City Council — 2021-09-14

Mayor Sticks? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Weirich?

Yes, here.

Council Member Blatz? Here. Council Member Francina? Here and Council Member Haney is here he's just momentarily stepped out of the room

7-15 days that's kind of the duration of stay But thereafter, and during that seven to 15 days we want to help identify supportive housing that they can transition into so very excited about that opportunity. We anticipate breaking ground in the spring of 2022 And I just want to leave the Ojai City Council and the viewers in the Ojai Valley with Camp Hope. You may not be aware of it, I believe just in my bones that obviously we have a fundamental responsibility to keep the county safe, to prosecute those who violate the law and to hold offenders accountable but we also have an ongoing duty and responsibility to prevent crime so we don't have additional victims in the future And towards that end, Mike jumped the chief deputy that I mentioned in the Family Justice Center Foundation.

Every year send about 25 to 30 children and teenagers ages 717 To the San Bernardino National Forest, and they were there last month engaging in ropes courses campfires stargazing kayaking paddleboarding. And it was a transformative experience these are Teenagers and children who have either experienced physical or sexual abuse, or they have witnessed it in their household. And the idea is to empower them with a life changing experience. Some of them have never been out of Ventura County. But what I'm proud to mention to the Ojai City Council and the viewers is that we don't want this just to be a one-week camp. We had a student volunteer from MIT who was successful in securing grants from that university, and those grants are allowing the Family Justice Center They continue to have engagement, personal and virtual visits with the Camp HOPE attendees with the aspiration that they go on to college.

That's the funding source from MIT. It's called the Pathways Program. And the notion is you give them one week of a transformative experience but then on a monthly basis thereafter you work with them, you engage them You put them on a college pathway, you introduce doctors, lawyers and other positive role models in their life. And you just go ahead and show them that there are alternatives out there and they can take advantage of them and that we're here to assist in that endeavor. So I leave you with hope and that's Camp Hope, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity to speak to all of you, to share with you the Family Justice Center, and please encourage those that you serve and that you lead to visit in the event that they are indeed in search of some sort of intervention and support.

Thank you.

Beautiful, well I just want to say thank you so much Eric for the beautiful work that you're doing and it sounds I mean Camp Hope and the Pathways program sound amazing. And particularly thank you for helping all those women in particular 71% who really need help and providing housing for them and a pathway away from violence is just incredible resource for our community so thank you very much.

Thank you Mayor Stixx

Susan say something? I want to echo what Mayor Six just said. Again, I assume that there's a website in English and Spanish would that be if people Google Family Justice Center would they then have access to this information that you just shared with us?

They would. Councilwoman, there are several Family Justice Centers statewide. I believe there are 24 total so in that Google search query make sure you put Family Justice Center Ventura County but in terms of just reaching out if I may can I share with you the email address in the event anyone wants to email? vcfjc.coopadventura.org again, vc f j c dot c o p adventura.org and I'm happy city manager Vega to follow up with you tomorrow just to make sure that I provided a lot of numbers and uh you know an email address in that way you'll have it at the ready

yeah that'd be great we'll definitely pass it along

bill Such an important effort, a couple of quick questions. We've heard a lot of publicity about nationwide global trends of these kinds of problems being exasperated by the COVID experience especially lockdowns. I was wondering if you saw any statistical evidence of that in terms of when people don't have the ability to get away basically they end up being more victims and then the other point I wanted to make was You mentioned college at Camp Hope, but I'm on the board for a scholarship committee for Rotary here in Ojai that we were very successful with. But we're definitely engaging in the more granular and diverse ways that people have life-changing career opportunities and not necessarily traditional college. And so if somebody is particularly prone to maybe something that's not traditional college but nevertheless very equally valuable, I would hope that opportunity other than traditional four-year college would be available for them.

