City Council — 2020-06-23

Yes, we're live.

Okay, we're back in session on the special meeting of the city council is there anything to report out Mr. City?

Thank you Mr. Mayor the city council met in closed session to consider one item a liability claim filed by Ronald McRae direction was provided to staff and no reportable action was taken

thank you okay thank you okay well then we will adjourn the special meeting and I'll call the regular meeting to order Will the clerk please call the roll?

consent calendar when the time is right

Okay, good. Thank you. Okay, well then we'll approve the agenda as submitted and then we'll... Okay, we're then on consent calendar. Which item did you want to pull, Susan?

Item D on the statement of investment policy.

Okay, okay, we'll pull that. Are there any other requests? If not, do I have a motion to prove the balance of the consent calendar? Move to approve. Okay is there a second? Second. Okay moved and seconded. Any discussion? If not, any objection? I'm hearing none. Consent calendar is approved with the exception of item D. Susan go ahead.

Oh, I wanted to just read the statement submitted by Michelle Ellison who's a member of the Climate Emergency Mobilization Committee. Has Donnie disappeared?

Yeah, I'm back.

All right, and then I want what I want. I'm going to read it. I might summarize some of it. It's not that long. And then I wanted to see if we could add some wording into the investment policy. You know, I want to make it as simple as possible. So here's what Michelle wrote and I'm in agreement with this regarding the investment policy While according to the staff report, the city doesn't currently have direct investments in fossil fuel companies. We can and still should adopt a resolution similar to Resolution 1810 adopted in 2018 prohibiting the investment in nuclear weapons to prohibit future investments in fossil fuel companies.

And so this is referenced on an exhibit A, page six item nine if you want to go to that page. And it's called ineligible investments. Additionally, while according to the staff report, the city only has money in CDs, the fossil fuel divestment movement includes divesting from banks that fund fossil fuel projects. Most of the major financial institutions like Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo et cetera are heavily funding fossil fuel projects. So if the city CDS I just wanted to see if we could come up with a couple of paragraphs That we don't invest on anything related to fossil fuels. And again, this is a cumulative action. This is something other cities are doing. I know that our funding might be small but couldn't we do make a similar statement as shown at the top of page seven?

You know, where it says that we don't invest in nuclear weapons or the components of nuclear weapons. Can we add a sentence even maybe under that heading? Ineligible investments under James or Matt?

Susan did you check or does anybody know how many banking institutions do we have access to Don't in some fashion have money in gas and oil? Who would we, do we know the ones that have been certified as already having decided that they don't put their money into it so we would know where we would be going with our money.

And that's really what it boiled down to. When we talked to the treasurer, we talked to the finance director and then the budget committee was that it's going to take a significant amount of research at a time when we don't have a lot of funding to invest in. We have some You know other immediate pending financial needs that those positions are going to be looking at. Like you know we've talked about the line of credit, we're still working on on that which we do not have yet so it just that was part of the discussion. The quick answer was that every major bank that um we looked at and including the banks that you know Probably the majority of people use have some sort of investment that would likely disqualify them under this. So it would have to be a local credit union, so it would require some research to determine that.

Could we postpone this to our next meeting before we adopt the investment policy and just have somebody do some internet research? I would imagine any institution who has done this would be, I guess wanting to keep their horn and be proud of it. And they would say we accept or encourage donations or deposits from people who are investing for the social agenda.

I can investigate with Michelle because if other institutions are doing this there must be an alternative.

Okay but we have a look at it know what the implications are as to what it means The symbolism that we're not getting rid of all of our involvement with oil and gas, even though I'd like to see that happen at some point. But we have cars, trucks, trolleys once we go down that road. Why don't we give staff two weeks? And maybe even Michelle can do some research and tell us which institutions would be eligible under this change in policy. Bill?

Mayor, I think one of the key things is we are so overburdening staff right now. I would not want to give this as a big chore or errand for the staff to do right now. They've got their hands full. I have no problem with Councilperson Francina and the Climate Committee member Michelle looking at this but I wouldn't want to put a big burden on staff right now.

