City Council — 2020-05-26

Special meeting of the Ojai City Council is now adjourned without any report out on the two issues before us. We will now call into session the regular meeting of the Ojai City Council and ask the clerk to call the roll. In the absence of the clerk, James?

James that would be you.

Consent calendar, do we have a motion to approve all but H, I and J? Move approval. Okay, we got a motion. Second. Seconded. Are there any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. Okay, Bill, H. Yeah,

this came back to us because The focus that I think that I felt and other council people felt was the need to really focus on traffic enforcement. It seems like we have a different kind of situation than we've had in past years, plus we're not sure schools are going to be opening. So the change that was made was to add directed traffic safety enforcement And, but it still included the use of the school resource officer and the services that part-time sheriff's service technician. And I just wanted some kind of assurance that we are going to make a serious effort at maybe bringing in a motorcycle patrol and it's not just safety.

It's actual, you know, it's actual traffic law enforcement.

Right? I agree with you. You know, this weekend Holidays always bring a few extra challenges, but we had what? Another death up on Highway 33. Not that we could have done much about that, but you add that where I live down on Creek Road, a car came through the stop sign, pushed another car, had to pull completely off into the shoulder and slam the brakes on, and then the car went through the front yard of my next door neighbor and came out barely in the part of my yard, and then took off.

All we had to do was follow the oil trail when the oil pan got blown off of the car. And I want to thank the chief and his people getting together with his colleagues in the highway patrol, and they got the guy down in Ventura. But we're having a lot more... We had a Porsche rally go Bill Scroggins, CoB, he's on mute.

Again, it's a traffic period. Whether it's increased speed because there's fewer people on the road. There's more people on bikes that are not adhering to the rules of the road. There is just a number of things that have to be looked at. And again Bill and I talked about this in the last council session about this $100,000 and how to best utilize it. And so again, we're paying what three and a half $3.4 million for policing services for the city of Ojai. And we have to fund a $60,000 a year job out of it.

So I'm just thinking that we can ask the sheriff Or I should say we should ask our chief to maybe investigate this with the sheriff's department and see if there's any other funding mechanism that he could tap into for that position, which in turn allow us to spend more money on traffic enhancement and enforcement.

Ryan? My question is for the chief. Chief, I had a question just I've read some things lately that, and don't get me wrong at school safety isn't super important but that school research officers were counterproductive and we're leading toward more arrests and more problems with students and a culture of you know hate towards law enforcement that wasn't healthy. other negative things and I just wonder what your opinion is as far as allocating resources within some of this money we have toward a school resource officer. Is that still something you'd recommend? Especially with the reduced enrollment at Nordoff, is that still where our money's best spent?

Yeah, I mean the funding that we're looking at from previous times it's not a full-time position that we're looking at. It's actually a collateral position deputies here at the station have so when there's like a special event at school or if there are no special events then the deputy will be allocated to work I think it was eight hours a week between the two schools.

So really you're only looking at a few hours a week per school and it's basically that interact with the kids And a lot of times they gather a lot of information from the kids on any issues that might be coming up and then they're able to mitigate a lot of problems at the school and also within the community.

Okay, so you see it as a net benefit anyway chief? I mean sorry Randy but do you think that school resource officer has Still some substantial benefit. That makes a lot of sense too, because where else would there be any line of communication? I'm sure you're not flipping a lot of 18 year olds into CIs. So talking to the schools is probably the best we can do.

No, but I think it develops that relationship with the kids at the schools in case there are issues that they have somebody that could come to and talk to and something could be done about it before it really turns into something pretty serious.

Thank you Chief. Mayor, if I can on this. You know, I do respect that position in regards to the young children at the school and I agree with the comments that Ryan said. And obviously one of the benefits is that you create a trust in police officers and policing with young children or young kids. I value that. The 14 years I was at Nordoff, we had cops and jocks. Don Rodarty, that's where I met him.

And he went on to coach with us. He went on to actually lead Nordoff girls' softball team to the CIH Championship. I respect that position, I guess along with Bill's thoughts and my thoughts too is the city of Ojai is funding a position on the City of Ojai's municipal school district. And I'm just not sure if that's the best use of our money.

