City Council — 2021-10-12

Welcome all to the October 12th, 2021 Ojai City Council meeting. Bill will you please lead us in pledge? Thank you.

Flag is over here. Ready begin.

commission reports?

I didn't see anybody sign up but I'll ask Gail to confirm

that. Let me double check. No, no commission reports.

Okay we'll move on to public communication. We have three in person, Carolyn Goldwasser, Ron Solazano and Karen Snyder so let's start with Carolyn.

Okay, can you hear me? What I'm going to talk about tonight is the Ojai Active Transportation Project proposals and the existing Ojai Valley Trail. I spent many hours this past Saturday and Sunday walking around, sitting, observing, talking with other pedestrians and bicyclists taking notes and photos at these areas. These are my suggestions for consideration for safety and beauty best practices for shared use of resources by all.

I think there should be no armadillos, no other things raised up from the rose road bed like planter boxes pollards etc to mark the differences between the lanes. These raised objects are dangerous to all black paint is safest and easiest. Standard practice is putting bright spring green paint on the surface of the road to show it is a bike lane and green stripes for shared bike right-of-way, such as driveways in intersections or from making a left turn.

Drivers of cars are used to looking at the road for lane information with arrows and words painted on the asphalt. So they will notice these green bike lanes. Third, the highway roadbeds are built deep with several feet layers of gravel concrete and or asphalt so there is little ongoing interference from tree roots Off-road bike paths, such as Ojai Valley Trail are often made with a thin layer of asphalt laid onto scraped dirt.

As tree roots grow they can break open the asphalt and this causes tripping hazards for people walking and other hazards for bicyclists. Some root maintenance is required now on the Ojai Valley Trail The people who are using the highways are adolescents and adults, people mature enough to be aware of the hazards of moving traffic. Driver's licenses are given to people who have studied the rules of the road and agreed to abide by these rules.

Children should not be using the bike lanes on the highway at all in my opinion and on the Ojai Valley Trail only with close adult supervision, especially because of item number five. Item number five, most hazardous is where intersections occur. On the Ojai Valley Trail near at least some of the intersections which I visited this weekend, I saw caution signs Lots of brush hides the bikes and the cars from each other until the last minute or last 10 yards of distance.

Yield to trail users signs might be an improvement, and in any case they are very important to be at all the intersections with the streets. Six pedestrian sidewalks and push button blinking light crosswalk assists are good. More of these are included in the ATP, and will be used Seventh, the long row of tall eucalyptus trees in front of Nordhoff High School are about three to four feet away from the sidewalk next to the highway. This is a wonderful shade and wind barrier and brings beauty to everyone who passes. Birds live and sing there as the leaves condense the fog and drip it as water into the tree roots which allows them to thrive here. They should not be cut down There are no electric wires or brush nearby, and the trees are alive. They are not a fire hazard.

The 20 feet behind them is flat dirt and beyond that the school parking lot. Please leave these trees. Please complete the ATP using standard practices one bike lane on each side of the highway going in the same direction as car traffic flows and green paint on this pavement is my suggestions Ask the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy to encourage people to ride our trolley, and to put a dirt parking lot within the meadows preserve at the trail entrances to accommodate cars that would otherwise be parked on the street and cause a hazard.

On highway 150 through Ojai downtown please pressure walk the sidewalks. They are quite pretty when they are clean, which they are not now a safe walking path on the sides of 150 in certain areas where there is no sidewalk would be appreciated and as part of the ATP for active participation of pedestrians consider creating another different piece of off road bike and walking path trail for family recreation to connect to existing parts of the ATV, AVT.

I'm sorry, OBT for a later time as a separate project it might go along Descanso Avenue behind Vons to Valerio Road Avenue and through the high school by the parking lot on this wide strip of flat dirt that It's at the south side of the road trees around the ball field and into the meadows preserve. The ATP is slightly modified, no junk only paint on the roadway could be given to go ahead soon finding somewhere else to park some of the cars instead of on the side of the roads would make things safer for everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you,

Carolyn,

I need to get my address. Thank you. Thank you.

Next we have Ron Solorzano.

Righty, thank you so much members of council my name is Ron Solorzano and I am the regional librarian for the Ojai Valley tonight i just wanted to provide you with another quick update on the operations over at the Ojai Library First, I want to begin by saying a reminder to everybody that the Ojai Library is currently open for our full seven day week schedule.

