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0:00 – 0:0831 turns
Roll call — called by Bill Miley · 1 under review
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okay
Agenda Discussionitems moved / continued / pulled — click to expand
And approval of the agenda? A motion to approve? Move to approve. Second. Okay, are we all in favor? Aye. Wonderful. We'll be moving forward now and I just want to say one thing. Considering the fact that the regularly scheduled City Council meetings for late July and early August were both canceled And that some members of the council have now scheduled a special meeting two days after the date that we, or one day after the date that we have regularly scheduled meeting. I feel it's important to provide members of the public the opportunity to provide
public comment on topics that are not on the agenda. So I would like to make a motion to allow public comment this evening?
I'll second. Seconds.
Second
or make move whatever
you want. All in favor? Okay thank you. All right do we have any general public comment Gail? Okay
yeah since no one knew we might want to give an opportunity okay
would anyone like to make general public comment yes
Is this for general comment?
That's for general, yeah. My pen is wearing out.
So just a reminder to everybody, so the general would be not related to the two items on the agenda and then there will be an opportunity to comment on the items on the agenda.
Sure. My name is Peter Pick. It seems to me that fairness and transparency in public meetings went out the window in Ojai tonight. The Brown Act contemplates that we have a 72-hour notice required to the public for regular meetings of the City Council. This, however, is not a regular meeting. This is a special meeting A special meeting has a 24-hour notification requirement.
Why do we think that the notification period for a special meeting is only one third of that for a general meeting? A special meeting is called by the mayor or by the majority of the council to vote on a specific discrete issue That issue is the agenda. In this case, that agenda item was the voter measure about ranked choice voting and about appointing a mayor instead of electing a mayor.
When this special meeting was approved and placed on the calendar, a reasonable member of the public would assume that this agenda for the special meeting is the purpose for which the meeting was approved and called. So a 24-hour notice in that circumstance seems reasonable and adequate. So had council members Haney and Wyrick asked for a special meeting to discuss the proposed pickleball plan, it is not certain at all that they would have been approved to have that special meeting.
Instead, they placed the pickleball item on the agenda for the existing special meeting which has an entirely different stated purpose at the last minute meeting the 24-hour requirement. It's unclear to me if this is legal under the Brown Act but it most certainly is not fair and transparent and I think we should expect better from members of our City Council. Thank you.
Thank you, Peter. Next we have Jeffrey Starkweather.
Here we go again. Good evening mayor, council members, fellow citizens. I wanted to talk about, we had a meeting on Monday with an expert on housing. Some of you went to it. It was very enlightening and a lot of back-and-forth.
Unruly.
Pardon?
It was unruly.
Well hey this is
Ojai.
Energetic. So number one, I'm going to hand this to you because
This particular book that he wrote
is sort of like a guidebook of all the policies. You know, two-thirds may not apply to us but I've learned so much by just reading this of potential policies we could look at and of course it deals with supply which there's a lot of debate about And it deals with stability, which we got into obviously with the development agreement and existing what's called naturally affordable housing.
Which by the way is different than restricted, deed-restricted because a naturally affordable is essentially housing that is substandard or is really old, or doesn't have modern amenities. So therefore it's affordable but it won't stay affordable when you have an increased supply and so deed restricted is what we actually in the business call affordable housing because it will stay affordable Anyway, having been to some meetings when we've debated these issues I have felt as someone who's been spending a lot of time researching this stuff that there has been a lot of misinformation and in some cases disinformation.
So not only does this book give leaders, and I wouldn't recommend anybody read it By the way, my thing's not moving. I'm going to go back to something I brought up at the development agreement meeting. I really think we need an affordable housing either task force or commission and for two reasons. One, I keep hearing everybody's got their idea of what's the solution?
And I won't say them all but I've heard a lot of them. They all sound good. But it seems that we need to coordinate them and come up with a strategy that deals with all three of those things, stability, supply and subsidy. And do it together. The second reason is education. I think this commission would be very useful for an example if this development agreement had come before them first and been vetted You know, we wouldn't have maybe had this gigantic storm. I don't know. But my experience and I was the chair of an affordable housing committee is if you get a diverse group of people, and by the way, I would make sure that Simple Ojai has a representative on there, that if they actually have to discuss these things out and hear each other were more likely to come together with solutions and not just dividing into groups and having petitions and referendums and that sort of thing Thank you.
Thank you, Jeffrey.
I didn't get a warning. Jeff real quick. Stop me there. I see
do we have a time? OK.
Jeff, I watched the video but I want to let you know that the Facebook live feed was really hard to hear so... Yeah, I've heard that. I got my way through it and I heard most of what everything is going on but is that video replayed anywhere? Is it available on YouTube or somewhere else? It's
supposed to be through the Ojai Valley News. So their website. Secondly, I will send everybody because Shane sent me his PowerPoint So I will send you a copy of the PowerPoint. It was kind of small, a little hard to
read. That was the other thing was that if you're watching it on the live feed like I was, you couldn't see the
PowerPoint all the time. Yeah so now you have the PowerPoint and also with YouTube, you can actually make a transcript.
There's a way to do that. Yeah I was actually using closed captioning but if the system couldn't hear it, you couldn't get a closed captioning on. Thank you.
Okay thank you Jeffrey. Next we have Wendy Larner.
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Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity to speak, but I just wanted to say that not all of us can be so extemporaneous. So I would very much have liked to talk about the climate crisis extremism that exists, but I've had no time to prepare, so I kind of object to the fact that public commentary wasn't on the agenda and then all of a sudden it was included. Apparently some of us knew.
The second thing I wanted to say very quickly has to do with our budget. I am very curious how we can have the cost for preparation of resolutions be included in a budget if we don't know what that cost is, and that was indicated upon one of the agenda items tonight. That's all I have to say for now.
Thank you, Wendy. Any more public comments, Gail?
I
had one. OK. Bill Miley?
Good evening for the record. My name is Bill Miley and this has to do with placement of the item on the agenda at the last minute. It seems that when it was done within the last 24 hours plus, it's problematic. The council about seven months ago directed the City Park and Recreation Commission to consider this issue, recommend a policy action on the location and mitigation of pickleball play.
An acoustical study has yet to be done but it's in the planning process. I think what you should do is allow... You've taken it away from them if you allowed this. And you kind of neuter them in a way, in my opinion. So I think you should allow the rec commission to complete their acoustical study. They should present this for a presentation. Excuse me Mr.
Mai.
Community discussion.
Could we, this is on item number two?
I'm not going to comment on the issue. I'm just telling you what I think you should do about it. You shouldn't do it today. And you should allow the REC Commission to make their recommendation to you, since pickleball is a growing sport. And what do you know? The commission's role is sports. Thank you.
Thank you. Any comments online?
If there's anyone in the Zoom queue who would like to speak during general public comments, please use the raise hand function now. And we have one person. Oh, we have two. I'm going to bring in Steve Kolame. Mr. Kolame if you're there, if you would unmute yourself, you can go ahead and speak. There you go.
Thank you and good evening. I am speaking because I have serious process and open government concerns regarding how this meeting was scheduled and noticed. Let's review the unexpected noticing and timing. The regular meetings for July 26th and 29th were canceled at the end of the day on July 20th, two days later near the close of business on Friday, July 22nd a special meeting on in a regular day for the council was scheduled for July 27th with a single agenda item listed Then near the close of business on Tuesday, yesterday July 26th with only slightly more than 24 hour notice. A second agenda item was added to the special meeting.
The agenda for the special meeting did not list a time for general public comments so I appreciate the fact that you're allowing them there here. While the letter of the law in these shortened notices appears to have been met for a declared quote special meeting, it is unclear how this whipsaw of notices is justified for these two items. Particularly when the item added late in the day yesterday involves our historic tennis community and important constituency that has not received reasonable notice for an item of importance to them.
Frankly, this looks either like a scene from the Three Stooges, the Keystone Cops or an intentional subterfuge. Pick your option. It seems to me that our city has more urgent issues particularly when special or emergency meetings need to be agendized. Regardless, this is not the type of open honest and transparent government we have come to and should expect from Ojai. Thank you.
Thank you, Steve. We have one more, Gail?
We have one more. Just one name, Renee. I'll go ahead and bring Renee in. If you're muted, please unmute yourself. There you go. You can go ahead and speak. And if you could give us your last name.
This is Renee Roth. For the record, I got COVID. I'm in day eight of it but I just want you to know I really appreciate the time and effort of that last housing meeting. I learned so much in that very It's been a long, long meeting where many members of the community spoke. The city council members spoke. I watched the video. I learned so much and I'm really think we need to keep that momentum going. I appreciate the time and effort you put into some open discussion with the community where the community can participate, such as what Jeffrey was just talking about.
And so anyway I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing this issue important issue up for discussion and in an open and honest way. Thank you.
Thank you, Renee. And get well soon. Any more? No? All right. We
will-
Madam
Mayor, if I may? Yes. Just a comment on the legality questions that was raised. The policy questions are another matter. On the legality, the present meeting is entirely in compliance with the Brown Act. The Brown Act requires for a special meeting that there be an agenda posted with 24 hours notice. Today's meeting began at 6 p.m. The agenda was originally posted last week, well ahead of 24 hours. The second item was added yesterday at 3.30 p.
Well ahead of the 24-hour deadline, the meeting is legal and can proceed. Thank you.
Thank You Matt If I could just add one thing to you I just want to know One of the comments said that the meeting was canceled July 20th Which I can understand would give the appearance if we're canceling it and scheduling at the same time These meetings were cancelled six weeks ago And so I believe we sent a reminder out July 20th, but the council Cancelled the two summer meetings six weeks ago The items came up after that time
Thank you, James. All right we will move on to discussion item number one, consideration of resolutions to submit two questions to voters, i.e., whether to transition to a rank choice system of voting and or to return to an appointed mayor. James, do we have a presentation?
This one is me as well. So I'll give a brief presentation and then I would invite the council to ask any questions, then take public comment and then deliberate and act as desired. What we have before you are two items that are independent but related. First is a resolution regarding whether to put on the ballot the question of the voters of whether to transition back to an elected... To a appointed mayor from the current elected mayor. Second, whether to shift it to a ranked choice voting system. I'll go through each in a little bit more detail. The elected mayor was created in the city by the voters. It was on the 2014 ballot, took effect in 2016, was on the ballot again in 2018. At both the 2014 and 2018 elections, the voters decided to first create and then maintain an elected mayor.
And an elected mayor means, as we have now, the mayor is elected at large from the entire city on a two-year term. The other four members of council are elected presently by districts split one and three in four year terms. And the item on the ballot would ask the voters if they want to shift back to an appointed mayor. It would take effect with if put on the ballot tonight and if approved by the voters in November It would take effect with the 2024 election. What that would mean is that whoever is elected mayor, whether the present mayor or new mayor in 22 would serve a full two-year term and then on the ballot in 24 it would return to two council members for four year terms so no one who's currently in office leaves office This takes effect after an election.
The council, if the measure is approved by the voters would then need to redistrict to draw five districts rather than the present four unless the rank choice voting item was also done and passed and survived court review but taking the elected mayor out of it by itself it would be five districts to account for five council members that redrawing would also be done after the 22 election, but before the 24 election. And there too if any person who is elected in 22, i.e., this year's election or who was already on the council, if their boundaries changed around them, their seats remain protected. No one is districted out of their seats when we draw five districts, recognizing that five is a tiny number to divide up 8,000 residents and 3,000 or 4,000 voters depending on the year The measure in terms of timing, the deadline to put something on the ballot is August 12th.
Hence this item was added as a special item because the next regular council meeting is August 23rd which is too late. The cost of putting it on the ballot is an estimated $3,000-ish. And I can speak to costs. OK, James will cover costs. I'll go through the law. And the cost of repairing is covered within the budget through existing staff time. So that's the elected mayor item. And then the second one is the ranked choice voting. This is a bit new and different in here it would be To ask the voters if they would like to direct the council to create and implement a ranked choice voting system. Ranked choice voting is a process by which for any given office or offices, the voters are asked not to select one candidate but rather to rank the choices.
So if there's three seats up and four candidates, then the voters are asked to rank their top three preferences one, two, three. When the votes are counted everyone is assigned every ballots first place is assigned to that candidate and they're lined up in order of number of first place choices. The candidate with the lowest number of first place choices is eliminated And their second places are those, each of those ballots is then reviewed to assess the second place. And that ballot then gets shifted to the second place choice and then so on until three are elected or two whatever the number of offices are. So ranked choice voting can be applied with either an elected mayor or with the districts and with an appointed mayor. It can be applied either way.
It's a method for how voters vote not for what they vote on. And here too if the voters If the Council put it on the ballot and the voters approved it at this November election, then it would take effect with the 2024 election which would then be an election for either one council member and elected mayor or for two council members depending on whether the elected mayor item is put on the ballot and whether the voters approve it or not.
The process, if the voters approve the ranked choice voting system would then be direction to council to create and adopt an ordinance governing that process which would then come back in that window between the 22 and 24 elections well ahead of the 24 election. I recognize that there will be a voter education process if ranked choice voting goes through and that will be done, an extensive process done by the staff and council. And we will look to the half dozen cities in the state who have ranked choice voting to not have to reinvent the wheel. I will note on the legality side as detailed in the written reports No law allows a general law city like Ojai, which means the city that exists solely under the state constitution to adopt ranked choice voting.
There is law that allows charter cities who have a voter approved charter and exist by their voters gift to adopt ranked choice voting in all of the, and I apologize it's seven cities in the state who have ranked choice voting. All of them are charter cities. And to my knowledge one of those was challenged and they survived. As I know, there's no law that allows a general law city to do this. If the council were to put it on the ballot and if it were to pass we would likely draw a challenge. We would seek to defend that challenge by arguing that the general constitutional power for cities to adopt all rules regulating their governance should suffice coupled with voter approval. It is uncertain and It's very uncertain whether that challenge would succeed or not.
Again, mindful that no general law city has done it. No law directly allows it. There is a law that says it's not allowed. That's the statute, not a constitutional provision. It would be a difficult battle Not impossible, but not easy. The other piece to bear in mind is that every few years there is a item of pending legislation put on the table that would allow general law cities to expressly adopt rank-choice voting systems. That has failed every time and the fact that a measure has been put on the legislative table to allow cities to adopt rank choice voting will be used against the city if we were to adopt it to contend that we don't have the authority to do so.
If the city switched to a ranked choice voting system, the city could then decide whether or not to delete its districts and switch back to at-large. Which I believe would be the goal given the prior discussions. There too we have no direct insulation against the California Voting Rights Act. No law directly provides nor does any case have considered this. Our argument would be that a ranked choice voting system with at large seats accomplishes the goals of the Voting Rights Act because it allows the voters to express complex preferences, more than up or down. And it ensures that even though the votes would be at large meaning across the whole city individual complex preferences could be expressed through the ranking system And there is support from other cities that have adopted rank choice voting, if you look at their voting patterns against races and community groups other than race to show the complex preferences can get elected and entities outside of the traditional leadership group can get elected.
