City Council — 2021-06-22

Council

Member Weirich, will you please do the pledge for us?

Certainly

Thank you

see dozens of volunteers with you guys pretty regularly so I wanted to say thank you for all the work you've done on the Stewart Canyon project. Is there another restoration planned on that one anytime soon? Is there a date we can give people?

Okay.

So yeah, for the community watering days we do have one coming up July 17th. So if anybody is interested in participating, coming to help water and mulch the little baby trees and some little grasses that we've planted in Middle Stork Creek definitely come July 17th it's going to be 10 a.m., sorry 8 a. m. to 10 a

You have all the support you need for

watering?

So please stick around for the next presentation. You're going to hear some wonderful things about organics, some incredible things about organics.

Thank you, Tara. Thank you for coming and sharing beautiful work. All right, next we have a presentation by Nan Drake of E.J. Harrison and Bill Camarillo of Agroman on new waste recycling programs. Exciting. Hi Nan. First of all

thank you Mayor Sticks, council members and City Council Manager. It's an exciting time for the trash business there's a lot to be done And we're pretty sure we got it handled, but we need to get everybody in the loop. Everybody has to understand the importance of what they can do. We have looked at ourselves and looked at our customers through audits at Gold Coast looking through commercial loads and residential loads, and we decided that maybe everybody needed more service because we did find a few mistakes.

Some recyclables in the trash Little bit of green waste in the trash and a lot of food in the trash. And that's what the new law is all about, making sure that none of this goes to the landfills. So I'm here to talk about one specific thing which is really great news starting in July actually the week of July 5th No one will have to wonder, should I put my recycle barrel out or shall I put my green waste barrel out? Because you'll get to put all three of them out weekly.

So we'll have three trucks coming by your neighborhood and making sure that you have enough room in each barrel to do the right thing. And we feared that maybe that's what was happening, is you just did not have enough service and so people do what they can do and then they put it in a different barrel. So again... And I'm really happy to be here with Bill Camarillo.

As you know, it's a triumphant of partnerships, Gold Coast Recycling. Some of you have visited there. It's a very, very exciting facility. Three years ago the Harrisons decided to invest $7 million in new equipment And as you know, that was the very beginning of China deciding they didn't want any of our material anymore. But it was the right decision to make because today we were the only facility in California that never shut down a day during the pandemic and we kept selling material.

Downside is the prices are pretty low But you know, our business is diversion. So we're very happy that Gold Coast is working as well as it can and our other partner joined us This is by the way this is our 90th year in business In six more months so we're going to have a lot of parties and celebration And hopefully the city of Ohio be one of the cities that we come to We were here for our 85th anniversary We'll be back, but again very excited that Bill Camarillo is here with me tonight. He joined EJ Harrison as a partner in a new company that he brought to the Harrisons 30 years ago and Bill Camarillo said you know Jim I can make sure that all of your green waste that you now by law have to recycle gets reused We're going to create product with it.

Jim goes, really? Are you sure you're going to be able to do it all every city? He said yes and he said can you write a letter to all the cities absolutely promising that you could recycle all the green waste? Today it's the largest green waste actually organic waste company in California, and we're very proud. Jim Harrison is here with us also. Jim? You wanna say hi to the camera and wave?

Anyway, I'm so happy that Bill is here. He knows so much scientific and technical information about what we are doing that really will delay climate change. I'm not sure that we can stop it, but I think if we all try, we can move forward and do the right thing. With that, I'm going to let Bill take his spot up here and tell you about the exciting things we're doing together.

Thanks Nan. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Councilmembers and staff. My name is Bill Camarillo and I'm the CEO of AGRAMENT and that was an inspiring story. I travel the entire state we serve over 200 cities throughout the state and it's the youth that is doing programs like the Green Valley Project and crew that are making a difference and we're gonna do our part to help so you can reach out to AGRAMENT to see what we can do to assist you in your programs Because we actually need your help to put the soil back in the ground.