Customers are able to access our collection and more and more of our typical programs are returning to meeting in person at the library. We continue to comply with all state and county guidelines relating to COVID safety which means that at the time face coverings are required for all customers who are visiting us. Right now, our regular recurring programming includes our Ukulele Club which is meeting weekly on Monday mornings at 10 a.m., the Shakespeare Salon which is meeting on the first and third Mondays of the month and the Ojai Poetry Series which meets on the third Tuesday of each month. For our younger guests we've resumed offering our pause for reading program on Wednesday afternoons where children who are learning to read can practice by reading to a licensed therapy dog Also on the first Wednesday of each month at 3.30pm, our youth librarian Becky Rowe leads a family STEAM activity for ages 5 and up.

This takes place outdoors in our secret garden and customers can call the library to reserve a spot. The Ojai Library's Homework Center is also back in operation and is open for students through the academic year. Hours of operation for the Homework Center are 3 to 5pm Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and 1230 to 330 on Wednesday. I also want to remind everyone that we are in the middle of our one county one book community reading program.

This year, we are reading Your House Will Pay by Steph Choth and we're hosting two virtual events in the coming weeks. An online book discussion on Wednesday, October 20th and a special presentation by the author herself on Saturday, October 30th. Both of these events will take place on Zoom and registration details can be found on our website at www.vencolibrary.org slash OCOB Finally, the Ojai Valley Library Friends and Foundation is hosting its annual Ojai Day used book sale this coming weekend from Friday, October 15th to Sunday, October 17th.

So stop by to support the library and pick up some fun new reads. That is all I have for now and thank you so much for your time. If you have any questions about the library or what we're up to please don't hesitate to contact me or to just stop on by. Take care and thank you!

I have two questions if I may, they're time sensitive. Sure sure for the book sale. Do you do people just drop off books in front of the library or is there a procedure or time or

yeah so the for the sale itself that's mostly for purchasing and you can just drop by the front of the library that's where the sale will be going on As far as any book donations that you might have for the library or the Friends of the Library, you can take those donations to the Twice Sold Tales bookstore which is right next door to the library. They are open seven days a week and I believe they accept donations between 11am and 4pm.

Okay so you don't need anymore books for the sale?

No but they're always taking donations.

And then what was the title of the book everyone's reading?

Yeah, the one county one book selection is called Your House Will Pay. And it is by... Your House

Will Pay?

Yeah, Your House Will Pay there are copies available at the Ojai Library as well as our other locations.

I read the last one that was everyone's reading or maybe it was two years ago. It was really good.

Yeah, no this one is phenomenal.

The surfer one.

Oh

yeah. Really good.

Great one as well.

Thank you.

Thank you Ron. Next we have Karen Snyder

Karen, did you want to speak on the item that you wrote about? Yeah, because I'm going to be pulling. I'm going to be pulling it from the consent calendar. Okay, so you could speak on it then if that's okay with them. Is that okay Karen?

Well I didn't think it was related to anything on their consent calendar. Okay

you want to go read it

more

public

well

Let's go ahead. Yeah, but I've abbreviated from what I wrote what I sent in because it was way too much. But so far vaccine passports have not come to Ojai, but they have come to nearby Los Angeles and from what I hear are being strictly enforced They have in a way come to Ojai with Libby Bowl, the music festival and how unvaccinated people couldn't come. But it kind of begs the question if you're vaccinated and you think they're safe and effective and that you're protected then why do you care if someone's unvaccinated?

But so far the Biden administration has mandated that the employees of businesses with more than 100 employees must be vaccinated. Did you know that there is no executive order in the Federal Register for this mandate? I know because I looked, There have been only press releases. Is President Biden trying to put the onus on businesses to implement this mandate?

Might he also be passing liabilities, say for example for wrongful termination onto businesses and not the government? It's just a thought. So it is not inconceivable that it will be a requirement by each city to require vaccine verification to be obtained by businesses, schools, places of work, event venues etc. It is unlawful, unethical, immoral and unthinkable that private businesses can require a vaccine passport as a condition for conducting business I could at this point cite several California codes and statutes that preclude this discrimination as to full and equal accommodations, et cetera. But in the interest of time, I will not cite them here.

A vaccine passport system would create a two-class medical apartheid system, immunity caste system, and would further the gap in inequality, especially disproportionate numbers from some of our most vulnerable communities. This is more than just about the vaccine, it's about creating an infrastructure that controls people. It will control people's behavior work food travel health entertainment and free commerce. This is the gateway to surveillance monitor penalize and conform Banking and money will be added to the digital system. The central bankers have been working diligently on a digital currency. If you don't comply, you don't access your bank account. If you can't access your money, you can't eat.

