City Council — 2022-06-28

Call to order, we have a quorum. May we have the roll call please Gail?

in sitting next to Councilperson

Blatz.

you, from contractor to contractor. From the city perspective, Kathy's always been someone that I've been able to talk with and even disagree with. And we've always been able to have a civil discussion where we couldn't agree 100% on something. We could always find that middle ground that allowed both of us to move forward. So I just want to say thank you for that. Thank you for your service and thank you for being a friend.

Thank you, and I have one little share Randy. And I know what you're probably talking about is what we disagree on. It was something that I had a lot of passion for but I want to say that I am grateful to you as a city council member and as a friend because it's something we really didn't agree on but we both said at the end of our discussion it's not going to get in the way of us being friends And working together in this capacity. And I think that's something that should be kind of emoted or shared with the community because I know a lot of times there is stripe over certain topics and if we can kind of find common ground, and a lot of the common ground is that we love our community.

So anyway thank you. Okay

thanks again

Kathy.

Any Commission reports this evening tonight James We will move on to public communication and just a reminder These are items not on the agenda. And because they're not in the agenda, we cannot discuss them when you make a comment We're not ignoring you We appreciate your viewpoint and participation and we can agendize for the future Normally public comment is three minutes. And tonight we'll be using a chime, sorry right Gail? A chime as a gentle reminder when your time is up. Please respect each other's time and stop talking when the chime rings.

There's no giving away time to another speaker. We're doing our best to run an efficient and productive meeting. Thank you for your cooperation. So tonight, let's begin with Anson Williams and then we have Jane Weirich and then Skippy.

Hey everybody! Good to see you. I've never seen you in a coat...with a coat on in person. No, I do what is it? I clean up well? You do look very well. I could cast you. Listen my name is Anson Williams and I'm running for mayor I know you're thinking why? Well, it's one word and that's community. And I'd like you to listen to what members of our community who urged me to run had to say and just hear some of their comments.

I'm tired of constant conflict because of ineffective leadership. And, I've met Mayor Sticks and she's really nice but she creates problems instead of solving them. El Robar was just one of them. And this, the mayor hardly came through with any of her campaign promises. And that's on the record. But here is what I believe. We need leadership that inspires a collaborative team.

Our community first, that understands the best of what we have and enhances it instead of wallowing in what we don't. We need to sustain, sustain and thrive. Sustain and thrive. I'm not a fan of growing tourism or constructing one more hotel, not at all. I am a fan of finding creative ways, creative ways that millions of dollars to our community without having to rely on hammering in one more nail unless it addresses our own great need for affordable housing of course.

Nothing changes in Ojai, nothing changes Nothing, except for more opportunities for our residents. Our residents will have much more details as this campaign progresses. Together we can make this happen together. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Anson. Next we have Jane Wyrick then Skippy and then Wendy Larner. I

don't know if I'm in the wrong place or not. I want to speak about the budget. Should I wait? Yeah. Wait?

Okay, next we have Skippy and then Wendy Larner and then Jill Dolan.

Good evening, my name is Skippy. We need a place to play pickleball in the evenings since it's gotten so hot during the day I'm not able to play as long as I would like to each day if we had courts with lights we could play in the evenings when it's cooler and more people could play that have to work and that would be able to make everybody play a little bit more pickleball thank you

Thank you. Next, we have Wendy Larner and then Jill Dolan and then Tim Kraut.

Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. We've experienced and are experiencing many unintended consequences from bureaucratic policies, regulations and restrictions as well as from statutory law resolutions and ordinance at every level of government. What are some of these unintended consequences? Well, there were closed businesses and lost wages. There's medical discrimination, housing shortages, misschooling, water shortages, poor forest management. I could go on and on. High utility costs, gas prices.

You get the idea. Not all rule by elected authorities and the web of administration that they create is necessarily good. But often we have no choice but to live with it. However, and peacefully I might add, however there are restraints in some cases there is some overreach from which we are protected by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is said all politics is local if not with few exceptions it should be thereby the citizens have a better chance to hold tight to our jurisdictions of freedom retained by us in the founding documents, particularly the 9th and 10th Amendments which as stated in the Declaration of Independence are rights from God not government. We have founders who were wise enough to make that distinction This is all to say I am hereby proposing you form a city standing committee to advise in and protect the God-given rights of Ojai residents and citizens.