Yes, in the order of your questions and thank you Mayor Pro Tem we saw an exponential increase in need for restraining orders particularly shortly after the onset of the pandemic and during the period of lockdown. In fact it was over a hundred percent from year over year And you know, another casualty of COVID. When kids aren't in school, a teacher may not see that bruise or the counselor is not available to give the disclosure. So the isolation frankly in many instances that we've seen this as anecdotal obviously makes it difficult for children to come forward to report crimes, to identify their abusers And that too is a trend that we saw during the pandemic. To your second question, and it's a valid one, I don't mean to in any way minimize vocational training.

It's integral and important but I'll share with Council and Mayor Pro Tem Weirich MIT is the funder here and it's there. I understand. Yeah, you know it's there and part of what I didn't mention before in my remarks is the grant that this MIT student identified is specific to help minority students 10 universities and colleges. So in a way, you know we follow the funding and I don't want to in any way minimize the importance of vocational in the crafts especially but right now the pathway is towards universities because that's how the grant has been structured.

Right. The goal should be allowing individuals to succeed You know, sometimes that's more complicated than just traditional four-year. But anyway it's all a good program

absolutely. Yeah thank you agreed yeah

and I just want to say thank you for all the wonderful work this office is doing I think D.A. Ostranko has done a fantastic job since he's been in, so I appreciate it and I'm in the family court frequently enough to know how this increase has happened during COVID and all the different things that there's been a lot going on in the courthouse district attorney's office on Not just this issue, but a lot trying to keep the justice and keep the wheels on the bus during this very complicated time. But this is one of those really great programs that it's nice to see the progressive nature of our district attorney's office or sheriff department and others really trying to say there's There's more thoughtful, complicated not always easy to implement but better ways to deal with it than just the book, the law and restraining orders.

And this is part of it especially on a victim side that tends to be a little bit neglected overall in the justice system victims tend to be sometimes you know not the focal point of where all the attention is so I just Just wanna say thank you and I hope you're bringing this to all the city's attention, but especially up here where a little bit more remote from the county facilities. It's really important for people to know that these services are available and if you're in Ohio and these things happen, you have somewhere to go.

Yeah, I really appreciate the comments council member. Hopefully by the end of this month we'll have spoken to all 10 city councils in the County of Ventura But thereafter, I intend to go to the school districts as well. Because I think when you serve as elected officials in both the educational and the municipal capacity this is a message that you'll want to take to those that you serve.

And then to your point about COVID, I'll just give you one statistic We have managed since the onset of the pandemic, March of 2020 to conduct about 54 jury trials. So as you know Council Member Blatz a lot goes into a jury trial social distancing mask wearing now to give you sort of some perspective in a typical year we will have conducted more than 200. So, you know the wheels of justice are still moving albeit slower. I think that's necessary given this public health crisis but we're still continuing to bring jurors in we're still continuing i believe to administer justice and uh i hope there will be a day soon where we can ramp back up to what we once were and engage in jury trials on a more regular basis. I

have a quick question Eric I believe the national average for sexual assault is one third of women, one out of three. Is that true in our county also? Do you know?

Yeah, it's but I've seen two statistics. They typically place sexual assaults of females between 25 and 33%. You're absolutely right Mayor. I don't have at my disposal some statistic with respect to our County But I was somewhat negligent in my initial remarks. The Family Justice Center is intended for vulnerable, sensitive victims specifically those who are sexually assaulted Those who experience elder abuse, those children who experienced some type of physical abuse women and men who are victims of domestic violence. And then recently thanks to our chief deputy uh and others on the family justice board we expanded the Family Justice Center to those victimized by hate crimes I wanted to just mention that as well um you know In an ideal world with plenty and ample funding, we'd be able to serve all victims of crime irrespective of what type of crime took place.

But the Family Justice Center really has its specialization in assisting women and in assisting children.

Thank you. Any other questions? Randy?