No, I agree with

that. I can research.

Okay, let's do that and give it two more weeks then we can talk further so any objection to this being postponed till the July meeting? If not, so ordered okay. Mayor just

want to let you know three weeks for what it's worth our next meeting is in

three weeks. Okay well thank you keep her of the calendar yeah the next the July meeting whenever that is. Yeah very important job I have mayor pro tem I keep checking

Good to see you studied your duties.

Yeah, make yourself useful Ryan that's good. Public hearings okay we are now on item number two which is the fiscal year budget review and adoption James.

Thank you I'm gonna attempt to share my screen here i have a couple slides nothing too major.

Hey Mayor?

Yes Randy?

Prior to the demonstration, can I make a simple comment to James and staff? We have asked over the years let's say the last five years for me for sure about a simplified budget presentation. And something that is easy for the community to understand follow comprehend and relate to. And I just wanted to say this was by far one of the easiest reads That I've had in five years regarding the budget and the budget process, and how the monies are being spent or allocated in our community. And I just wanted to say, and I'm sure you all would agree. Thank you James, and thanks to the staff. Thanks to our new Budget Director but um... You guys did one heck of a job. Just

incredible. We had me worried there for a minute. I thought we were going to talk about having a half a dozen more public workshops.

Thank you for the comments.

I think that they are well deserved

I'll take a motion to adopt. No, I'm just kidding. Not getting off that easy. I will try to keep it fairly high level though. One point and this will come up later on an item we're going to talk about that we had a meeting with the county on is we are on our fourth version of the budget since March which has been challenging for our finance department. They've been running ragged and they Been here in the office working throughout this entire shutdown and everything, so I do want to recognize them. But this is our fourth version of the budget. It has been a challenge because we originally started out with kind of the budget story being that with the passing of Measure C, the city was looking good and we were going to catch up on deferred maintenance and make service enhancements.

And that was the budget that we proposed on March 13, where we showed an increase in revenues and an increase in expenditures. And then April and May, we reduced the $600,000 in service enhancements back to about the level where they currently are. And then we found with the updated revenue projections coming in that we still had a $946,000 deficit Because the revenues are going to be impacted so much, as you know obviously everybody's aware we're in the midst of a historic shutdown and even as things open it's looking positive but we aren't going to be back to normal you know in the next couple months.

And so that leads us to where we're at today. We had come back to council last meeting and said that we had identified reductions such as a three month hiring freeze, a reduction in community organization funding back to the prior year level and then some deferrals of some projects vehicle replacement and the employment benefit payments And we said with those things, we were expecting to still have a short or small smaller deficit.

We went back and we met with the budget committee. One thing we wanted to talk about closely with them was We had thought property tax was going to fall dramatically. We had included in our last budget a 12% reduction. We are not seeing that that's the case, and the county also sent some revised estimates showing that they're actually expecting property tax to be pretty stable. So at our last budget committee meeting we recommended adding that property tax revenue back in So other revenues, as proposed other revenues are expected to drop but property tax is expected to be on pace with where we thought it would be initially.

And so that helped a little bit because then that means that helps the balance and we wouldn't have to reduce the full 20% TOT transfer that we had previously discussed. The budget before you today includes that increase to the property tax that we reviewed with the Budget Committee, and then it reduced the deferral of the transfer to come back balanced. Obviously a big question mark for us long term is that's still not building up our reserve, but on one hand you know in the worst of the epidemic would not be the point where we would typically be building that up. So we show that we would project a balanced budget next year.

One piece of information we've talked about A few times is that we are using reserves this year. This current fiscal year that we are in, we're using our reserves to continue to provide those key services to residents. But we are estimating that those reserves will go from 3.4 million to 2.3 million as of the end of this month. That's not sustainable. So then it comes down to finding some reductions or continuing to use the reserves and potentially draining those. And so rather than continuing to use the reserves, what we try to do is put a budget together that would balance that out so we don't continue to drain those reserves.