And- I'm worried that we have an increased danger situation with the, you know, with this, you know, and it, you have to make choices between scarce resources and One of the things that I like about maybe having a motorcycle patrol, that Randy suggested is it's a lot easier. I think it'd have a real deterrent effect to have that around even if it was just every once in a while.

Yeah and uh I think this weekend we may try to um have a unit motor unit come out for this weekend because of the increase in traffic and you know with the reopening and everything

And the increased incidence of motorcycle tourists coming through, not all of which are respectful and gracious.

Correct.

But they do frequent our gas stations with no masks I noticed. We have meetings there, I think.

Yeah

so what do we want to do on this item?

Bill? Chief you feel like we should leave the school resource officer in there?

I do. I think because of the way it's worded to use the funding really where we need it. So if traffic enforcement is a serious issue, we can really focus on that and still focus on the other issues if they

need- Would it be more clear to pass the resolution simply deleting the word safety so it just reads traffic enforcement? In other words, there's not a safety program, it's actual enforcement. Right. Okay with that?

I'll be okay

with that. I'm going to recommend that we pass a resolution with deletion of the word safety between traffic and enforcement then. All right, I would second that.

Okay as soon as then you want to comment?

I'm not understanding why he would delete the word safety because traffic enforcement is connected to safety.

I don't want to be there any confusion that this is a safety program. I think the need is for actual enforcement of the traffic laws

Okay.

So the reason that he would be on a motorcycle is so that he could catch up with traffic and give tickets as opposed to riding an electric bike.

I'll tell you what, enforcement on a motor...I'm

sorry. He's on a motorcycle so that he can enforce Or traffic, as opposed to just going around campus.

Right now I'm talking about enforcing traffic

laws. Yeah. I mean, I'd like to see more police on bicycles whenever that's when that's doable on electric bikes. Not in this

case. Is there anything else before we have a vote on the motion? If not, well is there any objection to the motion? Okay, motion then passes. We will now go to I. Is that also

yours Bill? Yeah really quick. I have no problem and i've talked to James about this in terms...I understand the waiving of the penalties but I'm not sure that we want to word this in terms of deferring payment and what I was wondering about if we just had the recommendation that the resolution waive penalties for February March and April but not specifically defer payments I second that.

So it would be defer payment penalties? That's what I'm hearing. Say that,

yeah.

We're not waiving late payment penalties but we don't want to defer payment. I totally agree but just what's the difference Well, the difference is officially blessing them not paying as opposed to maintaining the expectation that you should pay. But we're going to be gracious and not charge you a penalty if you pay late. If my rat

doesn't have a late penalty when's

it due? This is structured to only defer it to a date certain as proposed June 30th, not forever.

Okay

well

anyway I just draw distinction And I

don't disagree. What about rather than making it indefinite, is it 30 days or is it indefinite in here James?

No until June 30th.

What page is that stated

on?

So not till but for May 1st it would be June 30th which is two months not one month

Well, the way it reads is

to

defer payment of February, March and April

until June 30th. Yeah, it's all the months before that's true, but what does? I don't like that. All right, yeah, my personal opinion is if you need a couple extra weeks to get it done, it's held in trust. It's collected for our purposes. If you can't get somebody to calculate it because of COVID, take a couple extra weeks no problem. We shouldn't charge 10%. We have an onerous penalty.

That's what I'm saying.

But that would give you 45 days from the close of the month. I would amend the motion to say, you're exempt from any penalties until the extra 15 days into the following months. Not...I just don't know if...I mean, I just don't know why you would need any longer than that and you have the money in your hand. Are you okay with that James?

Well so, I want to make sure I understand. So that would mean that February is due then?