So our whole new mission and battle cry is to think organic, to heal the planet. And we today recycle over 1.2 million tons of organic waste in California for lots of communities throughout the state to meet the legislative mandates that California has put forth since 1990 and I'll share some of those with you in a minute. And we've been partners with the Harrisons for nearly 30 years. I was 28 years old when Jim asked me that, so I didn't know what I was talking about and I said sure. I just spent 10 years in the Marine Corps and I didn't think I couldn't do anything so I threw my hat in the ring and figured it out. Here we are 30 years later managing a lot of organic waste and converting it into all organic soil amendments, mulches, organic fertilizers, and renewable energy.

We're pretty excited about it because Even though we have been drunk on fossil fuels for a long time, it's a way to start cutting back and finding different ways to do things. And reuse a lot of the resources that we have consumed over the years and recycling of everything is going to be the future so next slide please. Uh-oh, that's the back. There you go.

So there's a new Senate bill that was passed in 2016 and it's not a recycling bill. It was all about fighting climate change. It's an organics recycling bill. And that Senate bill passed requiring us to start diverting 50% of all organic waste that's in the trash barrel by the year 2020. That's passed. And 75% by the year 2025. Here's the bad part about it. If you don't do it starting January 1 22, the penalty phase begins on all jurisdictions to ensure that we are removing the organic waste out of the waste barrel which includes green waste and food waste and wood waste and soil paper and all of those nice compostable packaging things you get at restaurants.

We're supposed to divert those from the landfills. Why do they want us to do that? Because when that material goes to the landfill, it creates methane gas. That methane, although captured through pretty sophisticated gas capturing systems, 25% of that gas is still fugitive emissions off the landfill itself. It just migrates through the soil and ends up in the atmosphere NASA has these really cool programs that can measure methane everywhere. And when you look over the world, they can see where all the methane generation is and it's typically at landfills and dairies which is why the dairy has been under attack in California but we can do something about the landfills. We could stop sending organic waste to the landfills and reutilize that organic material for more beneficial reuse in agriculture and we'll talk about that too.

Next slide? The regulation actually started back in 1990 when Jim asked me if we could manage green waste. And the first yard waste programs in Ventura County, we were receiving them and grinding them and composting them and turning them into well over 200 plus different types of soil products that we reintroduced back into landscapes, agriculture, and consumer grade products.

I won't bore you with the rest of them. All the orange ones are organic bills, AB 1594. You didn't even know that came and went? That was a bill that said you could no longer use green waste as alternative daily cover at landfills, meaning people were using ground green waste they were collecting from residents, grinding it up and covering the trash every night with it. And then the next day put the trash on top of that, and so on, and so on, and on. So the organics were still in the landfill creating methane.

SB 1383 comes along, says you can't do that anymore either. And it's not actually a recycling bill. It's a short-lived climate pollutant bill because over a 20 year period of time methane production is 80 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas creating a global warming effect and if you don't believe in climate change whether it's manmade or not the climate is changing ask any farmer We're seeing more severe droughts, more severe weather patterns. It's having an impact on everything so the state of California has decided it's going to lead the world in these climate change bills and we are going to help them get it done because they mandated it and if we don't do it they're gonna penalize us financially. So the good news is we're way ahead of the game with the Harrisons.

We've been doing this a long time We use innovation and science, and we use soil agronomists and scientists to figure out how to repair the soil because the answer is truly beneath our feet. If we put the carbon back in the ground where we took it from and put it into the atmosphere, we can actually create all kinds of benefits that reduce water consumption, reduce chemical use of fertilizers, all kinds of great things. Next slide?

Here's the goal. We are halfway through 2021. They expect us to get 20 million tons out of the landfill by 25. Agriment's already at 1.2 million tons across the state and we're only one company. So if you can imagine the heavy lift of trying to divert 20 million tons from the landfill with lack of infrastructure, which we're gonna talk about right now. We can't do this without collaborating with everyone to figure out ways to get this done. No good idea will be wasted cuz we gotta think about how we're gonna convert all this organic waste material into something reusable. Whether it's fuel for vehicles, renewable natural gas, renewable natural gas for energy.