As I just said, most revenues next year are expected to decrease. I know yesterday the inn reopened and that is something that a lot of people are talking about and a few people have emailed me or commented to me The cure now, but the flip side of that is they're going to open at a reduced capacity. And also there's still some limitations on they need to leave rooms vacant for certain periods of time. So one guest checks out room needs to be vacant for a certain period of time before somebody can check in. So it just seems like you know that TOT keeps getting cut into fractions still so we're not gonna see that come back Sales tax is going to be down. I think we found that it should have been down 4% for the first quarter, which only included one month of the shutdown.

But because of that deferment that the state offered businesses small businesses were actually expecting to be down 26%. And kind of the scary, sobering thing about that is that is January through March. And this started mid-March so just that two weeks in March has reduced our sales tax revenue 26% for that period. So April to June is not going to be positive.

Did the state exempt them or did it just defer the payment? It deferred it one year But there is- Money actually come in at some point, is it a

cash flow or is it an actual loss of revenue? It's cash flow but we do expect there to be some loss because some businesses will likely go out before they repay. So there's gonna be some reduction but for the most part, it's a cashflow issue and then as we mentioned, so then the only revenue that's looking positive is property tax. So we've refined the budget to note that Also of note that's important is measure C did go into effect June 1st and so we should officially be collecting it at this point which is going to be key to our long term and the capital improvement projects and not Having to defer those projects in difficult times like we would have in the past. So it will be an important part. It just dampened our enthusiasm a little bit, but it's going to be an important part moving forward.

And I think the last thing we wanted to say just to kind of Set the table is this will be a year where we will make adjustments. We're already planning for an October revise, I think we should expect it. We should expect that if things change and businesses open quicker or slower than we're expecting, we're gonna come back and make adjustments to the budget.

Right now it's difficult to project right now and every city's gonna struggle with that so We've put together a fairly conservative budget. If things continue to reopen as they have been fairly quickly over the last couple of months, you know the budget is fair but we expect that some things will change and we'll come back and make adjustments as needed. And one of those things actually I can mention too, I know it'll be something that's talked about here is we have started the conversation with the Sheriff's Department about their contract and looking at that. So there will be some upcoming discussions to be had.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to jump in quickly. With measure C funding this year being the first year we are expecting the current budget projects about $1.5 million in measure C funds for this We said we were gonna try to put an emphasis on that. So this year would have been a year we wouldn't have paved normally, but this year even in challenging times with Measure C funding that should give us the opportunity to pave, to do some significant paving.

We're also looking at some Libbey Park improvements for approximately $112,000. The Sarzadi Park light poles that we had talked about a few couple months back For $58,000 portable speed radar sign for 8,000 parking lot improvements for 56,000 and then the Stewart Canyon restoration project that we received an $800,000 grant for. We've budgeted some here for some of the staff time for that and then City Hall repairs approximately 79,000.

This slide, essentially what we're trying to show is that the impact Measure C will have on us even in a tough year. So on good years we really should be able to leverage that money for more projects.

Quick question before you go to the next

slide.

If it wasn't for Measure C would we be only forecasting $1 million flat? If it wasn't for

Measure

C, well

so

the one and a half million dollars is all Measure C funds. Right but I mean if it wasn't increased to 15% then only been 1 million we would have been getting. So is that is the $1.5 million that extra 5% or is it the whole extra 15%?

No so the 10% current tax that goes through the general fund totals about three million dollars And then the, this is the new. Okay. Thank you. So the additional 5% will total one and a half million dollars that we are earmarking for capital improvement projects and those, the list of projects that we all talked about when it got put on the ballot.

Can I ask something, please?

Yeah.