Well, shoot I guess we got the back months to I mean it's February and March. I just don't like, I want to make it clear and I've told people in this community who collect this money and asked me as a council member I don't support you holding our money and trust any longer than you need to, but I do appreciate you having a little bit of extra time to get it calculated right and get the check written because you can't get to somebody. So to me that feels like two weeks. That being said, I wouldn't want to penalize anybody up to now who hasn't paid my personal opinion. But moving forward at the end of the month coming in at the end of this week, I would think that- Well, yes if all else is equal. Yes the most rational situation would make sense but I would just say you know that any amount that's due as of now is due on June 15th And any amount that's due at the end of May, that would be due in future which would be June 30th or whatever it's due at the end of May.

A month later we'd be given a 15 day extension. All due dates are given a 15 day extension moving forward and everything else that's do is to 15 days later than normal and becomes due upon the 15th of May or June.

So your motion is for a 15-day extension to waive late penalties until when?

Well, I mean James you're talking. Is there a reason? I read it in the packet but was there some impetus for this? Is there somebody who needs this more than others?

We found that the last month that we collected we had about half of the hoteliers pay and half took the option to waive the late payment And we just know that this month, nothing changed really as far as the time period we're talking about nothing reopened. So there wasn't a specific request. We brought this with that in mind that nothing had changed in that month. Businesses weren't able to reopen. So it's just extending the same thing we had originally.

Well I mean are there still February TOT that's still due or has it all been paid?

For February, For March, there is about half of them have not paid.

Well I guess what I would say then my motion would be all delinquent get 15 day notices that it's time to pay. Moving forward everybody's given an extra 15 day grace period on the 10%. That would be my motion.

Until when?

Till James lifts this son-of-a-bitch and we're 60 days after it you know or whatever sunset clause we want.

Okay that'll be our I'll second that motion until a son-o-the-bitch yeah

Okay. I'm okay with that, I'll second that

Okay, is the city manager clear on whatever it is that Bill's okay with? Yeah

delinquent are due 15 days from tomorrow basically and then any upcoming one has a 15-day extension. That's my

understanding until the stay at home order is lifted

or or James make it easier June 15th on the due date for the stuff moving forward.

Okay so

that's a clean day everybody's not confused and then uh everything else is 15 days after

So Mayor, are we bringing this resolution back at the next council session? Is that what we're doing? I don't

know. Let's

pass

it here.

You

can approve it now. We'll rewrite it to match what you approved.

Yeah and I think we need to come back. Let us vote. I think we've over serviced the account already. Okay is there any objection to the motion? Hearing none, okay. Do I need a roll call on this one Mr. City Attorney because it's money or?

Because it was originally on the consent calendar we're okay with no objections.

Okay I hear no objections motion carries. Okay that takes us to item J. That is Suza. Suza leave us? Yes

oh Suza you have

us

on mute.

I don't see you're on video either. Or do we have a limited number of gallery? You're

on mute.

Go left, Johnny if you want to see her. You're still on. Council Member Fincini, you're on

mute. Yeah, the host unmuted. The host interfered. I have it down. Sometimes my dog barks so loud. Okay, so I looked at the City of Ventura website The 10 pages of all their protocols and everything. And we're pretty much in line, I think except for the more strict rules on the masks and which I go along with to keep the peace. I don't believe that the science on all of that is in yet but I don't think it hurts. And especially since we have so many visitors, I think it's probably a wise decision. But my main question is How does, like for example I have the 10 key protocols for Ojai

restaurants.

They opened up how many days ago? The restaurants

they started opening Friday

on Friday because i was in town Friday Saturday and Sunday but I didn't order anything so have you heard any have you gotten any feedback

yeah and we're being pretty Aggressive is the wrong word. I don't mean it in a negative way, but we've had our staff, we've had our assistant city manager and our community development people reaching out and actually going out and talking to businesses. So we're making sure... I think part of your question was probably like how are we getting that information out? And are we sure that they're hearing it? We've been going out daily to try to get in touch with each business as they open The county had taken the, they had the view that they were trying to get these businesses reopened. So if the business wanted to reopen this weekend and needed to take a couple days to get in a plan together, the county was going to allow them to open this weekend but we were a little more aggressive.