Organic fertilizer, somehow we gotta turn this back to something that we can put back in the ground. Next slide. Agri-Min's mission is we are driving advanced innovations and regenerative soil science through using organic waste solutions to reverse climate change. Will we be successful? We're gonna try like son of a guns and if we don't try then where are we gonna end up so We do that by partnering with waste haulers, municipalities, agriculture, landscapers and every person programmed to try and figure out how to get this organic material back in the ground.

Next slide. Our layered strategy, we have become the counterpunch to climate change. We're an ambassador to everything you need to know about waste diversion, recycling requirements of organic waste and the waste industry for jurisdictions and haulers in agriculture. And we are the gold standard of making products that go back into the marketplace. We've done projects like the new SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles for the Rams, the Getty Centers, Disneyland, Anaheim Stadium. Our products are in all the Armstrong nurseries with Dr. Earth brand on them, and we're the single largest supplier of organic products for Scott's Miracle-Gro. So we know how to make great things out of organic waste to get them back in the ground and reused. Next slide.

It's a circular economy. You help us by putting the right materials in the right barrel, which you just heard Nan. The Harrisons are going to pick up your green waste barrel now every week so that you don't put any of it in the waste barrel and the trash can. And that material as a hauler brings it to us and we use our technologies and manufacturing capabilities to transform that material into reusable finished products for whatever you're trying to grow. If you can imagine every person's different, every animal is different, every plant is different We make soils just for roses. We make soils for vegetables, like strawberries. Everything's different that we make products for its application and it's for the purpose of restoring land and rebuilding our soils.

Just a factoid, in order for Mother Nature to build its own topsoil, it has to have at least 6% organic matter in it. It takes 3,000 years to build six inches of topsoil And farmers for decades have been using chemicals and depleting our topsoil, which has been consuming carbon out of the atmosphere. On top of that we've been tearing down the Amazon, which is a carbon sink. So we've created a lot of our own troubles by not being able to remove carbon out of the atmosphere. Next slide.

What do we do? We've taken waste diversion and recycling requirements through innovation, science, technology, and manufacturing. We've developed products to focus on regenerative agriculture, landscape, retail products, and renewable energy. Next slide. How do we do it? The dotted line represents, on the left side, the whole feedstock preparation of what we do. No matter what we get, whether it's food waste, grain waste, wood waste, ag waste, manures, liquid waste, we look at everything through a periodic table like in chemistry class and we look to see what's inside it and how are we going to harvest all that energy to determine what we're gonna make out of it? And then ultimately, we manufacture a ton of different products. Next slide.

This is our brand new facility opening in October. It is going to take food waste or separated collected from restaurants, schools, supermarkets, jails. The Harrisons will deliver it to this new facility in Oxnard. It'll unload into these stainless steel hoppers with augers, and it'll never touch the ground again. It'll be shredded, pressed, screened, and it's going to make an animal feed for chickens, pigs, dogs, cats, and an organic fertilizer that we can put back in the soil all from the organic waste streams generated from the communities. Next slide.

I grew up in Ventura County. This has been my most difficult project to ever work on. I know it's hard to see, but I have been trying to permit this facility in Ventura County for 11 years. Way before the legislation hit, because we could see it coming. And it'll be a 70 acre fully permitted commercial compost center in Ventura County to serve Ventura County and not have to haul our waste streams out of county. We're expecting the county promises to have it permitted by the end of this year.

And we're hoping to have it built and open up in early 23 to accept all organic waste materials for composting and renewable energy. Next slide. We're launching a new website called California Compost, powered by Agriman. One of the elements in SB 1383 is called Article 12, the requirement of every jurisdiction to buy compost, mulch, biogas or renewable energy to create a demand pull on the 20 million tons we've got to get diverted.

