REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING

Will the clerk please take roll?

Good evening. Councilmember Barrett,

present.

Councilmember Castro, present. Council Member Delgado, present.

Council Member Means, present

Mayor Ingram,

present Move on to item 4 presentation of a certificate of recognition to Ventura County Sheriff's Office Officer of the Year Deputy Andrew Powell. Will Deputy Powell please join me in front of dais please Deputy Andrew Powell is an exceptional member of the Ventura County Sheriff's Office. Since joining in April of 2013, he has consistently demonstrated professionalism, integrity and unwavering commitment to public service. When I transferred to the Moorpark station in October 2024 immediately stood out for strong work ethic and his ability to lead by example Patrol is a vital part of the Sheriff's Office. The role of a field training officer is critical to the success of every new patrol deputy. Andrew has served as a field training officer since 2020, and in that time he has trained a total of 20 new patrol deputies.

Over the past year, he has distinguished himself as one of the most dedicated and effective trainers. Deputy Powell consistently goes above and beyond the expectations of a field training officer. He's taking initiative to develop written tests, scenarios and practical exercises that challenge trainees and give them meaningful opportunities to learn and grow. These tools allow him to assess their progress while equipping them with the essential skills and confidence needed to excel as solo patrol deputies.

The attention to detail and strong work ethic he brings to training are equally evident in his own performance as a patrol deputy. His commitment to excellence strengthens our department and directly enhances the safety and quality of life for the residents of Moorpark, helping to make Moorpark one of the safest cities in California. Thank you so much for what you do.

Thank you for the honor, I'm very grateful. I wish I had come to Moorpark a lot sooner but it is what we call the hidden gem of the department so there's a very long waiting list for deputies to come work at this station and I just had a very lucky slim opportunity to come over here. Wish it was years earlier but very grateful the time that I did get to spend here. So y'all be proud that the city that you run is You know, very desirable place to live and I wish I lived here as well.

But I was outvoted by my boss at home so... I'm over in Santa Clarita but if I could live anywhere it would be in Moorpark and that's not hyperbole.

Just really quick. I just want to say about Andrew so the field training program to be a field training officer arguably is one of the most challenging positions for any law enforcement agency because you're entrusted with somebody who's never worked patrol to train them make sure they're safe make sure your you're safe make sure the community safe and it can be very challenging Depending on the trainee that you have in the moment. The fact that he's trained 20 people In and of itself is extraordinary most training officers burn out by about the 10th But his commitment and passion, I mean is Arguably the greatest on the department. He will go above and beyond to make sure he can identify a what they need to understand the issue that they're addressing, and if that's doing scenarios or if that's reading material or if that's visualizing something he will try to identify how they learn to help them succeed.

And because of him we've got a number of great deputies now on our agency so kudos to Deputy Powell.

All right, next item 4B is a presentation of a Certificate of Recognition to California Highway Patrol Officer of the Year, Officer Alexander Rios. Alexander will you come up to the podium slash microphone standing in the middle of the room?

Congratulations.

Officer Alexander Rios has proudly served with the California Highway Patrol for more than two years. He entered the CHP Academy in May 2023 and graduated in November 2023 before being assigned to the Moorpark area office, where he successfully completed field training began working the graveyard shift. Officer Rios has demonstrated an exceptional commitment to public safety through his proactive enforcement efforts and dedication to removing impaired drivers from the roadway. Over the past year he led the Moorpark area office in DUI arrests, was recognized for his efforts with a Mothers Against Drunk Driving Award.

In addition to his strong work ethic and enforcement accomplishments, Officer Rios has quickly emerged as a respected leader among his peers. He was recently selected to serve as Field Training Officer where he now mentors and develops newly assigned officers. He is also frequently relied upon to act on the officer in charge in the absence of a sergeant reflecting the trust and confidence placed in him by his supervisors and coworkers.

