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Call to order, we have a quorum. May we have the roll call please Gail?
Roll call — called by City Clerk
Show transcript
Thank you Gail and welcome to the April 26th 2022 meeting of the Ojai City Council. Council Member Weirich will you please do the pledge for us thank you
Agenda Discussionitems moved / continued / pulled — click to expand
And approval of the agenda? Motion to approve?
Move to approve. Second.
OK thank you. Roll call please Gail.
Thanks Gail and we have a present presentation tonight exciting a presentation of virtual public arts tour by the Ojai Arts Commission So thank you so much Christine for being here excited to see
Thank you, Mayor Sticks. And thank you for this opportunity. I know you always have a very long agenda and I promised that I would keep it very short my opening comments and my closing comments in the film you're going to see will speak for itself. So I want to just give you just a little opening on February 12th 2020 hundreds of public art tour brochures featuring a walking tour of public art in downtown Ojai were delivered to my doorstep And exactly one week later, America was virtually shut down due to the COVID pandemic and those boxes sat in my house.
So for close to two years, the public announcement and the launching of this very important project has been delayed. And in the meantime, the tours were made available to the public on the Arts Ohio City website. And recently the Chamber of Commerce has made brochures available around town Then when Smitty West was appointed to the Arts Commission, he had a brainstorm and he took the tours. There are four in all representing over 40 public artworks within the city boundaries and he added a whole new level and filmed two of the tours, the downtown tour and the East City Tour. And the one you're going to see tonight is the East City Tour. So we're gonna show you Smitty's video of the East City Tour and this is not just for you it's for the public as well.
It's narrated by our own Commission Chair Nigel Chisholm
Hi, my name is Nigel Chisholm and I am one of seven appointed City of Ojai Arts Commissioners. Right behind the camera there is Smitty West, another of Ojai's arts commissioners. Today we are taking the East City Walk, one of the four walks that encompass all of Ojais massive and ever-growing collection of public art. Ojai, a geographically small city of just four square miles and seven-and-a-half thousand lucky residents is set in the beautiful Ojai Valley all around me here. Just 12 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean in Ventura California A short drive up from Highway 150 will bring you to our idyllic community And while it may be small in size It has an enormously rich history of art in myriad forms Its public art program dwarfs that of many major cities around the world.
Join Smitty and myself on this fabulous East City Walk, and afterwards pick up a brochure from the Ojai Museum just down the road there, and follow in our footsteps. We start at the skate park, at the intersection of Ojai Avenue and Fox Streets, and we'll end at the Ojai Art Center just over yonder. Enjoy the walk! I know we will. Big Red Roller. Well-known metal sculptor Theodore Gall came up with the idea to repurpose an oil wheel from a local well for this public art project.
Big Red Roller, situated in the southwest corner of Ojai's skate park on Ojai Avenue, emulates what goes on inside the park. Skateboards, inlines and roller skates in motion. Painted a bright red with graffiti-resistant paint, it is visible not only to skaters but also to pedestrians walking along Ojai Avenue. Gall, the same public artist who created Spirit Chase in Rotary Park gifted the Big Red Roller to the city pro bono.
Our next piece is at the Shell Station on Ojai Avenue. The Chief. The iconic beauty of Chief Peak is captured by artist Bernard Collin in a three-panel mural that graces the east facing wall. Nearly 11 feet in length, the triptych is mounted an inch from the wall allowing for a dramatic shadow effect behind it. To create the mural, Collin used a handheld plasma cutter to make hundreds if not thousands of meticulous cuts into sheet metal The edges were beveled to soften the design and give it a free-flowing feel.
Oak trees, created separately, were then welded onto the main piece. A waterproof finish of metallic bronze particles protects and preserves the artwork. A laborious process, Colin has been welding and forging artworks with a handheld plasma cutter for 40 years. This enables him to express himself in fine detail that modern technology doesn't allow. Headed east from the Shell Station, Shelter Social Club managers of the Cree Hotel at 1180 East Ojai Avenue are on a mission to create artistic spaces and experiences that bring community together.
They have done just that with a one-of-a-kind art installation that reflects the hotel's postmodern Italian motif. Ladders – rectangular boxes of varying heights by Los Angeles based artist Lucky Remington are strategically placed throughout the property and draw upon the lure of mid-century colour and chromatic harmonies. Be sure to check out the specially commissioned oil painting hanging over the fireplace inside the hotel lobby.
Notice how artist Mateo Perrotta's colour scheme complements the soft palette of Remington's Ladders. The business of bees. The Ojai Valley Business Park in the centre of Bright Circle, between 407C and 407D boasts a towering sculpture that honours Ojai's citrus industry. The sculpture is 8 feet high and weighs 6,000 pounds. Fashioned from golden Peruvian travertine and orange calcite from Utah it is titled The Business of Bees The travertine represents a honeycomb and the calcite an orange.
Artist Chris Provenzano, who wanted to bring awareness to the bee colony collapse disorder worked collaboratively with Paul Lindhart and several of Ventura's Art City sculptors on various aspects of this amazing piece. The glass wings of the bees are by Michael Racine Down the road at 416 Bryant Street is a City of Ojai Commission piece by G. Ramon Byrne, The Ojai Table. A Ventura Arts City sculptor, Byrne designed the table to match the architectural style of the building where it is placed and to reflect the Cespi Mountain range that flanks the Ojai Valley.
The table is made of two types of limestone and sandstone and weighs 12,000 pounds! The tabletop alone weighs more than 5,000 pounds. Fortune Cookies When the Wild Tennis Academy and Preparatory School underwent a renovation in 2011, a whimsical public art project was installed in the commons area between the academy and the athletic club's parking area. Public artist Jeff Sanders silk-screened over 50 fortune cookie sayings onto 6 inch by 34 inch horselin tile pieces using ceramic glazes in a variety of soft pastel colours.
The pieces were then fired for durability and eventually fitted flush into the concrete walkways. Scattered randomly throughout the Commons paths, Sanders and Academy owner Mark Weil selected sayings they felt would be particularly meaningful to the students travelling The Walks. A few blocks west you'll find Los Árboles Condominiums. The missionary style Los Árboles Condominium incorporates California pottery and tile throughout In front of the complex sits the extraordinary Peacock Mural Bench.
Based upon an original fountain created at the famous Malibu Potteries, the bench and tiles were given as a gift to Ojai by the owner of California Pottery & Tile Works of Los Angeles. Adjacent to the Peacock Mural, you'll find the Green Man Fountain. This is a variation of the Green Man Fountain at the Adamson House in Malibu. It is also known as the Neptune Fountain.
Headed back north on Montgomery toward downtown Ojai, you'll find the Ojai Art Center. The oldest operating art center in California. While you're at the art center, you may want to visit inside where there are always interesting art exhibitions. A small shop in front has art by local artists for sale. When the Arts Centre was renovated in 1997,
Roll call — called by City Clerk
Show transcript
0:10 – 0:1712 turns
an exquisitely detailed door map mural by RTK Studios was added to the floor of the Art Centre's main entry bordered with Cuerda Seca or Dry Cord. This is an old Spanish moor technique that Richard Kite and Mary Kennedy, RTK tile owners and artists learned and used to perfection here throughout Ojai. A line is drawn around coloured areas using a bulb syringe filled with manganese carbonate and oil.
When the tiles are fired, the mixture burns off leaving the dark outline. Copper light sconces by Jan Sanchez were incorporated on either side of the door. Hand carved wooden doors created in the 80s by Jack and Karen Chaney complete the rustic craftsman look. Entering the Arts Centre through the hand-carved wooden doors and moving toward the back in the rear courtyard of the Arts Centre, a six foot tall Peace Pole is crowned by a TEDGAL sculpture titled Peace In Man's Hand.
An expressive hand holds an olive branch and spreading dove's wings. The Peace Pole was a collaborative effort of 12 Ojai artists. May peace prevail on earth is written in four languages on the pole's sides. The pole was dedicated in 2006 in a ceremony performed by Chumash elder Julie Tumamai. Adjacent to Peace In Man's Hand is Big Pear Cactus. Sculptor Perry Castellano fashioned the 8ft tall pear cactus from rusted steel.
A wrought iron gate with serendipitous details was forged by metal artist Jan Sanchez in 2001 and defines the back patio area. While looking at the patio gates, be sure to look from the bottom to the top. You'll notice valley oak branches and leaves. As your eyes move upwards you'll see a painting easel and above that a Picasso-esque picture To the right, you'll see a 3D image of a woman posing on top of a box.
Crowning the gates, you'll see the phases of the moon. Exiting through the wrought iron patio gates will take you into the back of Libbey Park Well, there we are. We've come to the conclusion of our East City Tour. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as Smitty and I have on this beautiful, beautiful Ojai day. It's always beautiful in Ojai. It is just a fabulous place to live. So right now, I'm going to walk across Boston's Bridge there into Livvy Park which is a fabulous place to find some more public art and also, as it turns out, a great place to pick up the downtown art tour.
I'll see you there!
And I'll just point out while it's scrolling that the people who helped out with this are listed there. And I want to thank Smitty West for his video, and of course Nigel. And special thanks to Elise DuPoit, a name who some of you know and whose book The Fountains and Sculptures of Ojai served as an invaluable resource and inspiration for this project. Carlos Grasso did the brochure I have to mention Roger Conrad and Susan Stinsmule for the photography.
And for the public to know, the brochures which I'm just going to hold one up here are available at the museum. I don't know how many are still downtown. I know that the Chamber of Commerce distributed them but this was not meant to be a virtual tour. This is meant to be walking tour of downtown And if you take it, there's a map and there's descriptions of the various pieces that you see. I don't know the docent tours are going to be available much longer but if you're lucky enough to get one, you'll hear all kinds of stories that were not printable about each piece of art in this. And as I said, there are four tours.
QR codes, that's the last thing I'm going to mention. There are QR codes inside the brochure so that if you go on the downtown tour and you scan these QR codes, the other three tours will pop up on our website and you can take those tours also. It's one thing to see it here, it's something else to see it in person. I've given two docent tours to the women's committee of the Ojai Music Festival and they were blown away by it, and I gave another tour that Bill Wyrick went on. Anyone else in this room? Bill? And Bill was that something to see?
Absolutely as you say always learn something.
Yeah. Learn more and get a deeper
appreciation
that way much more so once again things to do further and i do want to mention one final thing and that is that not all the artworks that you saw here are a result of the public art program Some of the pieces that you saw here are public, are private artworks. But the committee decided we wanted to include artworks even if they weren't part of the Public Art Program so that people could really see what Ojai has just within its city limits.
Forty-five plus pieces of public art. We've been busy. Thank you. Any questions?
Can I just say one quick thank you? Thank you, thank you, thank you. That was a beautiful film. Thank you for all your work and so much gratitude and I can't wait to hear those stories. I want the stories! Thanks to Nigel and Smitty. Sure, yeah go
ahead. I feel kind of ashamed actually having watched that. I have spent so much time in the arts and not really looked at that art. And I play tennis, and walk across those little things, those little sayings, and I had no idea that was art. I just thought they put them there for the students. So I just think what you've done is wonderful. You gotta get to the schools because we just so assume everything is beautiful and artistic. Sometimes we just don't stop and look at what fabulous art is in our community. I'm certainly gonna stop If there was some way of
finding out, is there any city on earth with more public art installations per square mile than Ojai? It'd be an
interesting thing
to find
out.
0:18 – 0:2424 turns
Well, I don't know how I would Google that bill. We might be right up
there.
I'm sure there are other art communities like Ojai that value the art spirit. Oh, I'm sure
they do. I am talking about density.
Mayor, I have a question please. Christine so I want to get this right I go to the I take the tour I go to the site and I click on this code and it tells me what the piece of art is
not exactly so can I grab a brochure from somebody
You know, I did the tour in Pennsylvania for the Getty.
Did you?
For Gettysburg and it was interesting as you would stop and then there'd be a monitor there and they would actually give you an enactment of what took place at that site. And so I was thinking of that while you were speaking and I said what is stopping us from actually doing something like that where you go press a button and they actually tell you what Smitty and them just explained to us.
So for this one, no it's not that high-tech. For this one what you do is you go on the downtown tour and you would stop let's say you start at Cluff Vista Park and what you would do you would stop and you would read what it says about the way in all those if you want to take additional tours the QR codes are for additional tours so if you want to take the East City Tour you'd scan that little square if you want to take The West City Tour you would scan that little tour and if you want to expand the downtown tour There's a tour called along the way But some of the members of the ad hoc committee because they do the tours the architectural tours from from the museum They advised us how long? the tour should be, like how much people can actually take.
And so if we had included all the pieces of along the way on the downtown tour it would have been a whole morning of walking. So we made along the way...
Well that's what I'm trying to say is if someone actually wanted to do this themselves they could but who's the liaison to the Arts Commission this quarter?
It's old-fashioned in a way
yeah.
I'm the liaison to
the Arts
Commission. So make note and go talk to them about how we can figure out how to do this push button to talk, to figure out what it costs and how we can do something like that. I think it's incredible that we have all of this and it's a shame that we miss out because we either have to take a walk and have a docent tell us what's going on versus having the ability to go to the site and actually press a button, and have someone really explain the history.
But do keep in mind that what you hear me say as a docent, we could never put on a... Because I'm telling you some backstories that we didn't want to put
into print. You can put as much as you want in that moment on
that. I know some back stories. Also for the public to know All of the tours are on the city website. So you can do a virtual tour sitting in your chair at home, putting up on channel whatever it is. Oh and the videos are running on channel...
Videos are running on Channel 10 I believe daily.
And the other video, the downtown tour is a video that Smitty West narrates. And it's quite nice. So is that it?
All right well thank you so much Christine. That was lovely and much appreciated. I know you worked so hard for so long on this. Ryan.
Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to say thank you, Christine. That was a wonderful presentation. I also wanted to thank Jeff Sanders who's been along. He was mentioned in there as some of the artwork that he has done and the bees at work with the orange and a number of other artistic elements of the Bryant Circle Business Park. at the city at one point so wonderfully tried to kick me out of for not being zoned correctly in a business park, which I laugh at nowadays. But there is beautiful art in there that installation was literally right outside my office when my office used to be down on Bryant and I used to sit next to it all the time. There were just little things that were required to be done That I have so much respect for in a business setting that are really great and that construction is one of them.
If you ever go down into Bryant and see how our code is written and how, I believe it was Ted Moore who helped work on it but The way the eaves are, so it looks smaller. The way the buildings look and the art that's installed is really amazing. It's a really great way of how we've done a business park because we don't have a lot of business style parks. That is Ojai's style of doing it that's really cool. And I just want to thank Nigel as well who did such a great job in Smitty.
Highlighting that and a couple other things are really great, but a couple artists in there I know. A couple installations I know really well. Christine thank you. I've done that tour it is actually really fun and it's kind of cool. It reminded me of when I was in college and they made us find all the like there were nine fountains at USC campus and we had to go find all of them and take a picture in front of all of them for kind of a scavenger hunt kind of thing. There's so much art in Ojai that as Jeff Starkweather was saying, you just kind of go unnoticed because we just take it for granted how much beautiful stuff there is in Ojai. So I want to remind everybody keep a close look. There's so much great stuff out there. Christine, thank you very much and I really appreciate the walking tours and the art tours.
They're really awesome.