So there's support for it would there too perhaps be a lawsuit and would be a matter of defending it as best we can. There the cost is James will cover the cost Physically putting it on the ballot, the cost of defending the lawsuits that may or may not follow is uncertain but likely somewhat substantial because we would be again a test case. With that I will pause cease and answer any questions and actually before quickly go over costs real quick
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so uh we did reach out to the county regarding costs and their estimate for each measure is three thousand dollars per measure We looked back at the last two elections related to the elected mayor, to look at all costs because there's county cost but there's also cost for publication and things like that. And so that varied from $6,000 in 2014 to $12,000 in 2018.
And so I think that realistically the real total cost would be in that range as well this year, if we're talking all costs. The elected mayor item, I do want to note that if we only went to elected mayor and we didn't go to rank choice and we did have to redistrict which I believe I couldn't figure out a way we wouldn't have to Just a reminder that we went through redistricting this year, so we have a pretty firm estimate on how much that is. That's about $75,000 each time you redistrict and then as far as the ranked choice goes as the city attorney pointed out there's The potential of whatever legal fees, I just wanted to reiterate that because I think that number is probably bigger than people would expect if we were to do that and if we were to be challenged.
We reached out to Santa Monica to get their legal fees because as you can recall, Santa Monica's a city that's trying to fight the districting which I think we all agree the districting doesn't feel appropriate for Ojai but we didn't want to be the first to take on that fight because of the cost And so you know that might not happen. It may happen, but it's just I wanted everybody to be aware of what another city has paid to take on that battle.
And then just lastly, the public comment about how these resolutions and everything are paid for. When we do them using regular staff time that regular staff times in the budget so that's why we say that these resolutions were created using regular staff time that's included in the budget.
Thank you, Matt. Thank you, James. Very clear. Bill's question?
I have two questions. My understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong as to the question, is that the issue in the Santa Monica case was the appeals court said the districting in small cities does not serve the goals of the California Voter Rights Act. That was the basis of their winning the appeal, my understanding.
Not precisely, they didn't expand it beyond Santa Monica. They said the districting in Santa Monica did not serve the goals but they didn't expand it to
other small cities. Okay, so let me just have two aspects of that I want to ask about. Correct me if I'm wrong again, but I believe that the issue of rank choice voting as an alternative method of serving the goals of the CVRA came up in that case and was in terms of it came up in the testimony and deliberation in that case. I thought that occurred you can correct me if i'm wrong or
maybe... I'm not sure the answer to that question okay um I don't recall that it came up in the opinion of the court of appeal. I didn't read every page of the trial
transcript My point being is that it is recognized as another way of serving the same end, I think. I
think there's support for that in the experience of the other
cities. This is basically a tool for getting to districting, doing away with the districting. The whole point of this is a tool for getting away from the district thing. The charter cities, small charter cities as small as us that are charter cities have succeeded in legal challenges and at least one case is my understanding and so I think Albany?
Yeah, Albany's fairly small.
I forget their exact population. And so my question is Is it possible if the voters want to basically say, I know this is going to open up a can of worms. But if the voters think that it's important enough to get away from districting and this is a tool for getting away from districting where we could also wrap in the question of whether we want to go with the tool of becoming a charter city to accomplish that?
Yes, that can be done. That could be put on the ballot. I'm not saying
I'm advocating for it, I'm asking the question.
Can we do it? Yes. The way to do that would be put on the ballot to adopt a charter. The charter would have provisions that included and mainly be that rank choice voting is adopted if the voters approve the package. You solve the legal problem of a general law city's perhaps inability to adopt rank choice voting because a charter city can definitely do it if the voters approve the charter.
Charter cities enhance local discretion basically.
And then the argument would, playing it out. If we did that and if the voters approved the charter thereby approving a ranked choice voting system, we may still draw a Voting Rights Act challenge and our defense would be the voters have approved it and we'd have to produce as much evidence as we could.
All I'm saying is it depends... The question was to options. It's a
path certainly.
Okay
thank you.
Any other questions, Randy?
Just to follow up on Bill's question. What would it cost to convert us to a charter versus general
law? It's difficult to estimate in this moment. There would be certainly legal fees to write the charter, staff time, council time to write a chart and put it on the ballot. The ballot precise county costs will be the same 3,000 publication costs And we could certainly put together a cost estimate of what that would cost overall. Well, you said- And then the lawsuits that may follow, not necessarily insubstantial?
Yeah. You said earlier you used the word substantial.
Yeah. The lawsuits will be substantial. It just depends on exactly which kinds of challenges we draw. We can put together a cost estimate more than this moment if desired.
I have a question. Is there still, in your opinion, a good possibility that the challenge of removing districting from small towns will go away? Is there any chance?
Those are two different questions. There is a chance, yes, the Supreme Court hasn't yet ruled on the Santa Monica case. Just as a recap for the folks who may not be following it super closely, Santa Monica has an at-large system. They were challenged. The trial court ruled for the plaintiffs. Finding that the at-large system did violate the California Voting Rights Act because it diluted the power of Latino voters and ordered the city to switch to districts. The city appealed, and the Court of Appeal reversed. And the Court of Appeals found in a lengthy opinion that's somewhat meandering, that the districts did not serve the Voting Rights Act goals in Santa Monica In part, citing to a past voter approval of the at-large system and in part citing to fairly extensive data showing that Latino voters' preferences were able to be expressed successfully through the existing at-large system given Santa Monica's politics.
The plaintiffs immediately appealed to State Supreme Court. They took the case and have been sitting on it for quite some time over two years now and have not yet issued a decision when they will is an open question. I at this point do not expect a decision before the election, the court is cognizant of the election, the court is cognizant of what that decision will mean and they're going to at least at a minimum wait until after the August 12th deadline for anything to go on this year's ballot. I wouldn't be surprised if they wait till after the election although they would assert that they are independent from politics.
And I do expect however One timing piece that's new is of this morning, the Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye announced this morning that she is not running for retention in November's election. That means her term will end in January. That means I do expect that she will not leave this to her predecessor or her successor so I do think we will have a decision by January in that case based on this morning's announcement and tea leaf reading.
So there's sort of our timing windows, likely after August 12th but before January. And obviously the moment the decision comes down we'll analyze it and assess because the other possibility is the court could go narrow and say Santa Monica you're affirmed no one... And expressly no one else or they could give us some broad ruling or they could affirm the trial courts original ruling and find that the Court of Appeal was wrong and it's difficult to assess what they may do.
But I do think now with the announcement of not running for retention we will see a decision by January
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So Matt just to confirm if the voters approve an appointed rather than elected mayor And also approve rank-choice voting Can you can't guarantee that we would no longer need districts?
It would then fall to council to decide whether to implement ranked choice voting and districts or ranked choice voting and not districts
Okay, and then
whichever choice they make then lawsuits will follow or may follow
We get sued. What was the name of the law firm that sued us before? The
prior firm was, Kevin Schenkman is the lawyer's name. It's the Schenkman and Hughes is the firm. He always finds a local person and he's the gentleman who has... Gentleman is a strong term. person who has challenged most Voting Rights Act cases. The record is clear per several Court of Appeal decisions that he does so with less of a goal of enforcing the Voting Rights Act, which is an important law and more of a goal of enriching himself.
And that has been his practice since he won a case against Palmdale a dozen years ago The, he was the one who came after us. We took advantage of a statutory settlement process and were able to cap our attorney's fees liability and actually the staff report is slightly wrong. It was $27,000 so it was 10% reduction from the statutory cap thanks to some negotiating.
He would perhaps come again. The other groups that are worth bearing in mind here is because it would be a true test case as opposed to just the money grab, we might draw the Mexican-American Legal Defense Foundation, MALDEF who's been very active in these cases particularly where there was actual concern and potentially other similar voting rights groups.
Thank you and what is I mean if that were to happen can you estimate the financial liability in defending a suit like that?
That's difficult to estimate off the top of my head. It would be several hundred thousand dollars, if not substantially more. It's not cheap to defend these cases for two reasons. One, the lawyer time gets expensive and two, the expert time because the way to win these cases when they have been won and what Santa Monica did for their millions of dollars is to produce very detailed demographic data Breaking down the last dozen elections and showing anything that can be shown to support to show the rationale that the targeted race Had not had their preferences negatively affected by the at-large system and that kind of a detailed analysis gets
expensive So if we had to keep districts, and then we got rid of the mayor Then we would have to redistrict and just to confirm that $75,000 Yeah,
that's what it was this cycle.
Okay? All right Thank you any other questions
Mike.
Ryan.
Matt, if we move forward with putting ranked choice voting on a ballot and it was approved is the council then absolutely required to implement it or is there still discretion on whether or not to move forward based on either changes in the law or fear of litigation? And if it is litigated then they have the decision to be able to withdraw from defending it and just move forward with the old system?
As the measure is currently drafted, it would require rank-choice voting. That could be amended to provide shallow voters authorize the council to use rank choice voting. So there's
a way to be able to have ranked choice voting on the ballot vote for it but not necessarily be burdened with having to implement it immediately if there's uncertainty or fear for litigation costs other things but then it would be available at the councils discretion if it became something that had better legal certainty in the future?
Yes, that can be done.
Thank you.
Any other questions? No? Okay let's move on to public comment. First we have Jane Wild then Jeffrey Starkweather and then Bill Miley.
Thank you. I'm shocked at the cost. Thank you for the information though your third page says that you will supply the audience with the information that you all have been supplied and that was not available. Okay, so in 2014 several men in this town including several on this council in an attempted power grab had this grand idea to seize power of the city by creating an elected mayor.
They envisioned this as a way to control the council because they hadn't quite been able to do it as council members Their inability to run every council meeting because of the rotating mayor position, the inability to dictate to the city manager what they wanted. It was too frustrating for them but the citizens of Ojai were watching and we were not deceived much to their dismay time after time the citizens of Ojai have voted against the candidate that these gentlemen have put forward as the mayor foiling their plans It was humorous at the time, but today this same group including you Mr. Weyrich and Mr. Blatz perhaps Bob Daddy etc went to take back that power that they unwittingly gave to the citizens of Ojai They want a transition to appointed mayor I notice it doesn't say transition back to rotating mayor it says appointing mayor does that mean you get to pick who you have?
The citizens of Ojai are watching and we are not deceived. In fact, in a sleight of hand and perhaps a safeguard against the failure of the first proposal you are also proposing tonight a ranked choice system of voting. Perhaps because you're aware that often your candidates only win when they run unopposed. Why rank system avoiding of voting? I guess you gave us an explanation tonight, but it seems strange in a city where we rarely have more than two candidates running for any position.
Gentlemen, the citizens of Ojai are tired of this whiplash that you have created on this council. We are tired of your inability to use a moral compass and make serious decisions. We are tired of your desire for power, tired of your too thinly veiled misogyny This council is a position of service, not a position of power. We need council members of character and of conscience.
Find yours tonight and vote against on these two proposals. We of the citizens of Ojai are watching and we are not deceived.
Thank you Jane. Next we have Jeffrey Starkweather and then Bill Miley.
0:40 – 0:454 turns
Thank you, Jeffrey Starkweather. I'm approaching this as a former civil rights lawyer and this law is a civil rights law and it has to do with making sure that minorities get a voice so I don't know anything about the history. I wasn't here even though I grew up here and so I can't comment on the conspiracy theories about all of that. If you look at the numbers of our city 12% of the voters are Hispanic.
And if you look at any of the districts, I think maybe the highest is 18%. If you look at the statute talks about the history of discrimination, the use of electoral devices and other voting practices and procedures that may have enhanced Enhance the dilution effects of at-large voting, denial of access to these processes so forth. There is no evidence zero that our at large system discriminated against minorities and prevented them if anything our districts are hurting that.
So let me explain because I've been in at large systems and dealt with minority groups that were spread out just like they are here In a at-large system, and particularly if you have ranked choice voting that gives the minority group a much better chance of having a representative. If you have three people running for a seat and there's one minority and all the minorities get together and vote for that person and then encourage other people to be have their second choice, you could get a minority in office but when we do it in single seats it's much harder to do plus If we really want our officials to be accountable, they should be accountable to all the voters. This is a small, small town. It seems crazy to have these small little districts.
I thank Ryan for his question because it answered my question which is, we could put this on the ballot. And I think, I am not in favor of going to five districts and a mayor. I think that's making it even worse. I think we should go back to an at-large system. If you wanted to rotate the mayor, that would be fine with me. But I think you're much better and fairer and get more representation when you're running three during one cycle and two during the other cycle. And people say there's not enough candidates. Well, you're making it less likely there's gonna be competition when you have five districts or four districts You're more likely to have four or five people because as Susan has learned about where she lives, it doesn't matter where you live.
If anybody wants to run, now we're scrambling around looking for people that live in this district or live in that district It doesn't make any sense. It goes against the civil rights law, I don't even know how much time I got except nine seconds left. So I favor that. I also favor looking to be a charter city because we are a city that wants to be innovative, that wants to do great things. We oughta be cutting edge. I think we oughta go with this approach. Thank you.
Thank You Jeffrey. Next we have Bill Miley then Wendy Larner and then Larry Steingold
Good evening to Bill Miley. So for ranked choice voting, I read in a recent newspaper article about the state of Maine who used ranked choice voting statewide and it worked with no voter confusion and I thought that was really good. So as I understand it is a relatively recent method of getting political officers elected by greater majorities It seems to me, let you know I think I understand it.
That it brings out more voters and allows a person to just vote on one or if there are multiple ones you can vote from top to bottom. You can choose how many you rank. Unless the candidate gets a majority on the first count ranked choice voting then takes effect. This keeps the focus on candidates who are supported by the most voters It continues until a candidate either gets a majority or there are two left, and then whoever has the largest number wins.
So I like the potential for having increased voter support for the candidate who wins. Regarding an elected mayor or council-elected mayor, twice in the past I voted for a two year elected mayor by the citizens. I've changed my opinion Since a voter-elected mayor chances the possibility that a candidate has no experience as a City Council person or has strong experience from another field, which may not sync with government bureaucracy or a deliberate small d democratic process.
I now support a council elected rotating membership. However, I read the logic in the administrative memo reasoning about returning to an open council election rather than districts. And I'm not sure that I understand that but I have an opinion. Since we are a small city and get to know council folks pretty well, most of us, I would support having open city elections if lawful And to me it would be a nice, small, deep democratic process to have. So let's try it.
Thank you Bill. Next we have Wendy Larner and then Larry Steingold.