I wasn't sure if you could see me. You know the my experience in this environment? It's the follow up or the follow through, which to me is the most important aspect. You're the front door. Which allows the victim to enter and to be counseled and to be cared for it and to be understood and more importantly At the end of their 14 days, are we handing them off to another county entity that's going to see them through whatever means or needs that they have? And do you have any of those facilities or names or entities at your fingertips?

Sure, I mean I can think of a couple offhand. You know rain is one of them the city center is another you know if they are unhoused turning point but to your point Council Member Haney it is something that is a work in progress because you need to have a plan during those 7-15 days for where they go next. One of the efforts that we undertake is family reunification. And you see it oftentimes in law enforcement and it's a successful model, not always but in some instances where you reach out to loved ones that have some contact and familiarity with the victim And you basically at the behest of the victim say, hey can you go ahead and house this person in a system? They're going through an abusive relationship right now. They have a lengthy court process and they'll need your help.

So we have undertaken that endeavor but more needs to be done in terms of where we transition them to after they get out of the short term domestic violence housing.

Thank you.

Well, thank you so much Eric for coming. Really grateful to you and all the work that you do. So wonderful to meet you.

Thank you. Yeah likewise I look forward to meeting all of you in person soon.

Thank you. Bye

bye. Thank you again.

Um well we're going to move uh we need to take the redistricting item as the first time to satisfy state requirements for the public hearing in the fair map act. So we'll move to number two Well, we have to do this first,

Sousa. I'm happy to cover that one. I apologize for not catching it earlier but we took a deep look at the Fair Maths Act and it requires that we offer public hearings on the redistricting at a time certain in this case the time certain is right after the DA's presentation so my recommendation is take that up then go in the regular order from there. And for the next three hearings, we'll cover this by listing a precise start time for the redistricting item for the next three hearings likely at 7 30 or so.

I'm sorry mayor i didn't catch all that. We're moving to number two because of time?

Because of what Matt just said, did you catch that?

The underlying issue is state law requires that we offer the redistricting hearings at a precise time. And so the closest time we could get to the start of the meeting having not listed a precise time on the agenda is this moment. So the recommendation is to move item two up and then take the remainder in the order previously ordered. Then general comment, then consent. Then three, five, six and close with four.

Okay? So item number two the first city council redistricting public hearing will receive input from residents regarding the communities of interest and receive the report. So this is the first of five public hearings between now and March. So we'll officially open the public hearing and James, you have a presentation for us?

Yeah. Thank you. And James, Han or Gail if you can let our redistricting partner into the meeting I'll just give a brief introduction there's going to be a presentation A few months back, the council approved a contract with redistricting partners who is also running the County of Ventura's current redistricting process and several other agencies. So we have a representative from redistricting partners today here to give an overview on the process and some of the upcoming steps.

I believe Sophia is attending on redistricting partner's behalf So I'll hand it off to her in a minute. But just to answer a couple of quick questions that people may be having watching, I know one question is probably didn't we just do this? And the answer to that question is unfortunately yes. We had gone through the districting process in 2018 but because the census data We went through that process because of potential legal challenges when there were challenges throughout the state, challenging cities to move to districting systems. We moved into it at that point but because the new census data comes out in 2020 we then have to redistrict following that census data And so that census data is now out and available, and we're reviewing it.

And so we are working to redistrict. So this should hopefully be the redistricting that takes place for this census cycle. And so with that I want to hand it off to Sophia from Redistricting Partners who will walk us through a quick presentation with the goal of holding a public hearing and receiving input from the community. Sophia, I'll hand it to you.

Thank you. Can you hear me James?

Yep.

Okay. I'm going to share my screen. Are you able to see the beginning of our presentation?

Yeah.

Perfect. Wonderful. Hi everyone. My name is Sophia Garcia. I am the GIS and Outreach Director with Redistricting Partners And so we are the firm that will be working with you throughout this process. Throughout the process, you'll see myself or other colleagues of mine and as James mentioned, the Fair Maps Act otherwise known as AB 849 is a bill that cities and counties across the state have to follow. So we're gonna get into that a little bit throughout their presentation but he's correct and as a part of that law they redistricting Conversation has to be at a time certain spot on your agenda, and that allows for the public to be able to call in at a specific time and give their input. So we're going to

get started. Is this when the Spanish interpreter was going to participate or am I confused?