Thank you.

Thank you, Wendy. Next we have Jill Dolan then Tim Kraut then Leslie Rule

Hello, I'm Jill Dolan and I'm back because we've opened another great show at the Ojai Arts Center Theater. And I know you're all going to want to come and see the music man! And it was great to hear people talk about residents of our community and volunteering because this is what we've got at the arts center. I mean we've got a cast of almost 30 people From age 7 to 85, going to Topatopa School in Nordoff and graduating from there. It is a community place for everybody. It's a great show. It is a great show for this summer and the 4th of July and we're gonna be in the parade. Anyway I want to make sure that you all have your little cards. May I hand them to you or shall I just hand them here? Oh you can't say anything.

Okay, so and to all of you who are here. Please come and see the show and think of us when you want to volunteer because we are people in your community We're performing. We're volunteering those long hard hours And I'd stay longer, but I'm going to audition for the next show so gotta go kids gotta go Thank you so much Thank

You Jill Next we have Tim Kraut then Leslie rule and then Brenda kraut

Good evening Madam Mayor, Council and staff. Our pickleball community is not a group of contentious people. We are a large group of law-abiding community members that pay taxes and vote. There's a small minority of people that are complaining about our large group of community members using a public space. Please advise this minority that these public parks were donated to the city for the use of by the whole community, not just a certain segment of the community.

Recently our Pickleball Group was allowed to install a fence along one side of the City Hall pickleball courts. The cost of this installation was borne totally by our group, no cost to the city. This fence was needed for safety reasons to prevent players from injury during play. The city's approval for this fence installation took two years even though it was a safety issue we are thankful for approval was finally received In closing, we are all neighbors in this valley. Can't we coexist?

Our pickleball group is not an exclusive club. We are an inclusive club. Anybody can come and join the fun. It's a come-as-you-are activity. You don't have to wear a certain brand of shoes or clothes or have a signature paddle or have two years of lessons. So as we move forward, I hope that we the pickleball community in Ojai will not be stigmatized by this small minority opposing us.

Thank you Tim. Next we have Leslie Rule and then Brenda Kraut.

Hi thank you for the opportunity to speak. I might run for City Council! Kidding. So I am here really to talk about, I sent I think each of you an email asking if it was on the table to put pickleball courts at Soule Park and if that is the case, I wanted to make a case that the pickleball community both current and future finds that An unwise kind of choice, and the reason being we have in our backyard courts that are available right now. That are those at Lower Libbey Park. And as people have spoken, the two most important things right now to pickleball, well three actually, we need more courts.

That's the first. So we need to figure out where those new courts can be. We also, as was spoken, we need lights. It is just too hot to play in the afternoon. These courts close at 630. There are many, many, many players who, as was also mentioned, who worked a normal nine-to-five job who just will not have the opportunity to play if it's winter. It gets dark early and if it's summer, it just is way too hot.

So we need lights. That's really important. Soule Park has no lights, it really has no court. We could talk about that as well and the other thing is accessibility. We talked about biking in Ojai you put pickleball courts out at Soule Park and all of the people and there's a lot of people who bike here are not going to bike to Soule Park they're not going to go down Ojai Ave and 150 to Soule Park. It just it's it's not safe So what would that mean? Even if they were going to go there, even if there were lights it means they would drive. They would drive through the center of Ojai. What is the biggest complaint you hear from people? Too much traffic in the center of Ojai. So it makes absolutely no sense that given Lower Libbey Park has lights, has all of the infrastructure necessary both for the pickleball players current and future And for the City of Ojai not to use that.

Okay, 47 seconds. The other point I wanted to make is... Well, the other point I wanted to make... Oh! Sole-use. Sole-use. Like there are many people tennis players and it is a you know it is It is a tradition well-loved in Ojai for tennis, but those courts can be dual use. Sole use is a concept whose time has come and gone. There's absolutely no reason to build what you already have and could leverage. It just makes no sense. It baffles the imagination. Reasonable people can disagree about things, but it's really hard to figure out why reasonable people would disagree about that.

