City Council — 2021-03-23

Forum for the Ohio City Council Tuesday, March 23rd 2021 meeting. Gail may we have the roll call please?

Thank you.

In addition, we're expecting a number of new cases in the next few meetings. And we'll be passing along recommendations to the council on those as well as continuing our search through title 10 for errors, omissions and other errata and then be suggesting some changes to the text of the municipal code as well. So that concludes my report and thank you very much For letting the commissions report again.

I'm not sure how many folks may be watching this on channel 10 right now, but it's probably 10 to 100 times as many as show up for a typical planning commission meeting. So I appreciate the chance to let the community know what we're doing. Thank you very much.

Before you go, Steve. Thank you. Thank you. Every member you and every member of the commission, the work you guys have put into cleaning up Title 10. It's thankless, important and really high quality work by dedicated volunteers. So thank you very

much. There's a column in a magazine I read called Boring But Important And that's how I look at the title 10 clean

up. Thank you. Oh, I just want to echo what Bill said because I sat through some of those sessions. It's so tedious for three hours. The level of concentration required is amazing. So thank you.

I really have to hand it to the rest of the members of the commission too because it takes a lot of time to go through all of these provisions of the code And make cogent remarks as they come up in a commission session.

So

hats off to all of them. You know, Steve the benefit too is it gives these commissioners insight and I don't know how many commission meetings I've sat through where it seemed like they were deliberating not really understanding what the codes were or what the policies were or what the procedures were and this just gives that commission a great opportunity to acquire

knowledge It forces you to get to know the code, that's for sure.

And we can't do anything without planning so thank you, thank you, thank you for doing it. Nice to meet you Steve. Nice to meet you Mayor.

Thank you. Now we've got Brian. Yeah, Brian Akins should be next.

Okay, he should be... There he is. Brian you should be able to speak now and if your camera's off please turn your camera on and unmute your microphone.

Hey Brian can you hear us?

I saw a light go

out. Can you hear me now? Yeah, yes.

We still can't see you.

We got your twin on. Here's to Brian.

Oh

there. Okay. You're

back on mute Brian. You're muted Brian. How about now? We can hear you. OK, great because I have three screens I'm looking at right now. I figured one of them might eventually work. No picture

yet. No picture.

Well, I'm doing this on my iPhone and everything worked for the two museum meetings I had today so I guess you'll just have to take my word for it. Yeah. Okay, if I go ahead.

Good good for us if it's good for you yeah

okay good got a timer going over here and i'm already over overdone okay so good evening Council city manager legal and staff my name is Brian Aikens chair the historic preservation commission I appreciate this opportunity to share with you an HPC update our current ad hoc committee task is working to bring to the full HPC and then counsel A proposal for the designation of the downtown historic district. This has been on our minds for several years and shared with Council in past joint meetings, the ad hoc committee is comprised of Commissioner Gina McCattin who chairs this committee historian Craig Walker and me.

It is our goal to present a package that would focus on completeness while being frugal with both costs and time, and not being a burden on the city's finances and staff. To date as discussed at our last HPC meeting, thank you Councilman Wyrick for being there, we have delineated boundary identified potential contributing non-contributing and not fully identified properties, as in who knows who that lot is within that boundary?

Further, a spreadsheet is being completed with the wide variety of information that pertains to each individual property. To aid us in this we would like to have arranged a joint session with the council and HPC. We were to talk about this early last year but with COVID that did not happen go figure. Please ask for that, we asked for that to happen at the earliest meeting convenient to Council. Our goal is to have something in place by August 5th 2021 happy birthday city of Ojai for their centennial. To conclude this section I share with you an early opening draft from Craig Walker. The downtown Ohio Historic District defines an area of historic significance Significance 1874 to 1940 representing the town's planned development and redevelopment from an Old West pioneer settlement to a modern city, beautiful village of Spanish architecture.

The town from its very inception has been a model of vision and planning which attracted some of California's most accomplished architects to design this building. Thank you, Craig. Another item of importance is our commission composition. We are five commission members we have One vacancy going back to early November 2020 and three commissioners that are currently with expired terms. Fortunately, all three hope to be reappointed we currently do not have a vice chair as ties Quinn relocated were unable to fill the position with only one. current member. We respectfully ask for the council's assistance to rectify this with the filling of the existing vacancy and reappointment of the three as a council members see fit, as we understand this will be done by single council members recommendations.

Thank you all for your wonderful service and sorry I wasn't in person

Brian, are you

still

there?

Yes. I am, Susan.

