City Council — 2022-05-26

May we have a quorum? Maybe we have the roll call, please scale

some, you know in some cases it could be more of a problem but We'd either have to modify the design or get four-fifths approval to move forward

I'm just trying to clarify your language because you're saying we won't and we haven't reached we haven't come to that decision and

Yeah, I do want to be careful because what I don't want to say we won't. So I apologize if I said that. But what I've intended to say is that the city had always intended to pursue voluntary agreements and had never discussed eminent domain or never pursued eminent domain up to this point.

Pursue? Mm-hmm. But the discussion is taking place and probably should have taken place Prior to today if we understood the Caltrans. Can we have

Randy wait for discussion until after public comment, please? You're commenting right now. We

were asking questions

Well, can you ask a question and not make

a statement question? No, but you were just making he's clarifying it I'm going deeper into it.

I think to answer what I heard is Yes, I think prior to This day a conversation should have been held regarding the right-of-way acquisition.

Okay. Thank you

any

other questions

So Doesn't this also, besides the notification of potential eminent domain, also basically just it's the notice of decision to appraise? In other words, this is a notice that we are appraising this parcel. Yes. And that's a required step in the process. Yes,

exactly. It's interesting because Caltrans had said, their perception is that people when they get these in some areas, downtown LA was their example. Some people are excited because it's basically somebody offering to buy part of the sidewalk that they never really thought they owned or anything else. And so their perception was that this is not a major issue. We explained to them that this is not typical in Ojai and getting these notices will cause at least questions, you know? So that's why we wanted to just kind of explain it. I have one more question.

So getting back to Bill's question about assessments, I read in our packet that it's also an opportunity for them to procure their own assessment. And that week has... I don't know how deep into the weeds in this packet we're gonna go tonight but it also gives them up to a budget of $5,000 that we would pay to have their property assessed

Yes, they could demand a second assessment and the city through the grant would pay up to $5,000 for their second assessment.

All right let's move on to public comment first we have Bill Miley and then Larry Steingold

Good evening for the record my name is Bill Miley For this evening's agenda and the right-of-way acquisitions, I've looked at the street mapping locations. And for some time that some are temporary for construction and others are permanent just to let you know I understand this. I continue to support the active transportation project from the beginning I am impressed with the information materials crafted to inform property owners of the process and reasons, and the manner for questioning such acquisitions.

I'm also impressed with the policy decision working towards a voluntary acquisition on the property. I have one question. And it's regarding the failure to obtain all right-of-way access or purchases. So the question would be, are there any right-of-way properties that include substantial land that would compromise the owner's business or the land that they own?

I would suggest in looking at that it probably doesn't exist There likely should not be any resistance. But if one or more properties say no, then it seems to me the umbrella issue is how much acquisition Thank you. Larry Steinkold?

Thank you very much. And I'm not sure if this may be a segue from the ATP and it's not for or against it, but the fact that the school department is thinking about building a swimming pool next to the Maricopa and we're going to spend ungodly amounts of money pouring 15 feet of concrete and sand and everything else? Is there some way that the school department And the developers for the pool, and the city planning department can work on one sort of access point for the utilities so they don't have to dig up the concrete that we just poured.

Because they're gonna take a big chunk of that sidewalk where they are and dig it all up to put down laterals and utilities and drainage and all stuff. So if that's gonna cost whatever and we're gonna spend it maybe everybody can work together for once? and come up with some sort of galley way, I don't know. Let the engineers, let the developers, let whoever deals with it make the connection now spend the money look this is where the pool's gonna go if it's ever gonna go it's going to go here put the connection in call it a day and say that's where they're gonna dig and if they don't like it because it's gonna come out of the school budget and it's gonna come out of our budget and then we're gonna have to redo it again and spend another million dollars pouring concrete when there's no particular reason to So please, let's spend it on roads instead of having to repave concrete and redo the area where you're going to do this.

And eventually if 28 people say yes more than happy and one person says no, depends how big that person is because you may end up with eminent domain or whatever so good luck.

Thank you Larry. Any public comments on Zoom Gail?

If anyone in the Zoom queue would like to speak on this item, please use the raised hand function now.

OK, let's move on to discussion. I

have another question. I don't feel too worried because we do have the option of just working around if someone doesn't want to do it. But my question is since the eminent domain takes so long Can we proceed and still be, or does everything have to happen at once?

So it is a concern at this point. There's not enough time to do eminent domain before some of the grants would expire. And so that's part of why when the intent was to do the voluntary agreements for several years and then realizing it at this point We wouldn't be able to go through the eminent domain process Before one of the grants expires October of 2022. Yeah So that is a concern so that's where you know, we have a few options like modifying the design if somebody held out or another option that we've talked at Caltrans about preliminarily would be using that It's a little bit of a challenge with all the Caltrans checks and balances.