You're welcome. Thank you. All right, we'll move on to commission reports? Anything? Okay all right we will then move on to public communication and we just have one public communication Jill Dolan
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Hello, I'm Jill Dolan and I must say I couldn't have planned this any better. Timing-wise art, art, art! I am with the Ojai Art Center Theater and where you know in Montgomery you know the Arts Center there that we just saw? I spent a lot of time there and this weekend we're opening our next play which is a series of one act plays called All In The Timing They're extremely funny, and they're very brief.
And I encourage everyone to come like Everyone who's been doing arts theater the past two years have been really tough on everyone and what started as our You must stay at home order Became our habit and now people are having you know second thoughts about going out It's like it's so much easier to just stay home Why don't I want to get dressed? You know So we're fighting that same kind of battle that many other theaters, both community and professional theaters are fighting. And so I'm here today to invite all of you. I brought postcards for you, for all of you.
to come and see this wonderful show. It starts this Friday, April 29th, Friday, Saturday, Sundays and it runs through May 15th and I think it's funny and I think you might need a laugh at this point.
And what are the time frames? It starts
at 730 on Friday and Saturday nights
and then it
starts at 2 o'clock on Sunday afternoons.
And how much?
Oh gosh if I had my glasses on I could see you. If you're an Art Center member It's $18. Okay, someone can see 20 for non members. Yeah, it's a deal. There you go. And I believe this production is actually a fundraiser for the Art Center Theater. We have an interesting financial split with the art center itself so anyway, I thank you very much.
Thank you so much. Thank you Jill. Exciting much appreciated All right, we will move from there to the consent calendar. Mayor? Oh, I'm sorry, Suza. Should I check the Zoom? Yes, sorry. That's all right. If
anyone in the Zoom queue would like to comment on general public comments if you would use the raise hand function now. No one.
Okay, thank you Gail. All right, we'll move onto the consent calendar. Motion to approve?
Move to approve. Before I second, I believe we may have a public comment on one of the consent items.
Yes, we do.
And I
may want to pull
F, Mayor?
OK, so you're pulling F. The consent, the comment is
on F? Yeah, the comment's on F, so I would move to approve all except F for the public comment.
OK, I will second that. Roll call please, Gail.
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0 move to approve all except F for the public comment. OK, I will second that. Roll call
Show transcript
Thank you Gail and we have a public comment on the F with Mr. Bill Miley please
Good evening. For the record, my name is Bill Miley and this has to do with the joint zero emission rollout plan between the Ohio Trolley and Gold Coast Transit District. So this item is of special interest to me as your council knows you appointed me as one of the citizen representatives to the Ventura County Transportation Commission Citizen Advisory Committee I participated in two Zoom meetings and the committee is currently involved in giving opinions and advice on the draft for the Ventura County Transportation Commission's, get this, Coordinated Human Transit Human Services Plan which happens every five years.
I'm aware of the California State 2019 Innovative Clean Transit Regulation requirement. I understand that the rollout plan ultimately requires transit authorities like ours to use clean burning fuels by 2040 and this is just a little aside if i keep up my water exercises, I may be still around to check on you guys I believe it is important to note city involvement.
I know that Council Member Haney has been the city's representative on the Ventura County Transportation Commission for some time, and I understand now he's on the board of the Gold Coast Transit Authority, the bus that comes up here. Council Member Wyrick is now the city's representative on the commission. I would suggest much credit should go to both of them for the offer by Gold Coast Transit to join them in preparing a zero emission plan. Just think that, no gases going up there.
Thus saving the city considerable dollars because Gold Coast is paying for it and bringing us into a big successful transit system. This is a significant step towards our climate goals and I want to thank Gold Coast.
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Thank you Bill.
Thank you, Mr. Miley. Any comments on Zoom, Gail?
If anyone in the Zoom queue would like to comment on this item please use the raise hand function now.
We'll move on to discussion to approve
1f You know, there's there's again from a small city standpoint with Ryan on the Air Resource Board Bill on VCTC me on GoCoast Between the three of us in representing this small community and all of these transportation and air quality boards, it's real interesting how a small entity can get so much support and so much help by asking and being persistent. Sometimes being a stick-in-the-eye but most of the time just being persistent And, you know I've been working on Gold Coast for two years to be a big part of this because we're a small entity and we don't have hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to be replacing our equipment. So I wanted to say thank you to Alma. I wanted to say thank you for James for following up on the requests that I've made and even on things that I've forgotten that I even made But thank you to specifically for this and getting this to happen, so thank you
Thank You Randy. Okay. We have a motion
motion to approve 1f
Second
okay a roll call please
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0 motion to approve 1f Second okay a roll call
Show transcript
Okay, great. Thank you so much. All right, let's move on to discussion item number two the 2022 street paving plan We've all been waiting for it. Thank you so much james for making it happen Yeah,
thank you alma. Thank you thank you and uh I'm gonna do a brief introduction and then i'll hand it over to um alma here in a moment but We have a couple slides we're going to work through. Give me one second to remember how to show them. Every computer is in a different spot, I think it's here. Okay there we go. So yes this is our 2022 paving project and I wanted to start with just kind of a little bit of background and a little bit of history on this project I realized as we started digging into this that I thought I knew the history and even I didn't really maybe know the full extent of it.
I had been telling people for months that we were going to finalize our 10 year old street paving plan and finally finish it this year And as we started to dig through, we realized and this map shows there's actually a 13-year paving plan that dates back to 2009. So it is a big accomplishment I think that we are going to finish this off this year and the plan for this year that Alma will get into is we're looking at finishing the 2021 and 2022 planned paving projects I wanted to explain a little bit about that because one of the things I think we've talked a lot about with Measure C and some of the future plans is that we plan to pave much more aggressively, and we plan to get the paving quality score up.
And so just as a little bit of background, we started to dig into How much the city has paved since 2000, and I know there's a lot of numbers on screen but just to illustrate this is essentially all of our paving this millennium. And so from 2000 to 2002 there was zero dollars spent paving 2003 $81,000 2004 0 2005 43 2006 0 2007 2008 0 And so, you know the first almost decade of the millennium we spent about $120,000 paving. So when we talk about our low paving score it shouldn't really be a surprise with that level of funding.
But so around that time the city did one positive step which is the city started to take a chunk of the hotel tax money and put it towards paving So we were able to start increasing it a little bit. 2009, $370,000. 2010, $400,000, zero in 2011, $170,00. 2012, zero in 2013 and then from 2014 to 2019 we started to do more regular paving where it was about a million dollars every other year With 2017 being the prior highest amount of paving we've ever done, we did $1.7 million in 2017.
And so one thing we wanted to explain is this is why it was a 13-year paving plan previously The positive moving forward is that we will be able to be much more aggressive with the new Measure C funding. And right now, we are preparing the updated pavement management plan that would propose Budgeting about $1.2 million every year, not every other year and that would allow us to get our pavement score up from a fair score of about 53 where we're currently at to a good score of above 70 in about five years And so when you really look at this, this 13-year cycle was really stopping the score from dropping or stopping the pavement condition from dropping. But the next five year plan that we're working on and will bring back to Council after we complete this plan will be the first plan that I think will actually improve the quality and the condition in the score of our pavement.
So Alma will talk a little bit more about that. As the note there says, the Measure C tax was approved in 2020. That's the hotel tax that goes towards these projects and it took a year longer to start collecting than we expected because of COVID but we should now have a regular substantial funding source for paving and other capital improvement projects. And so we aren't going to approve a five-year plan tonight, but we wanted to just make the point that the plan with our pavement management plan that will come back to council will be to increase the funding.
And this just makes the point I mentioned earlier about the goal will be to increase our condition from a fair condition to a good condition citywide. And that being said, overall we have a fair condition, but the city. And this map was in the materials. There are several portions of the city streets that are not in fair condition. There are several portions that were failing or poor condition. So that's reflected on this map.
With that, I'm going to go ahead and hand off to Alma to present the majority of this presentation. I'm realizing as I'm speaking that I think this is Alma's first meeting in front of the City Council since it was only our second meeting back in the last couple years. With that, I'll introduce Alma Kezada, which I pronounce terribly, our Public Works Director. And I will hand the laptop off.
Welcome.
So yes it is my first time in front of City Council and I haven't seen the final order I haven't seen the final order of the slide deck, so this will be exciting. I also wanted to let you guys know that I did print out some handouts because they are easier to see in this format than what is in the binder.
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You got this Alma.
Be nice just be nice.
I promise to be nice to you tonight.
Would anyone in the audience like some of the handouts?
When we're done, we'll hand them to Gail. We'll take care of that.
Okay so what the map shows and We'll get the handouts to the audience as well. Those were the results of the street survey that our consultant conducted from December through February of this year, earlier this year and what it shows is that while our average PQI is 53.4 67%, approximately 67% of our streets are gonna need some type of treatment. The other 33% are in good condition and don't require any type of treatment at this point.
Elmo, while you're waiting could you break down failed poor fair and good? Is there a criteria in a simple phrase.
Yeah so if you look at the map you can see the failed streets have a PQI of equal to or less than 20. The poor streets have a PQUI between 20 and 40 Fair condition streets have a PQI between 40 and 70, and good streets have a PQI higher than 70. So
what does failed mean?
Failed is usually where you see a lot of visible surface distresses, potholes, cracking, rutting, shoving those types of things it's very visible. The interesting thing about the street survey is that Just mixed results. Our subgrade, meaning the you know pavement comes in layers so the subgrade that's below the asphalt that you see is actually in really good condition and in some areas of the city it was actually over a foot in thickness. The score on the subgrade because each layer has a different score the score of the subgrade was 89 or higher as an average throughout the whole city. So even though the street looks visibly distressed on the surface, it doesn't mean that it's bad underneath. It's pretty good on the part that we don't see.
So it does...it's not going to require a full type of reconstruction or major reconstruction in many of the areas. A lot of it will be surface distresses that we're gonna be correcting
Alma, would you prefer to finish your presentation and take questions at the end or take questions?
Interrupt.
Please
interrupt.
Raise her hand.
This is dynamic. I haven't seen the final order of the slide deck so yes please interrupt.
Mayor can you see my raised hand? No go ahead Sousa Okay Alma, the map shows the Ojai Valley Trail and people are always asking who's responsible for repairing you know potholes on the trail. Does that mean that this section that's in the city is our responsibility and will be Taken care of, or what does that mean? That red stripe.
The red stripe
on the Ojai Valley Trail and Country Club intersection there.
So no portion of the trail is included in our paving project. That red stripe is Country Club. And I think Alma, the simple question is what portion of the bike trail is the city responsible for?
The portion of the bike trail that the city is responsible for is the area behind Libbey Park, from Signal to Montgomery. And then there's a break in between and then the next portion would be from Fox to Fulton. Those are the city-owned areas that the city's responsible for maintaining. We do plan on doing some work to those sections, but it's gonna take a coordinated effort because the county is responsible for maintaining the remainder of it and I've been in discussion with them emailing to see if we can kind of coordinate the maintenance of it so that we don't end up with just the city sections looking bright and brand new and the rest of it not as great.
Thank you, thank you. People want to know that so that's important, thank you.
You're welcome okay so moving on as James said we had already committed to finishing out the 13-year paving cycle so what this shows on the green handout the one that you guys have in front of you the one with the green background there's a total of 34 road segments that are going to be They're gonna have some type of treatment and the treatment is going to range from a full reconstruction with the six-inch gravel base through a hot mix asphalt overlay with a one and a half inch thickness. And just full disclaimer, I am NOT a traffic engineer so if there's specific questions on what those types of treatments entail I do have Derek Rapp from Stantec on the line that he can address those technical questions. He's the expert in this So what we see here, I'm gonna go through the slide and show which street segments are proposed for full reconstruction.
Edge Mill with a one-and-a-half inch overlay two and a half inch overlay and just down the line and then show you examples of what the streets look like so Oh, this slide was out of order. Okay so just some PQI rating examples what we see starting from the top is a peak That says PCI. It should be PQI rating of 100, which is in good condition, brand new. So that's in the top left-hand corner. Moving over is a PQI of 80 in satisfactory condition and then you see the PQ I have 60 that's fair condition and that's where you start to see surface distresses cracks and so forth And then when you get down to a PQI of 40 which is the poor condition, that's where you see significant alligator cracking.
Just lots of surface distresses. That's where you get the potholes when it rains. If you continue down to 20, which is really just poor fail condition. That's where you see significant potholes and rutting and just lumpy bumpy texture not great. And those are not Ojai streets because I don't think Ojai has bricks underneath. This is just a sampling of different types of distresses and then all the way down to a PQI of 10, which is absolutely failed totally destroyed And that would be the most expensive type of repair The type of treatments that we're recommending for this 2022 paving cycle are listed above. We're constrained to six different, six distinct types of treatments with a cost breakdown of each one and you can see the full reconstruction is the most expensive.
That's what's going to eat up most of our paving budget for this fiscal year The segments that will require a full reconstruction, those are 12 segments listed above and that's going to be a total cost of just over $1 million. I did pull some images of select streets not every single one just to give you an example of their current condition These are actually older images that I pulled off Google Earth, so they're in a little bit worse condition now than what you see up there.
But still pretty bad what you see up there. Next type of treatment is the edge mill with one and a half inch thick overlay. And those are, let's see, edge mill. Those are 10 different street segments for a total cost of $325,550. What those streets look like? We have Daly Road where you can see the alligator cracking and West Summer Street again with potholes and alligator cracking Moving on to Edge Mill with a 2.5 inch overlay, there's three distinct road segments that are proposed for that type of treatment for a total cost of $121,458.
and what those streets look like. I only was able to grab Grand Street, and this is a little bit older image than what is out there currently because I was told that those citrus trees are no longer there. So I just wanted to point that out. But the street is in pretty bad shape from when Casitas replaced the water main there, yes?
So as I look at this I'm seeing a curb on the left side so we're gonna overlay from curb and then all the way over past the white line what 10 feet is there a distance from the white line that acts as a lane I guess delineates the lane and then you have the area of the asphalt area to the right of the white line So when we do this whole, when we do this whole area. We're going to go curb 10 feet past that white line 5 feet pass all
so that's um I do have Derek on the line and i'd like to get his input on it because I don't know the answer to that question.
0:48 – 0:5414 turns
Can everyone hear me? Yeah, this is Derek Rapp with Stantec. So the approach for an overlay would be essentially to apply that two and a half inches over the entire surface that is existing in asphalt. And obviously you can see there's some variability in the edge of pavement on Um, I don't know if you can see Some decision point as to what the overall width of the roadway should be, and it would be overlaid at a consistent width. We do like to have some shoulder for purposes of maintenance of the roadway because if you get the edge of pavement too close to the white line then vehicle tires start to get very close to the edge of that pavement The edge of the pavement deteriorates at a faster rate, so you do like to have some shoulder. Obviously if bikes were desired here we'd want to have more shoulder but just from a payment maintenance standpoint purely you would like to have at least a couple of feet of shoulder beyond the white line I hope that answers the question
I asked it because of that reason. If we wanted to put a sharo or a bike lane in there and also for pedestrian traffic, do we have the capabilities? Is that wide enough? Is it 10 feet, 12 feet, 14 feet? That's what I was asking.
Those are all things that could be looked at in the design approach. There obviously are a number of constraints that could prevent us from doing that if there are roadside conditions that are above and beyond just a pure pavement maintenance project, and we're looking at more of a larger CIP project, there may be something that prevents that but we can look at that in concert with the maintenance activities.