There's professionalism, leadership and unwavering dedication to the community. Officer Rios exemplifies the highest standards of a California Highway Patrol and is highly deserving of recognition as officer of the year. Outside of law enforcement career, Officer Rios enjoys cooking steaks and investing in the stock market. Congratulations! Good luck in the stock

market. You guys should wish me luck it's my first day actually training crews so I just want to say thank you guys. When I first got the invitation, I was like oh they're going to take my certificate away. That probably don't deserve it but no I appreciate it. I appreciate you guys honoring us and really respecting us there's not a lot of places that do respect officers and Moorpark is one of those places that do and we're grateful for it and yeah thank you

I just want to thank the council for recognizing our officers. It is a breath of fresh air when you come into a community that's so supportive. So, I just wanted to say thank you very much for doing that. Officer Rios like he said he has his first trainee today. So we'll see how he does but we have all the confidence in the world. Thank you.

Next item is 4C, a proclamation declaring May 17th to 23rd 2026 as Public Works Week. Will Senior Management Analyst Michelle Woomer please join me? A proclamation, the City of Moorpark declaring May 17th through May 23rd 2026 as Public Works Week. Whereas this year marks the 66th annual Public Works Week celebrating the contributions of public works professionals across the country and whereas the services public works professionals provide are essential to everyday lives of residents and the overall functioning of our communities And whereas Public Works Professionals plan, build, maintain and operate the infrastructure and services that support daily life. These dedicated professionals work tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure safe transportation, clean water, environmental stewardship, reliable public services for all residents.

And whereas the American Public Works Association's 2026 theme Rooted in Service Powered by Community recognizes a strong partnership between public works professionals and the communities they serve. Whereas the roots of service run deep in public works, reflecting generations of innovation and dedication that empower communities to involve. And whereas some of the work is highly visible while other public works contributions are often hidden from view. Together these efforts from the foundation of thriving communities remind us that every project seen or unseen powers a connection between the services and the people it supports.

Now therefore be it resolved that the Moorpark City Council does hereby declare May 17th through May 23rd, 2026 as Public Works Week and further extends appreciation to each and every member of Moorpark's Public Works Department for the vital services they perform and for their exemplary dedication to the city of Moorpark. A witness whereof, the Moorpark City Council does set its hand and cause the seal of the city of Moarpark to be affixed this 20th day of May, 2026.

On behalf of our public works department, I would like to thank you mayor and council members for recognizing National Public Works Week. Public works is often the behind-the-scenes service that keeps a community functioning every day from maintaining streets and sidewalks operating transit services Managing traffic systems, delivering capital improvement projects, overseeing parking enforcement and stormwater programs and supporting animal and vector control services. Our work touches nearly every aspect of daily life in Moorpark. Here in Moorpark, I am proud to work alongside a dedicated team that consistently goes above and beyond to serve our residents. Much of our work happens out of public view but our commitment and pride in serving the community are evident in everything we do.

In the coming months, residents will see several important public works projects moving forward including the High Street Bus Shelter Improvement Project which will provide safer and more comfortable transit amenities. The Pavement Rehabilitation Project which will improve and extend the life of our streets. And the citywide Storm Drain Catch Basin Full Capture Trash Device project which will help protect local waterways by preventing trash from entering the storm drain systems.

We're excited to see this project move forward and continue enhancing the quality of life to our residents. Thank you.

All right, next item is five public comment. Are there any speakers?

Yes Mr. Mayor we have two speakers under public comment this evening the first speaker is Cameron Gill who will be followed by Daniel Politi and since this is public comment you have three minutes to address the council

Good evening, I'm Cameron Gill. For item 10D the consent calendar item about the CTAC appointment and one thank you mayor and the council for putting your trust in me with this appointment and confirmation. And also want to appreciate the city clerk for the efficient process knowing what goes on behind the scenes that's always a testament when it's smooth and there's no other words to be said then it's wonderful.

Having been involved in all sides of local government for a decade, primarily on the other side of the county for local city and county government. I know how important substantive and intentional community participation is particularly on advisory boards such as CTAC as one part of connecting constituent voice with the decision-making process which is often not seen but is vital for making sure that the quality of life improvements, that's transportation in particular bring to our community for our employees, for our neighbors to provide them flexible and intentional choices for when they want to go around such as connecting to regional events like the Strawberry Festival over in Ventura. When we have the choice and the flexibility it does bring meaningful impacts For our neighbors, and I do recognize that the transportation system does face fiscal challenges often.

