you don't have that situational awareness.
We've seen it all throughout the country, so what happens if we don't do it? We keep operating the way we're operating right now. We have some benefits from our UAS system and program no doubt about it this would provide us with a higher volume of those public safety enhancements
And just two more questions, Mr. Mayor if you would. Will this be implemented citywide or will they mostly be focusing on the areas of the city where we would have a potential impact on this?
I'm glad you asked that question. So these are citywide, so they'll provide coverage to the entire city and only to the city. We are looking for opportunities to find partners in areas that have more crime who might be able to help us offset some of these costs. We've reached out but we haven't had a lot of luck yet but we're gonna be persistent and keep trying to see if we can find a way to offset those costs. In other words, find a community partner who might Help us pay for the cost of the drone if they are a high demander of public safety calls for service in the city.
My second to the last question, would it be advantageous to reach out to another contract City perhaps more park and see if they would be interested in partnering in this
at this point? Only thousand Oaks in Camarillo are interested in potentially doing it.
Okay. My last question is more for staff. Is there money in the budget for this?
1:48 – 1:5715 turns
Yes included in the budget that we presented is the first year.
So the answer is
yes,
yes, thank you
anybody
else. Mister Tremblay Eric thanks for the presentation so if I'm doing the math I want to think about this from a macro standpoint So the city spends, we're at about $22.7 or $23 million per year for public safety for the Sheriff's Department. This would represent 629,000 total annual costs somewhere around 2 1⁄2 to 3% of that overall cost for this program itself.
Do you know how that percentage relates to other municipalities and jurisdictions which have utilized, I'm trying to figure out where I'm going with this is figuring out the impact of AI and drone technology and ALPRs et cetera on our, on the total public safety cost. And what those percentages might look like?
I can't tell you for sure what the percentages are in other cities. Every drone program looks different at each city depending upon how big it is, what their geographic area is, how many calls for service they respond to each year. Those are all case dependent right? For each city. What I can tell you is the use of LPRs. The use of all of the LPRs that we have in this city costs far less, far less than the cost of adding one deputy sheriff.
This drone program here, The cost of the pilots alone, the staffing alone is more than what our costs are going to be for the whole program. Personnel as you know are a huge part of any budget so adding a deputy sheriff Although I'd love to have many more deputy sheriffs here, adding a deputy sheriff is very costly. And using technology to offset those costs is the future of policing.
Well and that's so you segued right into my next question where I was leading to with this is there an ability to quantify from an efficiency standpoint what our cost savings may be instead of taking or putting in a new deputy position or a cover car position or a cover sergeant And taking this technology and comparing it. Has anybody been able to have any public safety organizations been able to quantify what the savings might be from an efficiency standpoint? And just because again, I like to ask compound questions here's question two on that.
What metrics are being utilized to I see the San Francisco example, it's great. It's it's not a one-off insurance and but what metrics are being used is that is it is the metric decrease in aside from an increase in safety for officers is that a decrease in response time In other words, how do we evaluate the success of this program? That's question two. Sorry to do both at once.
I'll take your first question first and hope I still remember it. How are they measuring the effectiveness? The drone as first responder programs are pretty new. The Pioneer in Drone As First Responders is Chula Vista Police Department. They've had their DFR program for about five years. They're looking at clearances. Some agencies are using drones to clear calls before deputy sheriffs even get on scene, right? And so some cities are seeing that they can clear about 20% of the calls for service that drones respond to they clear about 20% before the deputy sheriff gets on scene. So they get to cancel those deputy sheriffs and have or officers and have them available for other calls, right? For more proactive policing. So what they're finding is they are clearing calls for service that otherwise at a 20% to 30% rate that otherwise a deputy sheriff would have gone to.
Right so it frees up their deputy sheriffs. As an agency right now in talking about what our DFR program looks like, we're not comfortable from the start clearing calls for service without putting eyes on scene. There might be some calls for service that we could see doing it with a suspicious vehicle parked in an area at two o'clock in the morning out behind the outlets that we think might be casing the place to do a burglary.
We would fly a drone out for that And if the drone searched the whole area and there was no car out there, could we potentially clear that call without sending a deputy sheriff? Yes, we could. To start our program though, we're really not comfortable doing that. One of the things we pride ourselves on is when you call for a deputy sheriff in Ventura County, you're going to get a deputy sheriff face-to-face.
May this program grow to be that way at some point? Yes it might. So The data is still very new. There's not a ton of it out there, but that is one of the things many agencies are using for which is to clear calls for service before sending an officer to the call for service.
Okay and then with respect to with respect to the percentage of what this would be relative to our budget you know that we spend on police services any thoughts as to I guess where I'm going with this, Eric, is trying to figure out from the component of technology for police services and what that...I don't know if there's a national standard or standard. But what that is reflective of in terms of the overall cost for police services?