The vaccine passport platform is not about COVID. It's about data. Any other functionality can be loaded onto that platform with no problem at all It can be merged with your location, wherever you go. All of your medical history which has already happened in Israel. A two-tiered society will be created where activists will be ostracized and surveilled continually. It's the end of civil society. They are trying to roll this out around the world. It has the power to turn off or on your life, to let you be engaged in society or to be marginalized. How does China keep a billion people under totalitarian regime with the social credit system that they have? This is what the vaccine passport system is, a social credit system.

Dr Naomi Wolf who's a Rhodes Scholar and advisor to President Clinton's re-election campaign founder of The Daily Cloud says I cannot say this forcefully enough this is literally the end of human liberty in the West if this plan unfolds as planned It will affect both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that all of our rights can be suspended because of a disease.

I ask that you pass an ordinance banning any form of vaccine passports or verification system that is contrary to the core principles of this city, county, the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the global body of human rights doctrines. I ask that you not enact any law, requirement, guideline or policy that would restrict an individual's right to travel or participate in commerce, religious freedom, education, et cetera. Based on whether the individual has received a COVID-19 vaccine. It starts in one town, one city, one county at a time. We need to come together both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated but the left and the right we can say no.

I appreciate the City Council and other members of our town government are trying to do what is in the town's best interest and safety. But as Benjamin Franklin said, he who sacrifices liberty for security deserves neither. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you Karen. All right next we have Cindy Jones

Well, I don't have that much more to say because she said it all. I'm so happy that you've taken the emergency off of the consent calendar. I am glad you've come here.

It doesn't mean that is off. It means I'm going to pull it so I can make a comment.

OK. So you're going to make a comment tonight? Yes.

But it's still on the consent calendar. Sorry for any misunderstanding. holding it doesn't mean it doesn't okay

so what I'm asking you to do then is take it off. After tonight, after you make your comment. It doesn't need to be on there we're not in an emergency anymore. This is a charade to keep us masked and scared into getting vaccinations are kids are being muzzled at school, and they're both being physically and psychologically damaged by this, I feel sorry for kids and parents that are going through this.

There's a lot of people in Ojai that feel the same way. You have no idea how many unvaccinated people there are and how many people who have been forced to be vaccinated in order to feed their children, or care for somebody in their family. Those people will stand with us as well, just because they've been vaccinated doesn't mean they're not going to be standing with us encourage which I'd like you guys to do.

It's astounding that you guys, the city council members who are intelligent critical thinkers have fallen for the group think and are in total disregard for God given rights. I'm begging you to stop the insanity. Step up and have some courage, or at least the courage to question what's going on. There is more to this charade. Please find out what's going on.

It can start here. Thank you.

Yeah, it's just for open communication. Okay, go ahead.

Sorry.

Oh okay hi I'm sorry I'm a little doing kind of a little bit of an impromptu but just coming and echoing my concern for immunity passports and I just have a few questions and I think that are that are relevant and some concerns in terms of why we're implementing such a thing. Why are we implementing it when it does not stop the spread or transmission of the disease?

Why, excuse me for saying I'm a little nervous in front of you

guys. Wow. We're

at we're as nervous.

Oh really?

And the more you do this, the more relaxed you'll get to see you again.

Yeah.

What is your

name please?

David. David.

What's your last name?

It's Rogi.

David Rogi?

So We're kind of laboring under a bit of a false narrative. So, of course none of us can say that COVID is not a concern or is not a health threat. Clearly it is. We have 94% of all the people that died had an average at 2.6 comorbidities up to four co-morbidities. Now I'm not downplaying the death of these people, that's unfortunate but it gives the false idea that just anybody is equally as vulnerable to this disease And what also seems to be pushing all of this is we have a PCR test, which is terribly inaccurate so we hear about all the numbers all the numbers. Well I contacted a lab and I asked them what is the cycle threshold that you run your PCR tests.

And they run them from 38 to 40. Now, good old Anthony Fauci said between 35 and up you're not replication competent. In other words, you pick up an old infection dings positive. So you have a lot of people wandering around out there with a positive that are not actively sick gives the impression the false impression that we're wandering around with all these sick people Also, Deborah bricks of the CDC back in 2020. When asked how they're going to deal with the death count went on to say that they're going to be very liberal about their approach that they're not going to basically what you want them to say is they're not going to delineate whether they died of covert or with coven.