But when we have a process such as SeaTac to lend more substantive and informative constituent voice to our decision-making process for the county, for the region, It is very meaningful. So I appreciate the opportunity to be that conduit, to provide that way for our community, to make their voice known, to give you as decision makers more meaningful and sustainable impact particularly for the annual unmet needs assessment.

And I just hope that you will look favorably on this appointment and thank you again for taking us up tonight.

Thank you. We're glad to have you.

And our second speaker is Daniel Politi, which again this is public comment on general items and consent items.

Question Ms. Spangler, so later am I going to be able to have a chance to talk about the nine item or the 10 item? It will

be the nine

item. So now I should talk about the ten? Thank you. Okay. All right, initially I had a precursor one because I wanted to speak on the two but since I don't get to speak about 10 later, I'm going to choose to speak about that now and we'll skip. The preamble of nonsense. Good evening, Mayor, Councilmembers and staff for item 10-G I want to begin by saying this is support the library support public artists for creating spaces for children to feel joyful imaginative and worthy of civic pride but supporting public art does not mean suspending public oversight tonight that council is being asked to waive the city's purchasing requirements and approve an agreement with studio Y creations for an amount Not to exceed $280,000. This item is on the consent calendar even though the agenda itself describes a waiver of purchasing requirements and a major contract authorization that should not pass silently.

That staff report says staff chose a qualified firm instead of going through the typical call for artists process and they even amended it from what I saw during Their specific council meetings citing coordination needs with library design and construction. It also says that after an extensive search, Studio Y was identified as the preferred studio but the public deserves to know what an extensive search means. Who else was considered? Were any local or regional artists invited? Was there a scoring process? Were alternatives priced? Was there any independent comparison? The proposal attached to the agreement listed $220,000 total but then states that the total should not include or does not include duties taxes and shipping It estimates shipping for products over $100,000 at approximately $33,000.

The agreement itself is capped at 280,000 and includes a $26,000 contingency that may be explainable but it still needs to be explained publicly before approval. The contract also places state tax responsibilities and certain import fees, tariffs, custom duties, brokerage fees and tax ID related due delay costs on the city. It describes tariff mitigation through customs valuation based on material costs exceeding design labor.

This is not only ordinary, you're still approving consent material that's contract risk discussion. And there's another important issue, ownership. The agreement says Studio YA reserves the right to exclusive ownership, context art designs, 2D mural art while the city retains the right to use the photos for non-commercial purposes. So before approving $280,000, the council should clearly state what the public is buying, what the public owns and what remains in the vendor. Again, this is not a tagging audit. It's about protecting the city trust when large contracts placed in the consent calendar and the purchasing rules are waived, when costs are spread across proposal totals, contingency taxes, shipping tariffs and import items residents start to feel like the public money is being moved faster than the public can understand or keep up.

Sound familiar? Please pull this item from the discussion. Ask the staff to explain the procurement waiver, ask for a list of firms considered, ask for a plain English cost reconciliation, ask why $50 per day in liquidated damages is enough for shipping delays if it's held up at customs? Ask whether or not the contract protects the taxpayers as it strongly protects the vendors. Council members, this vote will be part of the public record. Please make the record show that you asked the hard questions before approving the money, thank you.

Thank you.

Buzzer Beater!

It's Mr. Pulido right?

Yes sir, close enough.

I just want to say anytime you want to talk, I can meet with you and I can explain all these things so you don't have two minutes to jam it all through. So any time reach out. Thank you. Are there anymore speakers?

No Mr. Mayor that's the last speaker under public comment. Okay

thank you Next item six reordering of and distancing agenda is anyone need to pull anything from consent? Nope okay Next item is seven, announcements for future agenda items and reports of meetings and conference attended by council members and mayor. We'll start with Mr. Barrett.