We went out Friday and met with businesses and gave them 10 key protocols with the idea being that it's a checklist and gave them signage for face coverings and all those types of things. So we've talked to several businesses, and so far positive reaction from them but we've talked to a lot of them there's been a few businesses who said they aren't going to reopen yet because they're getting their employees back or getting the protocols in place, but we've had several that opened with

those. My concern was not so much you checking on them, my concern was can they really function with all these protocols? That's my

concern.

If we run into problems for how long is this? Do you not know yet or how long do you anticipate?

How long are these protocols in place?

Yeah what do you anticipate?

I think it's too soon to tell how long they'll be in place. And that's what, what I'll add is the 10 protocols that was kind of our goal was to simplify it and make it very easy. The one from the county is 10 pages of Excel spreadsheets. So we were trying to really make it simple and give them 10 key points but to your point a couple of business owners told us that they couldn't get set up to meet the county's requirements in time for this weekend. So we're seeing some of that, yeah we are seeing that that's a problem.

James how many inquiries well also I just want to say i mean we'll start talking about it now but this is an agenda item this is in the consent calendar This is a separate agenda item. I think we're talking about the same thing, but I was curious how many restaurants have reached out on the zoning clearance for getting outdoor space?

We've had four so far.

I know OVC looked. I saw them cordon off when I drove by there they had the parking lot just roped off. Is that part of what we're talking about?

Yeah, OVC actually hasn't contacted us yet. So we're going out when we see somebody getting ready. We're making sure we talk to them but we've had four that actually came in and got their...

Yeah they could have been repainting so don't get me wrong. I could be totally wrong. It just it was i did see a rope around it only four so far though but all right i mean yeah i know there are only probably i don't know how many were open this weekend but i know I mean, they were probably only four that I could definitely say opened right away. Talking to some of the restaurant owners, I think they were caught a little bit by surprise. I don't think they were aware that it was gonna happen that quickly.

Yep, yep, I think-

Mayor? Yeah. It's interesting Ryan, I think we started the meeting with you citing a change that had happened 15 minutes ago. So that's how fast this ball is rolling. All I know is that Bill and I, and Jamie and James here. And we've had numerous discussions on this and there's a complete buy-in by the business community that we're hearing. And I think the shout out has to go to Jamie and his staff.

James, it's not aggressive, it's

proactive.

But it's the fact that we're engaging the community and we get a positive response so whatever we're doing, we're doing right. And regarding our masking, Um, whatever we're doing there, we're doing right. So, um, I think our first responders have just asked for one thing while they're working diligently to protect and to save people that come into their environment. They're asking us to do the same in our environment. So it's a win-win.

Okay. Thank you, Randy. Uh, okay. Anything else? Item J are we ready to have a motion to approve or

One more question. Now, we're going to discuss this further under the COVID update on the agenda but if we approve this my only hesitation is once it's approved it stands unless the state or the county mandates something different. Is that correct?

Or unless the city manager takes further action. Which would then be ratified by the council or could be ratified by the council.

Okay, but the council can't ratify it in the future?

Well I would say this doesn't expand or limit the City Council's ability or the city managers ability to do anything later. This just confirms that we are as expansive as a community as the state will allow us and

And anything you approve tonight, you can always rescind later if you wish.

All right.

That doesn't change the period of validity for now.

Okay so but when we go to the next item, when we go to the COVID item then I can discuss what I saw regarding children and masks in the park and

all that. If you'd like why don't we postpone the action on this item until we finish the COVID discussion?

Mr. Mayor, that's a wonderful idea. Well played sir.

Okay we have now reached the point of public comment and I have-

Just one second though did we approve J&I?

Yes. Not J. H&I is being moved

to the agenda.

We all clear? Okay. Public comment, I've got a summary here that I'll read as far as the number of letters or remarks that were sent into us and if anybody wants to go in greater detail but at this critical time of the pandemic we had 16 comments on pickleball so let's just all know that hasn't gone away and they were all I think it's a favorable to wanting to have pickleball. I think that may be in response to the last meeting's comment from a neighbor who didn't want so much of it. We also had comments on our consent agenda about the report on 5G, there were seven of them and basically they all don't like it and I understand why they don't like it but we I think the staff report was pretty thorough explaining that we push this to the limit.