There is not a national standard but I can tell you that's one of the things we are wrestling with in law enforcement right now. How we figure technology and emergency emerging technology into budgets. Because technology is going to become a bigger and bigger part of what we do in law enforcement as it gets more and more expensive for salaries, we want to find ways.
We want to find ways to be able to put eyes out there without necessarily putting deputy sheriffs out there, because we recognize that it costs a lot. And so I mean, I can't even predict five years down the road what other technology is going to be out there. I wouldn't have predicted five years ago that we were going to be flying. We're going to be asking you to fly to let us fly drones to calls for service. That's a hard question to ask and I can't quantify what that percentage is.
It's always an easy question for me to ask, but whether or not the answer is hard I'm teasing you. One other question let's take a hypothetical. You've got a drone pilot who i guess is in the dispatch center or somewhere central And I know that those are not fixed costs. It represents 40% of that circle that I'm looking at. What happens when the drone, describe the process that occurs? The drone pilot has the drone over the residence or commercial structure or whatever, sees what's going on. That's relayed through dispatch to a field deputy. But what happens if you've got two incidents going simultaneously, or God forbid three? What do you do relative to that drone pilot and how does that communication protocol work?
So, to start with we're proposing one drone pilot down there for 12 hours every day. There is what's called a multi-drone waiver, which we've obtained already a number of waivers. We've obtained the BVLOS waiver, which is beyond vision, beyond line of sight. So previously our UAS, we have to have eyes out there. We have a pilot in the field and we have an observer. They have to be there on scene. We've got the waiver now that allows us to fly it remotely.
We've gotten a waiver. There's a zero grid all around the airport that says you can't fly anything at an elevation higher than zero feet all around the airport. We've already worked with the FAA in the airport, we have a waiver on that that will allow us to fly up to Ventura Boulevard, all of the outlets and even behind the outlets. We still have some zero grid area around the airports.
The future of a DFR program for us We'll most likely look different there. We will most likely have our other contract cities at some point when they start seeing the benefit of this, if you all approve of the outlay and I think we will have some of our other contract cities who see the benefit and get on board. And when that happens, some of those other costs likely will go down. The cost of a pilot will go down but what we will have to do is we'll have to prioritize calls for service
Well, you're confident though let's say a drone pilot gets or let's say there's two or three calls happening concurrently where there's a drone pilot responding. You're confident that that drone pilot who probably would be someone relatively senior I'm sorry, I didn't make my question very clear. Let's say you've got two separate incidents going
on in Camarillo one at the outlets and one on the far west side of town
1:58 – 2:0417 turns
to really serious incidents. How is that going to work?
Those calls will be prioritized, so the drone pilot stand absolutely from the drone pilot. So the drone pilot sits right next to our watch commander who's a captain who oversees all patrol operations 24-7. They're prioritizing an in order of life safety right any life safety incident is going to be at the top of the pecking order for a DFR response If you have a, heaven forbid, a shooting on the east end of the city and we have a theft in progress at the outlets.
Right?
We're not going to be going to the theft in progress at the outlets, at least as it starts
because your prayer
that will prioritize life safety.
Okay.
Yes.
Okay, right. Council member Santangelo
Thank you for the presentation. I know you talked about the drone not looking down as it responds, but has there been any pushback from the public in any of these other communities with lack of privacy or privacy concerns?
Yes, that's a big concern everywhere. And that's why in our policy the way we're developing it is that it's kind of a catch-22. Some people say we don't want you recording until you get on scene. Well if we don't record until we get on scene how can we ever prove to somebody that we didn't record their backyard? Right? That we didn't record them in an area where we don' have a right to view. So in our policy we are writing that we are recording, that the camera is going to be facing the horizon until it gets on scene and can start looking down If anybody ever questions it, we have the ability to review, audit and be able to guarantee that yes.
It functioned as we planned and it was recording on the horizon until it got on scene. The other thing that we talk about with privacy too is the publishing of the flights, the flight log right? So it shows a map of the area that the drone flew so you'll know if you were in that area It's just another, you know, another transparency thing for us where we want the people to know we're not out.
We're not out flying random surveillances that's going to be written into our policy it's already we're putting the finishing touches on it right now but it prevents a number of things right? We're not going to be flying drones and viewing First Amendment protected activity unless there is a public safety issue unless we get a report of a fight or somebody with a gun or something like that Those things will all be written into our policy and all published so the public will have the right to look at our policy and view it, and call us with feedback if they have it. That has been something that's been brought up at other agencies and we are trying to learn from what other agencies have done and what the questions that have been asked of them by the public as we develop our program.
Thank you.
You're welcome
One quick comment before we get to the end of our budget study session this reminds me of something I went through. I'm here to talk about the helicopter program in the county of Ventura and the biggest selling point that I presented everybody it was quick response times and a multiplier force. And you capture a suspect in 20 minutes versus spending 5 or 6 or 7 hours with 20 personnel out there trying to search a remote area. And that's the way I look at this it's a force multiplier and I would assume you would not come back to us in the next 5 or 10 years and ask for additional officers because you have these drones.