There's a huge difference between the two. Hospitals are incentivized, they are paid more money for every COVID patient so they have an incentive to put that on there. So we're starting to see a lot of false or at least inflated numbers. Besides the fact that the whole narrative of the unvaccinated driving this pandemic is absolutely divisive. And I'm just floored that we have an administration that would actually go out and say, and divide half the country like that.

I think it's really blown away. So why are we pushing something? Why are we pushing on children who have no more of a danger of COVID than the seasonal flu, assuming that they're a healthy child. Why are we pushing vaccines on a child in many cases will be more likely to have a vaccine injury than to have any problems with COVID. There's all this stuff, trust the science. Trust the science. I could point to article after article in The Lancet, Nature, all these medical journals that say natural immunity is robust, durable and lasting and actually better than vaccination but we're completely ignoring natural immunity. Why is this going on? How is this about health?

Why is it pushing the jab no matter what? It doesn't matter. My last little bit I'm gonna say about this is I don't know if you're familiar with the first case of compulsory vaccination in this country. In 1905, there was a gentleman named Jacobson and they wanted to give him the smallpox vaccine again. He said no, the first time he had a bad reaction to it, they took him to court and he was found, he was compelled...

Excuse me, I'm losing my train of thought. They found that the public interest outweighed his individual liberty. Now smallpox had a much higher death rate, different disease it is not a respiratory virus that jumps from species to species like the COVID different animal entirely perhaps there's an argument there but here's the rub in 1927 there was another case called Buck v Bell Carrie Buck was a young lady who was what they called feeble minded.

And this young lady, the state wanted to force her sterilization. This went to the Supreme Court and guess what? They supported and ruled her forced sterilization. And what precedent did they use? Jacobson versus Massachusetts, and Oliver Wendell Holmes in his decision said the principle of compulsory vaccination is broad enough for the cutting of fallopian tubes three generations of imbeciles is enough.

Now I should let, make everybody's hair stand

up. I'm gonna have to wrap it up David, sorry thank you.

So maybe seems a bit hyperbolic but I think we're in dangerous territory. I don't think that's anywhere we wanna go. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Gail, do we have any public communication on

Zoom? I will check. For anybody in our Zoom audience if you would like to speak for public communications this agenda item only if you would raise your hand use the hand-raise feature on Zoom then I will call on you. Nobody's

raising their hand. Thank You Gail. All right we'll move on to the consent calendar is there a motion to approve everything?

I would like to pull item I.

Okay,

move approval of all other items except I.

Item I is the coronavirus emergency response. And first, I

want to say- Let's pass everything else and then get to it.

Can

we

have

a yay or nay on the consent calendar? Except for aye.

I heard a motion. I didn't hear the second. I made the motion.

Okay. I'll second that. Randy?

So this is the vote for everything except aye? Yeah.

It's

fine.

Okay, and Randy said

yes. Yes.

Okay, all right. All right so we passed that so...

Yes I want to first of all say that it's unfortunate that this has become so divisive the whole topic of mandatory vaccines passports and all that and i want to be clear that I share the concerns of these three speakers about anything meant to do with health that's mandatory Especially in this instance. So I actually pulled it because I have a question of the city attorney and if it's too broad of a question, perhaps it can be an agendized item but do we actually need an ordinance when we have not put in place?

The council has not put in place any vaccine mandates that I'm aware of Like we don't, you know right now it seems like individual businesses can there's county mandates with the masks and I'm respectful of that distancing washing your hands. You know cleanliness indoor mask not outdoor mask. I'm not in favor of masking kids but I'm fine to go into the store with a mask briefly Depending on the store actually and the crowds. But does the City Council need to take some of the action that Karen Snyder, she wrote a letter to the council asking for an ordinance but we've not...

Do we need that?

So I've not seen the letter that you're referring to, but I'll run on the information I have tonight. Which is as I understand the question it is whether the council would need to adopt an ordinance to prohibit vaccine mandates or vaccine passports in which I understand that would mean to adopt an ordinance prohibiting a private business from requiring vaccinations and or prohibiting the city from requiring vaccinations. And this vaccination has always means for COVID in this context not other diseases.