They are available if anybody requests an interpreter. At this point, we have not received any request.

Thank you. Sorry to interrupt, sorry.

No worries. Yeah. Okay. So this is the redistricting 101 presentation and we have to start with what is redistricting? And so redistricting as the process of adjusting district lines every 10 years after the release of the US census. As James said, the census was just released. The numbers were just released actually a couple weeks ago And if it was a normal census year, we would have gotten that data at the end of March. But because this is not a normal couple of years and really not a normal census year, we just got that data a few weeks ago. And so we're in a really compressed timeline for the state across the country. A lot of cities and counties have a very compressed timeline. So normally, yes it does occur every 10 years. Some of the well-known examples that the public may be aware of are congressional and state legislative.

And in California we have a citizen redistricting commission that is in charge of drawing and finalizing our congressional and legislator lines. Within the U.S., redistricting has become an extremely politicized process And has been the subject of more high profile Supreme Court decisions than any part of our election systems. As James mentioned as well, in California we have the California Voting Rights Act which has opportunity for members of the public to ask their jurisdiction to move from an at-large to a districted system which sounds that you all did that a couple years ago so it's been in the public conscious a lot the past couple of years this process Districting and now redistricting.

So the city of Ojai redistricting, some of the structure for the city. The redistricting is completed by the City Council as you all hear with us this evening. And the Fair Maps Act again also known as AB 849 requires at least four public hearings for outreach to the community And that all information be made public and available online. So all of the redistricting information, presentations content any maps that have been submitted by the public any of the community of interest testimony will be online at the city of Ojai redistricting website. And that website will actually be maintained by the city for 10 years. So you can kind of wave and say hi to your redistricting folks who will be doing this in a decade Because the city will have to maintain all that information.

Some other things that the city will be doing, it'll be working with staff and the council is the process will include community outreach hearings again a part of that for hearing structure. There'll be multiple ways for the public to submit community of interest input and we'll go through a couple of those this evening. And multiple draft maps will be submitted for the opportunity for the public to comment So there is a requirement for the final map that's gonna be adopted, that that be placed in the public seven days prior. So we're gonna work with staff to try to get as many of those maps that you guys will be discussing ahead of time so that the public will have an opportunity to review them and when you're in these public meetings hopefully you'll have a robust discussion and comments from members of the public.

So some traditional redistricting principles that are gonna help guide the process And will also be in ranked criteria order for the council to consider. Okay, yeah I have my dogs at another room. If you hear barking on my part we've got three doggos in the house.

We're used to it.

Yeah okay, a benefit from working from home but also they can come unexpected on call. But these traditional redistricting principles are also here to help prevent a districting from becoming a gerrymander. There are a number of criterias that have been used nationally and upheld by the courts. Again, these are in ranked criteria order so the council has federal law to consider state law, the new Fair Maps Act and then these guiding principles as you guys are looking at draft maps and then finalizing a plan. So the first one is relatively equal size. And when we're talking about the redistricting, that the city council districts there to try to make them as relatively equal size as possible and when we're talking about size, we're talking about people not citizens again for this, we are using census data and for the census data that captured total population of people.

There is some room but you can have a total deviation of 10% between the highest And the lowest populated district. So that is allowable so that you're able to consider all the other criterias when you're looking at your draft maps and finalizing a plan. Contiguous or contiguity is one of those terms that kind of only come around once a decade, and that's the concept that your district shouldn't hop or jump over an area. So if you can kind of think of a game of checkers or the game of twister, you don't want to hop over an area or kind of have it in multiple corners of your district.