So I encourage you to read the email. I sent everybody and thank you very much for your time

Thank You Leslie Brenda kraut

My name is Brenda crowd, and I'm part of the pickleball community Currently we have close to 200 pickleball players signed up on our email list The majority of these players are voting citizens in the city of Ojai. So that means these players will be casting votes for or against each of you. These players are in need of more courts and now that we're in the heat of summer, the need for courts with lights to facilitate evening play is very essential.

It is a shame to see eight tennis courts at Libbey Park vacant 60 to 70 percent of the time when the pickleball community is busting at the seams and desperately needs more courts in a venue. with lights to accommodate evening play. The lower courts at Libbey Park could provide both the much needed additional courts and a venue with lights for evening play without the city spending a dime.

Our pickleball group has invested time and money into the City Hall campus courts right here, and we are prepared to do the same at the lower Libby Courts. Please quit delaying actions to address the needs of this growing group of voting citizens. Thank you.

Thank you, Brenda. Any public comments online, Gail?

I can't see the Zoom queue. One moment. James Han, if you could remove the timer so I can see the... there we go. If there's anyone in the Zoom queue who would like to speak during public communications please use the raise hand function now. Thank you.

I know we received a few comments about Pickleball, so I just wanted to note for anybody not familiar or not following that the Recreation Commission has created an ad hoc committee that is reviewing Pickleball at this time. So that is still ongoing and we're expecting some recommendations from them soon.

Great. Thank you James. All right let's move on to the consent calendar. Is there a motion to approve?

So moved.

Second. OK roll call please Gail.

Can I ask something now that we have a full council present aren't there a lot of things we can do Okay let's move on to discussion item number two, ratify commission appointments.

James,

thank you man that we have a very very brief staff report. This is now our second or third time through this so I think we're probably getting used to it but with our move recently to have the city council make kind of a rotating appointment where each council member makes an appointment to each commission We had agreed as commissioners were appointed that we'd ask each to come in and introduce themselves essentially. So tonight, we have four appointments. We have Commissioner McHatton from the Historic Preservation Commission, Commissioner Prebor from the Historic Preservation Commission, Commissioner Taylor from the Parks and Rec Commission, and Commissioner Walker from the Parks and Rec Commission.

appointed by Council Member Francina and Council Member Wyrick. And each of those commissioners were already serving and have now been reappointed, but we did ask to continue that we asked them to come give an introduction so I will leave all the commissioners are here and so with that I'll turn it over to you to call on the commissioners.

Okay, great. Any questions from Council? No. We'll move on to public comments. We have one public comment here. Aren't

they going to speak? Yes,

after Brian Akins. We'll have Brian Akins and then the four commissioners will speak.

I apologize for being late, but it was a good thing. I just want to say that I'm happy and I thank you for reappointing Commissioner McCatton and Commissioner Pribor. And I'll let you get to them. Thank you all very much.

Thank you, Brian. Okay, shall we start with Commissioner McCatton?

She's in the Zoom queue and I'm going to bring her in.

There she is.

Commissioner McCattin, if you can unmute yourself? There you go. She can go ahead and speak now.

Hello. Everybody can hear me?

Yes.

I'm Gina McCattin, and I've been on the HPC since 2018. And I have enjoyed every minute of it. I've lived in Ojai since we bought our home in downtown 19 years ago. And I am fully aware of the importance that tourists have on our community and on our livelihood. But I will always feel that Ojai is for its residents. Over the last two years while preparing for my HPC presentation for the local downtown historic district, I found decades of photos depicting families and couples and children and artists and business people just like all of us all coming together in the city center just as Edward Libby and other visionaries imagined it 100 years ago. Because Ojai is a town of locals, generations of locals. And I've never seen such a town pride or spirit of community like I have And I chose to raise my family here in this community.

It's where we eat and shop and socialize, and it was the best decision that we ever made, and I feel so lucky to be a part of this commission to work to preserve this beautiful and incredible place that we all get to share. But this commission, it's not about any one of us. It's about all of us, all that came before and all that will come. And it is my job to learn everything I can about Ojai's history as well as local state and federal preservation laws.