On May 7th I attended the Regional Defense Partnership meeting. On May 7th, I also attended the Visita Future of Agriculture in Ventura County talk that was with Harold Edwards from Luminera at Cal Lutheran Very interesting conversation about some of the challenges of the local farmers. A lot of focus on the area, the Somis area actually and some of the struggles that they are currently having for some of those farms to survive.

On May 14th, I attended the Chamber Young Professionals Lunch. On May 14, I also attended the Clean Power Alliance board meeting and also on May 14 I attended the Ventura County Leadership Academy graduation. It was great to see Moorpark represented in graduates there and hopefully we had more Moorpark members apply for this upcoming year, it was a great program.

On May 16th I attended the community yard sale which seemed to have a great turnout when i was there at least and Hopefully our community was able to find new homes for things and that was a great event. This afternoon, I had the pleasure of attending the Moorpark College inaugural class biomanufacturing graduation. That is the first time Moorpark College has had a bachelor's degree program and what an honor to be there and to see that first class receive their degrees And to keep them here in the community by having a program like that in the community, they were able to stay close to home and already many of them have jobs lined up. To see those high paying jobs locally through that program is impressive so it was a great event.

All right. While I was out of country for a couple of weeks, I did have a chance to stop by one of the local libraries in Kyoto, Japan and just kind of get a feel of what they do with their libraries. It's a very stark contrast. It was pretty minimalist. It was a smaller one but it was extremely well organized though, I will say that and very, very quiet. That's all I have for the last two weeks. Thank you.

Castro?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just one update on May 9th I attended the Apricot Festival. That's all I have thank you.

Thank You Mr. Mayor. I too attended the Apricot Festival on May 9 and just a big shout out to everybody that volunteered all the city team that put that on it's really cool to watch our community come out to these events and thrive in our downtown enjoy our heritage And just a wonderful event and it continues to grow and get better and better. On May 15th at the High Street Arts Center, I had the privilege of watching the 50th anniversary of The Bad News Bears that was shown here in Moorpark because one of our former council members used to sit in this seat being a big movie star and was in that movie. He was able to bring that event back home and that was a lot of fun and to watch people connect We've got a lot of Hollywood connections here in Moorpark.

And then finally on May 18th, I attended an event with the Library Foundation of Los Angeles called Allowed. They bring authors of books together with celebrities and have conversations. This was at a multi- many, many hundred person theater sold out audience and the concepts of bringing authors and people of celebrity are noted in the community To have discussions over important topics in books that are being released is something I anticipate we will do on some scale here in Moorpark, and I'm excited to see how we do that.

So for myself, Thursday May 7th I attended the Southern California Association of Governments conference and it was a pretty good conference. There was a lot on AI and transportation and the combinations of both of those and I think self-driving cars are going to be a future of a lot of transportation it looks like. I spoke to some companies About that. And then Saturday, May 9th I also attended the Apricot Festival and that was extremely well run great day pretty good turnout really a turn out actually.

That's all I have for myself and I got a few announcements here. Registration is open for the 2026-27 school year for the Moorpark Little Learners Academy traditional preschool program for two and three year olds. Classes are held at the Royal Vista Recreation Center. Open hours will be available May 27th and 28th at 9 30 a.m to RSVP or for more information email avrc at moorparkca.gov or visit moorparkca.gov slash preschool Moorpark middle schoolers are invited to Game Night on Friday, May 22nd at the Arroyo Vista Recreation Center. Hang out with all your friends and play video games, board games and card games. There will also be an escape room. Admission is $10 cash and includes pizza and a soda bar. For details visit moorparkca.gov slash teens Registration is open for summer camps at the Arroyo Vista Recreation Center.

Programs include Camp Moorpark, a day camp for children ages 5 to 11, kinder camp for ages 3 to 5 and a variety of specialty camps including Lego Engineering, Movie Making, Extreme Nerf Camp, a variety of sports camps and more. For details on summer camps visit moorparkca.gov slash recreation Sign up now for the Moorpark Youth Basketball League at the Arroyo Vista Recreation Center.