Mayor Betsy. Brian, I did appoint someone. I'll follow up with Gail to see what's happening. Maybe maybe their window of maybe they're waiting to see if anyone else applies. But I did appoint someone.

Great. Thank you.

OK.

And thank you so much, Brian, for that Beautiful report and all the amazing work that you're doing.

You're very welcome, Mayor. I look forward to the opportunity to stand at the podium and be able to speak with you face-to-face. That's incredible! I've been around long enough that I actually remember when we did a live commission report so... Commissioner reports. So thank you all

can't wait for that.

Yeah, I

agree. Well, thank you for coming.

You're welcome. Thank you.

All right, well now we're moving on to public communications.

I do think we have my list shows three public comment speakers

And City Manager Vega, just an update on that. Steve Quillacy also had a public communications item that he wanted to give as well so there's four. Okay I'll go ahead and bring Steve Quillacy back in. Steve, you can go ahead and speak. You won't show on the screen but you can go ahead and speak now.

Did I unmute? Okay

thank

you very much. I wanted to reprise an email that i sent to mayor and council members about the Maricopa Highway experiment that we have going on. The city of Maricopa. We want better conditions for bicyclists and pedestrians. And a larger majority that does not like the current configuration of the experiment with two lanes and lots of planters, that kind of thing.

Fortunately there is a section of Maricopa highway within the city right now. That meets both requirements of Maricopa Highway. And that is the section between the Y and Carrillo Street. If you're familiar with the area, there are two very clearly marked and separated green painted bike lanes and no parking on the street. My suggestion is that you continue that all the way to the Cuyama-El Roblar intersection The only on-street parking that one ever sees, with the exception of July 4th and perhaps the Nordhoff graduation is people who are frequently there to visit the Ojai Meadows.

And there is plenty of city space PL zoned just to the north of the driveway into St. Thomas Aquinas Church that could accommodate the few cars that are there with off street parking Then you could go back and so you red paint the curbs. And the only thing you have to spend to implement this plan is paint. In fact, if you want more protection for pedestrians, you could put additional, what do they call them? Rectangular rapidly flashing beacon signals in the medians, in front of the hospital down at either Church Street or Peary Street and at Carrillo.

And the actual distance that a slow-moving pedestrian would need to cover for the two lanes of traffic in either direction is actually less distance than across the two lanes that are now one each direction in the current experiment. So I urge you to consider this. It is a solution that preserves what the majority wants in both ways, protection for bicyclists and pedestrians as well as the four lanes and it costs a whole lot less than the current plan. Thank you very much.

Thank you Steve.

Next Gail? Next we have Elizabeth Herring. Elizabeth, if you can unmute yourself go ahead and you can go ahead and speak.

Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Okay great. So I have a comment, which I believe is related to the last City Council meeting about drones. Maybe it wasn't the last one but I thought it was anyways so I sent an email about it and I will read that here. I'm concerned about the potential for drone deliveries to exist within the city of Ojai. I believe what makes Ojai a special place to live and what gives Ojai its inherent character is the lack of noise pollution, technological clutter and abundance of wildlife, especially our bird wildlife.

While drone delivery is an efficient idea in theory, the actuality of package deliveries taking place via drone would severely increase the amount of noise pollution in Ojai and disrupt Ojai's serene and quiet nature, as well as disturbing the home of birds in our town. I can speak to that specifically in that wildlife protectionists are using drones to monitor bird life but they're trained technically and how to respect wildlife while using drones, and I don't believe that like a common delivery person would have the exact skill in order to navigate that situation.

Already, drones being used to inspect telephone poles to determine electrical adjustments and construction to be planned have created noise disruption and pose a threat to personal privacy. This is an important matter that needs to be reviewed in detail and pushed back against I do not think that Ohio's character should be changed to meet the needs of consumerist tendencies at large.

So that's my statement. And I just want to emphasize that I think that drones pose like a larger problem also to personal privacy, and I think that they have not been tested well enough in larger society to be tested at first in Ojai, and I think that it's just something to consider so thank you.

Thank you so much Elizabeth for coming

Yeah, no problem.

Next please. Thank you Gail.

Next we have Annette Campbell. Annette go ahead and you can speak. Annette are you there? You can go ahead and speak.

I'm mute okay can you hear me now yes Okay. First of all, I just want to say thank you for this time to speak and I wanted to speak to you about pickleball. And I want to thank the city that we now have our own location to play pickleball and it's obvious that this sport is growing rapidly as we can already see the effects of a numbers of people who are coming and they come not only from our town but also from other towns as well.