0:45 – 0:519 turns
Thanks for letting me speak. I just have lots of questions. I wondered what does appointing a mayor mean? By whom? revolving so is it an election on the board? Can somebody say yes or no. And I wondered, I was reading about the safe harbor provision that brought us to this place in some of the background materials and I was wondering and I think Councilman Blatz almost touched on it, is what would have happened if we had just kept on doing what we were doing and waited to be sued and then complied rather than fight it and wait for some other city that has more money than we do make the change. Does that cost us money?
Of course, that's yesterday's history so it can't be changed but I was curious about that how that might play into this. And I wonder too about rank choice if anybody has done charting to show how it I think it's unfair that we only talk about racial minorities, but there are also ideological minorities or people who have different political positions on things. Could they have some representation on the board even if it was only one half of a board member?
My questions, I think this is a very confusing issue and I am curious as well to know who brought it to this. You know, I look back and I saw that it was brought up once in May but I don't really know how it came to the board. Thank you.
Madam Mayor, I'm having to answer a couple of questions there. The most important one there is if the council returns to an appointed mayor it would be appointed from the five City Council members by the five City Council members so it has to be appointed from the council. Historically the city used a rotating mayor but the rotation was still an annual appointment. The rotation was not baked into law and once or twice was deviated from It would be an appointed mayor and that council could choose how they wish to set it up, whether to create a culture of rotation or to create just an appointment on an ad hoc basis. The appointment could be for one year, it could be for two years, it would be up to the council to create but it's appointed by the council from the council if the voters choose to return to an appointed mayor.
The key is that the distinction is between appointed from the five council versus elected by the voters. The present mayor is elected by the voters, the voters alone choose the mayor, the council cannot override that choice. Thank you.
Does that answer all your questions Wendy? In terms of how this got on the agenda?
The original item came to the agenda with a request from Council Members Blatz and Wyrick then the full council directed Yeah, at the last meeting or the meeting before that to have the resolutions prepared both in public and at the last meeting. It was discussed
at the last meeting before the summer break under future agenda items because of the time sensitivity it has to come before the next regular meeting then the entire council agreed to bring it back.
And that ties back to the ballot deadline of August 12th And our next regular meeting is August 23rd. So it's about preserving freedom of choice for the council. It is still up to the council whether to adopt or not adopt their choices. The last question that I'll answer is the what if question, had the council in 2018 not decided to switch to adopt a resolution and go through the process to switch the districts?
The city could have been sued likely would have been sued given Shankman's history ensuing every other city that had objected Sent an objection and proceeded. The lawsuit once filed carries an attorney's fees risk, that was the key thing we avoided. Most cities that actually every city except Santa Monica that fought lost and even Santa Monica lost in trial court most of the cities didn't take it to the Court of Appeal there may have been one or two via a side deal but those of them, those either had the charter city situation or some other unique circumstance.
The cities that fought and lost owed several hundred thousand to several million dollars in attorney's fees so the key thing that this the council avoided in 2018 was a potential financial hit of several hundred thousand to several million dollars in order to preserve an at-large voting system versus making the switch taking advantage of the statutory safe harbor which capped Shenkman's fees at $30,000 from which we then negotiated a discount paying only $27,000 in fees to him plus his law firm and then of course the redistricting costs.
Thank you. Just correct me if I'm wrong but my memory if it's serving me properly is that we were issued a notice of intent to be sued Yes, that's correct. We were told basically you're going to be sued if you don't go to districting and exercise a safe harbor. So we did have an intent.
That is correct. He sent the intent-to-sue letter which under the statute then triggered a window for us to respond. And then the council selected on the first meeting in December 2018 to adopt the resolution switch to districts. And then we did the process from there. Thank you. Thank you.
Next we have Larry Steingold.
0:51 – 1:0723 turns
Good evening. Larry Steingold, taxpayer, citizen and property owner of Ojai. Regarding the mayor, come from a location back east where a lot of the mayors end up in jail. And they do it with character. They piss on people, throw rocks, give out tickets. It's not whether you have a mayor or not, it's what you give him or her what power you give them. Because if they have no power, let them go to a fire. Let them go to a bridge opening. OK, if they have no power you can elect them all day long. Big deal. It doesn't matter. So whether you have power or don't have power that's the issue not whether they're elected or not. If they have no power, elect them. Makes everybody feel good. Okay. Regarding the ranked voting, I don't have a clue.
Okay? I read on the internet. I look on the internet. I look under fairvote.org. I look under rankvoting.inc. They help pay fairvoting.org to raise money. They're backed by people...I don't know. Don't care. Don't know what it means. Everybody says it's a good thing, then it must have something wrong. What are the unintended consequences? All I know is when I see ranked voting, I see some elected official convincing four or five people to go run. He pays them off. They suck away votes. He gets elected. I see nothing but grief.
Okay, because that's where I come from. This is for real. They hire people, they make deals. Oh Senator you want to run? If I win you get this, if he wins I get that. It also helps organized parties. For example we're not a town big enough that has a union plant with 1,000 workers who can all vote. But we do have organizations here, whether it's the pickleball people who have 200 or it's the tennis people that have 200 or simply OI or some other organization. They can provide a organized operation so they can have 200-300 votes. They throw a couple of people in there. It distracts from voting. So I propose that you table this thing. You have a committee of voters, nonpartisan, bipartisan, And they review it, and they look at it from our standpoint because you keep saying the city.
It's not the city, it's the voters. We are the city. Okay? Voting is a privilege. It is a right. I don't know what this does. I don't know if it hurts my vote. It takes away my vote. It puts somebody else in there. and put it on the shelf, let us look at it. Let somebody look at it. Let them look at what are the unintended results? What are the bad things that could happen down the road? Are we going to do away with political parties because that's what it does? We can have 30 people running for city council.
Wouldn't it be great all from District 3? Okay you'd love that right or seriously if you can find a place seriously 40-50 people we can have how many did what's across the run $10 to get on the ballot? How much? How much for the governor 20 votes, right? You have to get 10 signatures to get on the ballot. Great. OK, anyway, make it sunset. Thank
you,
Larry. Put it on the table. Thank you.
Goodbye. Any other cards in the basket, Gail?
I want his autograph.
We have John Merck next.
Good evening, council members. I just wanted to share with you how excited it was when I saw item one on the agenda. I'm thrilled that you're considering the idea of moving back to having a mayor who is appointed or however selected instead of having elected mayor. No disrespect to Mayor Sticks but I just think the elected mayor system has Enhanced whatever dysfunction there might be in the City Council to begin with and I'm very glad to see it moving off into history and I I'm kind of in favor the idea of ranked source voting too. I think That sets us up well as mr Summers was saying in case we want to get rid of that whole districting thing We'd be well positioned to do that as well. So thank you for all your support
Thank You John any comments on zoom Gail
If there's anyone in the Zoom queue who would like to speak on this item, please use the raised hand function now. And we have two people raising their hands. Oh, now we have four. I'm going to pull up Catherine Lattice and Ms. Lattice you can go ahead and speak if you're muted. Please unmute yourself. There you go. You can go ahead.
Thank you. Good evening Council, Mayor and staff. These are complicated questions instituting ranked choice voting and rotating mayor to be considering in such a hasty manner as a last minute special meeting. Complicated questions deserve more in-depth consideration And I question why you're dedicating staff time and resources to this matter when we just got done spending a lot of money on establishing districts, and then re-establishing district boundaries to comply with state law. And because we didn't want to become fodder for predatory lawyers and expensive lawsuits We haven't even really had a chance to figure out whether the districts work or don't work for us. So before we go spending a lot more, why shouldn't we give the districts a real try?
Why do we want to put our city at risk for legal expenses if this idea doesn't pan out? Can't we let other cities perhaps more carefree and less risk-averse with a larger tax base be the test case If we eliminate the elected mayor, we will need to add another district as was already explained. With the end result that all of our districts would be made even smaller And they are now. And is that really a good idea?
My thoughts are the districts comply with state law and each district elects one member of city council, and to balance that out we have an at large elected mayor. Let's give it a go for awhile and spend our money on other important things like paving our crumbling streets I mean, even spending substantial quote free time staff time takes away from attention and staff resources to other high priority city priorities. And also don't forget that not so long ago we spent a lot of money putting measures for charter city and elected mayor on the ballot only the elected mayor won And may I remind everyone, somebody else did this. Existing council members who are both on the council now at that time heartfully supported an elected mayor.
I really feel that we would be foolish to rush ahead at this time with these proposed ballot measures appropriate action and change is always possible in the future with much more in-depth consideration of this issue thank you.
Thank you, Kathy.
Next we have Linda Garrett. Ms. Garrett I'm going to ask you to unmute yourself and you can go ahead and speak. There you go. You can go ahead.
Hello?
Can you hear me? Yes, we can.
Good evening. Linda Garrett, Ojai native. And I want to say hello to the Ojai City Council and to Mayor Sticks And I just wanna echo everything that Commissioner Lattice just said. We just did all, we just went through a voting system in 2014-2016 where we changed to elect our mayor. We did not want the appointed mayor and then we just went through a whole redistricting process but we liked the districts and we're finally getting some candidates to run against you.
And we're working now to get some diverse candidates Which is what this whole thing is about, correct? Get other people to be working in the city of Ojai and to working for the people of Ojai. Why I don't understand why with all the issues we just went through a battle where the housing issue what two weeks ago and why would you bring this to the agenda now? I don't understand.
I just understand why Councilman Blatz and Councilman Weirich which happened to be competing against each other in the same district. Why would they be allowed to bring this up to the council at this point, in a special meeting when you canceled your summer meetings? Everybody's gone on vacation. It seems a little disingenuous to me that you are having meetings, a special meeting when you cancel your regular meetings and luckily I was able to come back but anyway Can you answer some questions as to why and how this is put on the agenda after we've already discussed this matter for a few years of the citizens of Ojai and voted on it? And secondly, I think that you must do more homework because the city of Albany has 20,000 residents. Santa Monica over 100,000 residents.
They don't in any way compared to Ojai zero. I know both those cities very well, zero comparison So for you to keep comparing us Ojai to Santa Monica and what Santa Monica is gonna do, that's just insane to me. Anyway, thank you, bye.
Thank you Linda.
Next we have Renee Roth and I'll go ahead and bring her in. Ms. Roth you can go ahead... You're unmuted, you can go ahead and speak.
Hello, good evening again. Thank you for letting me speak. I am so glad that this showed up in this special meeting. I am so glad that you're starting to finally deal with the mess that this whole districting thing has brought upon our city. It doesn't fit here. It really doesn't fit here. I've seen it become so dysfunctional and so crazy for people to not know where they're voting, who their representative is. The districts just don't work in this community. We're a small knit community if we need to find out where our city council person is, we can find you it's pretty easy to do so I really am glad you brought this meeting up this topic up that these are going to be on the ballot I read both ballot measures and I went, number one is not going to pass because it's way too complicated.
Number two is going to pass because at least it seems simple and back to what we're familiar with. And I hope that's the outcome. That's all. Thank you. Thank you, Renee.
We have one more just one name. It says Nigel. I'll go ahead and bring him in. And where is it? There you go. You can go ahead and speak.
Hey everybody, there I am. I'm calling in from Florida, Nigel Chisholm. Live in Ojai and you all know me on the council. So I'll make this short and sweet for you which is exactly the opposite of what normally do. I was a proponent of districting and I was in favour of an elected mayor but I am no longer in favour of either. In my view districts as they are in Ojai at least because they're so tiny are inherently undemocratic For example, if I was to choose to run for council, I'd need about 400-450 votes to be elected to council.
As it stands, if we were at large that number would be 1500-1700 people and that is a lot more democratic. With regards to an elected mayor I don't have a problem, particularly with either of the mayors that we've had. I just think that it hasn't worked out as planned. I always liked the idea of being able to point my finger at somebody and say you're responsible for this but that isn't exactly what's happened and i think as a previous speaker said it's created distraction uh and there's some sort of misunderstanding of what everybody's roles are in this. It's created more division And definitely a lot more politics in our little burg, which we all love and we all want the best for.
With regard to some previous speakers who have said essentially they don't want to change horse in midstream because we don't know what's on the other side. Me? If my horse is drowning in the middle of the stream I want to get off it and I want to get to the other side under my own power if possible. Also of the voting with regard to ranked choice. I think that's an inherently fair system, although the gentleman from back east who spoke does have some quite fair points about that to be fair. So a district in if we can get rid of it and I doubt we can Let's get rid of it. Elected Mayor, let's get rid of it. Have the Council do what they've done for the history of this town which worked just fine I think in retrospect and I was wrong on that.
And let's get this town back to where it can be and where it should be which is a collegial atmosphere on the City Council. Again, the last speaker said it quite correctly And all of you council members know it from me, is if I want to say something to you, I'll seek you out and I'll find you. So with that thanks very much. I really do appreciate the job that every one of you do. It's thankless and you all do it to your best, your ability. I know that so off you go. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Nigel. Is that
it? We have one more, Stephen Colomay. I'll go ahead and bring him in. And there you go. You can go ahead and speak.
Yeah, thank you. I wasn't going to speak on this issue until my previous two friends had given their presentation. I fully agree that the districts do not serve well a small community like Ojai But I do not know why we would want to invite the challenge from voting rights bounty hunters and the potentially extraordinary legal costs involved in that. I suggest that we should not be the spear of the head and take the potential risk of these legal costs. A far more prudent approach would be to wait and see what happens in other jurisdictions, and then very deliberately determine how we want to organize our council. I think you all have higher priorities now like road maintenance, and we don't need to be doing this. And we don't need to be doing this in haste at the last minute in order to make a filing deadline.
Thank you.
1:07 – 1:2422 turns
Thank you Steve. Okay, we'll move on to discussion.
May I make a suggestion? Could we separate our discussion on the two items. Okay, yeah. Maybe start with the mayor because that's easier. Okay sure okay go ahead Well, that was all I was prepared to say. But my understanding of, I mean I can easily see pros and cons to the elected mayor and the rotating appointed mayor. I like the previous system. I was a mayor back in 2000 because my recollection is that it was rotating, there wasn't politicizing. I think it was rare. I can't remember a time when somebody didn't get their turn.
You know correct if anybody remembers different, but my Recollection was there was an understanding that we all deserved a term and it was mostly Our powers were equal still we had the same power as the other as our colleagues and it was more a ceremonial position you know you represent the city and I It worked fine. I am in favor of that system, but if the public You know all we're doing here tonight is deciding whether it's worth putting on the ballot and I would like to, I wish we could have had a survey so that we could decide whether you know I'd like to be able to read the public rather than spend the money put it on the ballot and have it be defeated.