Did I did I answer your question?

Yeah,

we have a couple of ways. We're trying to work with it. I think the I Think that is the answer so my

I'm just going to say that I really appreciate the comments by both Mr. Feingold and Mr. Miley, they're germane something to keep in mind I think both of those comments but it seems to me this situation is there's really no downside to passing this tonight because we got to start the process and it leaves our options open so with that and I'm gonna make a motion to approve the notice.

We can discuss the motion Go for it. That's why I'm going to make the motion to send out the notice of decision to approve letters and associated brochures, and to proceed with the right-of-way acquisition as recommended by staff. That is my motion.

I'll second. Randy?

Just

more

questions. To help Sousa feel better, I'm not against the ATP. In fact where we might be impacted is the corridor that I believe should have the priority Not highway 33 that only has two impacts But the downtown corridor is the most unsafe passage that we have in this community and it would have the best ability to utilize the ATP for enhancements so Contrary to what you may think I am for the ATP and I am also for bike lanes Just not the way these are designed and how these are going to be used. So Questioning this Are we going to first of all you list in the packet that we have staff and consultants?

Who's doing what? And is it going to cost us any more money? And when I say money, I'm looking at do you have an estimate of how much staff time we might need at this point and how much consultant time. And if we do have a consultant, is that going to be more money that we have to come up with? That's the first question. Then I have a couple more to follow-up on that.

So the cost for the right-of-way work, which a big chunk of it's been completed already but the total cost is $364,000. About 200,000 of that will be going towards the services and the acquisition. And so that is through our contractors who've been part of the ATP presentations in the past, ALTA. And then they subcontract with a group that specializes on these called EPIC. So, they will be the group that is going out and meeting with property owners and actually negotiating the voluntary agreements.

And so that is not staffed and that's kind of why we're at where we're at is it's really not supposed to be city staff going out and doing that and that was the mistake made a few years back. So, those are the contractors that we use. We did make sure to talk to both Caltrans and VCTC to make sure that if somebody held out, that those are not dollars that we would have to pay back if somebody held out for example.

And VCTC did confirm to us that that would not have to be paid back if there was an issue.

So you're not looking at a lot of staff time yourself, that's what I just heard. And then what is the reporting back of facts? How does that work? Do they wait till they have met with 29 owners and have come to some type Conclusion or a result, or is it on a weekly basis? How are we going to know where we are in the process because that comes to my last question is and I say this all the time failure to plan is planning to fail at what would some point.

Plan A, which is ATP as today may fail. And at what point do you feel we need to start thinking of plan B? Because failure on ATP as today is losing two million dollars so we're going to be clear on that Um, unless there's a blessing somewhere hidden out there in the clouds that I don't know about but so we're we're in a pretty strict. Time zone. And so the question is, at what point does this council want to make some form of a conclusion that we can't attain ATP as today and start planning for Plan B ATP? What's your thoughts on that James?

I don't think we're there yet, but I think this is probably the last conversation before we get to that point. I think at this point our recommendation is to proceed if they send out the notices and everybody voluntarily agrees, you know, we have plenty of time. If they have to do second appraisals it's getting tight. If we have to do eminent domain, we're out of time. I think that's really it.

We have started to talk about multiple different plan options. I think one point to keep in mind, because you know we really had to wrestle with this too and one thing that we realize is that several of our grants actually do extend much further out actually. We have a couple of the grants that go to 2026 I think And so it could be a case even where if somebody holds out and we do part of the project, and then we have to apply for additional grants to supplement the future work and do more work prior to that 2026 deadline.

And I don't think we're there yet, but just saying as far as we're starting to think about what those alternative plans would be. But at this point, to answer your first question every couple of weeks we have a what they call a PDT meeting that includes all the contractors and subcontractors and some of the Caltrans reps. And so that's probably the bulk of the staff time, is that we both Alma and myself are in those meetings and trying to coordinate a bunch of consultants.

But we'll be doing those every couple of weeks, and I think what we would plan to do is give reports coming out of those whenever there's something to report. And ultimately, the next item that's gonna come to council will be finalizing the design, and we'll definitely be reporting back at that point how this is gonna impact that.

Thank you. Ryan, do you want to comment? Okay well I agree with Bill that it's time to start the process and check the boxes and it's great to give the folks the contact info and I feel confident in staff that we can do this in a friendly OI way. We're trying! So we have a motion and a second. Can we have the roll call please Gail?