Divisions are available for ages 5 to 13. For details and to register, visit moorparkca.gov slash youthsports. Registration is now open for the City of Moorpark Summer Adult Sports Leagues. Leagues offered include softball, basketball and soccer. For details, visit moorparksca.gov slash adult sports. Applications are now open for the 2026-27 Moorpark Teen Council. This is a wonderful opportunity for Moorpark students entering 7th through 12th grade to learn about local government, build leadership skills, meet city leaders and share their voice on issues that matter to teens and the community. The teen council meets twice a month during the school year and participates in hands-on activities including mock City Council meetings, public safety discussions, career readiness opportunities and community events.

Applications are due Friday June 12th by 5 p.m. Interested students can apply online at moorparkca.gov slash serve Finally, the City of Moorpark is happy to share an incredible opportunity to recent college graduates and graduated seniors through the AmeriCorps Lead for America Fellowship Program. If you're passionate about communications, social media, public outreach, and community engagement, this fellowship offers hands-on experience working alongside local government leaders while helping connect residents with meaningful programs initiatives. As a fellow, you will gain professional mentorship and leadership training, experience in communications and community outreach, opportunities to support local projects initiatives, valuable networking connections, salary benefits, retirement credit, education award up to $7,500.

This is your chance to grow your career while making a real impact in Moorpark. Interested candidates please email Jonathan Royas, Assistant City Manager at jroyas at moorparkca.gov Next is public hearings. There are none this evening, so we'll move on to presentation action discussion Item 9a is to consider presentation by the Museum of Ventura County Mr.. Royce

Good evening mayor and council Staff is happy to welcome Elena Brokaw the chief executive officer of the Museum of Ventura County Helena thank you for joining us

I am so happy to be here tonight mayor mayor pro tem council members city manager city staff. Thank you so much for having me as Jonathan said my name is Alaina Brokaw, I am the Barbara Bernhardt Smith CEO at the Museum of Ventura County and for those of you who don't know we are the We are an art history and culture museum. We have four physical sites, two in downtown Ventura, an agriculture museum in Santa Paula, and we now have office suites in Camarillo, and we are the largest repository of history and culture in the county. We are guided by the wisdom of an incredible board of directors, one of whom is a resident here in Moorpark, and that is County CEO Savette Johnson We also have over 100 volunteers who are guiding all of our efforts at all time.

And these volunteers come from all over Ventura County, so that's who leads us in our efforts as to what we do. We work to represent our region's unique identity in everything that we collect. Our focus here is on accessibility and as you can see right here, we have this browse items 8165 total. That is our online digitized items. It's actually much higher than that, I got that like a few weeks ago so it's over 8400 now.

Everything we do we try to make it accessible so people can learn about what created this county. Using those collections we provide rotating exhibits in our six galleries at three sites. We present about 30 programs each year Accessibility, again, is very important to us. We have a new program where we get sponsors to make admission entirely free. Our exhibits are opening in June and Southern California Edison is going to be our sponsor for that month. Everybody will come in free. It's almost quadrupled our attendance at the downtown site.

And here is who is coming to the museum. This is attendance just for our exhibits, about two-thirds of our visitors come from Ventura County another 25% come from throughout the state and then about 8% come nationally and internationally In education we provide school tours directly for second in Santa Paula and third graders in Ventura Tours are entirely free for Title I schools and we have grants that provide buses completely free.

We present satellite pop-ups and programs all over the city, and here you can see what we have done in Moorpark itself over the last two years including participating in the Apricot Festival last weekend which we were so happy to be able to do. Maybe some of you got to go into the High Street Theater and see our exhibits there. So those collections, exhibits, programs and education all serve the museum's foundational principles which are these.

We work to engage participants in meaningful experiences with history, art culture and each other. And we aim to build community and connection. Connection, connection, connection. Everything we do is about connection. And one way that we do that, build connection is to highlight our shared history And to that end, tonight I would like to share a little bit of a story about the origins of Moorpark.