I hope that won't be necessary,
I'm hoping it won't anything else Pam We have 32 seconds left.
Thank you at the May 13 special meeting at the City Council strategic plan goals and objectives Barton Stern board member per the Pleasant Valley Historical District made a request for the city council to consider funding to narrow the gap for construction of infrastructure inside improvements that 720 lost postage road This is a city property leased by the Historical Society for their operations, which serves as a museum providing Camarillo residents and community members and regional historical information on Camarillo and regional historical information as well as exhibits.
It's also a place where community events can be held. The request is consistent with goal number two of community enrichment, specifically supporting two objectives by promoting arts culture and community identity and strengthening support for nonprofits and community services. Now this request is a funding request for current budget it's in the amount of $250,000 so unlike what you've heard already throughout this workshop The funds have been identified in this current budget. So the city staff and the City Attorney's Office is evaluating their request for consistency with state law, so we wanted to update the Council on this item and just to also inform you that overall the Pleasant Valley Historical Society is estimating the cost project to be $2.1 million They have remaining construction total cost of $727,000.
And again the $250,000 closes the gap on the funding necessary to complete the project but they're almost there. Now Mr. Stern isn't here to answer any questions but I can answer questions that you may have. Again their request is for the current budget and if the Council agrees to move forward then we will be coming in as Thank you very much. So this was a receive and file report and it will be presented at the next council meeting for adoption of
2:04 – 3:0316 turns
We do, we have one speaker. The name is Doug Blois.
Come up Mr. Blois.
Thank you. Welcome. Yes well I had four questions. I was looking at the agenda for this special meeting and it And it looked like it wasn't, it showed the litigation thing. It didn't say anything about the budget review but I'm looking at this and wondering if there's any budgeting costs for the litigation?
The litigation is part of our closed session.
No what I'm saying is the budget including any costs potential costs for this litigation?
It has to. How much? Don't know yet. We don't know how long the litigation is going to go on, but this specific item Mr. Boyce is about the budget study session
and that's what my question is pertaining to.
Well the closed session is where we deal with the litigation and personnel matters and things like
that. Yes I understand that Mayor Dennison I just wondered if there's any dollars in the budget for the potential costs. My second question or comment is, I was looking at the initial presentation by Pam. We had a revenue of 150.3 million. And costs of one 61.6 million seems like there's a 111 million dollar deficit there.
Point of order
so just indicate that please make your comments for
Question. Oh, the community service grants. I understood, I heard in the discussion that the food share grant was a separate special grant for, I don't know, was it 70,000? Just want to make a comment on that. I distribute food at our church, local church here in Camarillo. As of the 1st of June, FoodShare cut our deliveries to zero We do distribute food to people that need it in the community and I just wondered why that why they're doing that when we're giving them money.
The bike lanes, 2.6 million, it's like 25% of the budget for transportation and I understand bike lanes are good things but maybe you could carve out a little bit of this money to put in a racetrack for e-bikes over by the airport that would be a safe alternative for all of us thank you Thank You Mr. Boyce
And with that, we will receive and file. And we will adjourn this special meeting and we will open the regular meeting of the Camarillo City Council in the Camarillo Sanitary District for June 10th 2026 roll call Madam Clerk.
Roll call, called by City Clerk
Show transcript
and with that will the City Attorney read the items on closed session?
Yes, thank you mayor and council. We have four items on closed session public employee performance evaluation a conference with labor negotiators existing litigation which is the OPV coalition litigation and conference with real property negotiator related to the property at 2222 Ventura Boulevard and if there's any reportable action I will make that report.
Thank you Madam City Attorney with that we will now recess to close session I believe I'm about one minute late, but I'd like to call the regular meeting of Camarillo City Council and CSD to order. Let the record reflect that all council members are present and I am going to ask Mr. Kildee to lead us in the flag salute.
3:03 – 3:106 turns
Place your right hand over your heart ready begin.
Thank you, Mister Kildee. Are there any changes to the agenda?
No changes.
Seeing and hearing none we will move on We have one presentation this evening, proclaiming Pride Month for the City of Camarillo. And so I would like to invite any representatives to meet me up under the city seal on the stage. Good evening. Welcome. And that's what makes me really proud to be in Camarillo. We respect everybody's rights to live their lives as they choose to live them, whether we agree or disagree. That is our society. That is our city and that's what makes Camarillo a great place and it takes all of us every single one of us tonight were joined by representatives of LAWIC and The foundation and the Camarillo Pride which hosted the annual Camarillo Pride Festival last Saturday, I believe here in Constitution Park.
We welcome you as we present your proclamation declaring June as pride month in the city and now I'm going to present you the proclamation and ask you to introduce yourself and make a few comments. Absolutely,
thank you Mayor Dennison. You're welcome. I appreciate you. My name is Michelle Burns. I'm the director of the LAWIC Foundation. LAWIC stands for Love Always Wins in Camarillo. We were founded just over a year ago in February of 2025 as a non-profit organization solely focused on ensuring that all members of the LGBTQ plus community within Camarillo understood that they are included, that they are welcomed, that they are seen and that they are safe.