So you know if there were, I wish we could have done that if we didn't have the deadline You know we could just take a free poll, how people feel about it then we would know whether we should put it on the ballot or not. But yes my, so while I personally favor the rotating mayor system, I can also, I also heard what Kathy one of the speakers Kathy Lotta said it's very new. Perhaps we should give it a chance you know this we've only had three elections right for the elected mayor and the other consideration is the cost yeah okay that's all I have for now.
Phil?
Yeah, for the record I've been very consistent from the beginning. I thought this collegial system we had was a good one. I thought it worked well so my public and private position was against going to the elected mayor both times it was on the ballot And then I further felt like if it was going to be an elected mayor, it should be the same term as the rest of the council. So I thought that the choice for two years that was put on the ballot that voters selected was awkward for the structure or the functioning of the council. But the voters have chosen twice to go with the elected mayor.
The two-year term.
And the two-year term. I just disagree with it in terms of being, you know, that's just my opinion and it takes away from the collegiality of the council but it has been before the voters twice so I respect that. I don't really have a problem now that we've had more experience with it to see what the sense of the voters is. Again, the best poll is a vote. The only other comment that I would make.
I mean, I think I would like to see us find a way to get rid of districts and go back to five equal council members with the position of mayor being rotated. But I'm going to reserve the rest of my comments for the tool of possibly advancing getting rid of districts.
Randy?
So I seconded Ryan's motion on this, and I think I was pretty clear in what I was speaking to. And that was I just see the dysfunction of all the money that's being spent on electing a mayor every two years. And I also see the dysfunction of this tribal mentality that I never saw before until that happened. And I also made it clear that it had nothing to do with you, but it had everything to do with just the makeup of doing this every two years The angst that it creates in a community, those were my thoughts.
Listening to tonight and then which again I didn't even put into the calculations two weeks ago was the fact that we'd have to redistrict which would cost another $75,000. Personally, I'd rather take that $75 thousand and spend in the community And give it to organizations that actually need it and could use it versus us fighting over this two-year thing. So, that's where I am on the mayor is... Again as much as I dislike it, I can go either way on it.
But like you said, I just dislike it because of the angst and the dysfunction and the hostility that I see in this community since it was initiated. So if we can figure out how to remove that, I'd be 100% behind moving forward and just keep this position being elected. May
I ask a question about the fee, the redistricting cost as you brought up? Every 10 years we have to redistrict anyway. So theoretically if we held off eight more years that would be a good time to see how people feel about the system and then we wouldn't have to spend Is that right we wouldn't have to spend the money in
right? Yeah, if you timed it where instead of having to redistrict in 2030 It took effect at that time. Then then that would be
The way to do that would be put it on the 2028 ballot And then if the voters approved under whichever method is lawful at that time yeah not districts Then he would skip the 2030 redistricting So
wait, that was I was thinking
let me break that down. So one option if the goal is to not have to pay to redistrict in 20 and in 22 and then again in 2030 would be to put on the ballot in 28 or sometime 28 whether to adopt them, whether it's ranked choice voting or whatever the method is to not district. Then in 30 you wouldn't have if the voters approved it in 28 it would take effect with 30 and there'd be no redistricting
But my question was, if we went back to the rotating mayor position in 2028 and it passed or 2026 whatever. And it passed and went into effect that we wouldn't have to pay twice? Oh
I see your question. That is also correct. If the question of switching from the elected mayor to an appointed mayor was on the ballot in 28 then it would take effect with a 30 election And we would have to redistrict once in 30 to draw five, and we wouldn't have to redistrict.
That is correct. Yeah, you'd have to spend that money anyway. We wouldn't have to spend an extra... Is that correct? If we still have this, hopefully we won't even have it by then.
Yes, because the districts that were drawn this year would be in place for 22, 24, 26 and 28. 28 would be a two-year mayor term then if the voters approved in 28 switching from elected mayor to appointed mayor then we would have The five districts. We'd have to draw five districts, but we would draw those in 30 to take effect with the 30 elections. So yeah that would allow us to not have to redistrict twice if you defer it six years
from 22-28. Does anyone follow that? Randy?
I just wanted to say so now we're talking 2028 and my wife will not allow me to be hanging out around this group until that time frame. So that isn't going to occur, but so 2028 is a long way off. And that's not a- But I get your point and I think it's a great point to think in those terms. Let's let that body in 2028 decide if that's the choice they want to make.
It's an option. My
name was used in a statement A number of years ago, this elected mayor came up because there was a lot of backroom dealing. There's a little bit of power play. There was a little bit of trading and that was pretty disgusting and The reason for the elected mayor was we passed the gavel around every year. When we just got people up to speed, they just got the hang of it, they just understood the entire process. They were gone. We've got somebody brand new and we've got somebody brand new in every year that started over the process every year. We didn't have the continuity in the meantime. People came on and people came off And it was dysfunctional, it is dysfunctional. This point was to allow the mayor to be able to mature for a few years. Let the people decide who they wanted.
I was very passionate with Carol Smith with that. It was about letting the people decided what they wanted not council. I had a discussion with the city manager and Johnny Johnson, the prior mayor two years ago. When they put on the ballot we want to go four years. I said as the owner of the paper, I'm going to oppose this. Two years is fine. We have an election every two years anyhow. There's no extra cost. We're doing it every two years so we can elect a mayor every two years.
So we've done this three times I'm not going to get into the rank choice and all that stuff. I'm against all that. I think what we need to do is keep this the way it is. We do not have a minority district that we're suppressing when the largest minority we have is 16.1%. We don't have a majority that we can stack into a district. This is solely about maturity, maturation, understanding.
So when somebody said I was here to change this, I don't support this. I opposed it the prior election. I opposed it the other election and I'll oppose at this election. It needs to stay where it is. Let the people decide who's going to be mayor of this community.
Thank you Bob. Ryan?
Thank you. First of all, the toxicity that's come along with this directly elected mayor position is not right for Ojai. It's a change in the way Ojai politics has happened and it has followed this position since it started to the point where I considered Jane Weil a friend of mine until about 10-20 minutes ago and she decided to bring up misogyny, backroom deals You know, citing that we're somehow doing this for all the wrong reasons. But I brought this up as a power grab which I've heard more than ever recently and it's so absurd. I have a massive amount of people who thought this was a bad idea and don't like it now and have reached out to me saying can we finally get this undone?
It's worth taking to the voters again. I don't understand why people are here saying, why are you going to implement this tonight? We're obviously not implementing anything tonight. We're not even implementing ranked choice voting. We can do a poll about it but what we're talking about is doing the biggest poll we do which is having an election. Now if people don't want it, what is the guarantee it's gonna go forward? What is there any promise? I know the voting stats on it, it's been two-to-one twice. I'm not here to make beds in a burning house. We're not going to get this done, but there is over 50% of this community that doesn't understand that the mayor's position has no additional authority that it runs for two years they don't understand how it works and they're not at these meetings all the time and they don't have a clear concept of why we do this.
I was the representative at the Southern California Association of Governments for our city. I told numerous people at the table I was at that we had an election this year. They said, oh how many seats are up in your council? Oh, we have two over here. How many do you guys have? We have three up here and over here. Are you running again? Are you running again? Well they come to us and go well Three seats up and the mayor's spot. And they look at me and go, what? What are you guys possibly doing up there? How does that work? How can it even be like that? We're the only city pretty much our size in the entire state that has a directly elected mayor. They all rotate.
And none of them have it where it's split between multiple districts and one district on even an odd years. They're all even numbered years, but every other election is this peculiar situation. And it hasn't worked. It's caused a massive amount of divisiveness. There is no power grab because there's no power to be had by getting this thing done for anybody. What's caused is people in the community not understanding what's going on. We got to fix that back or at least try. I hope that people, if they want to support this will get their arms wrapped around it and change it this time. If they don't then this may be the last chance maybe it happens again in 20 years but it has seriously undermined and caused so much toxicity on this council that for those of you who are here you've probably seen it for everybody else out there I'm telling you it exists.
It exists so bad I am not running for office again I can't stand The toxicity and the crap, frankly, that's coming on this board by the manipulation and the frank over-politicization of every single issue we bring up. I'm all for public input but we stopped doing that. We're packing the house with people on one side or the other who have a prewritten script who say exactly what the other person says and it's no longer trying to be a group effort of having a dialogue. It's turned into one camp. The first political campaign in Ojai ran I laughed the entire time because the two candidates were the same age, same height, same weight, didn't argue about anything.
We're all different shades of the same color around here. We're hardly thinking of this town differently. The reason it stayed the same forever is because most of us agree, it should stay pretty much the same with some advancements here or there but we're losing all of that and there's not anybody I know who wants to run in this election but a very select few. We're not gaining candidates. We'r e losing good people because this process is horrific.
Sit there for six and a half hours and listen to the misinformation people have And it's not because they didn't research it or aren't smart, it's because they're being spoon-fed false disinformation by a group of people who are trying to politicize the mayor's position in order to score political points where we don't do that in Ojai. I didn't start my political career in Ojai where this happened so if we want to put this on a ballot I hope people understand what we're trying to do but You know, saying that we're misogynist by putting this on. Saying that we are power grabbing and putting this on. I wish some of that fervor and energy Mrs. Weil you'd put towards your job over at the Unified School District frankly because we don't need it in here and we're trying our darndest to make this best so when i leave here i'm hoping to make it better than when i left and one thing that would make this council better is getting rid of the directly elected mayor
1:24 – 1:2936 turns
Thank you and I appreciate all the input from my council members. I think it's really important to listen to the voters, and the voters have already voted twice on this issue in the last 10 years. In 2014 66% of the voters chose to have an elected mayor. In 2018 Council Member Weirich put the question of ending the elected mayor to the voters and 65%, almost the same number of the voters that year, chose to continue electing the mayor.
So are we sure that we really want to ask the voters the same question for the third time? That's my question. I think we've heard from any final comments, are we ready for a motion?
Well, alls I would comment on that is third time's a charm but I'm ready for a motion.
The actual cost is $3,000. Correct, Dave?
That's the county costs for the measure. I would say total cost will probably be between like I said the last two are six to 12,000
Just just just for the elected mayor not the other one
right right
so six to twelve thousand
because it's the county costs plus you know put notices in the newspaper that kind of thing
And then if it passes, we go to five. Unless the ranked choice voting also passes or there's some miracle in January, then we are forced to go to the five districts.
And so we'd have to redistrict?
And
that's 75,000. It was $75,000 this year.
Then I have a question about that because we had to do redistricting under the entire area and everything in a different process it's under you know for each after post-election year is would that process be identical or is there any saved costs on it? Do we know I mean we didn't get a quote because we just wanted to talk about this tonight but do we know that it would be the same cost or the same number of public meetings and all those other things that are built into this already required?
The statutory process is the same The exact cost, obviously we'd get a quote. But the statutory process is the same. There's not an error or process for a mid-cycle redistricting.
A follow up on that? Bill? Yeah. Would the demographic information developed from that census data 2020 be able to re-rolled over to that issue since we're not having a new census?
Yes, because we are required to use the census. There may be some savings there, yes. Because the analysis has already been done? That is correct, but we would still have to go through the same process.
Are you saying that then the next time we have to do it is 10 years from ... We would gain two years?
No, it's every census. U.S. Constitution, the federal constitution requires a census every 10 years on the 10th 2000 2010 2020 that triggers redistricting so that would not change it's every ten years every to every tenth year so 2000 2010 2020 2030 that's the redistricting the redistricting process and that's tied to the federal census and that's unlikely to ever change
Randy
I just wanted to clarify something that I just heard. Just help me out with this, because now I'm getting confused. The discussion that we just had was about the mayor position. And then I just heard it conflated that if we do that, now we're locked into the rank choice position
No. We'd have to create a fifth district. That's
correct, for the fifth council member who would... Right. I get
that
but I heard
ranked choice involved in this too and I'm not going to vote for that. So I just wanted to make sure we didn't conflate it. We would have to if it voted to move forward If it passes, we recognize that we're going to have to redistrict. Correct. And the amount of money associated to it right now, we could go bottom 75, high a little greater, $100,000, something of that nature. Yeah.
It was $75,000 this year. I think the original estimate from the company was 60 to 90. So that's probably a good range.
OK. Thank you. And they've already done a significant amount of the diversity. Census work. Look at after the census data and it'll be the same data. There's no new data, right? So
Okay, are we ready for a motion?
Can we just have a pause. This is extremely difficult because of the cost you know versus what I want to see happen versus the cost Like Randy said there's a lot of things we could do with seventy five two hundred thousand dollars especially it's You know, we I don't know how the community feels so
We don't know what the cost is, but we can put that on the ballot. There will be an economic recommendation or economic impact on the ballot. Would that include the costs for redistricting if it passes, Matt?
The impartial analysis will include that, yes. So
the voters are going to get to see it.
Thank you. Is anyone ready for a motion?
Yeah I'll make a motion, but we're giving Sousa her minute.
What?
Sousa said she needed a second.
1:29 – 1:3530 turns
I'll
make a motion then that we on the next ballot put on two companion items, one that we move out of the get rid of the directly elected mayor position and have it go to an appointment that the council will decide on protocols for at that point. I don't know Matt can we include in that that it becomes rotating or is it just more appropriate? I know all the other communities do appointments but The public to misunderstand that this is not some attempt to appoint mayors. It's an attempt to take it out of the, you know, the voting area and leave it back to just however whoever's on the council at that time just decides or if they want to rotate they can decide they're going to rotate every time.
You could bake rotation into the ballot measure
Yeah, I would want to definitely see the word rotating.
OK so then we let's let's say we'll make a motion that we're going to have a we had we would get rid of the directly elected mayor and have a rotating mayor and then a companion measure that again would you know have the two or four year term decided by the public as well. Oh so you want to
wait a minute.
That is new. So, well every time we've done this before it's added the two or four year term and if we're going...
Bring it back to
uh...
First
of all Suze it's my motion so I'm not really sure what you're commenting
on. Okay I'll wait until you're done. I need
clarification. We don't have to do it but every time we brought this up before we've asked the voters one do they want to do it and do they want it to be for two or four years? I'm happy excluding the two or four year element out of it. I don't care about changing that but it's always been a companion issue because I would rather, I think that there's been you know Mayor Johnson used to complain about having to run every two years all the time. There's different issues with that but let me just make the motion for this to make it simpler. Let's just say to get rid of the directly elected mayor position and to have a rotating mayor.
Do we have a second? Okay and we need a roll call on this Gail. I'm sorry do
you want to say something? I just, I'm sorry that I misunderstood. I thought you were saying that the rotating position was two or four years. I misunderstood you thank you for your clarification I appreciate that.
Okay roll call please Gail
Roll-call vote Passed 3–2 · 1 under review
Show transcript
Okay thank you. All right let's move on to the ranked choice voting
I have a question though before we move on. Do we want to vote on the other part of your motion? I
rescinded it, but I'll leave that up to if anybody wants to make a motion.