And so many first timers have told us how they felt so welcome by our group. My husband is now 81 years old and this sport has literally, and I mean literally gotten him off the couch. In the process he's lost 20 pounds and is in great shape. We're able to ride our bikes to the courts which is an added plus. Not only has this sport benefited our health it has also gotten us through this past year of isolation with being able to safely socialize while still getting exercise Now that the sound wall and the east wall are in the process of being built, and we now have more daylight plus we are a part of Libbey Park. We're asking to have the limited hours lifted and changed to the same hours as the tennis players who play at Libbey Park from 6am to dusk with the present hours.

We mostly have all four courts filled while other players awaiting the extended hours would allow players to spread out more during the day It would also give us the opportunity of playing during the cooler hours of the Ojai summer heat. We all know how hot it gets here in Ojai in the afternoons, playing in the heat of the day especially for seniors is truly a health concern as well we have to consider the working people some don't get off until five o'clock they should have the opportunity to play until dusk as well I hope you'll take all this into consideration And we thank you for all the beautiful things that you've done for our courts. We are just loving it.

Thank you for the time.

Thank you, Annette, for coming. We have one more, Gail?

Yes. Thank you. The next person is Tim Kraut. Tim, you should be able to speak now if you can unmute your microphone and you can speak.

Good evening Madam Mayor, Council Members. I'm Tim Kraut, Ojai resident and U.S. Pickleball Ambassador to the Local Pickleball Group as one of the over 100 pickleball players here at City Hall Campus Libbey Park, I'm requesting that our playtime hours be revised. As you know, Ojai's spring and summer temperatures can be very hot especially during the middle of the day.

City staff has informed us that our afternoon playtimes for this period has been set at 2 30 to 6 30 p.m which is the hottest time of the day I feel that for the city to be equitable, community-minded to all the residents and taxpayers. The City Hall campus should have the same hours as a tennis courts in Libbey Park downtown campus. Since the signage is at both the downtown and City Hall campuses state that the parks are open for public use from 6 to 11 p.m..

Why are the pickleball players being singled out and discriminated against by having restricted access to public park because one or two neighbors don't like the noise a public park is designed to create? It appears that the council is responding to the desires of one or two people above the needs of over 100 community members wishing to use the public park. We often hear the words equitable, equality, inclusiveness and community.

Shouldn't these be more than just words and be actions taken? How can treating one group of citizens different than another group represent the meaning of any of these words? Some of our pickleball players have even been told by one of the empowered neighbors that they are not allowed to remain on the pickleball court area after our allotted play

time,

even if they're just sitting on the court talking and playing not playing. So pickleball players are banned from the park except during the posted play times but other people are allowed to camp in the park 24 seven. This feels like just the opposite of equitable equality and inclusiveness. So at a minimum I'm requesting that the pickleball play times be adjusted As of April 1st to 7 to 1130 a.m and 330 p.m to desk, thank you.

Thank you Tim for coming and thank you Gail. Okay moving on to consent calendar is there a motion to approve?

Move to approve.

Second. Second great okay may

Thanks for all the good work James.

Thank you. Yeah thank you so much James. All right Moving right along. So number two, the COVID report. James?

Thank you. I have a very brief presentation today. I will show that. I am excited. I'll just say both the extension of the skate park lease through 2044 and the creation of the internship program, I know we're both Things that the City Council and we had talked about for quite a while. So I am excited about that. So thank you for approving that.

Yeah, and I just want to reiterate that. Thank you so much James both of those. The skaters are ecstatic. Time to

celebrate

yeah. And I already know people who want to apply for the internship program.

Awesome yeah tomorrow we'll post a link for how to apply now that we're getting that moving. With that, I should hopefully everybody seeing the screen. We have just a brief update on COVID which is good. I think things are trending in a positive direction so hopefully each week you know will be kind of briefer and briefer because they're hopefully we'll be getting back to normal and won't have as many things to address.

Okay. And so these statistics reflect that. You can see, again we talked about this that in December and February we were having these huge increase in cases in the county and that has pretty much tapered off where over the last month where the month from January to February there were 24,000 cases. In the last month there have been less than 3,000 cases. So a huge reduction in number of cases That's also reflected in Ojai and the 93023 zip code, where there had been 623 cases in January that spiked to 970 a month later.