We're developing this new website just for jurisdictions to be able to go and order what they need. And we will get that material to the jurisdictions for whatever application, whether we're gonna put it in parks to reduce water consumption and store carbon in the parks or median streetways where can mulch those or even some of the garden products that you're doing. The cities and jurisdictions are required to purchase back 8% of their population in tons.

So for the city of Ojai, it's roughly 600 tons annually that you're going to have to purchase back in the form of compost or mulch to get it back into your communities. We started new projects with communities and their park lands were doing one in Ventura Montalvo Park We're going to use a new product we made for turf out of compost that will reduce the water consumption in parks by 40%. And we'll be able to store carbon in the parks. That we're looking at monetizing through a voluntary carbon market, where the big tech companies are trying to become carbon neutral. The one thing about the Harrisons and everything they've been doing? They're 21 times net zero because of all their recycling and their organics programs when most companies are going to struggle just to get to zero.

Next slide. We've been leading the way for 30 decades, and the state's finally catching up. Next slide. Oh actually could you go back to that slide real quick? You see the little boy on the right hand corner? That little boy received a trash truck from the driver that went viral on YouTube. It was the craziest thing it was pretty neat story. That's in Ojai, absolutely.

Next slide. Just a little footprint on Aggerman. We're split up north and south. We have facilities all the way in the north and the south. We cover almost every county in the south and growing very rapidly in the north. Next slide. That's the end of my story. Happy to answer questions. And thank you so much for your time. And Ojai is awesome. You guys think green, think organic, and we can all heal the planet. Thank you.

Thank you. Mayor? Bill, I have a question for you real quick. The community food waste right now—I think we talked about this yesterday—we should be bagging it and putting it in what container?

So the Harrisons very shortly are going to start a co-mingled yard waste, food waste program. But because we want the food waste to go to the Mountain View facility and become a higher value crop product like animal feed and fertilizer, we're going to ask the community to just bag your food waste and put it in the green waste barrel. And when it gets to our facilities, we're going to remove the food waste, send it to the Mountain View facility for processing, and then we're going to send the green waste to our compost centers to become soil amendments and mulches.

That's coming soon, right Jim? Probably you'll see some pilot programs starting this year and then effective next year you'll probably see a full program being implemented throughout the whole city

One other comment was, we were talking yesterday in that program you're starting at Montalvo. I came back and I just kept thinking of all of the large green turf spaces that we have in the community. And it's not just our parks, it's our schools. In fact, our schools have probably more turf or yeah, more turf that they're actually growing than the parks are in the city. Seems like having you guys come in and doing some joint ventures and even some joint education with the school system would be beneficial to all of us.

Yeah, as part of our California compost website too we're going to have a brokering service so that if the city can't use all the material will help you broker that to someone who can to help minimize the expense if we can uh You're gonna have to do it because it's part of the requirement And we'll provide all the reporting for you to CalRecycle through that hub And then if you can't use it all we'll broker to a school program or to an agricultural program in the community. What we're really excited about is truly believe, we truly believe we could store carbon in the parks because you're not tilling the turf and the great thing about organics if you buy organic food bigger's not better. Organic foods aren't bigger than conventional foods they taste better look better while you can grow great grass with organic products it doesn't grow tall grass it grows green grass and it stores carbon in the parks that we truly believe we can measure And we have this new drone that flies the parks, and we can measure the photosynthesis in the parks to tell you how much to turn the water back so the park stays green.

And you're using and maximizing the water because water is precious everywhere.

Mayor? If I could just say that what we've seen right here is why we are so fortunate to have a homegrown set of companies that you represent Headed by people that are committed to this community and so committed and passionate about doing the right thing. And I couldn't be more excited about the partnering potential that we are looking forward to in the near future.

