UnGovr Transcript
iHow this transcript is madeUnGovr transcribes the official recording with automated speech-to-text, separates speakers by voice, and matches voices to the seated roster. Names and attributions are AI estimates and may contain errors.Verify any quote yourself: click anywhere in the transcript and the official video jumps to that exact moment, so you can check any quote against the recording.Scheduled start 6:00 PM · clock-time estimates pending review
0:00 – 0:001 turns
Call the order, please. Could you take a seat and we'll begin? Can everybody come to quiet we'd like to begin please We have a quorum may we have the roll call please Weston
Roll call — called by Rachel Lang · 2 under review
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Agenda Discussionitems moved / continued / pulled — click to expand
Is there a motion to approve the agenda?
I'd like to make a motion to move item three to number one and here's why. In the previous council session, you heard me talk about ethics and the duty of care this council has to you, the public. Your city council, my colleagues and I have failed you in this regard On December 13th of last year, the first session of the new council, a citizen called on Mayor Stix to recuse herself on all matters concerning Simply Ojai due to concerns over conflicts of interest with that organization and its principles. Mayor Stix ignores
the call- Excuse me just a minute Mr. City Attorney can we? We've already addressed this so No no I have Can we please have quiet from the audience thank you
So as I understand it, Council Member Rule is in the process of making a motion to adjust the agenda item? That is correct. But I would assume that motion will not disclose any closed session information.
It will not disclose anything that should not be disclosed. That is correct.
That is not what I said. It will not disclose any closed session information.
It will not disclose anything that should not...that is illegal to disclose. That IS correct.
It will not disclose any information discussed in closed session.
It will not discuss any information that is illegal for me to discuss publicly, it will not. That is correct. All right. Okay. Let's continue. Thank you. Mayor Sticks ignored the call. We moved on and soon after we adjourned for a closed session. Almost immediately, the Mayor requested that Council hire an outside law firm to get a new set of eyes
to review.
That's fine, but I have three relevant statutory exceptions that permit their disclosure. One is confidentially reporting information of perceived violations of the law to the district attorney is protected. Council Member
Ruhl, that exception allows for confidential
reports to the district attorney. I'm not finished with the other two. That exception does
not
apply to anything you're discussing now. I am not finished with the other two, thank you though.
The
disclosure expresses an opinion regarding the improprieties or illegalities in a closed session.
That opinion, however, cannot disclose the information that is the basis. Or
disclosure is justified on the basis that this information is not confidential. Last, just as attorney-client privilege may not generally be used to further a crime, neither can closed sessions. Because of that, my disclosures are not only permissible. They fulfill a public policy interest in exposing and punishing elected officials who engage in improprieties and potential criminal activity.
All I am doing- You're not the district attorney. You're not the jury nor the judge. You are not empowered to make those decisions. Neither are you. No one in this room is empowered to disclose closed session information. I disagree with you. As you noted, the exceptions are to allow disclosure confidentially to the district attorney. I disagree with you. Via letter or other method, I would be happy to
give.
So as the chair of this, I would like to defer to our city attorney and then we can decide this later.
And I will make a motion to overrule that decision by council vote.
So the chair's directive is to rule you out of order, you've made a motion to overrule that, that is in order. Is there a second for that motion?
I'm not clear on the motion. I was prepared for a motion to move item three to two.
So as I understand the motion on the table, it is by Council Member Rule to... Override the Mayor's... The motion is to override the Mayor's directive that Council Member Rule cease speaking.
Correct.
And that's the motion on the table? That is correct. That motion requires a second.
Correct, to cease speaking. The mayor has made a motion to have me cease speaking. Or
ruled out of order, as is the proper phrase. Wherever it goes. Chair's action is to rule you out of order regarding your attempted disclosure of closed session information You have appealed that ruling to the of the chair to the council which is an order correct that appeal requires a second. Okay, they're a second
Is it legal
In my opinion, it is not. And in my attorney's opinion, it is. In my attorney's opinion, it is.
I received your attorney's opinion about two minutes ago. You know that's irrelevant to me. I disagree with it. Nonetheless, my advice as City Council, as your city attorney, is that the action proposed to be taken by council by rule is unlawful.
And I would ask the council to go ahead and let me speak. That's what I would ask the council. Understood.
That motion requires a second. Is there a second, Madam Mayor?