Could you add two items to this list or could it fall under one of these categories? And I've said this before, we desperately need benches. There's not a single bench between the trolley stop in front of Nordoff and El Roblar. And almost every evening and sometimes in the morning, I see people walking through work on that stretch. They're tired when they're...

And there's other places in the city where it's just inhumane, you know, considering the number of people who are walking or taking the trolley not to have some benches. I can't advocate for that enough. And the other thing is that I think it's a shame that we don't have shade over the trolley stop in front of the bank because during the heat of day, I see elderly people all different families will be sitting there in the heat. It just seems like if we can do all this, that somehow we can find those are very humble requests compared to this and I feel like we need to add that to the list.

And I will say the, um, so I've talked to public works and we believe we have some benches that we could put out currently. So we've talked about starting to roll those out. Uh, not sure exactly how many they were going to go check into that. So, um ,that should be something we can at least start addressing. Um, the shade of the trolley stop, I don't think is currently included, but if a council desires we can include that.

I don't have a quote offhand for that.

James, when you say the budget is balanced, you're saying that we are living within what we believe to be our income for the next year and it's not truly balanced in the sense that we're deferring Uh, obligations that are just piling up. We're just not making the expenditure on capital repair and capital improvement. My understanding of this list last time we talked about it with the exception possibly of the Sarasota light poles. I think those were under contract, right? Yes.

Okay. That the rest of this stuff, uh, we haven't, we haven't obligated ourselves to write And so when we do the October revise or September, October after we get a little more experience as to what's happening to our revenues and the priorities could be changed soon. So I think by moving some of this money around if it was to be determined by council that they, what you're just mentioning has a higher priority than some of the stuff that's on here.

I would recommend to the council, the budget will not be balanced if we start to add stuff without taking anything away. This was approved or recommended by the Budget Committee based upon that kind of review of revenues and expenditures. So for us to be deciding to add anything, it's not a good time. If we've lived this long without it even though there were these things, Try to get through at least the next quarter to see where we are because some of these things, we may not even have any money for.

But for that very reason, why can't we put that on the list? James can get a quote. That trolley stop is part of client mitigation. Those are people that are not driving.

Yes but this is a budget hearing and every time we put on the list goes into the budget whereas if you put it on a list of desirable things, and you brought it up. There's some good ideas here that in the fall after we see what's happened to our sales tax and all other revenues then we might say let's do as we have done in the past trade something out for it rather than add something to it because if you add something to it the expectation is we're going to go ahead and spend the money and that means we're not balanced anymore

And I will say, I believe that actually is on the five-year CIP. It might not have been for this year. So when we come back to your point, when we come back in October, we can review those projects. One point that I think is worth mentioning is with hotels reopening this week, we will not receive any Measure C funding or TOT until July 31st at the earliest.

And so we aren't going to have this funding anytime soon, and this is over the entire year. So we have some time until we start working on these projects as it takes some time to collect the funds.

And while we're waiting to collect the funds, we're going to be living off of our reserves, right? Correct. Yeah, so everybody needs to understand that that money is not just sitting there idle. We're gonna have... That's our cash or capital working capital. Randy you had your hand up?

I just had on the same discussion. I was talking to James earlier today. I'd like to bring back to council sometime soon and that's a different type of discussion regarding Measure C funding and TOT funding Mayor, you brought it up more than once that the 20% that we move to Fund 31 part of it covers road and sidewalk and curb and things of that nature. Things that are technically earmarked for Measure C funding only And then you said the other half goes into facility restoration, maintenance and things of that nature.

I'd like to see us have a discussion about where we take all of Measure C money and earmark it for parking lot lighting And streets, curbs, gutters and things of that nature. And we just allocate Measure C funding for that specifically then we come back to TOT and now we can earmark specific needs of the community such as Susan's benches or picnic tables in parks We can actually now identify what those needs are and clearly transfer monies over just to cover that. And then the last thing in it is we don't have anywhere in any of these discussions about how we're going to repay back our reserves, and I'd like to see us start putting a greater percentage of the TOT that we used to fund 31 out of back into the reserves. But I'd like to have that conversation sooner or later, obviously not tonight but I think it's a worthwhile conversation.