Thank you, Bill. And you couldn't have said we all grew up here right and I think it's because we grew up here we have this certain culture about us that when we go to the rest of the state we're like how come you didn't figure this out? You know we figured it out in Ventura County and we're spreading like a biotech company across the whole state because we have been doing it so long. We're a first mover in the market space. Yeah you're

truly dragging others along with you yeah right here for Ventura County

We thank our city partners, because if it wasn't for the city's confidence in allowing us to innovate and find ways to do good and do well all at the same time, I don't know where we'd be. But we're thankful for that too.

Thank you.

Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Nan. Beautiful presentation and beautiful work really. I love that we're drunk on fossil fuels. Is that what

you said? Yes. Yes, we have been drunk for a long time. That's a good one. Good one. Thank you very much. I'm not saying eliminate them. I just saying cut them back a little. Let them

know that if they call us, we'll be glad to tour them.

Yes, we'd love to give you tours and see how we make things. It's kind of like dirty jobs so bring your boots but we'd be happy to tour you on how we make our products.

So Bill one last thing would it be beneficial to you if we drafted a letter to the county in support of getting this project approved? Yeah that permit...

Mike Powers is a good friend and last time the City of Camarillo actually passed a resolution and he felt a little Disappointed that we had to go to that extent. So he is on top of it right now, but I'm never going to stop you from sending a letter to the county and saying hurry up. They'll always blame it on us unfortunately, but we're giving them everything they need so.

Well, I did. I said hopefully by the end of this year it'll be permitted and then early January of 23 it should be built.

You can come to the Board of Supervisors meeting in support of doing the right

thing. Thank you very much for tonight.

Susan, you have a question? I'm sorry. Nan, can

you answer a question from Susan? Thank you, Bill and Nan. What you're doing is so essential but the public also wants to know I've been asked if you would be willing to come back at some point and do a presentation on plastics because that's a huge problem everywhere including here in Ojai.

Call your elected official in Sacramento. That's the answer to plastics. I mean, it has to be by law. We advertise one through seven because that's the law in the state of California and we can sell abundantly one and two. The others are very difficult to sell Markets fluctuate. We can sell four. We collect it all. The loads are small because lots of people just don't, they get it and they're not throwing a lot. They're putting them in the trash because they read the newspapers. I mean, I've spoke before when people say you know we hear you're not recycling anymore and I go what? No that is not true. Well I hear, I read in an article. I said well you know what? Ventura County you're lucky to be living here we believe in sustainability and all of our cities support us and do the right thing and so you can be assured if you put it in the right barrel it will go to the right facility and it will get recycled but um I'm sorry you know I can't really answer her question because it's not up to us it's you know the legislation has got to be behind it and they have to say Just don't make so many plastic bottles that are three through seven.

I mean, that's the bad thing. They keep manufacturing. It's really up to... There's a council called Manufacturer's Council we worked with and we put in extra shoots and slides at Gold Coast to try to collect this material but you can collect it and if you can't sell it, if there's no market, it's just a vicious circle that we're part of Yeah

Make compostable packaging

It's a good thing because we don't need China to compost so that's a good good answer

Thank you. Thank you. Good answer All right moving on do we have any Commission reports today? Jane Nope, okay. All right moving on to public communications we have four tonight Cindy Convery ready to speak

Hi everybody that was a really good presentation Cindy Convery Ohio resident and I'm here to ask you to consider adding something to the agenda To create a 25 mile an hour speed limit for our residential streets, which you as the City Council have the power to do. You don't need any other group. You can do it five of you. The National Association of City Transportation recommends 25 miles an hour for all minor and major streets in all cities. Their website states, higher speed limits above 30 miles per hour should be used sparingly and only in cases where safe conditions are being met.