Currently in our world we can't say that everywhere but we can say it here in Camarillo and we are very fortunate to have leadership over and over Mayor Tennyson, Vice Mayor Martinez-Bravo, Council Member Santangelo, Council Member Kildee and Council Member Tremblay who have all worked towards ensuring that people know they have a safe space here in Camarillo.
If you're not familiar with the gay community, one way that you used to be able to ask if you were a member of the community without being obvious was to ask somebody if they were family. That word means a great deal to me as the director of the organization and one of the co-founders of Camarillo Pride This is our fifth year, and each year our family grows.
Each year people feel safer to celebrate their families within Camarillo. And each year we gather with an understanding that community and family which are touchstones Eston of Camarillo belong to everyone. I started this as a mom wanting to protect my children And this family, which accepted me long before I had those children now embraces my family and we come together to support one another to keep one another safe.
Pride is not about changing people who wish to live one way into people who want to live another way. Pride is simply about the opportunity to not hide to not live in shame, but to be accepted and welcomed and loved for exactly what Mayor Tennyson said. People have their own ideas and their own definitions of family, and all should be honored as long as no one is hurting anybody else.
If you came to our event on Saturday, I'm gonna say it out loud, I think we cracked between 1500 and maybe 1700 people So in our fifth year, we have said to this city, we welcome you and members of the city have responded in kind. We've created community that is lasting. We've raised funds and in the next year We will be putting together a PFLAG organization, Parents of Lesbian and Gay Children through the sponsorship of the New Beginnings Center.
We will be extending our event to an event in October, and we will be doing the very best that we can not only to have Camarillo Pride 2027 but to also make more safe spaces in Camarillo throughout the year because pride is all year long. So thank you, thank you, thank you again I'm so happy to be able to say again, to all of you. And for those of you who have the count, the only Camarillo Council member that we need to see at our event next year is you sir.
Everyone else has made an appearance. Thank you so much to Mr. Tremblay and to Dr. Martinez Bravo for coming again. And thank you very much for giving us the time.
Next year, make sure it's on my calendar before I have something else on the calendar. Welcome to our family and to our community and thank you for your words. And now I'm going to turn it over to fellow council members to make any comments
3:10 – 3:1513 turns
Michelle, thank you so much for being here and thank you for all that you have done. I have watched you over the years. I've seen you take an idea and turn it into action and you should be really proud of all your efforts. Thank you for what you brought to Camarillo.
There's some more that I have in my council communications, but for now I will just say I'm just so so proud of you, of Lindero, of every single person who put their time and efforts into making this happen and in truly creating a safe community for the LGBTQ plus community in Camarillo. Thank you for that.
Mr. Cold.
That's what's really important. And our council, the current council and the past previous councils have worked very hard to make sure that everybody is welcome in our city and everybody has a place so the event's growing and that's a really good thing I can remember I think you had it the first one I think was at the Bob Cold Park I think it was like that was the first one that I attended Yeah, and then it's moved over to here. But the events growing in and I congratulate you and all your helpers. I know it takes a lot of effort to put it on.
Mister Trimbley.
The council members will normally see me saying ditto but I actually have 3 things I want to say first of all Michelle thank you for your leadership number 2 I want to say wingman support person up on But I enjoyed the festival very much and thirdly most importantly. Michelle it relates to what you made it would you said in your remarks not as that some of the keystones of the city are community and family and those terms should resonate with all they do and they
Thank you very much, Michelle. Congratulations. Madam Clerk, are there any speakers on items not on the agenda?
Yes ma'am, we received three requests to speak. Each speaker will have three minutes once your time has expired the microphone will be muted and
we will move on to the next speaker. General public comment will be heard for an initial 20 minute period and if needed we'll continue after all agenda items. The first speaker is Doug Blois please come to the podium. The speaker after that would be Jacob Anglin
Welcome Mr. Boyce
Hello again First I want to preference my comments with all due respect to the gay and lesbian people we have in our audience here tonight And I say this with all Love and respect, I have a brother who's gay? And I love him might like my other two brothers, and I would defend him I did defend him when I was in seventh grade and he was in I remember when I was in fourth grade, the neighborhood bully in our little street where we were growing up had him down on the ground and kneed him in the jaw right as he's getting up. I was standing right there and my reaction... The guy was two years older than me and about a foot taller but I threw him down on the ground. I pinned him down and I said don't you ever do that again or think about doing that so But I just got to wonder, this is the 250th year of our country.
We have survived as a constitutional republic much longer than anybody else in the world. We are beacon of light for the world. I don't think that the city, to my knowledge has even mentioned anything about this celebration of our 250 year anniversary. So I'm wondering why are we giving all this publicity to one small percent of our community when we should be celebrating for the whole year as proud Americans? Thank you.