Maintaining communities of interest is a guiding principle that has really been highlighted throughout this process in 2021, and we're going to get more into that in the later slides. And it's also the third ranked criteria in the Fair Maps Act, and the Fair Maps Act also has a lot of opportunity but kind of uplifts the community's availability to make comment and opportunity to do And so maintaining communities of interest is one of those things that if the council hears a lot of testimony or wants to maintain an area together, that's again why you have that 10% deviation room to play with.

You can also follow existing neighborhood lines. If that's something that the council wants to consider or other kind of government lines that they'd like to see to help them guide that process of redistricting And then keep districts compact. And when we're talking about compactness, that can be in two forms. One's an appearance and in function. So kind of thinking how functionally people move through the city of Ojai.

And again if just because a district it looks like a funny shape doesn't necessarily mean that it is a gerrymander. This is to why compactness is lower ranked on this list because you have all these other criterias to look at. In California, the definition of compactness is to not bypass nearby population for far away population. So if there's an area that is kind of close to the district that you're looking to construct and you want to go and bypass it to grab a portion of another district, that's not really allowable now under state laws but that kind of helps and gives us a definition for compactness. So these are the guiding redistricting principles that we're going to follow when we're going And the criteria that the council will have to look to when drawing their maps.

So a lot of this presentation now is focused on the concept of communities of interest, and communities of interest is also a term that kind of only comes up once a decade. But what it really means is understanding that in this redistricting process we know that residents of the city of Ojai are experts of their community. You on the council know your community very well And so it's kind of taking knowing your community, how you move through your community, how you interact with the council, but putting in redistricting terms.

So communities of interest for the purpose of redistricting is about bringing like-minded people together for representation. A community of interest can include ethnic and language minorities and other groups. Some groups that are covered under the Voting Rights Act are Latinos, Asians, and African Americans However, while race is a community of interest, it cannot be a predominant factor in drawing districts unless there is a Voting Rights Act district and legal counsel will guide us through that process.

Again, while we understand that race is a community of interest, a lot of us recognize our race and kind of think of that as a big part of who we are. In the redistricting process if there's not a Voting Rights Act district, it cannot be the predominant factor In drawing districts. So we have some guiding questions to help members of the public think through when they're giving public testimony, um, to not just think about their race, but kind of think of the other common bonds that bind their communities together.

Um, so the three kinds of things to think through in terms of giving your community of interest testimony and sort of thinking through that, um ,the city council will be looking for this when they're judging the kind of testimony that's written, that's verbal, that's given through maps. It's given through paper maps. They're going to again think about the community in terms of their redistricting process and so one thing to think through is what is the shared culture characteristic or bond of your community? Kind of what are the reasons why you think of your community together Once you've thought of that, because redistricting is about mapping it is about geography. At the end of the day there will be a council district plan for the city of Ojai asking yourself what is the geography of your community?

Of course if you're gonna give us a map whether that's an online map or paper map we'll be able to see that geography but if you're giving written or verbal testimony it's really helpful to think through the street boundaries of your neighborhood or community If there's specific locations that you think are really important and to vocalize that or write back.

Because I, redistricting partners we don't want to misinterpret what a member of the public is saying so again it's really helpful if you give us that geographic information. And then third to think through what is the relationship to the agency? So in this instance what is the community's relationship to the City Council of the city of Ojai? So are there things that you would feel you'd be better represented if your specific community was kept together? Or if right now, if your community is split, if that's causing you to put more work in to talk to your representative. This is kind of the format or guideline to think about your community in terms of the redistricting process.

So again, thinking about that in another way and putting it in the form of three questions Does the community have a shared culture, characteristic or bond? Is the community geographic in nature? Can it be mapped? And how would you describe your community's relationship to the jurisdiction and how is it affected by policy decisions made by elected officials. Again these sort of thought questions are here to help guide the residents and community as they're giving their testimony.