The answer to that question is the political question. It requires a political answer. If your goal is to prohibit private businesses from imposing a vaccination mandate, then an ordinance would be necessary and all council could do tonight would be provide direction for one to be drafted. It could not be adopted tonight because no such direction existed as of now so it'd be direction to come back next time with the draft ordinance which would then have to go through the process As to whether that's necessary or not, that turns on what the council majority finds is the appropriate level of response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

I would note that at present, the city as an institution has not imposed a vaccination mandate. It has as to its employees asked each employee to certify whether they are or are not vaccinated but it has not required the answer to that question to be one way or the other. I believe most, although I won't ask for the precise number. I believe most of the city's employees are vaccinated against COVID. The city as an institution has not taken other actions to mandate vaccines in other contexts so there is no direct necessity for it to accomplish the goal that stated but if the goal is as to private businesses then an ordinance would be necessary although I would want an opportunity to assess the enforceability of that

yeah

as private businesses generally do have a first member right to choose who to provide service to

Yeah, and I didn't even have that in mind. I'm not yet uncomfortable with private businesses. The Art Center is requiring that people be vaccinated but i'm watching very closely the trend you know where this is leading to? I'm following the saga in Los Angeles and the police chief will not enforce the mandate he said

One correction I could, if I may. As you probably are aware, I'm also city attorney for a city in Los Angeles County and have followed that closely there. It's not the police chief it's the sheriff. The elected sheriff, Sheriff Villanueva has announced that he will not enforce as a criminal matter vaccine mandates in LA County. I expect a lawsuit to be filed about that we'll see where that goes.

Yeah okay thank you for the clarification. I'm going to think it through thank you.

Mayor Sticks I have a couple things I'd like to say Um, I really appreciate the people coming tonight because it is time to open this debate. It's time and I think and I'll give an example of why I think it's time. The CDC has now stated for the record officially something that they were slow to acknowledge. And that is that the vaccines, the amount M. R. N. A. Vaccines Neither prevent transmission nor infection.

This is categorical statement from the Centers for Disease Control. The assertion is that it reduces hospitalization rates, the strength of the infection, the consequences of the infection. And so I think we're in a different situation where if we're in our... If we're in a situation The official government position now is that these vaccines are therapeutic only and not prophylactic.

And you think through that, it seems to indicate that we are moving from a pandemic to an endemic situation. And the public policy with respect to an endemic environment is very different from a pandemic environment. I don't see how we can consider, um, a situation where vaccines are acknowledged to be only therapeutic in the face of other therapeutic measures such as monoclonal antibodies, where we have to start thinking about basically how to learn to live with this as an endemic environment I want to also point out something that hasn't been reported very much in the United States. And that is a number of nations, primarily Scandinavian have recently suspended or limited the use of the Mordena vaccines on young men, young teenagers precisely because the public health authorities in those countries said they're concerned at the risk of side effects from the vaccine and that particular age cohort is greater than the risk of infection from COVID.

So all these things open up the need for debate, honest and respectful debate on different points of view in terms of how we move from pandemic to endemic And I think that whereas we're not taking any actions tonight, I want to say that I appreciate that. I think we're moving towards having this discussion about How best to move forward. So I appreciate the opportunity for opening the debate.

Bill and I will likely make a future agenda recommendation at the end of the meeting so that we can have a public discussion. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. All right we'll move on to number two public hearing is the adoption of the 2021-2029 housing element update including revisions provided by the City Council and in response to comments received by the California Department of Housing and Community Development and this is a third of three meetings and I'd like to thank staff for making this happen because it's been tough Yeah.

Eric, just a point of order. Did we motion to approve the pulled item?

Oh,

we should

do that. Yeah. Can we have a motion to approve the pulled items? Thank you, Randy. Thank you. Is there a motion? Do I make that motion?

Yeah, I'll make that

motion.

Second.

I'll tell you what, I'm going to and I know this people may not understand my second but we are in a situation. We don't have our own health department so we're subject to county health and we have to follow what unfortunately sometimes we've taken issue at times with what county health does. So whereas I think it's appropriate that we open this debate. I think it's also appropriate that we don't get into a difficulty with County Health.