But moving forward another month we've only had 12 cases in that time frame in our 93023. So we're really seeing the effects of getting this under control and getting the vaccine out, which is really positive. It's also reflected with the hospitalization rate dropping dramatically. It was less than 10% of what it was two months ago. And a similar thing with ICU cases dropping from 22 weeks ago to 12 in the ICU currently.

But there have been some recent deaths. We're now up to 957 in the county, and I think that's the reminder for all of us to keep doing our part to try to put an end to this which we are finally making progress on. And so what this means and what it potentially means for us is there's the three key factors which are these three rates listed up here, you'll notice that the case rate we're at about five which shows in red because that's what is placing us in the red tier at this point. That has dropped dramatically I believe two weeks ago it was about 12 cases and so we've had this major drop and if it drops much further there we potentially could be hitting the next tier, the orange tier If it drops below 4.0, so we're at 5.0 now the other two rates that count the testing rate and the equity testing rate were already at the point where we could be orange tier so it's just the case rate that needs to continue to drop and it really seems to be dropping the county I think the county today report reported I think it was something like 24 cases so County wide so which was one of the lowest numbers we had seen in quite a while So I think that we are looking at a situation where potentially if things continue this way, we could move to orange tier and will explain in a minute what that means.

But it's the first time we've been in this situation and it's really a big positive and it should be good for our businesses and for our residents to feel like things are getting back to normal. Hopefully it continues that way. I think the big concern is the last time indoor dining opened, we saw a bump in the numbers. Talking to county public health, we're not expecting that this time but it's something we'll have to watch and it's also why everybody should just continue to wash your hands distance and wear face coverings whenever possible so As we said earlier, we have been in the purple tier for quite a while.

And so what we wanted to show here quickly is in some key areas for Ojai, key business types for Ojai what the difference between purple tier red tier and orange tier would be because we could potentially move into the orange tier within a couple of weeks if things continue. So as you can see here there's some Subtle differences and then some that will make more of an impact than others.

For retail, each tier that we move up it's just the capacity increases and so that's a positive. We went from 25% to 50%. And then at orange tier there is no limit on the capacity for gyms and fitness centers they were outdoors only in purple tier Now they can be open at 10% inside and when we move to orange tier, they could open at 25% inside which would make a big difference for the fitness centers and gyms in the valley.

Places of worship those can open They have been outdoors only although that changed towards the end of our time in purple tier where they started to allow indoors At a 25% capacity that's continuing under red tier and at orange chair, it would open at 50% capacity. Restaurants as we I think we all know were outdoors only during purple tear they now can be 25% capacity indoors and once we get to orange chair, it could be 50% capacity indoors.

And then wineries, breweries and distilleries actually had a recent change that was effective since our last council meeting. They in our red tier can open outdoors with as long as they have reservations a 90 minute time limit the idea being you can't sit all day and you know and hang out because that increases the risk of spread And then seating at tables only and then the wineries, breweries and distilleries have a earlier close time than other businesses. But once we get to orange tier those can start opening indoors with 25% capacity so that'll be a big change at that point.

And then the other one that we're getting a lot of calls about which doesn't take effect yet it takes effect April 1st is the outdoor live events with assigned seating Those currently cannot occur, but effective April 1st when we expect to still be in red tier. Those can occur with a maximum 20% capacity with some requirements like having advanced reservations and in-seat concessions And then once we get to orange tier, those can open up more with 33% capacity and without some of the stricter restrictions. So I think I saw it this weekend being out and about is...I heard from a few people who said it was starting to feel more like normal, and I think that's a good thing.

And I think moving to orange tier will even We'll continue to have the signage and notices up reminding people to do that. I, we did this events update at the last couple meetings. I wanted to mention it because we're seeing that this year will be very fluid and it will be there will be a lot of changes as we go. I think I mentioned at the last meeting that we were talking to groups like the music festival who are planning to hold their event, but the music festival last week announced Postponing it to later this year from June to September, and I think that's kind of what we're going to see this year is we're going to see everybody be very flexible maybe move some dates to try to make it work or change their. you know, their event from what it typically is.

You know, modify how people get access or you know how seating is provided like that's what we're going to see this year so it was just a good chance to kind of give an example of that. It's going to be a flexible unique year but it is planning at this point its plan in planning to be held Earth Day similar small scale down version Art-in-the-Park Is still being planned this year.

Fourth of July fireworks are still being planned and again with all of these, we're going to keep in contact with the event holders. We're going to review protocols and we're going to see what can be done and you know there may be things that can't be done but these are the current what we're currently in communication on Sterling concerts those are still planned to be held this year.