Before I get into this, everything that I'm sharing with you is from our archives, our collections and our library. All the photos you will see are from there. So before we get started specifically about Moorpark, just bear with me. I want to give you a really short history lesson of what is it? 13,000 years not 130,000 years. You all know that this place that we are standing on right now has always been home Home to the Chumash indigenous population including a village right here in what is now Moorpark.

About 250 years ago, sorry about 500 years ago in 1542 the California coast including here was discovered by a sailor named Juan Cabrillo, who was sailing for Spain. And this whole area was colonized and claimed as part of New Spain. So suddenly we belong to somebody and we belong to Spain. About 250 years ago, Spain began to move in. They began to populate the region, and that's when our missions came about. They wanted to get people on the ground. About 200 years ago, Mexico revolted against the colonizers from Spain and miraculously they won. It's shocking that they did. And what is now California, Texas, Oregon, New Mexico, Nevada etc., we all became part of Mexico. We were part of Mexico for about 25 years until the Mexican-American War The Americans won, we became part of the United States in 1848 and then we became a state in 1850.

So I want to go back to this 1822-1848 period because it's there that you can see the roots of what became Ventura County. When Mexico had governance of this area they were really working hard to populate it because they were very afraid that it was going to be taken away from them. Specifically from the French, the English and the Russians. So what the Mexican governor did in order to get people to come here is they started awarding ranchos and they awarded them to soldiers, to friends, to whomever. And during that time period 17 ranchos were created in Ventura County.

And many of the boundaries of those ranchos actually became the general boundaries of the cities that we know today. Except in this case, the 113,000 acre Rancho Simi ended up with not just one but two cities, two distinct cities, Simi Valley as we know and Moorpark. So why? What happened to that? So what happened and why did that happen? So the answer to that is partially topography, right? There's some like actual geographical boundaries But also, the creation of these two distinct communities can be traced through who purchased them and how and why.

So the original Rancho Simi was used as most ranchos were to raise cattle. This was an incredibly lucrative business during the Mexican era for every dollar that a ranchero spent raising and taking cattle up to the gold rush they earned about $15. Great return on investment at that time. But things began to fall apart in the 1860s with droughts and floods and droughts and floods.

And everything changed, the entire economics of Ventura County and the state changed forever. Land ownership, community, everything was altered and all the rancheros either sold or lost their ranchos. The same goes here in 1870 Rancho Semi was purchased by Thomas Scott whose agent was his nephew future US Senator Thomas Bard. They bought Rancho Semi looking for oil didn't find it And ultimately, they created the Simi Land and Water Company. And the goal with that was to chop up the rancho and sell it to farmers in small lots. And they sold about 100 or even fewer acres. They were going to sell them for about $10 to $100 per acre. They were not roaringly successful. However, this is where Simi came from. Many of you maybe know about Cineopolis, which was a small colony made to order house kits.

And people from Chicago came out, about 13 families in a two block radius, about eight miles from here they built these houses in the 1880s and that is the genesis of Sidney Valley today. But ultimately they didn't sell that many lots. So when the company disbanded, the unsold property was parceled out to the partners in that company. One of those partners was a man named Robert Poindexter who lived in LA and he received the western part of the rancho where we are standing right now.

Truthfully if Robert Poindexter had been a different type of person, we would not be here. Honestly, who knows what would have happened? We might've been a little bit separate. Anything could have happened but Robert Poindexter and his wife Madeline came, laid out the plot of the town, they built a depot, they built a train station and by 1904 Moorpark had really been created. And I was at the Rotary last week and I said thank goodness he named it for an apricot and not for himself because we could all be, you could all be living in Poindexter California, so now you just have what a road and a park I think still name for that.

At this point families and farmers started moving to the area and one of those farmers was the father of Monroe Everett. I bring him up because we did an oral history with him in 1989 six years before he died. A little bit about Monroe Everett His grandfather was a pioneer who came to California from Kalamazoo, Michigan. Trained in New York. Freight shipped him down to Panama. Mule wagon across the Isthmus. Freight up to San Francisco. Spent a little time in the gold fields and came down to Ventura County. So many of our people ended up here that way.