No, if I could just add I know there's a motion but this item. The the point of this item, which allows us to kind of act if an emergency is needed we don't have any existing city executive orders at this moment right you don't have any plans to put any executive orders into place. What this allows us to do is react quickly if something changes quickly right we have done when we have a number Yeah, things already and when restaurants have been closed we were able to open outdoor dining and buy signage and things like that without having to come back to Council and get budget approval. So I know, I think a lot of people don't understand maybe the nuance of it but this allows us to act quickly if something changes and we need

Well, arguably we did not pass this tonight. Technically all the outside dining variances from current

city code would have to immediately be lifted. Not tonight I'll note on that front because the emergency declaration continues in place until affirmatively lifted or its expiration and it's that item is not tonight's item because it was extended last meeting. Okay this is receiving file an update okay but as James noted it is to direct the manager to continue taking action is needed to deal with the emergency which at this time is essentially

we have not a lot. We have no orders, we're not anticipating anything. Okay well I stand corrected

but i think your point's well taken that there's some nuanced issues in terms of as we move yeah as my stated from the pandemic to an endemic situation we want to do that in a stepwise and uh considered fashion yep be able to buy signage things like that if you need to so i'm gonna second for that reason

Okay we have a motion, and we have a second so can we have a roll call please go.

you. Yes, thank you. And as you mentioned a moment ago. This is the third time third consecutive meeting we brought the house housing element forward. We were trying to bring it back several times to get feedback and we got some feedback from both Council in the public at the September 14 meeting brought it back with some modifications Got some more feedback on the 28th and brought it back today for adoption. The state deadline for our Southern California region for adoption of a housing element is October 15, so we are here today prior to the deadline to get this adopted or to stay in compliance.

I want to start by noting, I think one of the big things was we had originally planned our general plan update to coincide with this time frame so that we would be able Have our full general plan update and have the housing element sync up with that general plan update. When COVID hit we couldn't have our in person public workshops, we postponed the general plan update about six to 12 months.

And we started now having some of those workshops virtually, but unfortunately the state deadlines never moved so that's why just to be, you know, transparent. That's why the general plan update is not lining up with the housing element at this point. But we were able to have the first few workshops virtually. We took that feedback, we had multiple planning commission meetings, we brought that to council, we got feedback and now we are coming back so what's before council? I won't get into it completely because i think i gave a 50 minute presentation at midnight a couple weeks ago and i won't do that again but We have the revised housing element with, with that feedback. The housing element is one of the seven required elements in a city's general plan.

It essentially helps the city plan for meeting its share of regional housing needs were in the southern California region, which has a large share of housing needs. But Ojai actually was able to get a reasonable number of about 53 units appointed to it, or allocated to it. So this document will help us plan for meeting those needs and it also helps set goals, objectives and policies for housing. And it's actually an interesting read that identifies all the different conditions, the demographics the Ojai housing conditions within the document as well. So this document does those things, it makes some corrections and adjustments from the prior version such as removing the city hall site from the affordable housing overlay which the city hall site has a deed restriction and can't be used for affordable housing so it corrects some things like that It includes some of the other revisions we've mentioned over the recent council meetings.

And at this time, we are recommending that the city council adopt this housing element and our plan would be that as we continue with the public outreach in the general plan process, and we get feedback from that, then we would also plan at that time about a year from now to make some revisions to the housing element that will be a little bit more We are recommending adopting this version of the housing element to meet the state deadline and to make kind of the interim improvements and corrections to it.

So happy to answer questions, we have a presentation I don't think we need to give it but I can always do that if desired but with that we are recommending adoption

Thanks, James. Bill? I have a

process question. So as I understand it the process is that if we adopt this tonight it gets submitted to HCD, Housing and Community, the state agency with oversight then they do a review and comment period. Yep. And during that review and comment period this question's arisen, I've heard it from a couple people I assume under certain parameters, we're able to make additional changes or comments based on those comments that we may get from HCD or other things that we may come across that we may have

missed.

In other words the submission doesn't fix it in stone

is what I'm trying to get at. Council can make changes both in response to HCD's comments that come in and additional changes as desired by council. And then it goes through another round of adopted by council, as revised and then back to HCD. I don't know depending on how the comments come in we may not want to accept some of those comments from the state. Thank

you. First of all I'd like to thank staff for all the work that went into this report. It's thorough, it's comprehensive. I don't know if that identifies the real problems that are facing the community of Ojai. But I did ask the same question that Bill did regarding, is this set in stone if we adopt it tonight or we move it forward? And I was given the answer of no, it's not.

Because there's a lot of concerns in this community about affordable housing and how we can achieve more of it here, or even workforce housing. Or just a lot of concerns about even the age of our housing but So I'd be willing to move along with this tonight, knowing that we can amend it down the road and I guess my last question about amending something of this nature is even if it is passed nine months from now.

Can we still, do we still have the opportunity to approach it and reamend it? And if we did so would we have to go through the same process of sending it to the state having all of the public comment timeframes and things of that nature.