Thank you.
Thanks, Derek.
Can you see my raised hand? Sorry Susan, Ryan we can't see you so just shout it out. Go ahead Susan.
Okay I want to um you know dovetail on Randy's uh Haney's comments for years we've discussed ways to re-stripe the street so that bike lanes can work And also, if we don't have bike lanes that I think this would be an ideal time to take a look at how the sharrows are placed. So can you clarify how the ATP plans for grand can be coordinated with the paving schedule so that we're working in sync?
I'm not quite sure how to ask it, but I do know that the street somewhere we have you know the street has been measured and there is a way. For example, by removing parking on one side of the street which I realized is not popular but it is a route to very very important routes to Topatopa school and to Sarzotti Park to the recreation center. So just want to make sure that if you know before striping is done before the street is the restriping is done How does that work after the paving and how can we coordinate that?
And the ATP plans for Grand Avenue.
So the ATP project currently is focused on Ojai Avenue and Maricopa Highway. I think, I wanna just kind of clarify because I know that ATP's a hot topic. Sorry
can I interrupt?
Maybe
I should say the complete streets plan
Correct. Yeah, exactly. Thank
you. That's
what I meant. So we do have a complete streets plan that is Grand Avenue bike lanes that has been on the plan like Councilmember Francina mentioned for many years it was set to start engineering in 22-23 so it was set and this was set a few years back and it's just remained in place It was set for $20,000 in engineering in fiscal year 22-23 so starting July 1st and then it was set to start actual construction or striping with $70,000 budgeted towards it in 23-24.
So that is on our CIP. It's been on the CIP for those years, I think it goes back four or five years and so we are looking at how we can coordinate that. Our plan was to do some design work on it that would time up with this but we didn't have the construction funds set this fiscal year yet So there's going to be some decision making, I think as part of the CIP where we'll have to get a kind of walk through that with the city council and decide whether to move some projects around or whether to do that the year after. But right now the funding for that project is in 23-24 which starts July 1st 2023.
0:54 – 1:0424 turns
Yeah, I wanted to... I guess it might seem like we're piling on here but I think it's an important point. This illustration here is really an important point to discuss all the things that Councilperson Haney started, Councilperson Francina talked about because this is part of our general plan. Let's remind ourselves the Complete Streets Master Plan was published in June 2017 was adopted by the City Council in September of 2017. This has been on the books for a while, both in terms of taking advantage of stormwater capture and retention.
We know much more about the advantages of doing that and the ways to do that where the opportunities are in town. And the modal emphasis for the bike trails that we established by city council into our general plan in 2017 So when opportunities like this arise, the point that I want to try to make is that it's more cost effective to pursue general plan consistency by trying to maybe deal with this kind of situation as part of the paving program than just say we're going to do it separately in a piecemeal fashion. And I'm not trying to displace this work and the paving program but I do think that we maybe need to up the focus on how we can pursue the general plan consistency when these types of opportunities arise. And that's the point I really wanted to make.
Okay, thank you. Can we just keep it to questions at this point and not veer into discussion? You have a question? Of
course I do.
Let's hear it!
Or was it certainly? No, what I wanted to say was you know I kind of initiated that going outside of the Q&A and I just wanted to bring it back. You're right a lot of this is should be part of the discussion afterwards let let's let Alma proceed so I agree with you Mayor.
Okay thank you. So The next type of treatment is the hot mix asphalt overlay with a 2 1⁄2 inch thickness, and that will be primarily on the section of Fairview Road on the outer limits of the street up to the city limit for a cost of $55,562. Here's a little section of Fairview Road. You can see the utility trench scars and potholes and cracking that have been sealed
You have another right of way here, compared to the width of the pavement?
I would have to look it up. OK.
I
don't want to
displace you. No. Sorry.
The next type of treatment would be a full mill. That is where they grind out the entire top, the entire surface of the street and replace it with a hot mix asphalt overlay of one-and-a-half inch thickness and that is the entire length of Lion Street from Oak Street to Grand Avenue Wait, from Aliso to... Look at that. It's from Aliso to Grand Avenue and that's for a total cost of $52,492.
This was a picture that I pulled off Google Earth right where the Lion Street Bridge is you can see some potholes and Casitas recently did some work on there so it's in rougher shape than what you see on the image right now I think this is the last treatment. The last one is a hot mix asphalt overlay for one and a half inch thickness, and that will be primarily on Kuyama and West Eucalyptus Street for a cost of $48,081. And that is a section of Cuyama Road you can see the utility trenching scars from a water line replacement So, this is something important that I want to impress upon Council.
And it's a deterioration curve that shows how pavement condition affects the cost to treat it. I'm going to use the mouse for this. Starting, if we were to choose to pave our streets when they are between excellent and good condition it wouldn't be paving it would be some type of rejuvenation or preservation treatment that's added to the street to rejuvenate it and add another five to seven years of service life to the road those types of treatments typically cost anywhere from one to two dollars per square foot If we were to choose to defer maintenance of the road when the road is between good and fair condition, the costs begin to increase. And so does the type... The type of treatment changes because now you would need some type of resurfacing at a cost of $2-$3 per square foot.
If we continue to defer any kind of road maintenance to when the street is in fair to poor condition, then you're going to need some type of major rehabilitation at an estimated cost of three to five dollars per square foot. If we were to continue and do nothing and pave the streets to where they are below the poor condition, that's where you really see your maintenance costs skyrocketing to $6-12 per square foot. And those are estimated guesses so the takeaway from this is that It's better to preserve your good streets in good condition because it is much more cost effective. It extends the life significantly in your streets, you end up with a better road network, better streets, quieter roads and just reduce costs in maintaining it.
Can I add to just to that? That's why when we talked about our the five-year plan We're developing once this one is complete and we talked about trying to do 1.2 million to get the streets into The good range with the idea being that after five years, the cost would drop substantially because we'd it would just be light maintenance on all those streets
It would just be light maintenance and our average PQI should increase to over 70, which would make us comparable to the other cities that have better pavement than what we currently have right now.
True question. Alma are we facing A bit of a cost 22 tradeoff where we're maybe cutting back on preservation. We should maybe be doing now in order to get caught up, thereby letting some of the things that are good go to fair while we get caught up with the really bad stuff. I mean, where are we on that in terms of what the best practices would be right now if we didn't have the pressure to reconstruct bad in terms of preservation?
to extend life versus trying to get caught up. You understand my question?
I believe so, the map that was created originally just letting the computer model do work through its decision tree was very different than what we have here as the streets that we had already committed to. We ended up with more road segments, more center line miles that we could have paved for a cost of 1.4 million, but we have already committed to these streets and we'd like to finish it out that's why the cost is so high going forward when we do implement our multi-year pavement plan the focus is gonna be on keeping our roads are good roads in good condition and incorporating the bad ones as we pave so that we really maximize the amount of budget we have and keep
right
just increase our PQI score
Can I follow
up?
Go ahead. Do we have a sense of, let's just say budget wasn't a problem. Budget is always a problem. Okay. I'm not saying, I'm not trying to make light of that but what degree of best practices preservation are we not doing in order to try and get caught up? When we ballpark that?
I don't have a ballpark estimate
on
that. Yeah, we looked at the computer model. The computer says without taking into account anything else here's where you get the most efficiency for your budget. And I would say it was like 50% the same streets roughly and 50% different streets. And so, you know the idea I think the positive thing to keep in mind It was part of why we wanted to set this up with the comment about funding every year for this Is that in the past? We'd have to make this decision and then it would be three or four years before we could afford to pave again Now if we're paving every year we can catch up on some really poor quality streets this year and the next year start that regular maintenance
1:04 – 1:0922 turns
In the past, didn't we do CIP funding along with grants? So grants are still available to incorporate. That's one question. The second question is do we ever coordinate our overlays or our repairs with the county? So for instance Fairview is a big sticking point because half of its County and half his city And the people that live in the county side participate Hugely in our community. So they're always calling me about how can you fix my street? And it's like when you get the address you go, that's a county Yeah, so the question would be how can we coordinate that better? Mm-hmm That's something that we should we should look at Yeah, thank you. And the final question is when we... and I'm sure we'll discuss it later Mayor. The other question is when we are doing these overlays is that the appropriate time to take back the row?
When we can, and I think that's a big political question because those are fighting words. But the question is, is that the time to consider it and to incorporate larger public comment into that process when we're at that point?
Thank you. I think I'll try to go through them in order. Yes, we still get grants and we also still get certain other funding like tax funding. I think this year what we looked at was about 1.25 million Measure C and about 600,000 all other sources And so I think, I do want to point that out because I think a lot of people think that all the paving is done by the gas tax and we actually get a very small percentage. I think it's some, I
think... $250,000?
Yeah, $250,000 but that was like three years built up. So if we were only paving with gas tax like I think people think we'd be back to the paving level where we were in 2002 yeah So we still would be going for those. With our grant writers, we already were talking to them about applying for some grants too which could help pay for it so we'd still be looking to leverage funds that's something we'd still try to do. Coordination with the county I started to respond but you asked a little different question than I expected. We definitely coordinate with the other agencies and I know almost working with that with Casitas and Sanitary District I'm not sure if we've coordinated with the county. They called recently about Fairview, but was it about paving?
It was not about paving and it was related to Fairview and what they are doing. If anybody's been out there, there's a speed trailer set up collecting traffic data for what purpose? I don't know the exact purpose, but I'm suspecting they're trying to pave that section of the road
Yeah, so we can coordinate that with them I think. We'll reach out to them this week on that and then about whether it's the appropriate time to talk about taking back right-of-ways and what have you. I think this year...I know I keep repeating but this year is closing out the 13-year old cycle but we're going to bring the pavement management plan back I think three to four months is what I think will bring it in preparation of next year So I think when we bring that pavement management plan back and we are talking about our plans for the next five years, that would probably be an appropriate time to start talking about which streets we want to do that for.
Thank you.
Just to clarify tonight the 1.8 million has been set aside by the Budget Committee just strictly for paving correct?
Well, it's set aside by the council but the budget committee recommended
yes, okay and and just to Clarify Alma what you're saying is that if we take care of our streets now We will save money in the future in the long haul so have money to do other things right?
That's That's correct. And then something interesting that I recently found out, if we are able to get our PQI score over 80, the SB1 funding that's traditionally used for street paving can be used for other transportation projects. It doesn't need to be used strictly for paving once your PQi goes over 80.
Exciting! The City of Thousand Oaks uses that extensively.
So there is an added benefit to keeping our streets in good condition.
Yes.
And then that was the last slide I had.
Okay, thank you so much, Alma. Fabulous. Thank you. Any other questions from Council? Sousa or Ryan?
Raising his hand. I always see the raised hand.
Can we go back to... can we find Sousa on the
screen? Can you hear me? Yes, we can
hear you.
Eric took his hand down. That was all. Okay,
no questions Susan? No not right now. Oh okay alright let's move on to public comments we have two public comments uh we have Jeffrey Starkweather and Bill Miley
1:09 – 1:165 turns
You may have already answered one of my questions but looking at these maps The brown one, I see the quality of the streets and I was trying to match them with the streets that you were paving. And I'm wondering about the criteria. I assume it has something to do with the amount of traffic on it because like Grand and Fairview which are fair are being paved and other streets which are poor are not.
And the other one which particularly Notice because I have a friend that lives on that street and complains all the time about the traffic is drowned Street. And I noticed that's in poor shape or whether the bot failed, that's failed. And it's a street according to people that live on it. A lot of people use it to get around downtown so this gets traffic beyond its own residents.
And I had a couple other things, so that's just a question. I do agree very strongly with what Sousa and Bill said about tying it in with complete streets because I've had experience back in North Carolina where the planning commission and the paving... They were not coordinated. They actually in one... In our town they had to tear up sidewalks Because they had to expand the street.
So it really saves a lot of money if you do it in a coordinated fashion. The other thing is, this is just an idea but I've seen it where it really works and I thought about this on Drown Street when you have an intersection You know those four-way intersections if it's a street that people move too fast on if you make your crosswalk like a Like a raised thing. It really slows down cars I know you can't put it in the middle of the street but if you can do it at certain if you have certain streets where people are complaining about People going too fast If you make this like a raised sidewalk, it's not like dangerous or anything But the top of it is where you walk across It is really a nice thing to have. I mean, you could even have it in downtown.
And the final thing was raised about the county. I would highly recommend that somebody always go to those MAC meetings, Municipal Advisory Council because We have found lately, and I found back in the dark skies thing that's a group of people that can lobby on behalf of the whole valley to get our supervisor to pay attention to that. In the last several months, I've gone to them all and raised several. Bill Wyrick, I think has been in a couple.
And that's a really useful vehicle to try to push our supervisors or the county to be working in coordination because we're one valley. It's an invisible line even though technically it's a geographic... It's a legal line, it's not the reality of what we live in so thank you.
Thank you Jeffrey. Next we have Bill Miley.
Good evening. For the record, my name is Bill Meiling. I too noticed that Drowned Avenue was black pavement quality index of 20 or less and so I wrote an email to city manager Mr. Vega and he replied and this is kind of what I remember Reading Mr. Vega's email, he said that the Drowned Avenue redoing was going to probably come up in May and that there would be a separate focus on that. That's what I understood.
So I'm looking forward to that for your comment. Also, it seems... Am I correct in that a speed factor is really important in pavement condition? And the faster they go, the more the pavement is stressed. So if we lowered our speed limit from 30 to 25 on Grand Avenue, for example, it might last longer. In fact, some of the streets that are in fair condition right now and they're not gonna be treated for a couple years.
Maybe if their limit was 30 and we reduced it to 25, we could get a few more years before we had to repave it. Anyway those are my thoughts. Thank
you Bill. Any comments on Zoom Gail? Hi Chet.
I came down to speak about, hi Alma, congratulations. Public works has always been a challenge as far as streets go in the city but I wanted to mention in front of my house it's an election year and everybody wants to fix the potholes right? But in front of my house on Grand Avenue 212 it's bad. And I mean I find hunks of street in my yard and today I found a piece of tire And it's the main street basically when Main Street is full. So if there's something you can do, I notice it's not on here. If there's something you can do to fix the potholes at least in front of our neighbor's house and my house on that stretch that would be great And also there's a couple of holes that are developing where they've done water projects, Casitas has and they're starting to sink.
One of them is at the top of I think Fulton Street and the other one's right by the big oak tree in front of the gables or the gardens and that can be easily repaired but I notice now people are starting to drive around them into oncoming traffic and that's not good so If there's something you can do in the meantime, until years out when you pave these streets if there's something that you can keep and patch together. And I know the public works guys are so busy they work really hard but if there's something we can do better to keep it glued together until they do get fixed that would be great because I have prime real estate in front of my house for yard signs for campaigning.
1:16 – 1:2618 turns
Thank you, Chet. Any comments on Zoom,
Gail? If anyone in the Zoom queue would like to comment on this item please use the raised hand function now. We have one person, Mr. Steingold, you can speak if you're muted please unmute yourself and you can go ahead.