Right now the challenge, I agree with you Andy, but the challenge right now is to not further deplete the reserve as opposed to increase it. The sooner we get the turnaround, I think we should be budgeting what they always say on those ads about first thing Again, personal finance and pay yourself. Put some money in your savings account. That's what we should be doing too. But unfortunately with the pandemic, we have no idea what our income is going to be or we have a poor idea. So OK, James, sorry I got you off.

Yeah that's all good point and we can come back to talk about the measure C transfer or the TOT transfer in measure C and how that's apportioned.

Is this a good time to break and take public comment?

I have two slides, but yeah.

Okay go ahead

So quickly, I think one of the last kind of round of decisions that we have to make and it's something that you know the Budget Committee and staff have not typically weighed in on is the community organization funding. We've talked about this a few times last year. We had $231,000 in the budget and we provided facilities to both the Ojai Museum and the help of Ojai at some which has some value.

This year what's included in the budget is $114,000 because we took it back to the prior year amount and then also the Arts Commission's reduced $35,000 request is included in there. Prior year had 40,000 in there so since they reduced it we had included that in the proposed budget And then the facilities for the museum and the help of Ojai are also still obviously included in our current budget. So essentially there's $114,000 that council could discuss how to distribute it if they desire to distribute it.

That's one of the pending items and that's the end of the presentation.

Okay do we have any public comments? The general ones that don't address budget or some of the other items on the agenda We have public comments on budget, yes. That's it? We don't have any because it's the 730 time when there was no...

Oh I'm sorry. No, I didn't understand general public comments. Yes we do have some and we provided those uh comments to you um the uh we received three comments regarding ATP project two comments opposing the project and one comment supporting And we got seven comments regarding Pickleball. All seven were in support of Pickleball, and then the rest are about the budget it appears.

Didn't we get one opposing Pickleball from a neighbor?

We actually have-

Yes.

What happened

though this is- Okay. Come on up.

I want to make a comment because we get public comments in addition to what is shown here of there were two public comments from neighbors, I believe.

Yeah so what shows here are the comments submitted through the clerk's office as identified in the agenda? We had this last week too. Some people send comments directly to the City Council, which they do not come in through the city clerk's email that we track for the meetings.

Okay, but do we have any that need to be read or summarized addressing subjects that are not on the agenda? I'm not hearing anything. So, I guess we don't have any more public comment other than what you just summarized that we had two in favor or two opposed one in favor of the ATP is that right? Yes. And then we had a number of pickleball comments that were favorable and a couple that were not so favorable. What else do we have?

The other public comments are on the budget.

Okay, so we'll come back to the budget now Do we have staff questions of James or should we open the public hearing? Okay, let's public hearing is now open. What do we have James?

So we did receive some audio recordings that have requested to be played and I believe I've heard the request from a majority of councils to play them so council members to play them. If desired, so we can play those now.

I believe there's... If so then go ahead.

Are we keeping, oh

okay. Are you playing them?

James you're still sharing your screen before you open your email. Yeah let me,

good catch.

Okay

so we're trying to play them but

When I learned that our city of Ojai spends one third of its general fund on police services, I felt strongly that this large expenditure deserves additional oversight. It cannot be prudent to allocate $3.5 million this fiscal year to an organization that has refused to update our contract with them. And when I learned that our city has almost no real influence in the enforcement policies of sheriffs, I felt that this contractual relationship has become bereft of the basic trust and accountability between service providers and clients.

This breakdown of trust has been accelerated recently by VCSO employees and a county district attorney investigator breaking the law in defacing the First Amendment protected sign in our neighboring city of Thousand Oaks. The sign simply read BLM, and was slashed and defaced by public servants. What is there to argue with in saying that Black Lives Matter? It could be that accountability is threatening to systems of law enforcement and judicial carceral bodies, such as VCSO and the Office of the District Attorney. And that by saying black lives matter we are also saying that brown lives matter, and poor lives matter, and undocumented lives matter, and mentally ill lives matter and unhoused lives matter.