Thank you, Mister Boyce next.
Jacob England followed by Spencer Ritchie
welcome Jacob.
3:15 – 3:2614 turns
Mayor City Council city again in tenderness I share this pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before fall everyone who is arrogant in heart is detestable to the Lord Be assured they'll not go unpunished by God, but by the mercy, loving kindness and truth of Jesus. Sin in its wickedness is cleansed and atoned for, and by the fear of the Lord one turns away from evil.
There's a way that seems right to a man and appears straight before him, but in its end is the way of death. The highway of the upright turns away and departs from evil, and whoever guards their life and way preserves their life. Whoever gives thought to this word of truth will discover good and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord our God. So why are we celebrating any form of pride?
Again, I share these truths in love today and I bless this city its leaders and its people to turn from any level of pride to seek humility in what is right and just that we would walk in the ways that are upright as we welcome the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom I plead for the mercy and loving kindness and truth of Jesus to shield this people in this city from destruction. I bless this city and its people to know the cleansing and healing power of Jesus, and the love of Jesus, to not only be forgiven but to discover what is good and walk in God's truth in all of our decisions as a city and as a people so we would truly experience the fullness of life in Jesus' name.
This would be good for all people. When we learn to trust in God as our Lord and refuge, not just individually but a refuge for this city. So may Camarillo truly become this type of refuge and dwelling place.
Thank
you.
Spencer Ritchie.
Welcome, Spencer.
Hi. Hold on looking. Sorry. Okay, hi. Hi
I'm Spencer. Spencer Ritchie. I live here in Camarillo. Hi good evening. Here sorry I've had a rough day
Take your time Spencer, you're fine.
Okay so as of this week so far ISIS kidnapped 491 people from Camarillo, 1009 people from Ventura County and 2,116 people from I'm going to talk a little bit about. The whole 8, 0, 5, area code which is in So those are the updated figures according to 805 and DocuFund, who I volunteer with. And then on to the pride thing. First off, well first off to the first speaker, the 250th anniversary isn't until next month Yeah, and then second of all thank you so incredibly much for still declaring June to be Pride Month here in Camarillo. Like as an LGBTQIA Cameroonian, all my identities right here I cannot appreciate it like enough, especially in the face of you know it no longer being the end thing to stand with lgbtqia people. And you know either on the federal level or you know in more conservative circles of which I know at least 3 of you are in going off of what you said and you've said in City Council meetings.
But so thank you And also it's huge because even five short years ago, this was beyond my wildest dreams living in a city like this, like Camarillo. But again, Long story short, ICE has said that it could go after trans people for quote-unquote misrepresenting their identity. So that definitely puts all your lack of action against ICE in a worse light. Thank you, happy
pride.
Thank you. Madam Clerk?
There are no more speakers.
We will move on in the agenda then. We'll move on to Council staff and intergovernmental reports. We have no intergovernmental reports, any reports from staff Mr. City Manager? He's going to shake his head no. And we will go to council member... No I'm gonna go to Vice Mayor Martinez Bravo first
Thank you, Mayor. June 2nd I attended the Camarillo High School graduation. I was able to serve as one of the individuals who was helping to pass out the diploma so it's very very rewarding and I was able to do that again on June 3rd at the Rio Mesa high school graduation. So congratulations to all grads! Very very proud of every single one of them June 4th, I attended the Meadowlark Service League annual grant distribution breakfast. And then June 6th, also attended the Camarillo Pride event along with Councilmember Cold and with Councilmember Tremblay.
And I do have something to say about Pride Month. So, about two weeks ago, I went out in a partnership event with the City of Oxnard Fire Department, with Ventura County Fire Department, United Farm Workers, Friends of Fieldworkers and also with the American Red Cross. And what we did is we got together through a grant, we were able to install smoke alarms.
At different homes in the unincorporated part of into our County. And so as we gathered our teams and we went out to different homes and just so you know the rates of home fires in the city of Oxnard are 5 times greater than that of the state of California, so this was our initiative to attend to that my daughter who is 16 years old. She joined me as a volunteer on those efforts and at the end Oh my gosh mom, you know what?
It was such a simple thing and it made such a big impact. And I was so proud because I'm like oh my gosh she totally got it! She totally got that moment and she talked about how she wanted for the next time to bring in her friends from Camarillo High School and participate in that. And in the same way what we're doing here today, it's a small act but it has such a big impact And so I do want to talk a little bit about that impact.
The LGBTQ plus community individuals continue to experience disproportionate rates of mental health challenges, discrimination, bullying and housing instability. National surveys show that nearly 40% of the LGBTQ plus youth seriously considered suicide in the past year. LGBTQ plus youth who reported high levels of community acceptance have significantly lower rates of suicide attempts.
Many LGBTQ plus students report experiencing bullying or harassment at schools because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and many LGBTQ plus young people also report difficulties accessing affirming mental health services and supportive environments. And so what we do know from research is that it consistently demonstrates that acceptance and inclusion are protective factors for LGBTQ plus youth and LGBTQ plus young people who feel supported by their communities report lower rates of depression, anxiety and suicide attempts.