We
don't need to. I don't think we need to. If we were going to bring it up, I was concerned there's some confusion because when you vote and you see that there's a two or four year term you're voting on Sometimes I think people assume that that's already in existence when they were voting to create it versus the other way around So, I just assume not see the change. Okay four years if it doesn't pass it will stay at two years
Okay, we're gonna move on to the rank-choice voting now bill you want comment?
Yeah, I'm gonna argue that we consider Going and putting this on the ballot by and I believe the purpose of Stipulated by Mr. Blatz and Mr. Summers can concur, that if we change the wording from shall the voters require the use of rank choice voting to shall the voters authorize at the discretion of council the use of rank choice voting? We're getting a sense of the voters as long as well as a tool to potentially use to give us our best shot at getting rid of the districting. And that would give us a sense of how important that the voters feel it is for us to be given that tool without binding our hands into having to get into onerous and expensive litigation.
Thank you bill Sousa.
Yeah, do you? So when we describe what rank-choice voting is Can we add that the county has a computer? The county can can handle it because people they when they first read it They wonder how are the votes counted right but there is a sit as a program in place But the county already has is my understanding That can count the votes
Yes, that can be included in the ballot materials via my impartial analysis if the matter is put on the
ballot. And to the question of whether we should wait or not I think the fact that we were asking the voters if they want to authorize this as opposed to requiring it provides a chance for the debate, for a chance for the public education as to all the issues. It focuses the public mind and that's why I think that given what I hear from many many people is concerned about districting.
That this is our only and best shot to give us a tool to look at this again, and we put it before the voters so that would be my motion is to change the word require to authorize at the discretion of council and put on the
ballot. And the description will make it clear that this would allow for at-large elections?
Yes
You know the Ojai Valley News did a quick
1:36 – 1:4110 turns
rendering or a quick blurb about this, what's it called? Rank choice. Rank choice. And I read it. It was probably half page, three quarters of the page long. I couldn't understand it when they tried explaining it. I just see that this is a solution that you guys are looking for a problem for. And it doesn't, I didn't ask for your input right now.
Please bring it back to the chair.
So the interesting thing with districting, if we want to touch on that. I don't know because we're doing it for the first time. I'm running. You know what? If I could win, I could lose. I told you it's not about that. It's about what the community wants. It is what the citizens want. And this is a choice that council has kind of come up with and drummed up, and kind of thrown into the community's face. I haven't had any community member come to me or come to a council meeting suggesting that we do this unless I'm wrong on that, but I'm pretty sure I'm not.
So I don't get it. If I'm running and there's four people running, and I don't get 51% and the people that supported me let's say I got 49. Well you gotta have 51 right to win outright? So that means we eliminate someone from the bottom this is where it gets convoluted so we eliminate the bottom person We take their votes and we re-add them to the other three, which means the guy or the woman that had the second most might win to the person that had the most votes.
Help me understand how that is going to help this community elect somebody. It's one vote, one person. That's what we should be basing these elections on, and now what we're doing is we're conflating them to one vote only if you get 51%, and then we're gonna recount it. And then if you don't get 51% we're gonna recount it again, and then maybe someone will win.
I can't go there.
Susan
yeah, I think the critical difference is that Your election will be at large. Okay, and I'll use myself as an example I'm the only council member so far that was elected by district. I think I had Something like well how did I have 600 votes? And my opponent had 300 votes whereas in the past I would have a thousand and five hundred votes
Actually won by 35 votes
Let's one person at a time, no cross talk. Please continue Susan.
Whatever, but the reason the underlying reason for doing this is so that right now we have Three people running in one district. We have one person running as far as I know in the remaining districts They could end up running unopposed if we had at-large voting all five of the people currently running and Would be elected at large. Everybody could go back to voting for three empty seats, or if we go back to the rotating mayor, they would have four votes. Right now no one in District 4, it's gonna hit people when the ballots come out. A lot of people don't really realize the reality. None of the people in District 4 are voting for a council member this election, okay?
The other people are going to look at the ballot and they're going to see someone that they really think should be on the council, but then we're going to realize they can't vote for them. There right now people are limited to the people that are running in their district and to me that's the opposite of democracy in a small town. The town is way too small for that kind of Separate for that kind of separation, right? So that's the underlying motive to go to a system that if the reason it looks complicated It's because we don't understand it yet. But there are cities that have unanimous Unanimously passed it and once we you know, I'm trying to understand it It is a fair and democratic way of voting and maybe the town's not ready for that but I think We need to give people a chance to go back at large elections.
And I like that we're not obligated to it, if there's a change and the state or whoever is the boss of us gets rid of the district, that lawyer gets rid of this districting, they will never have to use it if we don't want to, is that correct? If in January we get news that a small town like Ojai is no longer divided up into four or five, it'll still be four districts at that point.
Then the council may decide okay we don't need to complicate things. We are already gonna be at large for the next election.
As proposed that would be the council's choice yes if the voters approved it.
That's my train of thought. I like that it is optional whether we instigate it or not.
1:41 – 1:4920 turns
Yeah, well just to speak to your point Randy it is confusing. It is new nobody's supposed to totally get it yet this isn't a hearing to impose it it's a hearing to put it on a ballot with an educational period until November then it wouldn't even be implemented then at some point it'd be put on an agenda there'll be a public hearing about it at that point the public would be involved again that point the council would have an opportunity to decide whether they're implementing it under whatever conditions were going on at that moment or to not do it So this would give them the flexibility to do that. If we don't do it this way, then if it does come up that we do want to do it and everybody finally understands what it is or it starts taking off in other places, then we have to wait till the next election and then it can't be imposed until the election after that.
So it's a big window that we're trying to shut down. And I'm with you. I mean, it is kind of confusing but if it wasn't for the districting, I don't know if this wouldn't be necessarily fixing a problem. But the district thing, this is the problem that might help fix or find a way to do it. People don't understand like this next election there's going to be four separate candidate forms and dialogues for each position mayor and the three different council seats They're all the same issues in Ojai. There's hardly different issues going on a District 1 than a District 3 and a District 2, but we're gonna separate it all out and you're gonna have to wait and try and figure out the time where your district, you can hear your candidates in a smaller field that may not make this a lot more efficient easier.
The reality is we don't have a nationally televised election in Ojai. It's not on, you know, all the channels all the time. Gosh knows we think were that important but it turns out CNN doesn't and when we look at this it just doesn't have a lot of value to our community. We haven't found I haven't find anybody to talk about it but we haven't found any good reasons that districting makes a lot of sense and wait till you see the confusion that's going to happen for example where I live District 1 I've pulled at two places in the past, and I've done this many times. One is at the church at the bottom of Foothill, and one is at The Gables. Neither of those are in District 1 anymore.
So I don't even know if where my polling place is gonna be or if there's gonna be one. I don't know if the county has figured it out. The other thing is, I ran so many elections in town when they were counting the votes of the county. There's so many provisional ballots that get cast in Ojai because people don't know they don't live in the city. They go to a polling place in the city. Their address doesn't check out, they get what's called a provisional slip. They write a declaration that says this is where I live, they give them the ballot, that goes back to the county, county looks at the address sees the person's name goes oh you weren't in that area you should have been out of the city well we can't count these particular things you voted on so sorry even though you voted for council in Ojai because you live in Miners Oaks you're not allowed to vote on that and I've had conversations with the county and I still don't think they understand where the city limits are And I sure as heck don't trust them to know where the districts are that we've had.
I've been in two districts and never ran in either of them. That's how complicated this is getting, so I just feel like this is not something that has a big benefit and has a bunch of problems that are going to be associated with it. So if we can put something out there that doesn't lock us in, doesn't force us to be stuck spending thousands or hundreds of thousands to defend it. Doesn't put us in the crosshairs of the state. Then if there is any tweak in the armor and an option to go there that's helpful then I trust who's ever sitting on this council later on and the public to give their input on whether or not at that point it should be implemented rather than be stuck with a bad system for another four years.
Thank you and I really appreciate council members diving deep in it because it is complicated and thank you staff, and I'm really grateful about that. And I just am uncomfortable making this change at this point until we have a better understanding how it works. I agree with Randy. You know, we have to look at the city's financial interest. And so I think exploring what other cities are doing already and learning from them really seems to be the most prudent approach to this at this point.
Bill?
Point of order. Did I get a second to my motion?
Not yet, Bill.
OK. I'll
second your motion. I didn't even know you made a motion, so.
I didn't know
either. I
don't think you did. No, I made the motion that we change the wording from shall the voters require, shall shall the voters authorize the use of ranked choice voting at the discretion of council?
OK. Any other comments? Randy.
So again, it's like driving down the street and all the air is in all my tires. And I panic thinking I have a puncture and I don't. I'm just lost here. And then this, the conflating of because we have districts and we haven't seen how that plays out, we need to wrap ourselves in some form of a security blanket called rank choice which if I'm correct on this Matt there's maybe 11 other cities in the state of California?
This is not like- Less
than that it's seven I think
Yeah, this is not like the latest greatest got to do it. Got to have it when can we get it thing? It's another one of these things that why don't we try it better yet? Why don't we vote on it and then we'll figure out if we like it and try it again even if it's $3,000. It's a waste of money. It just it's a solution looking for a problem.
Thank you.
I'm sorry
Ryan
Randy to use your analogy you're driving down the road and you don't know whether you got a puncture But what do you have in the back of your car? You have a spare tire in case That's what this is Yeah,
I guess you have a
fancier car yeah, the other thing is that The districting is what's new. You're acting like this, I mean that's what's new. This isn't a response to the problem we had under regular at-large voting. This is a problem that we're foreseeing that you frankly kind of agreed with about the districting and this is the only solution to it that's even viable because we can't go backwards and undo the districts any other way. This is not a solution that I would be supportive of If we weren't stuck in the districting quagmire. And that's what this is it's an opera, it's an option for that if it goes forward if they decide to lift districting and we still have a directly elected mayor, the council at that point can say this is stupid we're throwing it out we're not going to implement this, and then the districts disappear.
But the only way is that at some point, they say look the only way a small city like oh I can get rid of districts. is through the use of voter choice, you know, voter choice ranking stuff. Then whether we have that in the toolbox or not is a big deal and it take potentially two years to get it on a ballot and two years to implement so that's the only reason none of this is going to get shoved down anybody's throat and be used for a while and it may never get used at all but if we don't and that opportunity's there I think we're gonna look back at this moment say man we're stuck with what we got here for a lot longer than we wanted yet we've all almost unanimously with very few other Even public speakers saying that the districts are a good idea for Ojai.
And maybe they're not as bad, but this doesn't force anybody to do anything. Of course they've got to find their polling place to even vote on this thing right? We're going to see how they do that. Any
final comments? The word if...
1:49 – 1:508 turns
Because this is all an if. If this happens, this happens or if this happens that happens or if-if-if. I'm sorry. I just can't support and if.
We have a few different opinions here. Is someone ready for a motion? Okay, can you repeat it? And if
you'll permit me let me restate the motion as I understand it. So it would be to adopt a resolution submitting to the voters of the city the question whether to transition to electing council members city-wide by rank choice voting and the precise text of the ballot measure would be shall the voters authorize at the discretion of the City Council the use of ranked choice voting also known as instant runoff voting and allowing voters to rate candidates for elected office in order of preference to elect city offices at large, thereby amending the Ojai Municipal Code to no longer elect City Council members by district if the City Council implements it starting with the November 2024 general election.
That's mad, that's a mouthful. Okay we have a motion, do we have a second?
Yes I can move.
Okay roll call please Gail.
Roll-call vote Passed 3–2 move. Okay roll call
Show transcript
Okay, thank you. All right let's take a five minute break and we'll come back with item number two. Thank
you. Mayor, we're 0-2 tonight so far. We're 0-ers.
1:58 – 2:0414 turns
Okay, call to order. We are back if you could find your seats and come to quiet please. Okay we are moving on. Excuse me everybody if you could find your seats and come to quiet out there. Hello? Okay, item number two. Request from two council members for an update on Parks and Recreation Ad Hoc Committee on Pickleball and Acoustical Consultant Engagement including possible direction regarding use of city facilities for summer pickleball use. James we have a staff report?
Yeah, I'll provide the status update that was requested. And then I'll turn it back over to council. For anybody who is unaware, the task of reviewing Pickleball and making recommendations regarding Pickleball was sent to the Parks and Rec Commission to review. The Parks and Rec Commission has been working on it since their March 3rd 2022 meeting They prepared a survey, reviewed the results and then prepared an RFP request for proposal with the Parks and Rec supervisor for acoustical sound engineering review.
Over the last month or so, they received four proposals from sound engineering firms. And then ironically the committee met today to start reviewing those four proposals. They had a meeting at about I think it was 2 or 3 p.m. today. And so the status at this point is that the committee and the Parks and Rec supervisor are reviewing the sound engineering studies.
The next steps would be choosing a firm, which I would work with them and the Parks and Rec supervisor to do and bring back to council. And then the next steps would be to perform the sound engineering study. I think one of the comments in this are in the City Council item it talks about summer Scheduling and so the only point I want to make is that I do not expect that to be completed Before you know over the next before a couple more months, so I think it'll take a few months
Thank you, James. So do we have a question? OK. Yeah,
sure. I was the one who made the original motion two years ago to do this acoustical study. And so now we're looking at another two months before it even would be approved because of the summer recess. You said come back to the council after a recommendation is made.
So it wouldn't take two months to approve the agreement. I was estimating that it would take two to three months for the report to be completed.
OK, it'd be the report. But you don't need council approval to go forward with the engagement?
I don't think so, but I will say it depends on the cost of the contract. If it's over- We already authorized a certain amount of money for that. Right, but if the bid selected is above the staff authority then it would have to be
approved by council. So if the quote comes in within the budget already authorized we can proceed with getting this done and not waiting for us to come back after summer recess? Correct. And that would be the plan. All right thank you.
Thank you, Randy. I just had to do a simple clarification. I'm the one who requested that this be placed on the agenda and I asked for Councilman Widerick to give me a second my request was to My request originally was to the city manager to work with the pickleball folks and figure out how to get some relief from the heat by allowing them to play on public facilities for two months.
It somehow, some way got conflated into this discussion over acoustical sound studies and all of these other things That was not the intent of this request tonight. It was a simple one and I'll reiterate it later on because I'm looking at all these folks that are here, and again after last two weeks council session this was the last thing that I wanted to see was a brouhaha over something As simple as a community action with five council members and taking a vote and doing it up or down So we'll see how it plays out. But that was the goal not all of this other stuff
Okay, are we ready to move on to public comment?
Just to be clear was due to the heat microphone you wanted to allow Due to the hot weather, which I sympathize with, you wanted to rather than further disturb the neighbors by asking to extend the hours. Your thinking was that it would be better to move to have evening hours or what were the?