And if I understood correctly, James, so far there are no applications to do that within the city limits, right? Correct. Okay, so far no harm, no foul and... So anyway, we know that there's still a lot of folks out there that have

concerns. Hang on a second, can we call attention There is a 5G page on the city website, correct? But this is what people want to know. Is that there's no applications have been

filed. Applications would be on that website if they came in we just haven't gotten

any. Now can I ask one more question when an application comes in how long do you have to respond?

I don't know that off the top of my head, maybe.

It varies depending on what the application is for generally it's 30 60 or 90 days depending on the type of cell tower at issue. Did you say 30? Yeah it can be as short as 30 under applicable law.

30

or 90

days okay.

Okay

so Mayor? Yes just a second are you guys... Mayor this is not an agendized item this is a public comment correct?

But I actually meant to pull it from the consent calendar, and I-

It's not a consent calendar. It was

on the consent

calendar.

You asked the question you got your information okay we're

all done

with this?

It's item L. It's Item L on the consent

calendar.

Without making a decision we can all say this in case anybody wonders There are no pending applications in the city of Ojai for 5G, and we have previously passed a regulation that according to our City Manager is strictly prohibitive to 5G as we're allowed to be as a city. And with that I think that's probably the end of anything we need to discuss.

And 30 to 90 day processing if an application should come up. As well. Okay, we're done with that so let's go to item number two which is the budget workshop gains

Yeah, so I will give a brief introduction and then we'll have the Public Works Director walk through the actual CIP projects for the upcoming year. But in short, we all know that this year is going to be a challenging budget year. It would have been the type of year in the past where we would have likely ended up deferring maintenance to try to balance our budget One positive thing, although we haven't gotten to enjoy it yet. But one positive is we have a Measure C passed earlier this year and that should allow us once hotels get operating again to continue to catch up on deferred maintenance rather than cutting back this year.

And so with that last Council meeting, we had laid out what we're expecting to receive in revenues. We noted that it's a tough year to project and revenues may be less or more than we are projecting at this point based on how this reopening goes but we had projected a little bit I think it was like about an 8% decrease of TOT revenues Which also means the Measure C would be, would go in line with that TOT and would be like less than it would have been originally.

But we anticipate that we may receive I believe it was 1.5 million or so in Measure C if things reopen as we are hoping and as things seem to be picking up here in recent days So the bulk of the CIP this year will be based on that Measure C funding. And just real quick, when we passed Measure C, we had talked about certain key areas. Road maintenance, a large portion of the funding is proposed to go to road maintenance, parking lots maintenance and projects, fire protection and code compliance, climate mitigation, building maintenance, and park and tree maintenance.

Are some of the areas that we're gonna focus on this year with that Measure C funding, or that we are proposing to focus on with that Measure C funding. And with that... Oh I see Council Member Francine has a question. Yeah, the

question is, I heard you say parking lots-

I think you're on mute.

Oh, I'm so sorry. So sorry.

I can hear her. Now you're on mute.

I don't hear anybody. Uh-oh, what happened?

She wasn't on mute James you confused

everybody.

Speaker's on mute.

Okay am i on can you hear

me?

Hold

on hold on Susan hold on James can't hear anything. Are you hearing it? James you can't hear anything he can't hear me trust me You can message him, I'll text message. Hold on. So I've

lost sound on my end so i guess I will hand off to Greg Grant if he can hear you while we try to get our sound fixed.

Right well can everybody hear me? This is Greg Grant. We

can hear you Greg!

Okay terrific.

At

least I can.

I only have a very simple question Greg when I heard James say parking lots you're talking about parking lot maintenance because we haven't got any parking lots

Yes, and I think James just joined me in here. So we're gonna try to... I think we both had our temperatures checked and we're in good

shape.

And I'll turn up the volume so you can hear it here. I guess he lost the... Yeah, really? Okay. Anyways, yes, Sousa Councilman Francina that yes, that parking lot is strictly maintenance. That's for crack filling and black topping parking lots.

I just want to make sure that nothing was approved behind my

back.