Conversely, experiences of rejection, bullying and invisibility contribute to poor mental health outcomes and increased risk of self-harm. So given the documented benefits of community acceptance on the LGBTQ plus youth and their well-being and mental health, a Pride Month proclamation is a meaningful way for the City of Camarillo to affirm that all residents are welcome, valued and deserving of dignity and respect.
Through our recognition, we play an important role in fostering a culture of belonging for our Camarillo residents. And more symbolic than a gesture, it communicates that LGBTQ plus residents are valued members of the community and that diversity is welcomed and respected. For our LGBTQ plus youth, especially seeing elected officials such as all of us here today publicly affirm that their identities can send a powerful message of safety acceptance and hope.
So we hope that this small act on behalf of the city of Camarillo continues to provide a tremendous impact in the well-being of every single person here in Camarillo. Thank you.
3:27 – 3:3321 turns
Thanks, Mr. Mayor in terms of meetings attended June 3 the Policy Committee on June 5 of Ventura County Transportation Commission and then a visit to the Museum of Ventura County reception later that evening on June 6 the Pride Festival on June 7 had the chance for the first time to volunteer at Casa Pacifica's Angels Wine Food and Brew Festival and that was a lot of fun.
It was very well attended. June 8th, a call with the auditors for Metrolink and on June 9th yesterday, a meeting involving Healthy Camarillo which is the community health initiative that the city is putting together and getting off the ground with Pleasant Valley Recreation Park District and Camarillo Health Care District and more to come on that. And that's it!
Thank you, sir. Mr. Cold?
Thank you. Meetings attended June 2nd, the BRSD Personal and Finance Committee. June 4th, the BRSD regular board meeting I attended that. June 6 last Saturday, I attended the Pride Festival event. It was a little late but it had to work but I was able to make it and ditto to what our vice mayor said about that as well and that's all I have.
Thank you, Mr. Kildee. I'm just going to point out that I believe that my advice... Oh, I'm sorry, Council Member Sant... I thought I started with you. Hi! Go ahead, Council Member Santangelo.
That's all right. Okay on June 3rd, I attended the Policy Committee with Council Member Tremblay and June 4th the CPA Board of Directors. I missed Pride this year due to my day job and I'm sorry I missed it Thank you. But I just wanted to, hearing what Dr. Martínez-Bravo just spoke about, I have a master's in nursing and I did my capstone project on the health disparities of LGBTQ population So those things that she was speaking about are very real and I know them from the research that I did.
Also in my work, I think I've mentioned this before, I am a psychiatric nurse and so I take care of people that are suffering every day from bullying, from lack of inclusion, suicidality, depression and anxiety. So it is very real. I take my work very seriously, so thank you for what you're doing and for creating that safe spaces and the spaces of inclusion. Pride is more than just celebration. It's connection, it's inclusivity, and it's resources. Thank you.
Council Member Santangelo, I am so sorry for almost passing by. All right thank you. What Vice Mayor Martinez Bravo didn't point out and if I'm inaccurate I'm sure she'll correct me one of the graduates of Cam High was related to her who was it?
Yes my son graduated actually
oh he did
yes could
that be why you were there
That was a reason. Yeah,
okay well congratulations on getting your first born out of high school.
Thank you very much and he's off to UC Irvine.
There you go, your alma mater.
Exactly.
I want to point out on May 28th and I'm sad that she's so shy and didn't want public attention but The end of May, Carrie wheel a 25 year employee of the city of Camarillo in the city clerk's office. Retired quietly and she didn't want attention. It probably backfired on her because on the 28th of may I showed up at City Hall and Mister killed he was with me And that's the city of Camarillo tile and a plaque.
I was shocked she didn't run out because it was packed with staff from City Hall. She was such a hard worker, so quiet, so unassuming, so thorough in her job and I'm sure that along with my fellow council members and city staff not that Sylvia isn't going to do an excellent job but Carrie was I want to wish her tremendous luck and happiness. And nothing but good fortune going forward so On June 4th, I attended the Regional Defense Partnership General Membership meeting.
I also attended the Museum of Ventura County new exhibit last Friday evening was it? Thursday evening, the Museum of Ventura County is a phenomenal place. Please visit it. They now have a footprint in Camarillo. They have office space off of Flynn Road that's going to be their research and archive center. Phenomenal, phenomenal museum. depicting the history of Ventura County, the indigenous Chumash people that first settled this area and it's well worth your time to go down to Ventura and visit it.
And with that I think I will end my comments. And congratulations Vice Mayor on your son's graduation.
Thank you.
And selection to UCI.
Thank you
All right, consent calendar. Madam Clerk, are there any public comments on consent?
There are no public comments.
Hearing that, any questions from Council? We have a motion and we have a second. Call the roll, Madam Clerk.