We'll get into that.
Okay we'll begin with public comment first we have Bill Miley then Brenda Kraut and then Tim Kraut
Okay.
2:04 – 2:1014 turns
Good evening, Bill Miley. I support your council To reaffirm that the Park and Recreation Commission has given a direction by you to continue working on this solely, and to authorize the pickleball. Now if you go ahead and authorize the pickleball to be played on Libby tennis courts, this is a real problem. To help focus this controversy onto the science of sound, our group which is now known as Citizens for a Sound Pickleball Policy has produced a white paper on sound and pickleball play entitled Sound Facts Behind the Noise.
We digitally distributed it to the council yesterday, the Park and Recreation Commission, the Pickleball Association today. And I have hard copies for the council and a few for the table out there. So Gail, would you take those over to Gail? And please pass those around to everybody on the dais. And then Gail would you put these or Gail out there? OK.
Bill, for a clarification. Are these the same things that was in our packet that we received?
No.
Is this the sound study by... This is
the sound study that we sent you digitally yesterday. We
received that.
It's a hard copy. You received
that?
Yeah, we received it a half hour before the...
Well, that's not... We sent it to the city yesterday evening. So I have no control over when it gets to you. I'm sorry about that. And this is a research document not to be dealt with tonight really but we hope to bring all the stakeholders together to look at the issues agree What's in there or what's not in there, or what's wrong? Straighten it out and come up with a win-win. That's what we want.
And to summarize I guess, Soule Park courts, in our opinion is the solution and it may take awhile to get there and trouble to get there but everybody wins And the issue is not to take the sound issue we have here in the courts and put it in the Libbey Park Tennis Courts. It will be just as bad, if not worse. Thank you.
Thank you Bill. Next we have Brenda Kraut and then Tim Kraut and then Peter Pick.
Hi, I'm Brenda Kraut. I'm part of the Pickleball community and normally I'd have something kind of prepared to say but we really didn't know. We were surprised about this being on the agenda and didn't know exactly what the content was going to be but one thing that I can say is that here has been talking about Ojai as a community and how small we are with the voting. Well, we are a small community and it's really just a shame Surprising really that there is so much contention about one group of our community utilizing a public facility.
That Libbey Park or any of the parks in the city as far as I can understand, is for the use of all of the citizens not just selected members. And selected groups. So we do as Randy mentioned, as all of you know it's very hot in Ojai in the afternoon and it's been very hot the past few weeks. We are able to play in the afternoon out here at 230 starting with the hottest part of the day and then we can only play till 630 right when it's almost starting to cool off So we do need some relief. We have facilities that are underutilized, you can go over at Libby any time of the day and all of the courts are not full.
Can we please maintain decorum and allow the speaker to finish, and let's all practice civility. Thank you. Well
I would hope so. I mean, I hope that we're all adults here, and that you could allow one person to speak that is not on your team, and listen to that, and not take up my time by your booze. Like I said, everybody agrees that this is a small community. We all pay taxes to support the public facilities that we have. And we should all be able to utilize them in manners that are enjoyable to a large group of people.
We aren't talking about three or four people wanting to use a public facility, this is a big group of voting citizens that are wanting to use the city's public facilities The grant deeds on both of these facilities say it's for public use. It doesn't say for only tennis players, it doesn't say that so I think we need to have a rethink how we're looking at the public facilities. So we thank you for all your support so far and the fact that we have our beautiful court and we do enjoy that tremendously in the mornings and when it's not 110 out there
2:10 – 2:189 turns
Next we have Tim Kraut, then Peter Pick, then Leslie Gachet.
Good evening, Madam Mayor, council members, staff. You were elected to make the tough decisions. Please take all the information that's brought to you into consideration before you make a decision. We all know that the valley has very limited space for public recreation. We all know that Libbey Park is sparsely used. Please allow this vacant space to be used by the community.
This recreation usage is in line with the restrictions that are on the deed My hope is we can all Be considerate of each other Concerned and come to equal and equitable solutions Let's make Libbey Park a multi-sport facility and not just a single sport for just a few Thank you
Thank you, Tim. Next we have Peter Pick then Leslie Gachet and then Duane Williamson.
Good evening again. As I said previously my name is Peter Pick and I'm also a member of the Citizens for a Sound Pickleball Policy. Our group is concerned about the noise pollution that comes with the sport of pickleball. And the impact it has on the residents and the neighbors who live around the court. And it's astonishing to me that this fact is never acknowledged by the people who come up here, you know, who support Pickleball.
As you know many of us have been coming to City Council meetings and Parks & Rec meetings over many years with concerns about this noise. This is not a new thing. In the most basic terms, we think that the noise from the courts is a violation of the city's current noise ordinance. Our group has been trying to make this argument with facts and not just personal opinion.
Because the issue is very complex, as the Council and the Commission has acknowledged, we decided to publish a white paper which summarizes some of the pertinent facts as they relate to our concern. We were planning to send this white paper to the council and the commission in an organized and deliberate manner. However, the last minute addition of this item to the agenda created the need to send it out without the proper introduction.
So I apologize that you guys didn't see this but that was not the intent. And I think it highlights the fact that there needs to be proper notification of these meetings to the public. I encourage you to read the paper. It lays out some logical tools and frameworks with which we can approach this issue. I find it curious that we are here to discuss the expansion of Pickleball at Libbey Park when we have not resolved the current issue that we have at City Hall.
If the city found a building code violation, they would not allow the building to continue. They would shut it down, they would ask for a remedial plan and then they would restart only once they were satisfied that the violation has been cured. The same goes for any other kind of code violation that the city has to deal with. So, but here we are. After many complaints, after the neighbors have patiently waited for the council and the Parks and Rec Commission to take action, we're here now to look at a proposal to actually expand the issue.
So we're going to make the noise issue for the neighbors worse. Instead of doing a summer trial of Pickleball and Libbey Park, why don't we propose to do a three-month moratorium on Pickleball at City Hall and give the residents a break from the noise? And maybe if the neighbors like to have their quiet and peaceful neighborhood next, we could make that moratorium permanent.
Thank you Peter. Next we have Leslie Gachet then Duane Williamson and then Carolyn Burke
Hi, it's Leslie Gosh. Good evening. Sorry,
French accent.
That's all right. Thank you. First I want to respond to the courts not being used. That is absolutely not true. I played on those courts yesterday morning and my friends were waiting at 830 and they're sitting right outside. They were waiting for courts and a court did not free up till around 9 o'clock. Tonight driving here at 550, I swung by the courts All the lower courts were full. People were playing on them, so please do not say that those courts are not utilized.
So I'm here because we've been discussing this for many years. And you know me, I've spoken here before and I just am trying to understand why the Pickleball Group has not investigated the possibility of creating a pickleball center at Soule Park? That is my argument. What is the drawback? You have no neighbors there You have no neighbors to disrupt, all right? And you can have plenty of parking. You can create a large pickleball center with more than just four pickleball courts or eight. You can have 16 courts for 64 players. You could have a true pickleball center which can become a destination for tournaments, players from across the nation if you want.
So I'm one of the four founding members of the Soule Park Paddle Tennis Center, and we were able to complete this task of turning or creating three paddle tennis courts at Soule Park in within two years. Now as a group, we presented... We made presentations to the county And they finally accepted, they signed the petition. And we started fundraising. We went before all the civic organizations and we received help from The Lions Club. They helped resurface the courts. Our fences were donated by a benefactor but we were able to do this. Steve Bennett came up on opening day And it's great. People are still enjoying those courts, those courts are maintained by us. We purchased the umbrellas, the benches, we have created a paddle tennis center.
So my question is that why do the pickleball groups not create their own center out at Soule Park. There's plenty of room, what's the downside? So thank you.
Thank you Leslie. Next we have Dwayne Williamson then Carolyn Burke and then Karen Quimby
2:18 – 2:266 turns
First of all, I appreciate the time this evening. Thank you. I'm speaking as a pickleball player but tonight I'm going to represent the Ojai Valley Tennis Club who are on the board of directors and first of all I want to clear up most tennis players also play pickleball A lot of pickleball players play tennis, so it's not necessarily pickleball versus tennis.
And we have to come to a resolution where we come together and get a viable option. I just want to remind the Council about Resolution 1018 and certain restrictions and requirements on the use of lower Libby courts. I think you're all familiar with that. Some of the background is in the discussion of April 2010, the Ojai Valley Tennis Club recently completed a number of improvements to the lower Libby tennis court complex. The $240,000 project was accomplished without the use of any city funds. All work was done by OVTC and the work was fully funded by OVRTC.
The most important part is the facilities were more than 30 years old and could not continue to be used for tennis without improvements. The city didn't step up, it was Yohai Valley Tennis Club who did that at that time. We have continued to do that just this past year we upgraded it. There's many cities, Ventura has eight courts at Camino Real. The city has not invested it, there's no group like the Ojai Valley Tennis Club. Those courts are totally disrepaired.
Exact same thing with the Oxnard Tennis Center. So the Ojai Tennis Club has invested a lot. The city acknowledges that with the resolution Accepting all improvements in the real property known as the Lower Libby Tennis Court Complex and recognizing and giving priority to the Ojai Valley Tennis Club for the use of the Lower Libby courts and facilities. Everybody thinks about the Ojai Tennis Tournament, but also says for club-sponsored youth clinics and non-profit tournaments.
We put on five separate events besides the Ojai Tennis Tournament. We have a holiday tournament. We have a high performance clinic. And we have various junior tournaments by the Ventura County Junior Tennis Association. So it raises a question if you're going to consider any of the courts at Libbey Park What's this transition going to look like? Who is going to be responsible for transitioning the pickleball to tennis, tennis to back. What's that going to look like if there is some damage to the court who is going to pay for that court?
In the past the club has stepped up and as I mentioned it has done all of that stuff so I just want to say I think by considering lower Libby you are adding to this friction between tennis and pickleball in having to make a solution. We think that's a win-win, not only for pickleball players but also for tennis players as well. So thank you for your time.
Thank you Duane. Next we have Carolyn Burke then Karen Quimby and then Mark Weil
Good evening, thank you for your time tonight. When I said I was going to talk tonight someone asked me are you pro pickleball or are you anti-pickleball? And I said you don't have to be one of either of those what I am is I'm pro pickleball finding or creating a permanent facility where they can play whenever they want under the lights they can play without keep having these interruptions and complaints about noise So Park might be that answer.
I want to especially talk to you about the noise tonight. You were you received that white paper which I read today was really detailed and informative. I encourage you to read that when those courts were built here at City Hall. I'm not sure if the noise problem was addressed correctly, but it certainly by moving to Lower Libby or adding to Lower Libby is just literally kicking that problem down the road.
Right down the road. I think we need to find a solution to the problem not just move it to a new neighborhood where new people are then affected by the noise. The city of Ojai as you're aware has a noise ordinance and the purpose of that is to maintain a quiet and comfortable living environment in it. The way it's stated it says that no person shall operate a cat gas powered lawnmower lawn edger riding tractor or any other machinery equipment or mechanical electric device which creates a loud, raucous or impulsive sound between the hours of 6 p.m and 8 a.m.
In that white paper it describes the levels of noises and pickleball noise is perceived as exactly that. It's loud, it's raucous and it's impulsive. If pickleball players want to play in the evening when it's cooler, which I totally understand It violates that time ordinance because that ordinances from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m.. It's also my understanding that the sound study has not been conducted yet like you said I think it's premature to approve the use of more pickleball courts at another court until we have the results of that study and I know that I've heard that people say oh we should just get along and make this work And I truly believe that's what people want to have happen. We do want to get along and make it work, and I really fully support Pickleball finding or creating a permanent facility.
I think that would be great. It would be something that would bring people to our community. I truly feel like when you hear these comments tonight the community is telling you that this isn't a good solution to the problem, that we need to still find out a better solution. So I encourage you to just listen to that message. Recently the Ojai Valley Tennis Club, The Civic Association and The City work together to resurface the courts at Libby. And I would encourage the Pickleball nonprofit group to do the same thing and create a plan for how they can also create a facility that works for them, so thank you.
Thank you Carolyn. Next we have Karen Quimby then Mark Weil and then Katrina Schmidt.
Hi Mayor, Councilmembers. I'm up here going to be a bit of a broken record My name is Karen Quimby my family owns the apartments directly across the street from the current pickleball courts just over 100 feet away and as you'll read in your in the white paper we now believe having researched this that the city is violating its own noise ordinance by having louder decibels actually seven hours a day, you know, seven days a week that are disturbing the neighbors.
And so now I've been submitting daily complaints about this noise pollution. I'll cut to the chase here. I get that people don't want to play pickleball in 100 degree heat, why not offer up the Boyd Center in the hours that it's not being used by other groups to allow pickleball to be played inside in the evenings perhaps? Certain times during the day when it's not in use that people can play Over the summer time, especially in the cool of an air conditioned inside arena court.
So that's an immediate suggestion for this issue of not having enough hours to play and wanting to play. In a cooler environment and then of course I you know Second and third all the suggestion that that Seoul Park can become a pickleball center it won't disturb the neighbors and Pickleball players can we can play to their heart's content. Thank you
Thank You Karen next wave mark while then Katrina Schmidt, and then Robin Gerber
2:26 – 2:3610 turns
Mr.. Lutz What did you say?
You're up. Oh, thank you.
Mark Weil. How are you all? Thank you all again for your service, for serving tonight and listening to all of us. There's one thing that I've learned in 25 years living in Ojai, and that is that this is a fair and just community. And that's what I love about it. There is no angst. There is no us versus them. I wish we would all stop. It is not there. That's not there. That doesn't exist.
As Dwayne said, we are the same people. Tennis, pickleball, it doesn't matter. This is about what's fair and what's just. That's it. So what is fair? It is again people invested. We raise money. We take care. We do all of these things to maintain those tennis courts. The group that is pushing for Libbey Park, it's not fair. That's our only issue with this and you got to listen to that.
It's not fair and it's not right. That's all that matters. Other spots... James? Am I losing you there? Other spots are completely viable. Soule Park is completely viable. Leslie proved that Her group did that. It's there, you guys let's investigate. We've offered as the Ojai Valley Tennis Club to help we want to help these are the same people we are the same okay so history and tradition again you can't get around that this city is really in which I agree the history into tradition here You can't miss it, Libbey Park is 125 years old for tennis.
That's what it was built for. It's not a multi-use park like Sarzotti. If a bunch of dirt bike kids came and said hey, it's a public park we want to use it for dirt bikes on court six you wouldn't say yes to that, that's crazy. It' not designed for multi-use. And it's not maintained as a multi-use. It's a tennis park, it's a park... Well the upper part is different but so history and tradition when we change the color of the courts We had to go through the historical society I mean and then we want to put pickleball lines down? We just spent 20 grand of our money on changing the color and actually improving the court So what's fair that's all we're concerned about Let's do something right. Let's do the fair and right thing, okay? I've got 23 seconds left.