Okay,

I think we're ready to go through the CIP and everybody on this agenda item there's a first section attachment B which has a review of the funds. I don't think we really need to go there that's got a recap of where are the revenues and expenditures for each type of funds we have at the city So I'm not really going to touch on that unless there's a question.

That wasn't really my main intention.

I'm gonna have a couple questions. On page 205, attachment B 104 what page are you on?

Attachment B would be the other fund review

and you didn't want to review those.

I'll be glad to go through them. I was mostly focused on CIP but I'd be glad to go through

My only question on this was the ATP funding you have in here.

And I'll go into that detail in CIP if that helps more?

Okay, I'll wait then.

Okay so if we go to attachment c page one there is a summary of the funds and I'll do it screen share okay right here And so hopefully, can everybody see my screen? See a cursor moving here. Did

you say attachment C?

Yes, attachment C to this item.

I don't have an

attachment C. Page 105. But if you... I'll be sharing the screen and I'm looking at the exact same thing if that's easier.

Okay.

So sharing the screen, you can see that The green column H, I'm trying to hopefully you can see this pointer just fine and see the column here. So that's the projected fiscal year 2021 that we're proposing or planning. And you can see the fund 31, we typically call it capital improvement fund which now includes other funding sources like measure C and I'll run through it here. So we're starting at a negative balance of share because shortages we had related COVID issue in TOT We're starting with a negative 108,000 to start.

And we've got revenues coming in with measure C here of 1.3 million, 1.289 500 is proposed for next year. We've got TOT at 121,400 coming in that has been per James's review that's been redirected Because of the financial crisis related to COVID again. So that money's been, instead of being 20% to the TOT, it's been just a very small amount of it. There's transfer from other funds. We've got things like AB 939 and other deferred revenue funds we'll hit in detail on this CIP. We've got grant money coming in. You can see that there for about $1.46 million.

Donations for total revenues of 3.4 million So the total available is $3.38 million of revenues. Our expenditures, this is a nice recap of the CIPV. Expenditures proposed for next year is 1,020,000. For parks we plan to spend 530,000, complete streets one million, parking lots as Councilman Francina mentioned 60,000 facilities 585,000 drainage and minor 23,000

Yes. Sorry, I don't know how to interrupt you, I apologize. Parks going from 50 to 500 what's the 10 times increase about?

That's primarily two things that light pole work is just started but most of it kicks in next year and the futsal outdoor basketball multi-use sport courts. Thank you.

And James your complete streets does that tie into your grant funding up top

Yes, and that's shown better when I go to that CIP detail. You can see the expenditures parallel to where the revenues are coming from.

My question would be why aren't the grant funds put in technically their own column? And then how they're utilized or the expenses that come out of them aren't in their own separate entity. It seems like we're bunching them in with all CIP versus these grants actually are entirely different. In fact, some of them have some matching details like Regina's God, I'm losing. Progressive, what's she changed her name? She

had progressive correct.

So she has matching funds in that we can actually utilize city staff to match funds for what's required. How do you account for that in these expenditures? They need to be in their own entity so that we

can-. As a project, I think this is a high level summary and the detail that I hit next will show that kind of detail I believe that you're looking for. So this one's kind of high level basically saying total revenues coming in at 3.49 million, total expenses going out at 3 point 2 million and then you can see the ending balance is 117 thousand positive And then if I can flip over to this detail spreadsheet.

This has got, let me see if I can minimize this so everybody can still hopefully see my screen and I think it helps out with Councilman Haney's asking for all right? So the first project we'll hit is road overlay. The total road overlay is in this column 34 for this fiscal year is 1 million 20,000. Higher level just total expenditures. And then if you hop over this gray line here, you see the source of those funds. So for the road overlay proposed at 1 million 20,000 next year we've got this 900,000 which is measure C and then we've got 120,000 from gas tax.

So that's this roll up shown right here. This measure C is 900 thousand other funds of 120,000 Are still broken out down below but for each project you can see what we're talking about here and I think that's what you're asking for Councilman Haney, and it'll show that with the ATP project further down. So if we move on, I'll just hit these green areas under parks were talking 22,000 for the turf hill at Libby. This is Libbey Park.