My degree is in journalism and my background is in publishing but it was when I met local historian Craig Walker when I moved here That I honed in on my passion for preservation. I spent my adult life learning and traveling, and finding historic places all around the world but it wasn't until I served on the board and worked with Craig at Valley Charter School that I would find myself cornering him whenever I could Trying to learn as much as I could from him, he became my mentor. I started reading everything I could on preservation, as well as attending a full year of HPC meetings before becoming a commissioner.

I really have to thank him for his endless knowledge and inspiration. But still the more I learned, the more I knew there was to learn. The pandemic and shutdown of so many in-person learning opportunities ended up being an incredible experience for me. The top state and federal organizations as well as the best preservation university programs even vibrant commissions Jumped online to provide rich educational opportunities and I have been there for everyone that I could find. Some have been free, some for a small cost but every single experience was worth it and it was always something that I learned that I could bring back and apply my new knowledge to my work on the commission and I don't plan on stopping to look for learning opportunities anytime soon.

I take my position on this commission very seriously to be considered tonight for another four-year term. Thank you.

Thank you, Gina. Next we have Jenny Pribor.

And I think she's signed in as Zoom user so I'm going to try this.

Okay. That was so good. Gina that was so good! Thank you.

I'll remove Gina once I pull up the next person. Okay, is this Commissioner Pribor? I'm showing Zoom user you should be able to speak. Is that Commissioner Pribor?

Can you guys hear me?

Yes, we

can.

Can you see me? You look like a photographic negative but we can see you and we can hear you. I can't really see you. You can go ahead. Hello!

Can you hear us? We see and hear you.

Okay. Can you hear us Commissioner Pribor? Should we come back to her?

Jenny, can you hear us? No okay all right um shall we move on to Susie Taylor and then we'll come back to you Jenny ideally if we can. Are you unmuted? She she's unmuted yeah okay

but she seems to have a problem hearing us.

Okay uh Susie Taylor

is Commissioner Taylor here in the audience? Hello

can you guys hear me Can you guys hear me? We can hear you, but we- Hello. I can see and hear you. You can see me, but can they see me?

Yes, can you hear it? Jenny do you hear me now?

It's too bright right? Should I just wait? Yeah.

Okay good.

There it goes,

okay

Fun with zoom. Okay Susie Taylor next

Susie Taylor is She doesn't seem to be here yet Nelson Walker Oh

Good evening, everyone. It's just been an honor being here and being on the board. So I actually moved to Ojai April 11, 2021 with my beautiful family all the way from sunny New Jersey. So I left the 14 inches of snow and traded it in for a beautiful sunshine 75 every day avocados lemons and all those great things Ohio has So I actually got started because my daughter, she joins us. She's part of gymnastics at Sarasota Park and I wanted to be more involved in the community. My son he goes to a place to grow. He's three years old and we frequent the park, Sarasota Libbey Park just always in the community so I just wanted to be more active and find out more information about What's going on in my community? Also being on the board, I do love how vibrant and energetic the community is.

Very voiceful about different changes and things they want. I come from a community where that wasn't the case so it was just great even you know you have the tennis and pickleball community coming together and I play pickleball for the first time ever and it is amazing. I've always played tennis so I love both sports. So yeah, it's just been great welcoming community and I love being on the board. Louise has done a really great job helping me communicate and meet other people during our open house which was a great turnout. I met some more families and things like that so I just want to thank you all for allowing me to be part of the Parks and Recs Commission and have a wonderful night!

Thank you, Nelson. And thanks to all the commissioners for all your hard work and service and showing up meeting after meeting after meeting.

I have one comment for Nelson. His children are my grandchildren's age, and that's how I met him. It's just incredible watching six-year-olds and three-year-olds running around our facilities Thank you, thank you for coming here and thank you for being a part of our community.

Any other comments from Council? Bill?