Yes, thank you very much. I do bike all over town and the fact that you're doing the roads is a wonderful thing. I always take photographs of where there are holes and you can send them to City Hall and Public Works does a wonderful job getting out there and repairing them. I would suggest on Grand though, there are holes beginning to develop that they should see and fill up prior before they get worse. And I think that's one of the thing that public works and the whole city can do or anybody can do, just take photographs and send them in and they'll repair them. But they're doing a good job and I think it's a wonderful thing and please keep up the work and I've got signs, I got a location too for signs especially for pleasant that needs to get done.
Thank you.
Thank you Larry. All right we'll move on to discussion
Mayor, can I kind of respond to a couple? Mr. Steingold stole my response but I was going to say we did the report last week on My Ojai and I think we reported we had like 180 potholes filled pictures there so for sure keep sending those in but we'll also have Public Works check out some of the areas mentioned like Grand because there is Pot hole repair we can do in the meantime.
The question Mr Starkweather answered or asked I think was a good question, I just wanted to speak to it because the staff report speaks a little bit to it but it goes with the whole thing we were saying of We decided to finish out the last plan and so what we're paving is finishing out the 2013 plan But we also have started the work on analyzing the streets and so that's where there's a little bit of, I think some questions about some of the streets that are in poor condition but weren't on the 2013 plan.
And so we mentioned in the report, there's two streets that are large sections of the street that are failed quality. That are not in the plan and it's North Drown Avenue and then Fairway Lane or the two big sections that are failing that are not on our current plan. And so those we've recommended adding those is add alternates to the bid as we get the bid back we can determine if there's funding To do that And so that was Somewhat spoken to in the report and then as mr. Miley mentioned we had talked about Coming back as part of the CIP to talk more in depth about drown and some of the other improvements. So So I just wanted to explain that so
Thank You James bill
Yeah, I wanted to respond to Chet's comment that the issue of another agency going into our streets and then having slumping from their work in many ways is a city code inspection issue. We are supposed to have inspectors out there making sure that the best practices are used in terms of how the team milling is done, how the compaction is done and if it's a failure there The other agencies work, I would urge us to be quite aggressive in saying agency you did not do your work properly.
We ought to take a look at why our inspectors maybe didn't make sure it got done right And not just Incorporate it in terms of something to prepare with the taxpayer expense when it's that other agency's responsibility To fix that in my opinion. Yeah, thank you
and yeah we we The council about a year ago I think created a full-time public works inspector position with that focus in mind So we're working on that
So we're into, we're going to discuss this. We're
in discussion right now
I just wanted to clarify so we're gonna finish the 13-year plan The next phase is the five year plan okay and to me the interim between those two might be some way of you coming back to the worst rated streets which what we're gonna call the PQ Buy it at a 20 rating, correct? Correct. And maybe when you come back that we'd look at that as a lump sum pavement year project and we find out what it would cost to actually get the worst up completely On next year's budget and then look at the long term of incorporating the complete streets guidelines into the paving process and come up with a more clear and concise way of doing this.
I think someone asked earlier about how do we deter, well this street is fair and we're redoing it in this street is poor and we're not touching it. And trust me for seven years I asked Greg Grant the same question what's the criteria? So I'm going to trust you Alma and I'm going to trust James that we're gonna have a better way of doing this And a better way that the community can understand why we're doing it, how we're doing it when we're doing it and where we're doing it.
Because for the seven years I've been here I'm lost every year this comes up because we're paving streets that we paid three years ago. Now, I get it that some streets have more traffic than others. I understand that. Grant obviously would be one of them but that doesn't mean that some of these streets you know shouldn't be looked at and i think another one of the issues we had is when we do streets um the move-on cost and then we would move on to a street that had three cul de sacs in conjunction and we wouldn't do the cul de sacs yeah and i used to scratch my head at that it's like you moved all this equipment onto this street what does it take To do those three cul-de-sacs in those streets. And so again, I'm looking at more coherency into the who what why and how?
I trust You to completely like you said just watching what you did With the vehicles and the fact that you're thinking forward the fact that you already are contacting the county about other issues So I look forward to that. But again, I think if we got these black lines on this plan in front of us it's a no-brainer to actually assess that and say what would one year of paving budget with as many grants is that we could come up with? How can we solve that problem immediately bring all of those up to a higher level than 70 And boom, now we're off and running on that five-year plan to get all the streets into that 70 rating. So that would be my take.
I'll wait my turn.
No comments? Anyone? Go ahead
Bill. Again just a further comment on that. I think it's extremely important since we are so committed in this community to sustainable community design that it's also important that we pursue it Not just aggressively, but as cost effectively as we can. And that means when there are opportunities either for stormwater management And we have a lot more information on that than we ever did in terms of where those opportunities arise. I mean, I'll mention Lion Street for example. That goes over natural stream course. We're maximizing the water that we're stormwater managing into that natural stream course in this design or the example we had there for ground.
Any street in particular that is in the modal emphasis charts in our complete streets master plan As we move forward, again I'm emphasizing moving forward. We really need to take a more holistic view in order to cost effectively get serious about sustainable community design. The infrastructure for bicycle transportation as well as the better capture of stormwater and recharge particularly the kind of recharge that enhances stream water or stream flow And the last thing I would just like to say is that I am very much in favor of the add alternates approach to this.
If there are some opportunities like what we saw there on Grand for an ad alternate in terms of enhancing the modal emphasis aspect, I'm definitely one vote in favor of having ad alternates in this cycle and just for that flexibility. So that's included in the bid process. I'll wait for the other two, Mayor.
Ryan, Sousa, anything?
Oh, I just would like to express my full support for everything that Council Member Weirich just said. Thank you.
Thank you, Susan. And just to confirm though tonight is just paving
so... It's paving. I think if we have a couple of ad alternates of council wanted to add the ad alternate of the grand bike lanes, I think we could at least get that in the bid. So that'd be one option.
1:26 – 1:4622 turns
Okay. Ready for
a motion? I have one more comment.
Okay, go
ahead.
He's good. Ryan you're
good? My final thoughts on this also is if i remember correctly we kind of pulled Drown out of the conversation. We've created its own assessment because of the severity of its problems And I believe we're bringing that back when we discuss CIP and the additional CIP funding that's available. We might be able to identify how we might do some different types of repair short-term, mid-term and long term so I'm looking forward to that conversation
Well I'll make a motion to authorize staff to proceed with the preparation of the 2022 paving project. Exciting!
Okay,
roll call please Gail?
Could I ask if we would that motion include the add alternates that we've discussed? Okay.
Roll-call vote Passed 4–0 motion include the add alternates that we've discussed? Okay. All right roll call · 1 under review
Show transcript
Great, all right we'll move on to discussion item number three the City of Ojai Crime Statistics for 2021. Take it away Chief!
Yeah and I think um we have the chief's powerpoint here let me pull that up real quick
I too, like Alma, this would be my first presentation to council. Thanks to COVID.
Hey you've only had three years here right? Yeah!
And like Alma, you got this chief. Okay
give me one second...
Well, while we're opening this up I do the first slide I snuck in on the chief is the chief and I are planning to do. We had done the community conversation in January and we had talked about having some future opportunities to have some community conversations and so We are planning to hold the next one. It'll be informal, but just having kind of a question and answer session at Libbey Park on Wednesday May 18th at 830 AM.
And that will be up here on the first slide once I can get this to work. I think my zoom closed.
By the way, James you got tons You and the chief both get tons of rave reviews. They loved it Thank you.
We'll have to do another one soon.
Yeah
It closed okay James Can you pull up the mayor's presentation? The zoom closed on this laptop when we handed it over so OK, so that's the slide just giving the details for that meeting. And so we'll put that on the website and the chief and I it will be informal. We'll just meet with some coffee and some chairs out at Libbey Park and we'll be happy to take any questions or comments. So but with that each year we typically report out on on the crime statistics for the year. We haven't done it a couple of years as the chief mentioned. So I'll turn it over to the chief
Very good, thank you. Good evening Mayor, Council Members, staff and members of the public. Thank you for the opportunity for me to present the 2021 Crime Stats for the City of Ojai. So I'd like to start off crime stats are first divided into two major groups one is Part One Crimes And the other is part two. Part one crimes, obviously are more serious crimes and they're divided into two categories. One is violent crimes against persons and the other is crimes against property.
So included in this presentation, you'll see some percentage changes between 2020 and 2021. The percentage changes may in some instances appear very high, very low and that is due to the number of crimes that are reported here in the city of Ojai. We've been very fortunate to have very low crime stats. So any changes will create a very high percentage or a very low percentage.
So let's start off with crimes against persons, so in attachment A and B. It shows a three year comparison of part one crimes. In 2021, we had a 100% increase in crimes against persons. So keeping in mind with what I just said, compared to 2020 there was an increase of three cases in 2021. So in 2021, we had a total of six cases, part one crimes against persons.
Crimes against property, we did have a decrease of 20 cases in 2021. 19% decrease. Some of the highs and lows in this category are grand thefts increased by 10 cases. While our petty theft cases decreased by 22 cases, we had six reported arson cases in which we made several arrests. These arsons occurred in our parks, Libbey Park, Sarzotti and the skate park.
And they mainly consisted of trash can fires, toilet paper rolls being lit on fire with minimal damage. We've been very fortunate. The majority of the theft related cases were crimes of opportunity. And what I mean by that is a lot of times folks leave their cars unlocked and we have Individuals that go down the street checking doors to see if they're unlocked. They find one unlocked, they go into the vehicle and they scavenge anything they can out of the vehicle.
Other crimes that I saw on a more frequent basis is unattended property being left out and another a prime opportunity for somebody just to take it. Bicycles, tools in the bed of trucks was probably pretty common And a lot of these crimes occurred in the beginning of the year, and they decreased towards the close of the year. Now you may be wondering well what's the difference here? What caused the decrease when there was an increase at the beginning of the year? A lot of it was putting out information on social media. I think that really helped.
Engaging the community, providing information. Hey these are the crime trends that we're seeing and this is what you can do to prevent being a victim. That really helped us out a lot A lot of it also included identifying certain areas that were being targeted and sending the deputies out there to kind of focus in those areas during their shifts, to make contacts.
And if need be, make arrests on any violations. So that really helped decrease a lot of these, especially the petty crime thefts toward the end of the year. Attachment C, which is the, I believe the next slide. So this is the graph of the comparisons for the Part 1 crimes and this is a three year comparison and it just... It was from the numbers from the previous slides so next slide please.
And attachment C, it's kind of hard to see. But it is a 30-year historical perspective of part one crimes in the city and to kind of put things in perspective, in 1991 there was a total of 350 part one crimes reported compared to in 2021 last year we had 92 crimes. So during the same period, our crime rate dropped from 46.2 crimes per 1,000 persons in 1991 to 12.4 crimes in 2021.
So we've made a lot of strides since then so we're hopefully to continue the downward trend. Now to our part two crimes, part two crimes are all The other crimes that are not included in part one crime categories. These are crimes such as simple assaults, sex offenses not including rape, vandalisms, drug offenses and all other crimes. So in 2021 we had an increase of 80% which equates to an additional 145 cases for a total of 325.
The majority of the increases are attributed to vandalisms. We had 35 cases last year, and all other reported crime we had a total of 113 cases. All other reported crime includes crimes such as trespassing, illegal dumping, elder abuse, child crimes, and also city municipal code violations that are not categorized in part one or two crimes. In 2021, we did have 100 municipal code violations that were cited out.
And I'll discuss those in just a bit. Arrests for 2021, we had a slight decrease by 7.5%, a difference of 31 arrests for the year when you compare it to the previous year. In 2021, we made a total of 340 misdemeanor arrests, 36 felony arrests. 18 of those misdemeanor arrests were for DUI-related offenses and 23 for being under the influence of drugs. The majority of those misdemeanor cases, their subjects were cited and released instead of being booked into jail because of the restrictions we had due to COVID in our jails.
So let me discuss the municipal code violations. Attachment F, which is the next slide. I'm sorry that was the part two crimes. Next slide please. And that was arrests. Next one, please. Okay. Municipal code violations. So we in 2021 there were 100 code violations that were cited out. The majority of those cases were for drinking in public. There were 77 offenses for drinking in public and a majority of those cases occurred in the downtown area and within our parks.
I'm hoping, my hope is that with the increase in foot patrols, the increased presence in these areas, that these offenses will be reduced. I think the more they see the officers around and they know the deputies are going to be foot patrolling the area, they're going to be less likely to commit these offenses. Attachment G please or next slide. And these are the calls for service.
For the entire year, we had a total of 3,535 calls for service. Where did I have that? I must be missing a page. Oh, here we go. All right, I'm missing a page in my notes. Calls for service, the majority of them were disturbance calls. Suspicious circumstances and the other one was for non-criminal type cases. Now the one that's pretty interesting is suspicious circumstance calls.
These are calls from the public whenever they see or hear something that just doesn't sound right to them. So they call us to come out and investigate. What I like about this, and I'm hoping this number goes even up higher is because majority of the time we come out, we investigate these type of calls, and there's nothing afoul. And that's great. But it's those few times that we do come out, we do find something going on where we're able to prevent a crime.
Prevent somebody from being hurt that makes a huge difference. So, you know we can't be everywhere but the more people that we have out there listening looking out their windows when they hear something and they call us. We're able to come out and investigate so I encourage everybody to do that if you see something here's something then give us a call and let us come out too to investigate these incidents So like I mentioned 3,535 calls for service. It's a decrease of 85 calls compared to 2020 And as you know 2020 was kind of a Very strange year something we've never probably ever seen before and I hope we never do again but We're not really sure how much it impacted our crime stats because we were locked down for quite a bit.
I know it impacted our traffic when I compared it from 2019, 2020 and 2021. Our traffic stats actually went down. Traffic accidents were down in 2020 because everybody was home, nobody was out on the road. So we're still kind of looking at that to see how much of an impact it had. Next slide please. Next slide is our response times. And whenever somebody calls our dispatch center, depending on the circumstances of the call, a call is placed into a category of priorities. So priority one being the most serious type of call. It's either a threat to lives, somebody is being injured or threats of property and in progress type call would probably get a priority one call that means lights and sirens you're sending somebody right away to that call.
So we kind of gauge what our average response time is in the city for those types of calls Priority one calls in the city average five minutes, 5.83 minutes per call for the year so just over five minutes we're able to get to these priority calls. Priority two calls No lights or siren, you're kind of responding with the flow of traffic to these type of calls.
They're just about 12 minutes and priority three calls less of a priority here you're getting there right around 14 minutes and priority four calls they may let pen depending on what's going on so there's a little bit more time there that it will take a deputy to get to that particular call Next slide please. And Council, if you have questions about anything please feel free to ask.
Vehicle code violations so we do get a lot of complaints about traffic Specifically speeding in the city. We don't have a dedicated deputy strictly assigned to traffic enforcement So the traffic enforcement duties Responsibilities are put upon the the two beat deputies So in between all their other responsibilities they try to manage doing Enforcement as well we try to target some areas that are High-end traffic at certain times of the day or the evening to ensure that accidents are, you know, reduced in those areas.
So during 2021, deputies issued citations for a total of 771 different traffic violations. Believe it or not this is a decrease compared to the previous year by 137 violations. If you look and you add them up, there's 163 citations were issued for using wireless devices. Now what's the big deal about somebody picking up their phone or using their phone while they're driving?