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0 motion and we have a second. Call the roll,
Show transcript
3:33 – 3:3810 turns
That passes unanimously
Thank you. Now
we will move on to item R, one that I'm really interested in and I'm sure the rest of Council is. The Arneill Road Housing Project CUP 400 award construction contract and that'll be Mr. James Fowler our housing manager.
Good evening. Thank you for the introduction. Tonight, as you said, I'll be discussing the Arneill Road housing project and specifically the award of the construction contract to a general contractor. So getting a little background, so after a competitive bidding process initiated in April, the city received five bids for construction. The lowest bidder SBS Corporation submitted a bid totaling approximately $5.94 million.
Subsequently, staff received a bid protest from Riviera Construction Group protesting SBS Corporation's bid. Thereafter, SBS Corporation provided a rebuttal to Riviera's protest and then on May 27th staff responded with a letter responding to Riviera's protest. For the reasons articulated in the response to Riviera and attached to the agenda report We have a motion to approve the construction contract. Staff recommend the rejection of Riviera's bid protest.
Now moving directly to the budget so approximately 5.6 9 million dollars in your F grant funding are available to fund that construction contract. An additional approximately 200 and 4, And then with another approximately 891,000 is requested to cover a 15% construction contingency. This total is to approximately 1.1 4 million requested from the continuum of care reserve fund of what of which there is currently 3.8 million dollars available.
The total for the construction contract award inclusive
The next item on the agenda is So very short presentation, but the recommended actions are articulated on the slide and there's six recommended actions in total. Too much for the slide, but the remaining three actions relate to the execution of the construction contract authorization of the 15% contingency and appropriation of 1.14 million from the continuum of care general fund reserve commitment.
And they're laid out in the agenda report. That concludes my presentation.
Thank you. This is a time if Council has questions, any questions? Mr. Tremblay had his finger up first, Mr. Kildee.
Thanks, Mr. Mayor. James, thanks for the presentation. Can you go back one slide? So we're going to commit out of the existing $3.8 million in continuum of care funds about $1.14 million or so. The question is though from an ongoing O&M standpoint because we will have expenses associated on a go-forward basis with these units Are we talking about taking additional funds from the reserve?
From the continuum of care reserve looking forward, or is it going to be We're going to be looking at. Subsumption are they going to be other general fund uncommitted expenditures numbers look forward and tell me what how we're going to be handling that from a fiscal standpoint
sure so for the kind of start of operations, we do have your F grant funds available Given that we have some time we're going to be working to identify additional grant funding to fund operations. There after if grant funding couldn't
Thank you. Thank you, Mister
Thank you. Thank you for the microphone. Are there any other funding mechanisms that we expect in the timeline for this are pretty much what's been.
3:38 – 3:4619 turns
As far as concrete funding, this is where we're at. Staff are looking at additional funding at the state level from grants that are coming out to hopefully continue to not require additional general fund expenditure as it relates to operations going into the future but as I said for the first four months or so there's grant
Thank you. Thank
you anything else from Council. Madam clerk any public comments on this item,
no comments.
No comments council discussion. Hearing none I'm happy
to move recommendations one through 6
we
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0 move recommendations one through 6 we
Show transcript
That passes unanimously
Thank you, now
we will move on to item S and our esteemable Assistant city manager Carmen Nichols will do the review progress on FY 2526 strategic plan, City Council goals and objectives. Take
it away. Thank you. Thank you Mayor and members of the City Council. This item was continued from the May 13th workshop that afternoon. You received an update on the fiscal year 2025-2026 progress through quarter 3. And we also began to discuss fiscal year 2026-27 strategic goals and objectives. I wanted to just kind of close the loop on a request that was made at the May 13th session. If you recall Barton Stern, Pleasant Valley Historical Society board member presented a request for City Council to consider city funding to narrow the gap for the construction of infrastructure and site improvements at 720 Los Post Road This is a city property leased by the Historical Society for their operations, which serves as a museum providing Camarillo and regional historical information and exhibits.
It also serves as a place where small community events can be held. The request is consistent with goal number 2. Community enrichment specifically supporting to objectives by promoting arts culture and community identity and strength strengthening support for nonprofits The overall project of the Pleasant Valley Historical Society is estimated to cost $2.1 million.
Pleasant Valley Historical Society funds have so far raised $1.4 million with a total 727,000 remaining in costs for costs of construction. You requested Council at the workshops at The city has identified funds in the current year and the amount of $250,000. And staff and the city city attorney's office are evaluating the request for consistency with state laws so we're looking into it again for this current fiscal Okay so taking off where we last left off, we left off with goal number four.
This goal Mayor and City Council is on land use. Land use and community development focuses on thoughtful growth by improving transportation supporting redevelopment in advancing housing opportunities This school ensures development aligns with Camarillo's vision while enhancing livability, economic vitality and mobility through the city. Now as part of the packet you received a draft changes in red line for your evaluation so for this goal number 4 we replace an existing objective with a more updated modernized version now that the old town strategic plan was adopted and some additional action strategies were updated added or completed Mayor turn it to you for any questions on goal number 4.