And in about 1902 he had purchased 1800 acres and became one of the largest apricot producers in the area. Monroe was born in 1902, their house in Moorpark was about three miles out of town so until his parents bought a car in 1917 they went everywhere by foot or on horseback. They had no electricity until 1918 when Edison finally put a line in out to their house.

Another oral history that we collected about 20 years ago was with Transito Corralejo When Moorpark grew into an agricultural powerhouse, Transito's mother and father moved into the growing community to harvest the apricots and walnuts. And the harvest was a family affair. So he tells us that when the harvest was on, he and his other kids in the neighborhood would go to school during the day and then they would leave and they would all go out and harvest the apricots every afternoon.

So the Museum of Ventura County has thousands of stories like this and they help us to remember, oh these are by the way this is all the apricot harvesters on Monroe Everett's father's ranch. But these stories help us to remember that when a city like this is created it is really created by people like this I think that we tend to forget that Now, that's what we are all about. And our job now is to continue gathering these stories, to continue gathering what's happening right now because it will be history in another 125 years when somebody who's not me comes and talks to people who are not you. Okay? We won't be here.

We have an initiative right now which we're very positive about. We've written a grant To create more oral histories specifically for Moorpark residents using or working with students at Moorpark College. We have about 450 oral histories and only about six from Moorparks so clearly this is something that we need to do and that brings me to ask I'm not here just to talk about the museum. I'm here to ask you to help guide us to gathering the stories of today.

The easiest way to do that is to Get more oral histories, and we would love to hear from you who you think the community leaders are or the non-community leaders whose stories we should be getting today. And also to get photographs. So this QR code that's right here is just... You can go right in there and submit photographs, and they will give us all the details about them, and they will go into our archives as well as a bunch of other ideas, ways that we can partner together either formally or informally. And that brings me to my end. I would just like to say we have new exhibits opening on June 5th. We hope that you can come up and see them at the Ventura Museum, and thank you for all you do to guide this community.

Thank you. That's an incredible amount of information. Thanks so much. It's exciting just to see the roots of the cities, looking back at the photos of what it used to look like before we built anything and then I'm sure 100 years from now looking back at what it looks like right now would be pretty similar too but thank you so much. Any other comments?

There was a picture included there, couple slides back. Was there a water tower at one time in Moorpark? There it is right there. Is that upper left quadrant looks like there might have been a water tower. That's relevant to some of the stuff that we're working on right now but thank you so much for bringing that. That picture, that will come up in a future council meeting. Thank God for

collections. I'll try to figure out what that is because it could just be the cistern for that particular orchard but we have the information on this so Council Member Means, I'll try to find it for you.

How incredible! That is great. Thank you for everything you're doing and I hope we can do a lot of collaborations with the new library and everything that you guys are doing for our county. Thank you.

Definitely appears like a water tower. Thank you so much. Do we have any public comment?

No Mr. Mayor, no speaker cards on this item.

Thank you so much. Okay next is presentation action discussion item 9b let's consider Ventura County Civic Alliance 2025 State of the Region report. Mr. Yagihana?

Thank You mayor we have this evening David Mehron the chair of the state of the region report

I'm just gonna give Helena All right, good evening Mr. Mayor, members of the council, staff, members of the audience thank you for inviting us to present the State of the Region Report I'm David Marin with the Ventura County Civic Alliance every two years we produce this report and we can't go around and share these beautiful books with the audiences and our leaders without the support of some of our sponsors here's a few of them the Ventura County Community Foundation I'd also like to take a moment to introduce one of our board members, Abiel Acosta is here with me tonight supporting me and keeping an eye on me.

As I said, the report's published every two years. All of the sources are listed in the report beginning on page 113 and for those in the audience or at home you can download this report for free at CivicAlliance.org We're a non-profit neutral unbiased and focused on sustaining our quality of life. I think this sort of fits well with Elena's report as far as talking about the history And now we'll get a little bit into the weeds on some of the more recent data. So this is not in your reports right here, but this is the County of Ventura and I'm showing that our median age continues to go up. So back in 2017 we were at 37 and a half and today we are at 39.6 The challenge that Ventura County faces is that we are getting older and we are not having enough young people.