To me that's probably one of the biggest causes to accidents in our city. Because it's an attention. You take your attention away from what you're looking at in front of your vehicle, even for a split second things can happen right away and that's probably the Major cause of accidents in our city is just inattention. It's not so much the speeding or anything like that, but it is you take your eyes off the road and you're not prepared with what's going to happen.
So there were also other violations, 92 violations for failing stop sign or 92 violations. 47 for unsafe speed so speeding. The highlighted sections that I have in the PowerPoint are some of those that I feel are associated with traffic collisions. They're moving violations or driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. So these are some of the factors that contribute to our accidents here in the city.
Next slide, please. And these... Susan?
1:46 – 2:0218 turns
On the previous slide, first of all I'm just thrilled that you're citing people for texting and looking at their devices. Do you have any idea of the age range, is it all ages or newly licensed drivers? And you're saying that your deputies observe this as they're watching traffic. They're observing and then following up.
Correct. And I don't have an age range. It's different ages. It doesn't specifically target a particular age range. We have been very fortunate where I've been able to pull resources from other stations, the motor units that have come up here to work overtime out of a traffic grant. And it's a lot easier to move around on a motorcycle, especially on the weekends when we know it just gets packed, especially down the main road.
They're able to maneuver or they're able to pull up next to somebody and they're on their phone so they do observe all these violations and they've been very diligent about issuing citations. I think that's
absolutely great, thank you.
You're welcome. You're welcome.
Chief, one point real quick to the age range question because it used to be the story was it was young people that were on their phones but I don't think that's true anymore.
No, it's all ages. It's all ages unfortunately but yeah that's just the case. Like I mentioned, we did deploy in 2021 additional traffic enforcement resources from other stations which has helped us out tremendously because they're able to focus just on strictly traffic enforcement. Unfortunately these resources are not always available. They have other commitments but they do try to get up here as much as possible and I think that's really helped with our enforcement of traffic here in the city Next slide, please.
And that's just the end of the traffic citations that we issued. Next slide, please. So traffic collisions. So if you look at the PowerPoint displayed, it shows there was an increase in 2021 in traffic collisions. So we had a total of 62 traffic accidents compared to 43 in 2020. Now keep in mind in 2020 we were locked down. There was a period of time where you hardly saw a vehicle on the road So that really decreased our accidents. I look back at 2019, in 2019 we had 68 traffic accidents so we're kind of aligned with 2019. 2020 was just an anomaly and like I said, I hope it never ever happens again. That was horrible.
Both. I don't want to go through that again. So the traffic was really low, so our stats for 2020 came out really low and they bumped back up after everything started opening up in 2021. But we're starting to target some of the areas that we see a lot of accidents at. One of the major spots is the Y. You know, and that's kind of a hub for traffic there. We're getting traffic in different directions. You got a lot of stuff going on there and the inattention kinda plays into it and that's when we have accidents so but next slide please.
So some of the things that we're working on for this year, so we're going to continue high visibility patrols. We're going to target the areas that were starting to see crime pop up and address those issues. I think by seeing a lot of patrols in the area, I think those that are out there committing crimes they see this. They're either not gonna do it or go somewhere else. Hopefully they just leave the city Additional traffic enforcement, we're going to continue utilizing the other resources to help us with traffic enforcement in the city and hopefully that kind of reduces our traffic accidents. I did apply for a traffic grant this year it's something that we haven't done before And I just took a shot, and they did accept our proposal. And I'm just waiting to hear back how much funding we're going to get.
So we're going to utilize that for additional traffic enforcement in the city. Foot patrols. Recently, we started foot patrolling the downtown area on the weekends and the parks as well. And I've talked to some of the officers that have done the foot patrols And they've actually had some of the merchants come up and ask them, hey, what's wrong? What's going on?
And they told him, hey, we're just out here kind of engaging with the community. You'll see us more often, which is good. I like that they're being seen out there. They're getting engaged by the community. That was what I wanted, you know, just to have that presence there. Bicycle patrols, I tried them in the downtown area and I just felt they weren't that effective especially on a bike. I think it's good to have them nearby in case you do need to get on the bike and get to a certain area but patrolling on a bike especially downtown and in the parks I think it's more effective on foot and you kind of lose that face-to-face engagement with the community if you're on a bike and you're moving Rather than somebody walking by, walking up to you and asking you a question or something like that.
So I'm really going to focus on the foot patrols in that area more often than not. Community engagement, like James mentioned we're going to do the coffee with the city manager and the chief This month, and I'd like to have a few more of those with our deputies at different establishments so the community can come out and meet them. You know, ask questions and they get to meet the deputies that are out patrolling their neighborhoods.
And they're able to develop those relationships with those deputies. Public service messaging videos and social media. Last year we did a lot of public service videos. We did one on crosswalk safety. I think we did another one on how to prevent crime in locking up your cars things like that. We have a few other topics that we're going to push out. I have a sergeant that does the videos, he likes doing these videos so we're gonna push a few more of those out and kind of gear them in line with some of the issues that were seen in the city just to put them out for for the public to see and educate them as well.
City Beat Coordinator, I did select a deputy to be our first city beat coordinator so he will be the liaison with the community to put out public messaging also answer any questions that the community may have be accessible by email telephone things like that And we'll probably bring them to some of the public meetings and get them engaged that way. We're going to try to get him some training this next week at some of the other stations, and hopefully he'll bring back some pretty good ideas that we can utilize here in the city.
We're going to be partnering up with the city for different events. We started doing that last year once COVID restrictions started lifting up We had a great time, we did the Centennial Ojai Day and we hope to do a lot more events this year. And since now all the restrictions are being lifted so I think the public really likes to see us out there and engage us and ask a lot of questions which is good.
And continue homeless outreach. So we're working with, I have two deputies that are assigned to homeless outreach here in the city. It's a collateral assignment for them so they're not strictly doing homeless outreach. They do that as part of their regular duties But they've also partnered up with, the Sheriff's Department has a homeless liaison unit now which takes deputies from each station and they go around to different stations or cities to assist with outreach.
Getting resources out to those that need it. and we'll accept it. The biggest part is trying to get them to accept resources, and sometimes it takes some convincing you know just continual outreach to them in contact and finally they gain some confidence and they accept uh some of the services and we're able to help them out that way. So just some of the things that we're looking at for next year.
Next slide please.
Can I ask about the homeless outreach?
Yes
Could that include something as simple as a handout that directs them to where we offer free food, showers? You know, so that it doesn't have to be just something simple. And you know and it's an excuse also for the police for your deputy to engage with if they see someone sleeping on a bench in the park or I've seen homeless people sleeping on a bench in the laundry mat, for example because we really don't have a very I mean, maybe I'm out of the loop but with the family services that's only in the winter months.
I just wanna make sure that there's not a homeless person in Ojai going hungry, that there is a way as far as I know you can still go to it used to be the help office on Fox street where you could go get food
Yes, and I believe that's still the case. And the deputies are... The two deputies that are assigned as homeless liaisons, they do have that information. They do pass on that information to the folks they contact. Uh-huh. And the two officers that I have, they're on opposite shifts so there will always be one on duty during the day shift hours to kind of cover the entire week.
They do have contacts with various other agencies, county agencies that do offer services in case they need a referral. They're able to assist them with that referral so they can get assistance.
But they're all familiar with whatever Ojai has to offer?
Yes, they are.
Okay thank you.
And these are just photos of some of the deputies that are out doing the foot patrols in the city. Any questions?
Thank you, Chief. Questions from Council?
I have a comment and an
answer. Yes. Okay. Questions? Ryan or Sousa? Okay. Any public comments on this? Okay. We have Jeffrey Starkweather and Bill Miley.
Oh, same people. Hey, I want to thank the chief for keeping us a very safe city It reminds me back when we were pushing the Dark Skies Ordinance for the Valley, and we solicited Chief Fryhoff at the time. And people were like against the Dark Sky saying there's all kinds of crimes that have come in. We got Chief Fryoff and he was asked by one of the county supervisors, well what's crime like in Ojai? He says oh we really don't have any crime it's pretty safe city. I thought wow that was cool!
The cell phone thing. I just, I wasn't planning to talk about it but there's a great book if you want to read is called Traffic and it points out that you don't even have to be looking at the cell phone when you're listening to a cell phone because it distracts you mentally. You're at the same distraction as though you have a DWI Now, I tested it once with my daughter who had called me when I was going downtown a slow street in where I lived. And she was calling me on the cell phone so I thought I'd test this. I put it down and listened on the speaker and as I was concentrating on the road she kept saying, dad are you listening to me? Are you listening to me?! It's impossible. You know if a young person drives on a car they only see like that.
That's what a cell phone does for ya. The excuse that, oh I can just talk on it is not good. So I'm really glad you're cutting back on it. And I'm a big supporter of foot patrols and getting out and meeting the public. Thank you. I just wanted to point something out about the pattern here. I was a criminal defense lawyer myself, both federal and state. And most violent crimes have some alcohol related to them.
People are high. And I just noticed the pattern here. You have 77 code violations of alcohol and two of marijuana. You had 14 or 22 alcohol-related citations, and only four if I got it right were related to either drugs or alcohol. And you had 16 people who had already lost their licenses with the DWIs. And I would say that of those six crimes against persons, probably a good percentage of those were alcohol related. So as we get talking about expanding our cannabis and so forth, we should keep these statistics in mind because we're not getting crime and all the crimes I've ever represented people on was a lot I don't remember anybody that did it because they were high on marijuana.
High on other stuff, yes but not on marijuana so anyway just a little factoid.
2:02 – 2:1617 turns
Thank you Jeffrey. Thank you Jeff. Bill Miley?
Good evening for the record my name is Bill Miley. I'd like to point out several of the numbers in the arrest report that Chief Rivera just presented Relative to what Jeffrey was talking about, alcohol use and then cannabis use. Principally because of the ongoing agenda items, the agenda item that the Planning Commission is dealing with on Council referral for consideration of a C1 zoning on the east end of Ojai Avenue for cannabis dispensaries and also, for the issue which would be new, cannabis consumption lounges.
And I guess I won't repeat this, but... Oh. So prior to the meeting, I chatted with Chief Rivera and the need for the Planning Commission to request him to come and talk about the stats that the Sheriff's Department is recording. And as Jeffrey said, alcohol seems to be much bigger in the issue of arrest than cannabis. Thank you.
Thank you, Bill. Any comments on Zoom, Gil?
If anyone in the Zoom queue would like to comment on this item please use the raised hand function now.
Great let's move onto discussion. Bill?
Three quick comments. First of all it's a 30 year trend of reduced crime in our community And I think that's a testimony to an effective, in my opinion, that doesn't happen without an effective partnership between law enforcement and the citizens of the community. Definitely. And I just think we oughta be, you know, give ourselves some credit that boy, I mean it's pretty dramatic in terms of that 30 year trend. I mean it goes up and down in particular years but it's statement to the professionalism of the and more than just more the professionalism, the overall sensibility in terms of community engagement. So I just really want to call out that compliment for you
guys. It's definitely not just the deputies out there working their boots on the ground it's everybody in the community that calls us. There are eyes and ears out there when we're not there so a big thanks to the community for keeping our crime rates down
It's wonderful and I think the walks are a natural partnership with community engagement, goes hand in hand. It's part of this whole trend I think, effective trend and it's good for physical fitness too. And then the other thing I want to point out is that one In my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong. One of the really important distinctions between an injury accident or an injury collision and a non-injury collision is the speed at impact.
And that's where our efforts in traffic calming both with the ATP project and others come in. The more we can have traffic calming, when we have collisions there will be non-injury
Oh definitely. I mean if you can reduce speed, you probably can reduce some accidents and probably reduce the number of injury accidents that happen.
Thank you. Susan?
Okay go ahead Susan. So Chief Rivera, thank you so much for all the good work that you've demonstrated here. And I just want to say that our parks, our schools, the design of our neighborhood, everything about our town helps to prevent crime and in my opinion especially our parks because they Open up a healthy environment for the lower income members of the community that are in apartments and those kids don't have a yard to play in. And it's just absolutely wonderful that whole families can go to the park for healthy recreation, and everything that's good for the human being, for our healthy families helps to prevent crime in addition to all the good work that our law enforcement is doing. That's my comment, thank you.
Thank you.
Ryan? Good. Randy did you want to say
something? Yeah thank you Chief obviously this clearly shows The diversity Or or not the diversity but you know when you look at all the activities that you list here People I think just assume that police officers drive around in cars and look for car accidents or car related problems Reality is there's a lot more to policing than meets the eye. So thank you for that You know, I don't know how to bring this up without I vilifying myself, but I just like to say it as often as I can.
As we increase the use of bicycles in this community and I am for that, we need to recognize that we all share the road. And what I found interesting is I didn't see one ticket or one offense for anyone riding a bike and as I drive around this community, I see a ton of them Now, I know that it's that rule of well where's that police officer when I need it. And I'm not saying that the person riding the bike is a bad person but I'm just saying we need to recognize that as we Initiate more of the complete street principles as we enhance and engage in more foot traffic, and more bicycling. And those types of activities in our communities that there's a joint relationship between us driving the car, them riding the bike, and those walking.
As well as how the police engage with all three of us. So I want to thank you for how you're doing it now, and I'm hoping that down the road we engage with people riding bikes maybe have a meet-and-greet at one of the at the What's our bicycle center there on? The mom shop that would be a great place to have one of the you and the city manager meet and just talk in general about what we see And what we observe and where we're going But I don't see this going backwards.
In fact, I'm a firm believer that life cycles and that we were riding bikes before we were driving cars and that we are cycling back to riding bikes with the reduction of vehicles. So I just believe in that. This community is evolving, it's changing, and I just hope that we recognize that we're all doing it together and that we respect that. So aside from that, I just think that what you're doing and what your staff is doing is outstanding. So thank you. Thank you.
And I have to admit, I was pulled over several years ago for riding my bike too fast across Ojai Avenue, and it was so... I was so grateful in the office they explained to me that 87% of drunk drivers are not caught and they would never see me. So slow down. Very kind. And I would just like to say thank you to Chief because I've watched you, I've had the opportunity to watch you deescalate a couple of situations on Ojai Avenue Peaceful demeanor and your compassion and just your way of being is So beautiful to watch because it you know, just everybody gets calmer and quieter So you really are an officer at peace and we're so lucky heavy hair. So thank you.
I appreciate your comments Thank you very much
Anything else? Well, thank you. And uh, let's take a five-minute break and come back. Thank you Thank you. Are we ready? Come on back, please.
2:16 – 2:378 turns
Okay, we're coming back.
We're back and we're going to move on. And there's been a suggestion, oh wait. There's been a suggestion to move item number six up to four because we have Darcy here from Habitat for Humanity.
I concur.
Okay, all right let's move on then to item number six which is now item number four letter of engagement with Habitat for Humanity of Ventura County regarding 408 North Montgomery Street affordable housing
Thank you, Mary. I'm going to give just a brief background on this project and then I'm going to ask Darcy to speak and give some background on Habitat for Humanity. This project, you may recall the Zoom is not cooperating today. This project stems from our, we've talked previously about this project. And the most recent conversation was back in April of 2019 so it may have kind of fallen off some people's radar but recently when we had our city council goal setting session this was identified as a priority project. We talked about some of the challenges with it related to funding And some of the challenges we've run into, and the council had said to try to get creative and explore some partnerships and see if we could find something that would work for this site.