Questions from Council continue Carmen.
Thank you. Goal number five, technology and city facilities. It focuses on modernizing systems and infrastructure to support efficient operations in public access. This includes strengthening cybersecurity, improving digital services, and ensuring city facilities are reliable, sustainable, and ready to support emergency operations. Council. Thank you. Goal number six, Natural Resource Infrastructure Management ensures reliable cost-effective water and wastewater services. The goal emphasizes conservation infrastructure planning and regulatory compliance to protect public health while reducing reliance on imported water.
Similarly under this goal, Objective 5 was added to reinforce the expectation that environmental sustainability should be consistent for every project under this section. Mayor.
Questions? Comments? Continue Carmen.
Thank you. Under goal number 7 sustainability environmental stewardship focuses on reducing environmental impacts while building long-term resilience this includes clean energy initiatives water conservation sustainable infrastructure and community education to support healthy a healthy future. Some objectives were added for duplication since they already exist under a different goal like natural resource infrastructure management and technology in city facilities Mary turn it over to you.
Questions from Council. Continue, Carmen.
Thank you. Under goal number 8, economic development focuses on strengthening Camarillo's economy by supporting existing businesses, attracting new industries and promoting tourism. These efforts help expand revenue, create jobs and support long-term economic vitality. A couple of major areas impacting economic development. First, we are currently in recruitment for a principal development concierge in a highly collaborative environment this position will provide exceptional customer services to businesses and residents This will be achieved through assisting applicants and projects through the development process by serving as a liaison and coordinating with internal departments, as well as external stakeholders and review authorities. The added objective sets this expectation.
Additionally, with economic development strategic plan in full implementation it is expected in the next year that the plan will be updated and that process improvements will continue.
Questions. One quick go ahead Mister killed the
quickly Carmen support and implement a business friendly process improvement customer service enhancements in streamline permitting and business tax administration, I'm in the process of redoing mine is all online now so
3:46 – 3:5129 turns
Yes, our application process is done online. And for those that may need assistance with that we have city staff that are here to help them. But yes, we're putting everything through online. We build workflows that help make that process more efficient and effective.
Thank you.
Quick question the development concierge I think that's what the title you gave was?
Yes.
Will that work under the director of planning and community development
Yes, under Mr. Bradley Calvert, Community Development Director, yes.
And do we have a timeline on the expectation of onboarding someone?
I'll turn that over to Mr. Calvert.
Good evening Mayor and Councilmembers.
We plan to onboard probably in the second week of July it looks like. We plan on making an offer at the end of this week.
Sounds great thank you. Continue.
Thank you under 2 weeks goal number 9 community it focuses on strengthening engagement through open communication improved outreach and better customer service a key emphasis is engaging youth and ensuring residents feel informed connected and heard. A revision eliminates a redundant objective, otherwise no revisions to the goal or objective is recommended. We will continue to improve our communication and engagement through various means and continue to expand on youth education and participation. Mayor.
Questions? Continue.
Thank you. And finally, goal number 10 intergovernmental relations focuses and emphasizes collaboration and advocacy to protect and advocate I'm sorry to advance Camarillo's interests strong partnerships with regional state and federal agencies help deliver services and address shared challenges At the January 28th meeting vice mayor Martinez Bravo requested an objective related to it in the governmental focus.
And partnership with PV RPD Oxnard Union High School district and Pleasant Valley school district to support youth and family well-being new objective number 8 will support staff time on exploring the feasibility of that partnership mayor.
Questions continue.
Okay, I apologize. I said the last one was the last goal but Goal 11 is the last goal.
Continue.
Okay so Goal 11 is Employee Relations. It focuses on supporting a skilled engaged and inclusive workforce through professional development wellness initiatives in succession planning. The City strengthens organizational capacity and service delivery. And there has been a significant amount of work, especially in this area by the Human Resources Department supporting Council's goal to maintain an optimum work environment. And at the May 13th workshop Director Levy discussed the success of various programs with you so she's updated you through quarter three. A couple of objectives have revised and three new action strategies were proposed. Mayor, I turn this one finally over to you.
Questions? Okay now we will go to any questions from Council on any of the things that Mrs. Nichols has provided. Seeing none are there any public comments?
No public comments.
No public comments. Council discussion? Seeing none There's a call to action.
I'll move the suggested, the suggested action.
I'll second it. We have a motion and a second. Madam Clerk?
Roll-call vote Passed 4–1 motion and a second. Madam Clerk?
Show transcript
That passes unanimously
Thank you are there any public speakers that we didn't hear earlier madam clerk
There
are none. With that, we will recess this City Council meeting and return to closed session after a report from our city attorney.
We did go into closed session but we're going to return into closed session on the four items that are listed on the agenda so if there's reportable action from that I will make that report.
Thank you have a good evening