These are the very lives the VCSO and district attorney unduly harm. Why are we paying, as a city, millions of dollars year after year to VCSO to harass unhoused people in our community instead of simply increasing the access to harm reduction and housing assistance programs? Social services are more impactful and cost efficient than law enforcement. There is currently no County Services Office within the Ojai Valley. Instead, people must go to an independent and underfunded local organization, help of Ojai's Community Assistance Program on Fox Street to apply for county services. This lengthens the process when people need help now.

Our renegotiations should be carried out in collaboration with neighboring contracting cities to right the wrongs that have been allowed to grow for decades in the VCSO and police unions. A practical model would be to reduce the amount we and the other cities pay the VCSO every year, until our general funds more adequately reflect our values and known best practices serving community well-being. We should start by reducing it by half.

The bottom line is there must be a reassessment of the contract. If they are unwilling to negotiate our contract, we must consider alternative methods of policing. Thank you for your time.

That was Emma Bailey

Okay. Do we have more? Yeah, there's three more. Okay.

Aaron Schneider is next.

Hi, my name is Aaron Snyder. I'm a constituent of the town of Ojai California and I call upon you as a leader and representative of my town to step up to support black lives in this time of crisis. Specifically, I'm calling on you to find a way to renegotiate the contract with the Ventura County Sheriff's Office in order to insist upon changes with respect to use of force practices. The city of Ojai spends a third of its general fund on police services and such a large sum deserves additional oversight. It's not prudent to allocate $3.5 million to an organization that has refused to update our contract with them. There must regularly be a two-way reassessment of the contract. If they're unwilling to renegotiate our contract, we must consider alternative methods of policing.

Making matters worse in recent years and even in recent weeks there's been a marked breakdown in trust between the VCSO and the communities it is sworn to protect. This fact is particularly visible in the killing of Megan Hockaday and in the recent vandalism of a Black Lives Matter sign in Thousand Oaks by county employees. I want to see the police budget cut in half, and that money applied to social services that can better serve the needs of the community.

I want Ojai to insist upon significant and far-reaching restrictions on use of force by police officers without taking no for an answer. Moreover, I want to see a marked reduction in racial profiling that happens in our town. Data must be collected in a systematic, searchable manner. I'm calling for documentation of acts of discrimination like the ones we've detailed. I demand investigation and consequences for all those who are reported. And I insist on transparency. Regular reports from the Town Government on the state of racist policing in the town.

I propose adapting a Type 1 Review Board as delineated in the U.S. Department of Justice's Citizens' Review of Police Approaches and Implementation, where citizens investigate allegations of police misconduct and recommend findings to the chief or sheriff. It is essential that this review board have independent subpoena power. Thank you for your time.

Owen Coyle is next. Then there's one more.

I am a resident of the city of Ojai, California and I call upon you as a leader and representative of my city to step up to support Black lives in this time of crisis. Specifically, I'm calling on you to find a way to renegotiate the contract with the Ventura County Sheriff's Office in order to insist upon changes with respect to use of force practices across the Ventura County Sheriff's Office's jurisdiction.

The City of Ojai spends one third of its general fund on Ventura County Sheriff's Office services and such a large sum deserves additional oversight. It is not prudent to allocate $3.5 million to an organization that has refused to update our contract with them. If they are unwilling to renegotiate our contract we must consider alternative methods of policing Making matters worse, in recent years and even in recent weeks there has been a marked breakdown in trust between the Ventura County Sheriff's Office and the communities it has sworn to protect. This fact is particularly visible in the killing of Megan Hockaday and in the recent vandalism of a Black Lives Matter sign in Thousand Oaks by county employees.