So that's what we've done and what we're presenting tonight. Just as a little bit of background as a reminder at the site we are talking about is 408 North Montgomery. Photo here shows the parcel which is at the corner of Montgomery and Franklin. I believe it was previously two duplexes that had at some point been condemned and were removed, so now it's basically a dirt lot.
And so three years ago, April of 2019, so almost three years ago to the date. The city had commissioned from the designer Nick Oatway a design for what could potentially be done at that site and this high level shows it in the elevations also show some of the detail But it's essentially what was proposed was five to seven units, but with more of a focus on the five-unit design.
But it was like five units community at this site and so we had done the work to design that concept, but at that point, the gap between the funding that we had available in our housing fund and the cost to do the project was very substantial The city had no mechanism to fund it. So we were exploring partnerships with different lenders and banks and things, and it kind of just stalled out.
And so as I mentioned this year at the council goal-setting session, we talked about exploring this more creatively and finding a partner. We reached out to Habitat for Humanity and Darcy, and so with that I will introduce Darcy to give us a little bit of background on Habitat. And I'll run the slideshow you can tell me next.
My name is Darcy Taylor. I'm CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Ventura County. Our organization is responsible for all of the county of Ventura. We are not a builder rental units, we build primarily four cell units in the county. Our targeted audience are affordable housing and low-income. 80 AMI in that kind of category average median income is our is our specialty. We're not a many mansions, we're not a Cabrillo, we sell properties and homes.
And the reason we do that is slide number two, is that we believe home ownership provides a number of different opportunities for the people who purchase their homes. We think upper mobility in American dream is wrapped around financial security that's based on a family's ability to move through a process where they can build wealth, personal wealth. We think is important. That's why we know that rental units are important. They're part of the governor's mandate for increasing the number of affordable housing. But for us, we feel that our vision is that every individual deserves a place to live that's safe We also believe they deserve to live in a place that's safe, that they own.
Which is a little different than having a rental property and anybody knows anything about rentals in Ventura County knows that most of the low-income and affordable rental units have a number of other things that are part of those rental units. Subsidies and supportive rental agreements that tie we think people that rent homes into long term Commitments that don't allow for them to build personal wealth. Next slide. So our goal at Habitat is to look at all of the individuals that are, that are in that ADA and my group no matter where they've come from they could be farm workers they could be service workers they could be in Ventura County for example My daughter just graduated from college with a college degree, cannot afford to buy a house.
I just saw the latest report is the average cost of a home in Ventura County now is up over $650,000. You know that kind of tells it all. So in that category that we look at, we look at individuals that are they could be homeless, they could be farm workers, as we know Multiple families in a single dwelling. Which is very common in Ventura County, where you'll find four families living in one single family unit.
They could be living in a garage. There's a number of people that fit that 80 AMI category that we target with our building programs and affordable housing building opportunities. And we believe we need to take them through that even some people that are currently renting today to drive them towards the process of home ownership We focus on the 8 AMI. We are what is considered in the state of California an affordable housing developer, and I want to stress this point here as... And I talked with James a number of times that we do not give away homes.
Every person that buys a Habitat home or is part of our program gets a qualified mortgage. Their mortgage is just different than the one you and I would get from a local bank. But we're not about handouts, we're about hands up. And that's really what our focus is within our organization. Next slide. So Habitat's designed our whole program around four central programs. One, new construction we do a lot of home repair which we've done some here in Ojai which is part of you know the belief that our veterans and a number of elderly people cannot afford to do home repairs and houses that are Old or trailer homes that are falling apart. That's another part of what we do in our programs. We do playhouse builds, which is a program designed around helping the military and then our restores.
One of the things I'm very proud of is we have two restores in the county one on Eastman and Oxnard and the other on Simi and Simi on LA Avenue. We raise about 1.4 million dollars in those two stores it's our for-profit arm of our business That pays for all of our expenses that relate to our admin costs. So every dollar we raise goes towards building and into the new construction program and the home repair program that we have. Very proud of that fact, which when you look at the balance sheet of Habitat helps us to get money from the federal government, from local banks and other lending institutions as it relates to our programs. Next slide.
So we're very busy. That's why when I had this concert with James, we wanted to figure out a way to get Ojai into the queue if i could say that. We just completed six units in Colonia. We did a two unit build on Berry Street and Camarillo. We're actually right now working on There's a 61-unit build in Camarillo, in partnership with Mini Mansions and the Area Housing Authority that's right down the street from our two units. We're going to build eight four cell units and a 61 unit build that consists of rental units and four cell. I've got a five home development on West Sea, we call it our beachfront property We're completing that build May 13th. It's got Ocean View, their townhomes two-story beautiful property there. I'm doing a 28 tiny home build in Oxnard that's related to a progress or a program that we're tied with the county and the Oxnard Housing Authority that's really designed around transitional housing for homeless.
And we're real excited about that project, and then last night I just gave a presentation to the city of Simi, and they're turning me loose on a 10-home build project on Simi Avenida Street. So we've got a lot of stuff going on but we're hoping that...I've never built in the City of Ojai. I would sure love the opportunity to do that. Next slide. So, as I said you know we're really about affordable mortgages it's a hand up not a handout every single person that buys a home from us has to put in sweat equity into the build themselves 500 hours we're real excited about that we also reason why i no longer build one home is i also believe that sweat equity Designed around a community project where there's multiple families participating together, builds a certain sense of commitment to each other and the property that they're fixing to own.
We know that there are a number of things that happen with regards to the Habitat bills. Property value goes up All of our homeowners signed a 40-year agreement with us to maintain their properties in the same manner in which they receive them when they're built. So, the idea that habitat home owners don't maintain their property is a myth as is the myth that Jimmy Carter founded Habitat for Humanity.
Most of you know that's not true.
It's a good myth though.
Yeah it is a good one. Next slide. So why is it important that you think about Habitat as a partner with your particular project? One is that in Ventura County, Ojai included, one in four families spend more than 50% of their income on housing. Which is a clear indicator that people in the service industry in particular or that are in that 80 AMI category Can't afford to live a life that's enjoyable if 50% of their income is being spent on housing.
I don't think there's anybody in this room, including anybody sitting here today, that is spending that much on rent or on a mortgage. Another thing it's important to understand about why it's important for Habitat to come into the community is there are stats that indicate these very important facts Anyone that is in a habitat home, graduation rates increase and the children are part of that home or in that situation.
Children's health gets better. Net family wealth increases, which I've already said. Property values around the Habitat homes go up and obviously they're in a community, they pay taxes, they go to school, they shop so there's an increase in overall boost in the economy. The last thing I would say is this related to this particular topic is that there's also And all information that says that people that are in habitat homes or in homes that are affordable, they just live a better life.
You know we always tell the story about you know habitat homeowners get their first credit card or get to buy their first car. You know the things that we take for granted Habitat homeowners, it's the first time they get an opportunity to do that or they send their first child to college. Those are things that happen as a result of what Habitat can do to a particular community if we're allowed to build or become a part of that. And then lastly on this particular topic is that anybody that's involved in Habitat, they sign a 40-year agreement with us So what that means is they have a relationship not only with the lender, could be Union Bank. There are four principal banks we use here in the county but they also have a relationship with us that goes for 40 years.
And they're not allowed to resell that home or that property in that 40 years unless they sell it affordable for the price that they got plus whatever the AMI might be at the time of that sale. So we're in relationship with them regularly. We manage that process, we check on the house. The covenant has rules like you can't turn your garage into a room. You gotta cut your yard.
Yeah, you have to maintain your property because we know that if you don't do that then Habitat's going to get blamed for having an impact on the neighborhood or the community in which we built those homes. So that's another aspect of having Habitat come into building the community, and why it's important that I think we maintain these kind of relationships with the families that are associated with our purchase process. Next slide. So this is a pretty simple thing here in our second program we also do home repair which is I mention this on the slide because it's also tied to our homeowners.
So if a homeowner calls us, no matter how long they may have been in that home, like for example we built 22 homes in Piru 22 years ago on the cul-de-sac there. If someone calls me and says hey you know I have a problem with my roof, Habitat is more than willing to help them find a solution to that roof problem. And not that we have to do that But that's the type of relationship we have with them long-term.
But that falls under our Home Repair Program, which we've done over 180 homes since 2011, which is really a great program because it focuses on veterans' disability homeowners and supported by federal and state funds, which is a big part of this particular program's funding. Next slide. The most important thing about Habitat is the fact that 60% of our homes are built with volunteers.
And I know that my conversations with James were, and others, that a particular project here in Ojai they want the community involved in helping us to build the particular project. We are the only builder in the county that's designed to operate that way We are the only builder, let me say that again in the county designed to manage a build program with a volunteer workforce.
Now I do have 40 employees well actually 47 but our construction program is designed around only three full-time employees The rest of the work is done by the community and volunteers in the area. So it's important to understand that that's how we operate, is through volunteerism and the networks that we've been able to do over the years. And also what allows for us to sell our homes cheaper is our subcontractors are also involved in a process of donating time, energy, labor as part of that build structure as well. And you get all of that when Habitat comes to your city to build affordable housing. Next slide.
As I mentioned, our playhouse program is designed specifically for the military. We do a program that's associated with Port Wanime and Point Mugu. We believe very strongly in supporting our military and for many of you who don't know this they are also underfunded and underpaid and unable to buy homes in our county Which is a travesty, just like teachers are underpaid and we're unable to buy homes in our county. The military's very much in that same boat so this program is specifically designed to help out military families and just give them an opportunity and the corporate world an opportunity to invest in our tremendous soldiers and veterans.
Next slide. This is my last slide here I mentioned this we've got Two restores. Everything in our restores, aside from we buy rugs, we buy appliances but everything other than that is donated and that's why we're able to make such a tremendous amount of revenues because everything in our stores comes to us as a donation And really, that's Habitat in an elevator speech.
That's what you get if you allow for us to come and be a part of this particular program. Now, in relationship to what James has asked us to do or come to share with you today is we'd like to do the following. We'd like to present to the council three types of designs Which is, we're real proud to say that it won't cost you anything and James is very clear on that.
And give you an opportunity to really see what we can do on that particular lot as relates to ADMI density. and providing permanent housing for residents here in the city of Ojai. So that's what we're hoping that you will allow for us to do as an engagement with Habitat, for this first phase of the relationship that we hope will extend over many years. I will say this, the reason why I'm here today is I'm hoping I'm hoping that after we build this first project, that you'll be so overwhelmed and so excited and energized that we will get multiple opportunities to build additional projects here in the city as well.
We know that it's important for us to do the first one right so that we can have other opportunities as well. So that's Habitat, and I guess I need to answer some questions.
2:37 – 2:4919 turns
Thank you so much, Darcy. Much appreciated. Thank you for showing up and questions from Council?
Can we remove, okay good.
Suzy you have your question?
Yeah well first I just wanted you to remove that slide because i couldn't see anybody so my question is Nick always design off the table or could that is that still a consideration
it is still consideration
Okay, thank you. And then I guess the basic question is that when you come back with your designs We can still do them according to our standards for sustainability and water saving, all of the things that we're concerned about.
The state of California requires... I mean, we build now just so you know what are called in our industry smart homes. So every house we build now the governor requires us to have solar Every house we build now has tankless water heaters, every house we build now has censored faucets. You know so you know there are state guidelines that were required to follow as well as you know here in Ohio and in the county of Ventura our landscaping has evolved over the years where now we don't put grass in Most of our houses are designed with a desert type of design where there's less water use and the care of the property. So that's all part of how the building codes have evolved, and to be perfectly honest with you we follow the building codes to the law.
Obviously we couldn't be a class A contractor if that wasn't the case.
Thank you. Darcy are you building all electric now and can that be a requirement?
It can be. You know, our tiny homes each of the units has an electrical charger that will allow for you know if you have electric car you can charge your car there as well so that is something that is being looked at obviously you know the governor is requiring some major changes with regards to the building code related to electricity and those kind of things moving forward and that's primarily based on the fact that not so much in Ventura County But the further south you go rolling blackouts are a major issue and problem associated with the use of electricity, and in summer months and, you know, spring as well. So yeah that is something that we can look at again.
When we looked at what James gave us, there are a couple of factors that we have to take into consideration. One is in any build here in the county, there are parking requirements that really drive how that property can be built on and kind of maintain some size issues associated with that. Water is number two. Obviously it's a big deal. And then also too, there are some restrictions as to how high You can build a unit, depending on some of the ordinances in different cities across the county. So that's another thing you know you have to keep in mind when you're building and Ventura County.
The state is now requiring Habitat and other builders to build smart homes. So within that building requirement are electrical issues, like I said water issues as well. And then the last thing I would say is this. The size of the units can sometimes be determined by the infrastructure on the property. You know, where do you got to pull the gas from? Those kind of things are all part of that process. And then lastly I'd say this.
I learned a big lesson three years ago when I built a five-unit condo structure in Oxnard. This is something that when we look at designs it's important for you to hear this. State of California Real Estate Association requires that any time you go to five or more units that are connected, you're required to have an HOA. The challenge that exists for us, for habitat builders is this.
They have a low interest mortgage so our typical mortgages run about 700 to 1100, right? And most of our families are in that 40 or 50 AMI. So they have a combined income maybe of $60,000 a year. State of California has a calculation form that determines what an HOA pays based on the calculation, right? So they have a mortgage that's probably 900. We'll just say for discussion, 900.
And the HOA fee is 360, right? Based on the calculation. And so when we're looking at how we build things here in Ventura County that's another thing we take into consideration. I will never build a condo unit or townhome unit that has five or more units that are connected I'll maybe do bill two, two, two to get around the rule. Our law firm Relaw out of Los Angeles sued the state to get the fee reduced. We got it reduced but not really enough to have an impact on a low income family. Think about it $360 that's a substantial amount of money so all these things are You know, Mayor, a part of how we look at designing a project for a specific piece of property. And this property that James has brought to us is...
I mean it's not a huge piece. It's not a very large piece of property so we're really going to have to look at putting some creative designs together to get as many people on that property in a way that's Overcrowding and, you know, causing problems based on the proximity of the buildings.
Thank you.
Yep? Thank you for all the information it's... You know I'm surprised that that you're not doing more in all of our communities within the county. It's what you're doing is just incredible I was fortunate we got to work on a project down Thousand Oaks many years ago the California Landscape Contractors Association of the Ventura County Donated all of the landscaping product and we all pitched in and provided the service.
As far as assessing a project, We came to you on this site What if we had five other sites in the community that we would like some form of an assessment? Do you provide that service?
Yeah, so typically how it goes is I believe in working with cities and with good faith. Right? If I have to invest $50,000 in an architectural design I've got to do the infrastructure process that probably cost me another four or five grand. Then, I'm doing that with the understanding that the city that I'm working with and good faith is going to give me an opportunity to build.
Right? That didn't cost you anything up front though. And I made that clear when James was very, very strict with me to say make sure you say then it doesn't cost us anything for us to put together what we think is a proposal with multiple opportunities to build on the site and it doesn't cost the city anything.
Well, I'd even go further than that rather than even reaching the proposal stage would be to actually do a site visit and have a discussion as to what you believe is it buildable? Is it doable versus you investing any of your time and money into it because we have some sites here in town that we could do that on And I'm just, um, I don't want to limit it. You know we had a discussion Sunday by the House of Representatives.
Salud Carbajal.