Ojai is not meeting safe conditions on our residential streets because we have narrow streets, narrow shoulders and limited sidewalks designed for a rural area. Foothill Road, Grand Avenue, Cuyama and Bristol all residential streets have speed limits of 30 to 35 with many cars going faster than that particularly in the last two years Ojai has seen a turnover in population you've all seen the houses flipping around here like crazy And many of the new residents are coming from urban areas with four-lane throughways like Sunset Boulevard where speeds range up to 40 miles an hour. New residents aren't used to living in small towns and going at a slower pace.

In the 30 years that I've lived on Foothill Road, I've seen traffic quadruple and the average cars have transitioned from Volvo station wagons to Ferraris, Teslas and Range Rovers all designed for speed. New residents easily drive 40 miles an hour up and down Foothill. I've spoken to every resident in Foothill, and they're all in agreement. I was on Shady Lane last weekend, and a car passed me at 40 miles an hour cutting from Grand to Ojai.

Last summer cyclist Marion Weil was killed on Cuyama Road, a relatively narrow residential road with a speed limit of 30 miles an hour and where most cars drive at least 35. Maybe the driver who hit Marion might have avoided that tragedy if he had been going 25. There are dozens of studies that show lower speeds reduce accidents and death. In 1974 President Nixon lowered the national speed limit to 55 miles an hour, some of you might remember that, and traffic death rate dropped nearly in half like 49%.

So I don't think there needs to be a study done. To enforce a citywide 25 mile an hour speed limit I would encourage our police force to issue more speeding tickets Which is a great way to increase your budget right on and? I don't think oh, hey needs to do an expensive traffic study to make our streets safer It's just 25 miles an hour in the city limits and you guys can do it. Thank you

Thank You Cindy Next we have Dorta Bistro

Hello my name is Dorota Bestrup. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you first I would like to say that in the short time that my husband and I have lived in Ojai it has been an incredible and wonderful experience getting to know the city and its residents. I am so happy that we moved here And I want to contribute to Ojai in a meaningful way. I sent an email to the City Council because I was recently nearly sidewiped by a speeding car while walking on North Drown Avenue where I live.

It was a very scary experience and it made me angry because I had this happen to me before Over the past few months I've spoken with many neighbors about the speeding and the condition of North Drown Avenue. And not one has said it isn't a problem. And I know that the City Council knows that there is a problem because of the proactive neighbourhood measures, namely the Slow Down Drown project.

And therefore speed humps were approved before the pandemic happened. As I wrote in my email, I don't understand why a safety device such as speed humps has to be paid for by private funds in order to make the public safe on a public road. Surely money can be realized from somewhere in the budget to buy and install two speed humps on a street that has no sidewalks, and that is in disrepair. And therefore difficult to walk on unless you walk in the street.

I would like to feel safe walking where I live, and I would like all people using this street Be it on foot or on a bike to also be safe. My understanding is that a great majority of the residents who signed the slow down on drown petition a few years ago, since then many new families some with young children have moved to this street and I think that the majority position has not changed I urge the City Council to revisit this issue, to inform the residents about when the city plans on repairing North Drown Avenue known to be one of Ojai's worst streets and one that hasn't had work done on it in 30 years.

I also wonder if it is possible to do the repair work in stages over time for budgetary reasons. Until that work is done, I urge the City Council to let us know how and when the approved speed humps can be installed. I am very willing to work with the city council, city employees and the community to resolve this important safety issue. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Dorta.

Next we have Elizabeth Silva.

Hi, thank you to the mayor and council and staff for allowing us to speak tonight. We're actually here for two reasons, my husband and I. Hi,

I'm the husband David. We always like to talk together. Welcome back everyone. Nice to see you again. And I'd also like before she starts because I'll just observe at this point. Thank you for taking care of the tree issue. I never got back to you much appreciated. Yeah, thank you did not go unrecognized also from other neighbors so thank you.

So tonight we come for two reasons. First, to support the revisiting of the Slow Down Drown campaign which my husband and I were a part of. That campaign unfortunately stalled because the main person Moss moved away But I'm in full support of having it start again. As we've all talked about in the past, our street is probably the worst street in the entire city of Ojai.