Later in the year starting July, as Chair Aikens from the Historic Preservation Commission mentioned we are working on centennial celebration planning with the museum. And we are still working on a scaled down local focused Ojai Day this year and then people probably heard it was kind of breaking news that I think three o'clock today or so at the Ventura County Fair which is not a city event but obviously most a lot of people in the city go to the Ventura County Fair That was canceled for 2021 today, but they noted that they are planning it for 2022. And my understanding is it's canceled more because of a funding issue not because of COVID protocols.

So we have that going on and the other big thing to celebrate is we are making some real progress with vaccinations. I spoke with representatives from the hospital today and they told me that as The end of day yesterday they have vaccinated, or they have given 7500 vaccines. Which is huge it's you know it's essentially the population of the city and that's in The 13 days that they've been able to, you know, to give the vaccines out. So that is a big impact we're hearing that 75% of residents over 65 have been vaccinated at this point and that's in Ventura County and that countywide there have been 235,000 first dose Doses issued and 107,000 second doses issued.

And just to put that into perspective 235,000 people receiving the first dose is about a quarter of the county population. So there's still work to do but it's real progress being made in real time and we've heard people say like when we look back on this like The scale of this vaccine rollout is going to be mind boggling, and I think we're seeing it in real life as it goes. We had hiccups to start but it's really moving quickly. And Nordoff is gonna continue to give vaccines although they are shifting to second dose vaccines so that they can get all the people who had gotten their first doses done could start coming through and getting their second doses.

Appointments for those could still be made on VenturaCountyRecovers.org And then just as a reminder, we are in the phase that opened up last week where individuals 16 to 64 who have severe health conditions such as the ones listed here can start to be vaccinated and we are hearing more and more than on Mondays that there are appointments available on the website For a while, if you recall it was the minute that vaccine appointments would open up they'd be full but we're hearing that the appointments are available and people should continue to check those and get their appointments if interested. And then just I think this is the last slide but the COVID testing at Sarzotti Park has been extended for one more month through the end of April.

It's Wednesday from 9am to 3.30pm And it's just a reminder, a lot of people recently have asked why is it important to get tested and really the reason is if. You know if you suspect that you may have been exposed to COVID rather than continuing to You know don't assume that the people around you have gotten vaccinated because, as we saw we still are about 25% in the county.

And so getting tested is important to prevent you know accidentally spreading it to others that's still. is happening and can happen. So if you are suspecting it or you have any symptoms, or even a suspicion of it, you can walk up at Sarzotti Park and get tested. We are hearing that there's no line over the last few months. There's absolutely no lines so it's a quick five minute in-and-out situation.

So with that, oh one last slide. There we also wanted to point or to give this information to businesses in Ojai that there are some grants available and one of them is closing so if you If you're interested in these grants, you can get information on these on SBA.gov. There's a shuttered venue operations grant which even the city is looking at. Our staff is reviewing this to see if we could qualify for this for the Libby Bowl, for example. But if there are any other businesses who could qualify they can review that on SBA.gov And then there's the Restaurant Revitalization Grant, also available on SBA.gov and I think that's opening it's expected to open next week but there's information and a link on that page.

And then the California Relief Grants has a couple of different groups but the non-profit cultural institutions such as The Museum for example, that group is closing now so Those groups should apply there, CAReliefGrant.com. And then a new round will open up on March 25th for certain businesses. So with that, that is the latest happenings and I'm happy to answer any questions if there are any.

Bill and then Randy?

James, live events would that include Spoken, seminar lecture type things outdoors following the same protocols. Would that fit in that category? If they follow

the same protocols the way it's worded is outdoor live events with assigned seats so if you know if somebody wanted to have You know spoken word, you know I could think of you know a poetry reading, a book reading and they were able to do it outdoors with the science seats and with controlling the audience. Then they would be able to do those effective

April 1st. Effective April 1st and it looks like if present trends continue we could be in orange by sometime in April. Is that right?

Yeah. Public health office told us yesterday a representative said that if it continues, it can potentially be two weeks. OK, thank you.

Randy and then James, has anyone come forward on legacy events, you know, asking if they can resume or if they can when they can?

Yes. Yes, for sure. We're getting contacted by almost all event holders and it's very confusing right now so you know a lot of people are just asking would we even be able to? So we're having those conversations daily at this point but Everybody's excited, including us. But we also all have to keep in mind one comment that we've heard a few times is now that COVID is over and I keep having to remind people it's not over and we'll have protocols and make sure that we're doing these things safely.