I want to say one more thing about Jane Wilde. She actually busts her ass in her work so anybody that implies that she's not busting her ass is wrong, okay? She has volunteered for Topatopa School, Matilaha. She's volunteered in the classroom. She did that long before she was elected to the board. So pick on somebody else, okay? Thanks.
Thank you, Mark. Next we have Katrina Schmidt and Robin Gerber and then Bob Daddy. Katrina? Is that a dog?
Is that my dog? Did it escape?
All right, quiet please.
Good evening. My name is Katrina Schmidt. I live in the city of Ojai. I have a few questions to ponder. Why would this council attempt to move a known noisy activity, which has clearly been a nuisance to the neighbors from its current location here at City Hall to Libbey Park in the center of town, which is not even a block away? And why transfer that nuisance?
Why take a beautiful, newly resurfaced tennis court that has been built and maintained via the tennis community with substantial financial assistance and elbow grease? And continually it's been used for tennis and the tennis tournament. And give it away to another group, sports group who wants an easy way out of gaining their own facility. Why allow the Pickleball Organization to follow their national and formulaic ambassador handbook? They actually have a handbook, how to take away courts from tennis.
How to steal courts from the tennis community to happen here. Why allow that to happen here? These are not underutilized courts. These are not dilapidated courts, and they are not quote-unquote courts that are in disrepair. The pristine Libbey Park Courts do not include the things that the handbook encourages pickleball ambassadors to prove to city councils around the nation.
Tennis is thriving at Livvy Park, where tennis is played and the historic tennis tournament has been operating continuously since 1896. It is the oldest tennis tournament in the nation that is continuously operating. Ojai is recognized as one of the most important tennis locales in the world which by the way was mapped and displayed at the International Hall of Fame in Rhode Island. Went there it was amazing!
Ojai is on the map with Wimbledon and the French Open. Little Ojai, it's important. This tournament is very important. Why would the council push for one sport at the expense of another? Why is the council allowing this community divisiveness to happen when it doesn't have to? Many people play both tennis and pickleball, and each sport deserves its own courts.
Pickleball and tennis side-by-side is not good. There's noise issues. Shared courts do not effectively work. You can't just take the nets off and put it on for the pickleball and then back on for tennis. It doesn't work that way. Why isn't the council encouraging and helping the Puyallup community spend their focus and energy finding and fundraising for their own purpose-built courts, both temporary and permanent? Put an end to this madness. Take Libbey Park Tennis Courts off the table for shared courts even on a temporary basis. Thank you.
Thank You Katrina Next we have Robin Gerber and then Bob Daddy and then Leslie Rule
Whoa, can I let Bob go first? I'm Robin Gerber. You know we hear a lot about the rule of law now it doesn't just govern at the federal level it's at every level even down to little Ojai and one thing I have really admired about you Councilman Haney is your integrity around that And on January 25th, when we were all sitting around in Libby Bowl freezing and talking about pickleball and seeing the maps and the pictures and having this big meeting about what should happen.
And you are the one who said, who called this meeting? Why are we having this meeting? We're not following regular order. And so the whole council voted and said this We are directing Parks and Rec Commission to work with staff on an accelerated basis to gather information, return it to council regarding costs, deed restrictions, and other factors regarding the situation of pickleball courts within the city in the Valley.
And so everyone together sent it back to Parks and Rec. And we have a really great parks and rec commission, by the way right now. And we have two great people working on this and that is the regular order. And even though I understand that you feel just doing this for a limited time is no big deal when you step out of regular order turn on your TV and watch the news when you lose sight of the rule of law mischief is created And that is what's going to happen here, even if you do this for a couple of months.
Now I know also Councilman Haney and all of you care about all of us working together and I wish I could tell you have the power to make that happen as legislators but you don't The truth is that people are starting to work together. I'm happy that Karen Quimby, happy to hear you formed an organization, non-governmental organizations. We have that for tennis.
We have that for pickleball hopefully. We'll all start actually talking to each other, I'm happy to do that. Others have expressed that they would be happy to do that and we will work together because that is the O Highway but I really would invite you now Councilman Haney step away from this effort to ignore the very rules that you asked to be followed and just let the rec commission go ahead And give us this study and let's move forward as you had all intended. Thank you.
Thank you, Robin. Next we have Bob Daddy and then Leslie Rule. Okay. Leslie, do you want to go ahead?
2:36 – 2:4710 turns
Hi, my name is Leslie rule. I'm a citizen a taxpayer a homeowner District three I voted for Sousa but I think I got bill all good So There's a couple of things that I want to point out. One of them is we learned in kindergarten to share, so five years old, we got that. Fair and reasonable, what's fair and reasonable if you're a tennis player? That was just stated. What's fair and reasonable if you're a pickleball player is something completely different. So fair and reasonable really depends on what you're looking at and who you are. A couple of things I wanted to mention.
I go by Libby Courts numerous times a day, both upper and lower. I ride my bike all around. I honestly don't see the usage that is being claimed. I honestly do not. So I would suggest that we actually ask the Park & Rec Commission to do some sort of survey and let's get some demographic data Let's not just say, oh they're fully used. I drive by there a couple of times a day back and forth and they are not.
Okay, I say no, they say yes, he said she said whatever but the park and rec department should know if those carts are being utilized. They should have that information and so if they don't they should get it and they should provide that to us so we can make a reasonable decision. Yes, so I would say that would be an action item. Ask them to come up with demographic usage data. Let's see and so I would say yes tennis players are an important constituency with a revered history in a deep emotional bond of the courts but that does not make the courts theirs and quite honestly change happens and even it happens to games and that is part of innovation as we said earlier appropriate action With change is needed I will just point out pickleball is also a very important constituency as Brenda pointed out.
We need more courts not different courts people say why not Soule Park I've explained this to the park and rec department I will explain it again here we bike twenty five years of planning has been to put. Things that the community uses in the community, not send them out of the community. We will then put cars driving down the middle of Ojai Ave and 150 people who bike will not be able to bike. So what we're essentially doing is we're sending them outside, we're putting them in their cars, we' re asking them to drive. That's not something that really happens now.
I'm just going to close on this about community and how much we value community. Yesterday, a teacher who was on vacation came and he asked about playing pickleball. We told him we have pickleball paddles for you, we have balls, do you just come? He came today with his child. Earlier today a Spanish couple, elderly couple of course they're my age so they're not really elderly but they came didn't really speak English wanted to know about pickleball we told them all about it said there were rackets you can borrow there are balls you can use yeah I know so I'm ending now.
Point is It's growing all the time. Thank you.
And I'm going to ask the audience to refrain from comments, thank you. Any comments online? Gail? Anyone
in the Zoom queue who would like to speak on this item please use the raise hand function now and we've got five people so the first person is Mike Borders. I'm going to bring him in Mr. Borders if you're muted please go ahead and unmute yourself Okay, can you hear me? Yes.
I mainly wanted to discuss one term that is used frequently and that is city assets. Numerous people talk about Libbey Park being a city asset. It's a city park for the benefit of the entire community. Yes, that's technically true but every asset that the city has has a history And Libbey Park has a unique history. Specifically, it was provided and maintained over the years with private funds.
The city since the inception of those courts in 1896, the city actually didn't even take possession of Libbey Park until 1970. But over the 120 some year history of those tennis courts, it was over 80% of the funding to maintain those courts was private funding. City has contributed about 20% over the last 100 years. Now technically they're city assets, city can do anything they want with those assets however The reason we in the tennis community are so protective of those courts, aside from meeting the courts for the tennis usage.
It's the fact that private tennis community funded those courts and maintains those courts it's not like So we're looking at our courts, not our courts but we sort of view them as our courts. We're looking at those courts being suddenly turned over to use of a non-tennis group who hasn't contributed anything to the maintenance or funding of those courts. Taxes don't maintain those courts so that's really what I wanted to mention and I think if you sort of Keep that in mind. It'll maybe change your perspective a bit about how Libbey Park should be utilized, and I think that's all I have to say at this point.
Thank you,
Mike. Next we have Renee Roth. I'll bring her in. Ms. Roth, you can go ahead and there you go. You can speak.
I'll be very brief. It's really sad to me that the Pickleball people are being seen as the stepchild with no place to go and no land to call their own, and being stepped on and accused of things that I really do not think are fair. My husband plays, I used to play tennis until my knees went really bad. I love the tennis community. I love the Ojai tournament but we also love the pickleball game and they really need a place to go and I really applaud that this city is actually using city owned assets to try to create a recreational place Temporarily, for them to be able to play in the hot summer sun. I think this is a great idea. I think it should be applauded and I think everybody should try to figure out how to make it work. Thank you very much.
Thank you Renee.
Next we have Catherine Lattice. I'll go ahead and bring her in. There you go. You can go ahead and speak.
Good evening again, Council Mayor and staff. My name is Kathy Laudis and I'm a resident of Ojai. So I really am disturbed at the last minute addition of this item on your special meeting agenda appearing just to bear 24 hours prior to a meeting also scheduled last minute but Never mind that, I mean we're moving on. I am also offended that every time this issue of tennis court use by pickleball players comes up the tennis players in this community seem to always be left out of the conversation And as typified by the title on the agenda for this item, it's misleading. There is absolutely no mention of the use of tennis courts for pickleball play only the innocuous term of city facilities is referenced anywhere even in the staff report and I just don't think this is really transparent governance and this has been the case every time this item has appeared on the Parks and Rec Commission or for City Council It does not, it is not truthful in its explanation of proposed use of tennis courts for pickleball play.
So I'm also concerned that the reasonable process to address the issue of providing pickleball facilities for the community meaning the reference to the Parks and Rec Commission which was a good idea, the establishment of an ad hoc committee that That there has never been that the Ad Hoc Committee or Parks and Rec Commission has not, to my knowledge, conducted outreach to the community tennis players. And I for example was never asked to complete a survey even though I have submitted comments to both City Council and Parks and Rec when this issue came up I am a regular tennis player on the Libby courts, and I have been so for the last 10 years. And I can attest to a high level of use on those courts. It's community recreational players, it's the children's program which is fantastic, it's used by the wild academy I might add that is a substantial part of the day and so forth.
So please, I ask that you going forward with the council, the Parks and Rec's commission and ad hoc committee that you involve input from tennis players as well as pickleball players. Please really listen to both sides don't take something away from one side and give it to the other. And I'm sure that with everyone working together we will find a way to provide pickleball facilities for this town.
Certainly hope that the Pickleball courts located in Sewell Park can somehow be incorporated into the solution. And please don't schedule last minute meetings or last minute additions to agendas, it is a real disservice to your constituents as Ojai residents. Thank you very much. Thanks.
2:48 – 3:0515 turns
Next we have John Adair. I'll go ahead and bring him in, Mr. Adair. If you would unmute yourself. There you go. You can go ahead.
Yes. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Great, thank you. Thank you very much council members. I have a 40 year history in the audio industry. And I think there are a number of points that people are bringing up here but I think the key point is that in this case is that everybody needs to understand the pickleball is Pickleball while it's not the enemy and it's great activity, pickleball is an unusually loud sport. And the reason that there is litigation going on across the entire nation right now about pickleball, and that is true, it is going on across the country right now, is because of this fact It's just the nature of the game, it's how it's built. And I can refer you all if you're interested to an article that was published in the Los Angeles Times in March of this year and just focusing on the sound issues one of the acoustical engineering services that has produced information for many of these cases across the country Has indicated that they regularly record peaks of 85 decibels from backyards that are more than 50 feet away from a pickleball court.
85 decibels, just to give you an idea, extended exposure to 80 decibel noise can cause hearing damage. So let me just make the point that if the kids are playing on courts seven and eight in their classes, and they're playing right next to five and six, So not only will they not be able to hear their instructor or each other, but it could potentially even cause hearing damage for them.
Pickleball community needs to take responsibility for and understand this issue about their sport. There is no other sport played recreationally by people like us that is as loud as this. And I can guarantee you that if we were to proceed with this and convert courts five and six, I understand they're now looking In short order, there will be litigation from property owners around lower Libby because this will negatively impact their property values. And also we could potentially see some problems even with it. This may even jeopardize the Pac-12 tournament in some way if they're going to lose two courts. They don't have access to this and there will be costs associated with resurfacing so nobody in the tennis community is arguing with being able to play pickleball or arguing with the sport.
They are arguing with the location, and I would propose that this council is going to be wasting their time paying a bunch of acoustical engineers to find out what has already been researched Again, I refer you to a March article in the Los Angeles Times. There's plenty of information in there specifically about it and the noise issue is non-starter as far as the location. Soule Park however, it might work.
Thank you.
Thank you, John.
One more, Gail? One more. It's Ian Collis. I'll bring him in. Mr. Collis, if you'd unmute yourself, you can go ahead and speak. There you go. Please go ahead.
Awesome, thank you. Yeah I mean first of all I just want to say like in the scope of issues in this world the pickleball dilemma and the noise, I get it. It's not the biggest issue in the world and so I just want to recognize that especially in comparison to the topic where you guys were discussing earlier but For tennis people, you know, and the Libby courts, the courts really really mean something to us. And I think you can see that by how many people continue to show up for the tennis community for these conversations and these debates.
You know, I'm totally against even a temporary solution of putting them, putting the pickleball courts on Court 6. The Court 5 thing is new to me. The noise is really the issue and I'm glad that John just brought it back to that being the conversation. That's why we're discussing this to begin with, that's why this continues to get brought up. The reason that nobody wants to send the pickleball people you know to the other side of town to go play, it's because of the noise that needs to be that far away from Other sporting events, the tennis players, the other housing. That's why it needs to be the distance away that it needs to be and I really do want to say like I commend the pickleball community for trying to build something. I think that's great.
I mean I was over at Soule Park on Tuesday there was a huge group there they're all having a great time seemed to be working great for them. I don't really know what the issue is And, you know, the tennis community is building itself as well. I try to be a big part of that. You know, tennis is a growing sport just like pickleball. I hosted an event at the lower Libby courts in May. I used all four courts. I could not have got approval to host the tennis event that I did if one or two of those courts was not there. One of the Parks and Rec, the parks department stipulations for renting the courts was They need to leave at least half open to the public, not to mention we had a tennis event. We had music going. You know, we had other people there sponsors and stuff like that it wouldn't they would not have gotten approved for the upper courts.
And I know we're not you know those the upper courts don't get talked about a lot in this conversation But I could not have got approval to do that event if those courts, the two lower courts were being used by pickleball. So we're trying to build a community too. Arguably tennis probably has a much larger community. Surprise surprise you've had a tournament that's lasted 125 years. We have OVAC You know, we had the Ojai Valley and there's a lot of tennis players here but we're also trying to build a community. I can't host events like that. We can't organize events like that if those courts are being used and somebody brought up earlier that you know they came down to the courts and they were all being used today.