And one of the things that he talked about was affordable housing in Santa Barbara and how they achieved it, and they achieved it by doing micro affordability throughout the city because when I heard Santa Barbara, I said well we're not Santa Barbara, we're a post stamp compared to Santa Barbara but we do have properties here, we do have land here and we are lacking affordable housing for a lot of our service workers in this community So I'd be interested to, after this, to actually get with James and maybe even put together a small committee. We're
still on questions. Any other questions? Let
me just clarify your question just this way. I would say the word affordable housing means a lot of things to different people. Absolutely. You know for example Santa Barbara is building right now affordable housing that are rental units I mean, you know, I know the CEO of Habitat and Venture in Santa Barbara as well. We just got – I just want to make sure when we say affordable that means a lot of things. It also means that affordable does not necessarily mean low income.
Just like with the 8 AMI low-income band there's a band for affordable So you have the bottom band of affordable, and then you have the higher band of affordable. So someone could be making $120,000 combined income and be say at the lower band of affordable. Say a police officer Firemen, if you're lucky to be a teacher at the well I teacher wouldn't be at the higher they'd be at the lower end. My wife's a teacher by the way yeah so they'd be at the low low low end But then you could get affordable at the higher end, could be say 140 combined income.
And therein lies some of the challenges that exist with building on land given by certain, because they are addressing their arena numbers per the governor and the pressure from the state by building affordable housing, but it's rental primarily. Most of the time it's rental units.
When we get to the discussion side of this I'll have more things to say to you specifically regarding affordability because I am in complete alignment with your thought process.
Any other questions? Okay let's move on to public comment. We have surprise surprise I'm gonna switch it up Bill Miley and Jeffrey Starkweather
2:49 – 2:556 turns
Good evening for the record, my name is Bill Miley. I write Jeffrey's and he writes mine So as you know, I have been involved in this effort for several years 408 North Montgomery At one point we hope the city would build it with bank funding and provide moderate income affordable housing for folks working in Ojai With who have financial housing challenges The costs were greater than the proposed rental income, that option ended. And as the city manager said, the pandemic stopped any effort to continue.
Lately, the option of seeking input from Habitat for Humanity of Ventura County was pursued and that option is working. In a recent meeting with Darcy Taylor, CEO of Habitat, it looks like affordable housing could be successfully developed there. The principal housing Habitat creates is owner-occupied, helping the contractor build the structures for workforce folks in Ojai.
Previously, the city contracted with local architect Nicholas Otway to develop site plans and these will be considered as part of the three options that Darcy will present. I would like to say that I have read where in good sources that water use by older residential properties is on the average 80% landscape and there won't be much landscape here Also, I too envision 408 North Montgomery as the first if successful maybe several more on city properties throughout.
I fully support the next step of crafting an engagement a letter of engagement with Habitat for Humanity for next step design options and most of us know about habitat and that trust is strong thank you
Thank you, Bill. Jeffrey Starkweather?
Appreciate Habitat coming here and making this presentation. I was the chair of a housing task force in North Carolina in a county and we had what's called inclusionary zoning so when we had new subdivisions they had to have 15% affordable but to spread it out among different income groups the ones that we had in Development itself that was like seven and a half percent. They were recalled workforce housing the 80 to 100% of medium family income and Habitat was given half of that money to do the 80% and lower Because it's a different population base Our experience with habitat in in this community was the communities that they developed involved the whole community. There was lots of volunteers, just like the old barn raising days. People in the community would come and help and want to be part of this process.
Secondly, as you know I'm involved in politics, and I've canvassed that whole community numerous times And the difference between the apartment buildings that were built for inexpensive and the habitat places, I mean you had to be careful when you knocked on doors with some of those. apartment places, but not in Habitat. It was like a community so I'm a big supporter of Habitat.
Secondly, I think that...I don't know if it's possible but I don't think we need parking spaces in that property for this place to give them more room to spread out like they say and avoid a homeowner's association. I mean they're practically downtown And I just think in general, we should be careful about requiring parking. It really adds to traffic more than the other way or particularly in within the downtown three block area.
I think we need to start lobbying our legislators to get rid of this requirement for HOA for affordable housing, that's just outrageous. Assemblyman Bennett is going to be here on the 22nd at the Democratic Club so this will be a chance for us to get on his case and say we need to eliminate that requirement And finally, kind of addressing the question about the lots we have. I think it's important to think about different levels of affordability and we need rentals and we also use land trusts as another way to keep the price down And you can do that both for rental and homeownership. So I think we need to keep flexible about looking at various options and other resources from the county, another round that we could build different types of affordable housing.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jeffrey. Any comments on Zoom? Gail?
If anyone in the Zoom queue would like to comment on this item please use a raise hand function now. Okay let's
move onto discussion.
2:55 – 3:0214 turns
We have one. OK, we have one speaker is it says Nicholas? I assume that's Mr Oatway. Oh now he's disappeared. Let me there. It's come back. Keeps putting his hand down. Let me let me fix it one moment. Mister Oatway if you're there you can go ahead and speak if you're muted please unmute yourself. Are you there? Mr. Owei or Nicholas, you have your microphone muted. If you can unmute your microphone, you can go ahead and speak.
Maybe we can come
back to him. OK. Let's move on a discussion for now.
Bill? I think it's clear. This is almost a historic opportunity. I'm very excited about the alignment, about how we do things in Ojai and what I'm hearing here from Darcy about how Habitat does things. One of the things I really like is the willingness to work with the community to get the capital costs down. This has been a major impediment, almost a scandal in
Susan? Oh yeah, so it's my understanding that this is just the beginning of a process. That at the next round, am I understanding correctly that the next round will be the three possible projects and at that point we can address things like A parking shared car use, limiting car use or no cars and that sort of thing.
Yes.
Okay.
Ready?
Again, Bob. I'm having this moment again where I can't hear. You need a candy bar? No
it's
just interesting. Because I heard Bob and I went, boy, I don't want to look stupid. Sir. There you go. I'll call you sir. It's interesting when I ran for council seven years ago that was one of the first questions that was posed everyone running is do you believe in affordable housing? And my response was exactly what yours was. Well, affordable has a different meaning to everyone in this room.
So one I agree with you on that 100%. The second thing is I believe if we're gonna do affordable housing that it has to be a hand up not a hand out. There are lots of other opportunities section eight housing there's a lot of other ways that we can help people live in a community and actually be a permanent person of that community. This offers someone upward mobility, this offers someone to be a part of the community, this offers someone to be engaged in the community vice versa if we're going to do a build site like we did the park build in the middle of Libby was a community build and that's exactly what you are. This community thrives on that So I see it just as a win-win for us, for this community because that's what we are. And again, I'm not going to shy away from the fact that we need more affordable housing.
The unattended consequences of the last 30 to 50 years in this valley has been the fact that we haven't built and we haven't built any form of affordability And so we need to recognize that, we need to recognize all of the other tangibles. We're going to hear water, we're going to hear reach codes, we're going to hear all electric. There's a lot of things that we're doing as a small community which are beneficial to our self-interest and our sustainability. And you seem again like the right partner and you seem to be willing to want to participate with that.
Someone make the motion so I can
say. I just want to come in and I agree with you, Randy, the word affordable has been completely co opted now because $120,000 a year that's a lot of money and so now the terms are very low and extremely low income households. And that's clearly what we need and we know that just building more and increasing housing stock Doesn't trickle down to people in need so if we're gonna help People who've got to actually go in and help people. So thank you so much Darcy this has been really wonderful And thanks for reaching out and you know, we clearly need this and I also feel strongly that we need to commit to going all-electric to get off gas non renewable energy and Our community supports that, and now is the time. We don't need to talk about it anymore.
All the data's out there. We just need to do it. And also we know it's healthier, especially in smaller units, to be electric versus gas. Sousa, you want to make a comment?
When our constituents watch this segment, I know already off the top of my head one or two families that are on the verge of leaving Ojai because they cannot afford to live here. And I would like to do everything possible to keep those kids in our school. So the next question will be at what point can people apply? When is that handled? At what stage?
It's a few steps away. I wish we could get them built and get people in them as soon as possible, but the next step is just going to be bringing the three designs so there's still quite a bit of work to do before we get to that point.
But people can have hope that this is the direction that Ojai is headed. And that may cause them to endure living with three kids in a one bedroom apartment, a few more years if they know there's help on their horizon. That's I think what I'm trying to say. You
3:02 – 3:0735 turns
can tell them we have other bills in the county They can apply for other bills. Well, I'm just saying there are other opportunities.
I would like to ask the council if we could entertain a motion to make this all electric?
I think that's inappropriate at this time. I think we need to move forward with a letter of engagement and give them the space to come back with their considered advice. I mean, I think that's the kind of thing that helps defeat these efforts.
Can we go all electric, Darcy?
Well typically we wouldn't do that at this point. We've got to come out and walk the property. Our design company is RRM and look at what the opportunities or possibilities are. I think that's a discussion you'll have as a council.
Yeah it's a design process.
Once we get to the next phase, that would be a discussion you can have then.
Right. Are more and more people asking for that? I mean, that's clearly the way we have to go.
Yeah, so to be perfectly honest, which I always am, the answer to that question is no. I think we're at a point now where building smart homes is getting to that point. I think the problem with us as a builder is making the transition from where we are to electric is just really a lot I certainly know a lot of people in our community who would love to help you do that and could give you all the data and the information that you'd possibly need.
So Mayor, I appreciate that comment about going all electric. I told you i'm off the fence but I do recognize that we don't want to hold something over anyone's head in this moment let's get this agreement signed it's something that will come back to council when we bring back the reach codes there's a lot of There's a lot of energy right now heading in the right direction so that's where I would be on that. And Darcy, I got it right didn't I?
See I heard it. I was listening to the mayor you know and she said Darcy and I said okay. Okay again what do we need to do to make a motion on this?
Susan has a comment. Bill has a
comment. No, I
don't. OK. Go ahead, Susan.
Sorry, I forgot to take down my lower hand there. Sorry. No comment.
I'm going to make a motion to just get the process going. That's what we need to do. We have a lot of design discussions? Absolutely. But at this point, we just need to get the process going and I want to make a motion to authorize city manager to sign the letter of engagement.
I'll second.
Roll call please, Gail?
Do we want to try the Zoom commenter one more time?
Oh
yeah. The hand has gone down. Okay.
I might recommend proceeding given that we have plenty of further opportunities for design discussions later. Thank you.
Is it possible to make some kind of amendment to that, just to really encourage us going all electric in some form?
Any council member can certainly propose an amendment to the motion. The amendment would be voted on first if it passes or fails and the motion is adjusted accordingly. So yeah you could move to amend the motion to add an all-electric requirement. It would need a second and then voting from there. Okay
I'd like to make that motion
There'll be an amendment to add an all-electric requirement. And that will require a second.
Second? Okay.
All right, with that the main motion can move forward. The amendment having not received a second, the amendment dies for lack of a second. Now the main motion can move forward. The main motion is to direct the city manager to execute a letter of engagement with Habitat Yes, I'm so grateful and really want all electric. We have to get off the gas.
I'm not on mic, I'm sorry. Council Member Francina? Yes. Council Member Blatz?
Yes.
Mayor Pro Tem Haney?
Absolutely.
Okay thank you and thank you once again Darcy for coming and sharing and doing the work that you do much appreciated. Any idea when Darcy will
be back?
I'm going to ask council can we move number five up and do that now and then we'll do four afterwards yeah okay All right,
we'll move on to item number five the appointment of public member to fiscal policy budget committee
3:07 – 3:1944 turns
Yes, thank you and a very brief report. When our public member on the Budget Committee Steve Olson got appointed as interim City Treasurer in January it created a vacancy for the public member of the committee. The public member serves a four-year term is currently vacant so we I'm sorry, advertised for applicants and the two applications are included in the packet. And so with that it's... The item is here for council to appoint a public member to the budget committee.
Thank you James. Any questions?
James, could you clarify to the council that the option of the council if they so desire to appoint both the applicants is available this evening. Could you clarify that?
And so, I mean all commissions and all committees created by the council. It's the councils purview to decide you know how many members and what types of members? So there's a really a variety of options for the council if council did want to appoint more than one member that can be done and if we wanted to point the one it could be done or not appoint anybody to the position it can be done. So those are all
options tonight And one further thing I would add is if the council wanted to expand the number of public members up to two, for example or more that come back next time as we'd have to amend the underlying investment policy resolution which bakes in the creation of this committee. Thank you. Thank you
any other questions? Okay move on to public comment we have David Byrne and Bill Miley
Good evening Mayor Council I am very pleased to join this group of distinguished speakers here this evening, so thank you. And thank you all for everything that you do, all the hard work and all the work you do for the city of Ojai. My name is David Byrne and I have lived in the city of Ojai for about 30 years now which I guess makes me a relative newcomer You're looking for a member of your budget committee. The good news is, is both budget committee applicants are long-term Ojai residents and lifetime good guys.
Who you choose though should be based on experience and qualifications. Here is an abbreviated resume of one of those applicants This applicant has a master's degree from the University of Southern California in local government with an emphasis on municipal finance. He has served on the KCLU Public Radio Advisory Board, he is a former city manager, a Rotarian and AYSO soccer coach, Boy Scout leader.
Member of the Municipal Finance Officers Association of California, a former Ventura County CEO, retired two-term mayor of Ojai. He helped restore financial health to the cities of Artesia, Ojai and Ventura and he brought Ventura County back from the verge of bankruptcy and restored its credit rating on Wall Street. I think you know who I'm all talking about.
This is an abbreviated list of Johnny Johnston's accomplishments Basically, you need a budget committee member. If you are looking for an infectious disease doctor and Jonas Salk was here raising his hand it would just be wrong not to choose him if you were looking for a violinist and Yasha Heifetz was here raising his hand it just would not be right to not choose him well Johnny Johnston is raising his hand his resume is raising his hand Volunteering for this position. It would just not be right to choose him. Thank you
Thank You David next we have Bill Miley
Good evening a bill Miley for the record So I just I just met David Please consider my strong support for Jeff rains is candidacy for private citizen position on the committee. Soon after arriving in Ojai in 1968, my wife and I met and became friends with Alan and Jan Raines and their children, our children, their children. I've known Jeff almost his whole life.
He gradually helped manage their business and assumed more and more responsibility. The Range Department store is unique in business sustainability and permanency. They certainly will outlast me. As I see Jeff, he knows Ojai and the Valley from the inside out. He comes from the private business sector. Unless I am wrong, the city government through the committee probably relies on the public citizen position for strong representation from not only private business, but being aware and understanding the dynamics and the impact of Ojai's business community.
I believe Jeff's qualities fit that position well in a quick list that I came up with. One, lifelong Ojai citizen. Two, comes from a historical family. Three, Family members help sustain and build Ojai. Four, well-educated. Five, successful business manager. Six, strong private sector experience. Seven, fully invested in Ojai Eight, manages an iconic historical business Nine, nice guy.
Ten rides a bike all over sometimes without a helmet so I tried to influence him on that. Eleven he wanted to be treasurer and this would keep him involved. Twelve money management is his base the store history 13, he loves Ojai. And 14, it's likely that his DNA has Ojai genes. In ending, thank you for considering my points of view. I too as you well know love Ojai and have and keep providing my energies and my emails and my three-minute speeches.