You can see in this chart that even though the population went from about 847,000 to 837,000 a loss of about 10, we lost 20,000 people in the zero to 18 bracket. That's the blue line. Here's your city of Moorpark. Moorpark has been up and down, but it's actually a little bit better than the overall county average. You can see that even for the city that has been about stable in the overall green bars, the blue has declined a little bit over the years as we start to lose young people. And part of that is young people get a little bit older and they age out, but then we don't have enough new children coming into the system.

So let's talk about some of the big parts of our report. Agriculture, strawberries remain a top crop in Ventura County at over $700 million. It's a 2.17 billion dollar industry and this is listed in the report. That's about 3% of our economy. It used to be closer to four and 5%. Ag has stayed pretty much level at about two billion but our overall economy has grown so it's very challenging.

Water, labor, pesticides there's a lot of challenges that they have Community engagement, you're all elected officials. I'd like to share the stats as far as our elected representation countywide. The blue is Democrats, red are Republicans, green is the no party preference. You can see that in the last 20 plus years we've gone from about 38% for Dems to 42, a slight growth but Republicans have lost ground and that ground that they've lost has gone to no party preference. Young people and others who are registering prefer to be no party rather than Associated with one of the parties. Here's the detail broken down by city and I've circled Moorpark You can see that Moorpark is fairly even a little bit more blue than red And healthy amount of no party preference Oxnard in Ojai are the only cities where there is a majority of Democrats Simi Valley is the only city in the county that has a plurality of of Republicans, all other cities are a little more dense.

Now keep in mind that's the registration. That doesn't mean they vote. Many of the people that might be in here are not necessarily active voters giving all parties a chance. I'd like to share about the nonprofit sector just how powerful it is. We have over 11,000 people working in the nonprofit sector generating almost half a billion dollars of annual income You can see that the wages are a little bit better for when you include government and the hospitals, but it's a very important sector. And I think all of us especially as you pointed out some of the things that you've attended how much our nonprofit community is doing including the Museum of Ventura County On the economy side, this chart's hard to read but I just want to explain that there is actually several pages of this in the report.

We break down goods producing, that would be things like ag, oil, manufacturing. This one is showing the service providing where we get into things like professional services, financial activities, leisure and there's one more in the report about government. The top half of the chart shows you the overall quantity of people working in a particular sector So just to use a financial activities, we see about 15,000 people working in that sector. Oh, my time's up now.

So we have about 15,001 working in that sector. But if you go to the bottom half, you see that the wages paid there are 112,000 as a high paying job. It's where we want to see growth, but unfortunately we've seen a decline in the number of people working in that sector. The ones that have been growing like leisure and hospitality Those have the lower wages. So there's an imbalance in Ventura County where we have too many people so as Council Member Barrett mentioned, as far as the degrees from Moorpark those are very high paying jobs that hopefully those young people take here in Ventura County but for policy makers it's how do you attract businesses to Moorpark that are high paying jobs because people can't make it on a 30 or $40,000 salary?

This is the overall Grosse County product. If you have your older reports and you look at this, you'll see the numbers are completely different. That's because we restate this every two years adjusted for inflation. You can see back around 2007, we hit our peak of about $72 billion for the overall economy. After the Great Recession, we plateaued. We're starting to come back a little. But none of this is good news. The state, the nation have come back much stronger than Ventura County and that could lead you to be concerned about what'll happen when we have another recession. So we are nowhere near our peak on the economy.

Taxable sales, you don't have the car malls that Camarillo or Oxnard or Ventura have. You don't have the huge shopping malls like Thousand Oaks. So you can see that your taxable sales have been a little bit in a decline. Oxnard, that is the Amazon effect. They have that warehouse and they've been able to do very well. And you can see the other cities especially with car dealers are doing well on the taxable sales.