I was one of those people. All four courts are being used. Katia was teaching. There was somebody on court six on court five so Again, the conversation about them not being used is just completely false. Thank
you. Thank
you Ian.
One more Gail? We have one more. It's a first name Tina. I'll go ahead and bring her in. Tina if you're there please unmute yourself and you can go ahead and speak.
Hi my name is Tina Leslie. I'm a longtime educator in the Ojai Valley Firstly, let me say I love tennis. I love pickleball and I love Ojai. So all of this conflict is quite difficult. The courts at City Hall were put in and there was a noise problem. There's always been a noise problem there. We spent the last year debating this noise problem. And now we're looking at the Ojai Courts or the Libby Courts.
I implore the council not to make the same mistake that, you know, the city council or the city courts are at Libbey Park. There's homes near Libbey Park. The park was designed for tennis and the use of these courts and the maintenance of these courts and its pristine condition have primarily been done by the Ojai Valley Tennis Club for tennis use I absolutely believe pickleball is a growing sport.
It needs to have its own facility where people can play without bothering others, neighbors or the tennis community. Please, please, please the council let's be forward thinking instead of backward thinking don't let history repeat itself. Let's not be doing this two years from now in many areas of the state pickleball has become an issue Let's be the future of Pickleball instead of being one of those who has a giant court case going against them. Let's find a place where Pickleball can have its own courts, its own area become it's own Pickleball center. Let not take a place where tennis already has its history and has houses around it. It seems that is not Not the way to go. So just please, City Council, please let's be forward thinking not backwards thinking.
Let's find pickleball a place where it can thrive and grow. Like I say, I love tennis, I love pickleball, I love Ojai. Thank you.
Thank you Tina. All right that's it? All right we will move on to discussion. Randy?
Okay so I created this mess It's and Robin Gerber and I spent, I don't know how much time on the phone this morning. So Robin, I appreciate your comments. And I don't know if they were 100% what we talked about but that's okay. I appreciate it. Pete, I did read your paperwork. I did look at it and I do think that it should be submitted to the Recreation Parks Department for part of their investigation into the noise matter regarding these courts, okay? I think it's a good paper.
Again, maybe ... I was just being naive and I'll accept that. I'll accept that stupidity on something as contentious as this topic. The goal was and it was my goal No one came to Randy and asked him. No one forced me. It was 105 degrees for a week two weeks ago, and I looked at these courts as I was driving into work, as I looked at all of the courts, and they were all empty.
And I said to myself, how can we give these people an opportunity to recreate? And that's the whole idea behind this. Let's give pickleball an opportunity to play pickleball for the two months of summer and then it's over. There was no other motive for it. It was no trying to sneak the foot in the back door. There was nothing of that nature. It was completely about a community facility that I thought that everyone could agree on, that we could use it as a community for two months.
Sadly to say, this is what is a direct result of my naivety. Is that I thought we could figure this out and get along just for two months but that's not going to happen. It's just not gonna happen. And this was not to circumvent Rec and Parks. Wasn't even on my plate! Didn't even think of them! This is 105 degrees in Ojai, and I'm looking at how we can give a group of community members an opportunity to recreate.
So again, I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry to think that we as a community could come together for two months and just get by, but we can't. I'm ready to make a motion because that's what I came, actually that's what I asked the city manager for. I asked him originally could I come to council and at the end of the evening just kind of subtly say hey it's 110 degrees out 105 degrees out would you guys mind letting on the city manager and Tim Crouch from Pickleball get together and figure out how to utilize the courts for two months?
And James said no No, we can't do it that way. We have to agendize it. Sorry for all of you who thinking that there was something again, a motive deeper and darker. That was not it. And that's why we're here. That's why everyone came loaded for bear. That's why everyone is so defensive of their turf. And it's sad. I'm telling you, it is sad that this community can't come together for two months So when we're done deliberating, I'll make the motion. I already know it's going to get voted down.
That's fine. I came for a yes or no, not a frigging debate. It was that simple. So I'm sorry.
Other comments? Ryan?
Thank you, Randy. I do appreciate that. I appreciate your honesty. So it takes a little wind out of the sails is what I was going to say. But it's funny enough, I want to say it anyway. I feel like a judge who's presiding over a bad marriage. Pickleball and tennis, you know they loved each other at some point. They came from the same place. They were practically the same thing and they got along great. At some point pickleball became Johnny Depp and tennis became Amber Heard or the other way around And no matter how many times we sit up here and say this, go back to your room and figure it out. I can't tell you how many times I've been in court and a judge has said Mr. Blatts, you the other attorney go in that room don't get back in my courtroom until you guys figure this out.
We've got to figure out a way for everyone to coexist. This is really hard for me and I know we're probably not going to get anywhere tonight but before we started this this court at City Hall I said this is gonna be the exact problem we're gonna run into and once we put it there it's impossible to undo it pretty much And I hate that I was right. I wished I had been wrong, but it is very complicated to undo it. We'd just be trading problems. The other thing is, I'm near Soule Park all the time. They're playing pickleball over there all the time now. I hear it all the time. So I've never gotten a clear answer from anyone in the pickleball community exactly what the problem with Soule Park is And I appreciate that it's a little further away, but we're Ojai.
There are communities all over the place where you have to drive five or ten minutes to get to a pickleball court and nobody is complaining about it there. I know it's not as optimal as being here, but that's kind of ridiculous. We've got to be willing to put in at least A little bit of extra work to make it work if there's a good place. That's not saying I'm not for it at City Hall, that's there, it's there. I applaud the success like many things in Ojai. I hate it when something is too good we try and kill it and this is another one but it does have real problems and the noise doesn't bother me Except that one time I missed a pot on 14. But honestly though, the noise is there and it is real so I don't take it lightly to the neighbors who have to deal with it.
The numbers and the data in here are all correct everything makes sense with what we know It's more frequent, it's more powerful. It has a different type of effect. I'm hoping that somebody figures out how to get rid of the wiffle ball and something that's less noisy but it's not designed to be quiet and until then we got to make something work but if you want us to do it it's like asking a judge. We don't have an answer for this that's working real well there's county property, there's this property, there's Libby. I agree it's not fair to say pickleball gets to use the courts that somebody else has spent hundreds thousand dollars 125 years getting a Pac-12 tournament and everything else that's associated with Libby. I also don't think it's fair that as long as we're in the city, and nobody is using it, that the next guy up shouldn't be able to use it.
So, that's almost impossible to reconcile from our position. We can't put a camera out there and put up a green flag for pickleball and a red flag for tennis. We're not going to do that! I know and I appreciate what Robin Gerber said, but I don't agree that we can't tell you. You got to figure it out yourselves or we're going to figure my answer is if you guys can't figure out at some point just nix all of it make everybody unhappy because that's what you guys sound like right now. Everybody's unhappy yet you're all getting to do some of the stuff you want to do. We've got to figure out a better way come to us with something. Is it financial contributions? Is it a different timetable? Is it actually getting something specific at Soil Park I've never heard and I really appreciate it.
If paddle ball tennis took two years to get the park, get everything done at Slope Park which I've known has been there forever why haven't we heard stories about pickleball going to the county and saying how are we gonna get Slope Park taken care of? Stop coming here and banging your head against the wall. If you can go to the county, I'll give you Matt LeVere's number call him. I'm happy to put in a good word that says let's try and figure this out but i'm not prepared to nix pickleball. I think you guys are doing a great job. I play. I've got a ton of friends who play.
I don't know what we're going to do about putting it on the tennis courts anytime soon But is there some way we can create a multi-use situation, or is everybody just gonna dig their heels in and this is gonna go on forever? And that's really disappointing. But it may not be that you need to go to your government to get a solution for this. It's a recreation problem between two competing groups trying to use the same space. We're begging you to find a solution that we can then sign on
3:05 – 3:1627 turns
for. Susan.
Well there is one key way that government can help There is a legitimate impediment with riding your bicycle to Soule Park. So our job and county's job is to figure out how to extend the bike trail to Soule Park if we did that, then that would overcome that hurdle. And Bill Miley brought to my attention that 20 years ago. He was on an ad hoc committee of the Planning Commission to consider extending the Ojai Valley Trail to Soule Park. He told me that we even drew up a possible trail along East Ojai Avenue next to the golf course fence, then in a site...
Anyway, they drew up a plan and maybe we can find it. And I've tried to go the back way and I always get stuck in some gully around the Humane Society then I have to walk my bike back but there's no question in my mind that that trail needs to be extended. That needs to be part of the plan if we relocate you to Soule Park And I didn't realize that they're already using soul part for pickleball. So the use is not dependent on us You know, our hope is that we become the managers and bill and a council member bill wire Rye Rick has been working tires tirelessly on that and he can speak to it but You know, so the two goals is that we manage Soule Park and that we work together to get that extension. That's been needed for the last 20 years. It's crazy not to have it.
So we'll work on that. I think there's support.
Thank you, Susan. Bill?
Yeah just to add too. I would say we've been fairly aggressive pushing county to get something agreed to, and we've been frustrated by the bureaucratic inertia that's been exhibited by county with respect to something that We think would be fairly easy to agree to in terms of an underutilized resource with a very unfortunate entry system and a lack of connectivity to the bike path system that's in the county master plan to connect.
So we have not received any push back in terms of, oh no we can't do that. It's been the problem is can we move it? Can we move it forward? And so I think that I want to hasten to add that our push to try and allow the city to add programming to Sewell Park is not limited. Our dictating in terms, dictative in terms A pickleball, but it's an overall underutilized facility just to state that again. For a lot of things that could go on there in terms of expanding park and recreation services for the entire valley So I just wanted to say that, that is something that we've been pushing behind the scenes.
I have a very thick knobby tire to negotiate that area with on my bike. A street bike doesn't do it. I understand. But I do think that I would urge everyone if you have opportunity to speak with Supervisor LeVere to please suggest that this agreement occur sooner rather than later. We are sensitive to the issue of bike trail access. We do have a feasible path for it, and I think this council would be willing to help fund that if the county would agree to it. Yes. So again, It seems like there is a win-win here if we could get the county on board.
And we are trying to do that. I hope we can do it. There's got to be a way of taking an underutilized asset, and it doesn't mean that this is necessarily the best place for an expanded pickleball activity. Our expanded pickleball facility. But it's certainly an option, and to speak to Councilperson Blatt's point of view, I think our job is to try and do what we can as a government to put options on the table for the different groups in this community to then come together and partner with us to figure out the best way of utilizing those expanded assets. And that's what we've been trying to do already, believe me.
Thank you Bill and I just want to say a word of appreciation to the council for looking at this issue from so many different directions because clearly people are very passionate about it and it's just wonderful to hear about our community's love of sports and moving and I feel confident that we will find a solution And I also really believe, as I've said, in good government. And this council directed staff to give this topic to Parks and Rec, and so I support Parks and Rec to finish this process that we directed them to do, and we should not send things to commissions for their opinion and then move forward before the commission has come back to us with the information. So I would support waiting... We gave them the task of waiting for the information.
Randy?
So again, I just want to reiterate. This discussion was hijacked because it was not about permanent courts at Libby. It wasn't about that at all. And I'm saddened to even watch the rest of council be hijacked. The discussion that I wanted was a simple up and down. Do we want to let a couple courts on the Libby facility be used during the heat And now we're into a discussion about did we circumvent Rec and Parks? What's our motives? We know Soule Park is the diamond in the rough that we all want to get to. We were talking Soule Park when I was on the Rec and Parks Commission. It's not old news, it's something that we've been trying to pursue for many years.
I'm just saying, I'm ready to make a motion because this is not the debate that I came here for. My motion would be do we want to allow the City Manager and Tim Krauts of the Pickleball Association to get together and figure out if they could utilize two courts on the Libby facility for two months of this summer? That's my motion.
But I have a question. I still have a question. It seems like we had different opinions about the court utilization. There was, like...
So first of all, I'd like either a second or no second and then we can untable that and then we can move on.
Do we have a second?
I mean, you know, I'm very torn in this situation because I totally feel that you had the right motivation. I understand your motivation.
Then second my
motion. Well it's what's hard for me why I can't feel like I can't second it is because I don't feel like I have the facts on... You know, I was told that the courts are used all the time they can't be shared and I'm told by you And Tim Kraut, that he sees the courts empty. So if I were to support your motion at all, it would have to include what was the names of the people that you mentioned would be seeing if it could be worked out? James, Tim Kraut. Would there be a tennis representative?
So be it. If you would like to amend my motion.
Well, you couldn't
possibly. Then you can make that request. I'll be open to it.
Okay so then the only thing we would be saying is that there would be a discussion about it. coming to any there's no marching orders.
No, I'm requesting that we authorize the city manager to make those considerations. We'll abide by what he comes up with. That's what I'm
saying and you're asking for is two months During like the hottest part of the day,
we're talking August and September dedicate two courts to pick a ball for activity at the end of at the end of September. Have the pickleball people restore the courts back. They're putting tape down, have them pull their tape, have them power wash and let's give the courts back 100% back to the tennis association. And what
happens to the players here? What players? You're not saying there wouldn't be like a... They wouldn't be moving from... They'd still be here as well?
Yeah, under these hours.
Under the same hours. Yeah, no I don't think I can support your motion. I'm sorry that it's hot. I sympathize that it's hot but I think that you just you know it's not going to kill anybody not to be able to play all the time
Okay,
all right My understanding is it's an option for them to play when it's cooler in Soule Park. Is that the truth?
Okay You know bring it up to back to the cherry discussions and we haven't had a second on no
Is there a second on the motion?
Then the motion fails. Okay with that. All right
3:16 – 3:1811 turns
Do we have another motion? We don't need another motion. Okay, all
right. Mayor and Council if I could jump in briefly. If there's no action taken tonight then the existing council direction will stand that direction is for the Parks and Rec Commission and its ad hoc committee to evaluate the issue and that will return to the council in due course
Okay, all right. Well
may I ask a question before we close this discussion? This is going to be ages before we have it again. So someone said that there's only one court in Soule Park? That is correct. But okay so is there any reason why they can't get another court if they wanted to organize themselves
It would take the answer right now. It's currently managed by the county So to get it done under the county's management, somebody would need to go talk to the county We are trying to work out the ability to program but we haven't gotten that finalized yet so we don't have control of Russell Park at
this point But could they go to someone at the county to get another court?
That is something they can
do The ask but it's up to the county to do it or not do it
Thank you.
I just want to, if we're finished
let's finish. All right well I want to thank everyone for showing up and speaking and sharing your thoughts and I appreciate your thoughtfulness. Thank you. We're adjourned.