I want to see the police budget for the City of Ojai cut in half and that money applied to social services that can better serve the needs of the community. The majority of crimes in our community are misdemeanors or drug enforcement, and the violent crime rate is lower than ever. I want the City of Ojai to work with other cities that contract with the Ventura County Sheriff's Office to push for significant and far-reaching restrictions on the use of force by sheriff's officers across Ventura County. Data on racial profiling must be collected in a systematic, searchable manner. I'm calling for documentation of acts of discrimination like the ones we have detailed. I demand investigation and consequences for all those who are reported. And I insist on transparency.

Regular reports from the city government on the state of racist policing in the city. I propose adapting a Type 1 Review Board as delineated in the U.S. Department of Justice's Citizens' Review of Police Approaches and Implementation, where citizens investigate allegations of police misconduct and recommend findings to the chief or sheriff. It is essential that this review board have independent subpoena power. Thank you for your time.

There's one more, I don't have the name for this person.

Ojai City Council, I am a constituent of the town of Ojai California and I call upon you as a leader and representative of my town to step up to support black lives in this time of crisis. Specifically, I'm calling on you to find a way to renegotiate the contract with Ventura County Sheriff's Office in order to insist upon changes with respect to use-of-force practices The city of Ojai spends a third of its general fund on police services, and such a large sum deserves additional oversight.

It is not prudent to allocate $3.5 million to an organization that has refused to update our contract with them. There must regularly be a two-way reassessment of the contract. If they are unwilling to negotiate our contract, we must consider alternative methods of policing. Making matters worse, in recent years and even in recent weeks there has been a marked breakdown in trust between the VCSO and the communities it is sworn to protect.

This fact is particularly visible in the killing of Megan Hockaday and in the recent vandalism of a Black Lives Matter sign in Thousand Oaks by county employees I want to see the police budget cut in half and that money applied to social services that can better serve the needs of the community. I want Ojai to insist upon significant and far-reaching restrictions on use of force by police officers without taking no for an answer. Moreover, I want to see a marked reduction in the racial profiling named above.

Data must be collected in a systematic searchable manner I'm calling for documentation of acts of discrimination like the ones we have detailed. I demand investigation and consequences for all those who are reported, and I insist on transparency. Regular reports from the town government on the state of racist policing in town. I propose adapting a Type 1 Review Board S delineated in the U.S. Department of Justice's Citizens' Review of Police Approaches and Implementation, where citizens investigate allegations of police misconduct and recommend findings to the chief or sheriff.

It is essential that this review board have independent subpoena power. Thank you for your time. My name is Sarah DelVecchio.

Those are the four that we've received.

Mayor?

Yes,

excuse me. I had a request from Andra Belknap that I read her statement. It's under three minutes.

Okay.

Go ahead. Okay and if I notice some repetition I'll try to not read that part okay. First, we know that our VCSO contract represents approximately one third of Ojai's general fund. We know that Ojai's current police contract has not been meaningfully revised since the early 80s even though the text of the contract calls for revisions each five years at most. We know that the Ventura County grant jury called on the VCSO to revise their contracts with contract cities in 2012 eight years ago What are we waiting for?

Second, I'm not at all convinced that the service VCSO provides our community annually is worth $3.5 million. It would frankly be quite difficult to make an informed judgment about the efficiency of VCSO services given the lack of transparency in the contracting process. Here is what I do know about DCSO services during the period 2016 to 2018, the most recent dates for which these figures are available.

Thanks to OIA request, I'm not sure what that acronym stands for.

Freedom of Information Act.

Oh, of course! Thank you. From Campaign Zero. 64% of VSO arrests during this period represent misdemeanors 32% represent drug offenses and 6% represent violent crime During that period, 73 inmates were transferred to ICE custody and 11 died in jail. I unfortunately don't have statistics regarding the racial makeup of VCSO arrests during this period but we do have that data for the Ventura Police Department During the aforementioned period, 26% of Ventura's population was Latino.