Some examples of communities of interest, it can include a really vast variety of things. Communities of interest they're subjective and we're talking about people's relationship to the city, a place that they know very well. And so we want members of the public and the council to remain open-ended and kind of just listen to what the residents are gonna say. And some examples could be People living near industry, so like farming, agriculture.

There could be senior citizens or students if you have a downtown area versus a rural area, urban or agriculture, or homeowners or renters. So that's just some examples of what some communities of interest can be. Under the Fair Maps Act and in this redistricting cycle There are also some things that are not allowable to be considered as communities of interest. Again, this presentation and the Fair Maps Act and the criteria are all here to help prevent a district from becoming a gerrymander. And so under the Fair Maps Act there's three things that are explicitly prohibited from being considered as a community of interest. Those are political party affiliation, incumbency, and political candidates We know that members of the public will come forward and give testimony.

And it is people's right to speak to their folks who represent them, their elected officials but it's the job of the council to sift through that community of interest testimony and sort of see what they're allowed to use which you guys are allowed to use to consider when drafting maps and finalizing a plan. So again, the three things that are not allowable to be considered as community of interest Our political party affiliation, incumbency or political candidates.

Another thing for members of the public to kind of think about when they're giving their testimony it is really hard to map or consider groups of similarly minded people who do not share a geographic location. So if there is a community of interest that says my community of interest is the whole city of Ojai That's really difficult, again because we're talking about a redistricting process. So we're talking about splitting up the city and so we encourage those people who come with that testimony to think about if there is a portion of the city that you have pockets or concentration or if there are hot spots or kind of think through beyond the city what their specific areas and neighborhoods that you consider as a community of interest.

So those are just another thing to think through, again because we're talking about districting. Additional redistricting rules, again under the Fair Maps Act. Again not to consider incumbents or candidates, to not draw districts to advantage or disadvantage political party, to hold a minimum set number of hearings to encourage public engagement And as mentioned earlier, posting of all redistricting commission information on the website that is maintained for the next 10 years.

So this was a law that was passed in 2019 and a lot of advocates, community advocates across the country advocated for this law to be passed and the process to make the process more transparent and to make it to where more folks can have the opportunity to their representatives. So these are some of the additional criteria that will be followed for the city and counties across the state.

More additional redistricting roles are, the Fair Maps Act also requires cities and counties to use a revised data set for population. That is the statewide database is tasked with reallocating state prison population to their residency prior to incarceration And we expect that that final data set will be available at the end of September. So we have the final 2020 census data, but to... The city will have to then use the statewide database data that moves our incarcerated population from state prisons and puts them at their last known residency. And so in some cities and counties, that's not gonna have a lot of movement But we may have, you know, a couple or 100 like additional residents that will be a part of the final data set for the City of Ojai.

So that is again another additional thing that the city will have to consider. So there's quite a few ways for the communities to submit testimony. Again, you're welcome to attend one of these meetings. There's multiple points throughout this agenda I see for the opportunity to give comment Another way is to submit the community of interest worksheet, which should be on the website on the City of Ojai redistricting website. We're also in the process of finalizing having a districter as part of another way that the city can submit testimony. I think we're hoping to get that at the end of the week if not early next week and this is an online mapping tool that is widely used by jurisdictions across the state and even across the country.

In 2011, all my mapping tools weren't really something that were widely available and actually at Redistricting Partners we love going in person, we love doing community workshops and having paper maps and talking with residents but And the kind of environment that we're in with COVID and the Delta variant, and a lot of meetings being hybrid. This is a really wonderful option, and we've seen it's very user-friendly, intuitive, and as soon as it's up, we see a lot of residents from other jurisdictions using it right away. So that is a really exciting tool, and I'm really happy that this city went with that one.

Again just as a reminder, this is, We have this up, these questions up a lot because we know that the redistricting process only happens once every 10 years. So we're going to work hard to try to make sure that your city doesn't have to redistrict again for another 10 years and so these kind of questions are there to sort of help folks try to be a part of the process and give testimony about the city can use.