Well, I just can't help but be struck by the fact that I'm so grateful for everyone that's volunteering to serve again. Because we've served a pretty full plate on both these commissions between the issues with Park and Recreation and the Historic Commission. The way both commissions have embraced these challenges I'll just go ahead and say it really fulfilling the tradition by our mentor sitting over there, our 12 year planning commissioner. And you see that spirit continuing in all four of these appointments and what these commissions have done. And I just really appreciate it very much. To echo what Councilperson Blatch said, it is integral to how we govern this community, integral.

Absolutely, so thank you.

Okay well do we have a motion? Motion

to approve. I'm ready to approve but is Jenny still waiting or are we done? I believe

the city manager just went to check on that and if it's there's no need to hear from her if it's The check is the check, then you can approve the appointment without her being present as desired.

Okay so we have a motion to approve? And so we don't need a roll call correct Gail?

Let's move on to number three, the public hearing. Fiscal year 22-23 is the

budget adoption.

Thank you Mayor. I'm pulling up a presentation, it's about 12 slides we'll try to keep it brief. Zoom will cooperate let's see Okay, so this is actually I believe the sixth budget workshop this year and so we're going to try to keep it very brief because we've gotten into this in depth over the last three months. One of our lengthier budget processes where we started with a Budget Committee meeting several months back, and we've come back and looked at the general fund, the CIP, Measure C, and all of the different aspects. And now we are bringing back the final budget document with the changes that were identified by the City Council as part of those workshops.

And so I'm going to keep this one fairly high level and because for that reason, at the high level. The big picture for us this year is that we're expecting revenues to increase to more normal levels after several years of reductions due to the impacts of the pandemic. As we'll get to in a couple minutes, the budget this year is proposed to be balanced at $13.4 million, which is an increase over the last couple years where because of the pandemic it was closer to 10 or 11 million dollars and so this is more in line with what we would have expected had it not been for the pandemic. We're finally returning to that normal level. As we do that, we had reduced expenses over the last couple of years because of the impacts of the pandemic. So as we start to get more of that funding, more of the revenues coming in, we've identified four main priorities that we tried to address throughout the budget this year which is deferred maintenance and repairs including our streets as one of the largest projects This year, restoring our service levels.

Continuing the priority projects which we'll talk a little bit more about later such as our parks improvements several of which had been delayed or put on hold and the climate mitigation related projects that are funded by measure by portions of Measure C. And then lastly, building the emergency reserves back to a back to the level that they were and hopefully exceeding the level that they were as we work towards meeting our 50% emergency reserve goal.

And so, again at a high level I think the our position at this point is we're in a strong position coming out of the pandemic. But we're immediately trying to address those items that had been put off. We're trying to budget conservatively and we're trying to prioritize because you never know what the next economic downturn or potential disaster could be You know, waiting in the future. We've had a few in the last couple of years and so that's kind of the high level budget presentation or budget explanation for I'm going to go over very briefly the budget assumptions for budget assumptions.

The general assumptions we made when we put together the budget, we assume that our revenue would continue to recover from the pandemic and that there'd be no new business closures. We assumed that one of the hot topics lately has been the reopening of the Oaks Hotel, which is now known as the Roblar Hotel. Our budget does not assume that reopening is going to occur in the next 12 months, which I think has been confirmed now by the owners of that property who have said they're about 18 months out.

And so this, our budget assumes the same hotels that we currently have. The budget assumes the same cannabis vendors that we currently have without any major changes yet assumed into the budget related to cannabis. We also included based on council feedback some funding to start doing some managing programming potentially at Sewell Park. That's a discussion we're having with the county that will have to come back to the council but we included some funding for that should that occur.

And then the budget also reinstates a transfer to the capital improvement projects from the hotel tax. The city had a 20% transfer policy, we've reinstated that at a 10% level this year trying to start working towards catching up on the deferred maintenance. And so we've gone through this a couple of times, so I won't go through it in depth. But as a reminder, this chart shows our revenues over the last several years.

I think our general summary of it is that most people probably expect hotel tax was what was impacted the most during COVID and it's also what's coming back the strongest after COVID. Property tax, sales tax and cannabis tax are all relatively flat and have been relatively flat. And so the hotel tax seems to be the biggest area where we have swings and that has been strong in recent months and has continued even throughout this budget process to exceed what we had expected.