To help us stay strong, respond well to downturns and crises. And look to the future sustaining our small town and unique valley qualities. Jeff will do that too. Thank you.
Thank you Bill. Any comments on Zoom Gail?
If anyone in the Zoom queue would like to comment on this item, please use the raise hand function now. And we have one person, Leslie Hess. I'll go ahead and ask her to unmute. Leslie if you're there, you can...
There you go. Yes, I'm
here.
Hi everybody. I encourage you to accept Johnny Johnston's generous offer to volunteer to serve on the budget committee. We've heard his resume it's very impressive He, but besides his experience he's honest, reliable, thorough and precise. Please accept Johnny's offer to serve on the budget committee. Thank you.
Thank you Leslie. That's it Gail?
It was let me see once the view It looks like that's, I can't. There we go. Yeah there's no one else.
Okay we'll move on to discussion.
Randy?
I'm going to make a motion that we appoint Jeff Raines as the public member of the Fiscal Policy Budget Committee.
Mayor, I had my hand raised. Oh
I'm sorry Susie, go ahead.
Okay, I want to say first of all that we are extremely fortunate that we have two excellent candidates who bring two completely different skill sets to the table. Our former mayor Johnny Johnson has experience in government but Jeff Raines has exceptional experience in the private sector representing the business community. Therefore, I strongly urge my colleagues on the council to select both candidates so that they can both bring their unique skill sets to the budget committee. Thank you.
And I would just like to go ahead
Bill sorry. I was going to second the motion.
I want to make a counter motion in that case This is
a map. Are we still on discussion? I'd like to make comment. Is that okay?
Well, to answer the question that was there if I may through the Mayor, substituted motion could be made to appoint direct staff to come back with necessary documents to appoint two. That would be an option for Councilmember Francina perhaps a comment from the Mayor then whether or not Councilmember Francina wishes to make that substitute motion and then seconds will fall as they fall.
Okay, thank you. I just think clearly we have to take Johnny Johnson on that. I mean he is Jonas Salk He's so qualified you look at that resume You know restored financial health to cities of Artesia Ojai and Ventura County What a gift all of his experience and knowledge and it just We need to have him, so I just feel really strongly about that.
I do want to make my substitute motion.
Okay.
Yeah, my substitute motion that we select both candidates and that the staff comes back with what's the wording Matt?
It would be to return with an amendment to the investment policy resolution to expand the budget committee to two.
Yes, that's my motion. Okay
uh do we have a
second?
I just wanted to clarify something first of all was there a motion that was accepted that was on the floor?
My understanding is yes the motion on the floor made by yourself seconded by Council Member Wyrick is to appoint Mr. Raines okay I just wanted to clarify that
now the amended motion is Sousa's
correct substitute motion which if thank you if it gets a second would be voted on first and if adopted replace the main motion I haven't yet heard a second. I'll second that. Okay, there is a second.
Can we have the roll call on that Gail please?
Roll-call vote Failed 2–3 motion I haven't yet heard a second. I'll second that. Okay, there is a second. Can we have the roll call
Show transcript
Okay and now we have the other motion.
Right, the main motion to appoint Mr. Raines
Roll call, please. Gail?
Roll-call vote Passed 3–2 motion to appoint Mr. Raines Roll call,
Show transcript
Kent Hall. Let's move on to number four Kent Hall Public Rental Policy
3:19 – 3:2822 turns
Yes, thank you Mayor. We have just three slides and mostly to show some of the improvements we recently did to Kent Hall so I'll keep it very brief. So the item on tonight's agenda for Kent Hall is to ask council to approve a policy and a fee for the rental of Kent Hall.
Touche was affordable again.
Yep, yep exactly it's our theme of the day But it's the reason why we have to do this. It's interesting as we were preparing and getting Kent Hall ready, is we realized that we've never rented Kent Hall out so we don't have a policy and we don' t have a fee. And so well, we did not rent it another organization rented it. And so the item on tonight's agenda is to do that, so that the city can rent that space out.
So you can see here our vision for Kent Hall is to use it as a revitalized affordable community meeting site and to do that we are recommending creating a policy for public meetings at the site. This is not yet the policy for private events which would be talked about separately and would be handled under a separate Policy and separate fee, but these this would be for public meetings and for charitable organizations and community groups So as a little bit of background for anybody maybe not familiar, the city resumed management of the site on the campus in late 2021. We walked through the sites day one and we realized there's a ton of deferred maintenance on both the Little House building and the Oak Tree House building so we've been working pretty diligently since then to try to get them up to the level we want them to be So the picture on this image, I know it's not quite as large as it looked on my screen.
But that actually is the refreshed kind of repainted cleaned up Kent Hall and we have new tables, new chairs things like that for the site as well. Kent Hall, just anybody who's not familiar. It's the very large meeting room located at the rear of the little house building. I think it is where we've had some community meetings in the past before the city controlled the building there were meetings like the Democratic Club at that site and so I'll keep it very brief.
Our plan right now should council approve is that we will begin renting the space available May 30th 2022 Our goal was to keep it affordable and a local community meeting space And so the policy is written to with that in mind. It is not a full-service site We are not going to have a staff person, you know Running meetings or setting up audio visual equipment will have some of those things there but it's gonna be very self serve To keep the cost low. So we're recommending for the public groups a fee of $35 for three hours which is Comparable, we looked at other cities and the library and other groups. And it's a comparable fee for these community meetings.
And I think we tried to keep it on the lower end of the comparisons. So once approved, we will make applications available to public at ohi.ca.gov slash Kent Hall. And so with that, we are recommending approval of the policy and creation of the $35 fee
Thank you, James. Any questions from council?
Mr. Summers, are we fine here? I see that the group or individual accepts financial reliability for any damages that occur during the 10 year of the rental. Are we OK in terms of JPIA guidelines with respect to liability of the city for say a trip and fall that occurs during the event? Yes,
we have our existing liability for the infrastructure, for the space, the building. Anything that would be caused, say electrical cords running incorrectly by an organization, they would be indemnifying us for that.
So you will
include an indemnification?
Yes. That'll be part of the agreement as part of this policy will be an indemnification.
Yeah, we'll have a short-form facility use agreement that will include the groups indemnifying the city. Thank
you. Question Randy?
Yeah do we know what the cost of what the Hope of Ojai rented that space for? Jeffrey would you know? I don't but I wonder... An hour? I mean three hours? So the Help of Ojia is charging 75? Okay, and we're looking at 35. So I've got a concern with that number but the other thing have we thought about splitting up the time frames? You know let's say we have an evening rate and a day rate Have you have you thought about that and then also all the amenities that we're going to provide if we're providing tables, chairs, speakers, mics anything of that nature. Is that part of this rental agreement or you haven't thought that far?
Very basic. Our plan is to have chairs and tables at the site that they can go in and order however they want to order different setups But chairs and tables, and then we're gonna install one of the TVs that We're getting a new TV for the council chambers. So we're gonna install that TV there Yeah, we're gonna recycle And so that's the setup and you know It's going to be other than that itself serve or moving things around or bringing in, you know Sodas or whatever they're gonna have to bring their own supplies and equipment So it's very self-serve
and you feel comfortable at $35 for is it three hours? Is that what I'm looking at?
Yeah, and I mean it
is. That we're recovering the cost of someone showing the site, signing the documents and then coming back at the end and visiting and doing any additional cleanup?
It's not going to be a hundred percent cost recovery and that's why we're trying to be very clear that this is for community meeting groups there's a public benefit that justifies And it's a council choice, but that's why we're saying it's of public benefit so that would justify having a discounted rate. But that's why I clarified that private events are not going to be booked this way. If somebody is going to have a private event, it would be 100% cost recovery because there is no benefit to the taxpayer of doing that. So, part of why we set the fee was we looked at the comparable agencies and we saw that I believe it was the library has a meeting room for $25.
And granted, the meeting room is smaller than ours but we thought... We don't necessarily want to undercut the library but we thought that this would be the next step up for a group that couldn't fit in that space. Is it 25 an hour or
25 for three hours?
I believe it was 25 for three hours but I'd have to confirm that. Yeah, okay. It may have been. But it is, $35 for three hours is a reduced rate in recognition of theoretically the public benefit.
Any other questions? Susan or Ryan? I have a question.
Okay go ahead. I hear what you're saying about the public benefit James but I'm still curious what would the fee be for full recovery
So we haven't performed a comprehensive fee study. It would be substantially higher, I think if we were talking full fee recovery my estimate offhand based on some other fee study comparables would probably something like... Probably about $150 for three hours is ballpark.
3:28 – 3:3332 turns
Oh, okay. My
thinking
is that you know let's say it's $15 per hour that would make for... It's really hard to raise the fees once we start like this. Can we stick
to questions?
Yeah so my question is Well you know I'm thinking, I have concern about that. Okay so i'll save my further comments for discussion
okay. I will note to that point is the more somebody uses it the lower that cost would be. I think to Council Member Haney's point if somebody uses the space once we have to have a staff person go walk the site with them and explain how everything works That's expensive. If they use it every two weeks, you know, you only have to do that walkthrough once so it just depends but that would be for the one meeting, one rental and having to walk them through everything and set everything up.
Okay finish with questions? Any public comment on Zoom
Gail? If anyone in the zoom queue would like to comment on this item please use the raise hand function now
Let's move on to discussion. Randy?
So again, I'm not trying to be the bad guy here regarding fees but it's wear and
tear. Can you remove the slide?
Yeah.
Thank you. Okay, sorry.
It's wear and tear that's what I look at and you know um I think I don't have you know it seems like the help of Ojai was renting this room out at a premium for trying to help community members i'm a little shocked at that price but I could see something in between there or, you know, $25 an hour or something like that. You know, I've been to Democratic Club meetings. We could get them done quicker than three hours.
Yeah, yeah. We should be a full service entity to someone coming in and using that room. That's why I would like to see us create some type of a microphone, and some type of a speaker, and some type of podium, something of that nature. We maybe don't have to charge for chairs or tables but there are just amenities that people would like to have that they don't have. And that's what I'm thinking.
Maybe we need to come back and attach that to some type of agreement.
Sousa, is your
hand up? Well my thinking is that at least slightly increase the fee considering what Mayor Pro Tem Haney just brought up. Yeah I'm not comfortable with that fee I'm just not comfortable with it. It doesn't seem right to me, but I'm still thinking about it.
Not to the exclusion of further policy development along the lines we've been talking about, but I know there's a demand so let's get out of the gate and I'm going to make a motion that we approve this policy with $50.
I just want
to say like, just so
everybody knows we're talking about $15 over
something that maybe gets
used
a few
times. It's not
going to recover
anything
It's just, I don't know. We're just making a point to make it more expensive. If we're trying to cost recover, we're not gonna do it. If we're trying to make a point, we're not gonna do it. It's not gonna change anything. You know if staff says $35 is solid enough, I don't really know what the point of raising it to 15 is other than to feel better but I don''t really understand why we... If staff thinks 35 is good, I trust them but
We do have a motion and a second, so we should vote on that. Correct? Okay
all right go ahead
Sousa
Yeah, my thinking had been was at least $15 an hour at least. So that's why I'm more comfortable with 50 just seems more solid and I think it does make a point. I think it's just reasonable. I think we're undercutting. I can't imagine that the library is 25 for three hours. Maybe it is but I'm not so sure.
Okay ready for roll call? Gail please.
3:33 – 3:3922 turns
Yes. Gail,
Mike?
Roll-call vote Passed 4–0 · 1 under review
Show transcript
I'm all for using it but i don't understand the increase so no.
I'm sorry is that a no?
That's a no.
Okay okay uh we'll move on to council member reports.
Uh I would just like to Let the public know that I think that the City of Ojai did this whole valley and this whole watershed a lot of good, engaging in a discussion with the Department of Water Resources. And just to cut to the chase, the importance of that discussion was in support of the watershed as managed as a whole with as much local control as possible and committed to the principles of SGMA, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
And I'm just going to leave it at that because I think that the movement towards mediation and perhaps a successful mediation consistent with the principles of SGMA is important and more of a possibility than it's been in awhile. And that's a very good thing for this entire valley.
Thank you, Bill. Any other council member reports? Randy?
Maybe Bill should have started out with Stating that the ad hoc committee including the city manager met with the state water resource board And as a result, that's what bill was talking about You kind of my wife would tell you you brought me in in the middle of the conversation and I got my
low blood sugar
problem
Okay.
All right. Thank you. We'll move on to City Manager's report
The only item on the City Manager's Report is that tomorrow we have a Disaster Council meeting at 10am, that will be recorded and televised and available on Zoom. It's particularly interesting for people who are interested in watching because we're going to be kind of touring the Emergency Operations Center so information on that is available on our website, on our homepage.
Exciting. Yeah, it'll be a good one and then just quickly for the next council meeting because we know there are a lot of community groups Interested just for the council to be aware We received about 15 applications for community funding this year Up from three last year and I think up three or four the year before. So, I think it speaks to all the groups getting kind of going again after COVID and how we've talked about we're seeing more events applications come in than ever before. And I think this was another indication of that but We're going to have the budget workshop focus on the CIP at the next meeting, the community funding applicants at the next meeting and the hotel, the Roglar Hotel appeal will also be at the next meeting. So those are the three items earmarked right
now. James do you want to mention the Arbor Day event on Friday?
Oh yeah, thank you. Thank you for reminding me yes so Friday we are having an Arbor Day tree planting ceremony at Libbey Park at I believe it's 1030 and so we'll plant a sycamore tree and have some shovels and have Julie...I think the plan right now if I remember well maybe I shouldn't say if I don't remember right I'll leave it to join us 1030 at Libbey Park
Mayor, one other comment from the City Manager. James I read that we're having a open house at the Rec Center and I would like to invite Chief to participate and bring some officers down and again do a community walkthrough yeah
Already in the works.
Yeah, I believe we got a table front and center for the Chief so we're on the same page. It's in May and I was going to announce it but I didn't remember the date offhand maybe the Chief does. I believe it's the 29th. May 29th and so that'll be the Rec Open House which always coincides with the soccer trophies so it's always a huge event so come out to that event as well.
And meanwhile on Friday at the same time, the new fire station in Upper Ohio is going to be unveiled. So I'll be up there. Okay any future agenda items? Bill?
I would like to ask for council support that we put on a future agenda a discussion of the issue of districting overall with the following focus. There is a appeals court ruling that for small cities, districting does not really serve the intent of the California civil rights law. I believe I'm characterizing that correctly and we also know that for especially small cities if we went back to at large a rank choice system of voting arguably better fulfills the goal of the California civil rights law than does a districting for small cities.
And I would just like to suggest that we put it on an agenda for discussion, and I know that the city attorney is researching this possibility but I think we oughta discuss it.
I support that wholeheartedly.
3:39 – 3:408 turns
With that we'll bring it forward at a future item for discussion of the options and the considerations.
Okay with anything else?
Well can you give us a little more clarity has there been a ruling that has come down it's gonna change what we're already doing or that were required to
do? This is
discussion,
this we're just putting on the agenda. Anymore any more future agenda items?
It ended. Has not yet ruled, it has taken the matter. It should rule eventually. It hasn't yet ruled so we are in a bit of a flux area as to that regard. I understand the request is to have a discussion on the options regarding districting and rank choice voting and sort of see where we are and we can bring that forward. Thank you.
Thank you Matt. All right with that thank you for your time and insights and we'll adjourn.