I'm not comfortable to second something that's not legal. There might be another way that we can meet and work this out.
The council could discuss the matter in a closed session and decide whether or not to waive the relevant privileges by majority vote, that would be an option.
Okay. I'm asking for a second by the council members. I
defer to the mayor as chair is there a second?
Is there a second? I don't hear one
I am with Sousa that I don't feel like I can second something if it's not legal and I don't know. I am with Sousa in that our council member Francina and that I cannot second something if I'm unclear whether or not it's legal, and I do not know the legalities of this. And so I would make a motion to discuss this in closed session. I would second that motion.
So I would understand that to be a substitute motion to discuss the matter in closed session. The closed session, that I heard a second, the council could approve that. That closed session could not be held tonight. I don't see a basis to do so on an emergency basis. So we will schedule that for a subsequent meeting soon.
Okay, and we need to vote on that.
I would like to make an amendment to that if I could. That would be in order. I would like to make an amendment to have my council people reassess their vote because there is a legal disagreement about whether or not this is legal And there is no ostensible penalty. This is how people, this is how silence is kept. Closed session, illegal, can't talk about it, not true.
Not true. Our sessions were not legally noticed. They were not legally noticed. They were illegally noticed. They were noticed under the wrong government code. Clearly, there was no litigation discussed in half of those closed sessions and it was noticed under litigation pending litigation. There's only three pending litigations and never were any of those pending litigations discussed in this closed session with any direct relevance. Clearly they were, so I am telling my council members that I feel I am on strong legal grounds here to make this motion. And it is the nature of closed sessions to shut you up and to keep things out of the public's ear. That is problematic!
If you can't talk about what's in closed session It's not relevant to closed session. You see the problem, all you need to do is bring things up in closed session and then ostensibly you can never talk about them.
We have a motion we have an amendment correct?
Right there's an amendment on the floor I also would ask is there a second for the amendment? And I'm not sure that I heard one.
But I have a second for the amendment.
I have a question, my understanding is that we often go into closed sessions and then what we discuss is made public
at the right time in the right way of course once the council majority has made direction and that direction is either immediately reportable action as in some cases or is itself made public when the action is taken In other words, to use an example if the council meets in closed session regarding initiation of litigation and decides to initiate litigation.
The report out is a council directed initiation litigation then once the lawsuit is filed then that is itself a public action. It depends on what the action has taken when it's made public I'm not going to discuss when the closed session actions that were discussed were made public because that would reveal the nature of the closed session discussions themselves, but I will reiterate that the city's position is very plain. That all of the closed sessions that it has held since the new council took office have been lawful.
Have we discussed pending litigation?
Yes in every closed session. That
is
incorrect. That is absolutely- That is false and we're not going to discuss the details of why that's false.
Okay we have an amendment. Is there a second to that? Okay, so we will go back to the original motion. Correct? You've got to do it.
So the main motion then on the table is to defer discussion of this matter and Councilmember Rule's accusations into a closed session which can be held under threat of litigation from Councilmember Rule's lawyer. Councilmember Rule will be excluded from that closed session and that can be held as the council can make the scheduling work on at least 24 hours notice.
I didn't understand what you just said
Happy to repeat it. So
did I hear you say she would be excluded from?
Yes, Councilmember Boole has threatened to sue the city. She will be excluded from the closed session discussion of that matter.
So we have a motion to take this to closed session? Correct. Do we have a second for that?
And that was Council Member Lange's motion and there was a second by Mayor Pro Tem Francina. That motion could be voted upon as direction for future agenda items.
All in favor?
If I could speak to council member rules amendment for just a moment.
0:11 – 0:1639 turns
I think we all want to have transparency. We all want to have some of the division that exists in this city, in this room. I think we all have a deep desire to do what is best for the community. And where my concern is, is that if there are legalities about the things that we've said in closed session that could put the city in jeopardy. I would want to do everything I can to protect us and I don't know what those are and so I would need more information before I were to follow up with your amendment.
Okay, very good. That is absolutely understandable. The Becker Agreement I will just say is not pending litigation. It's not pending litigation.
We have a motion... Keep
that in mind.
We have a motion, we have a second. All in favor?
We could have Weston do a voice vote
perhaps. Weston, you want to do a roll call?
Yes, ready
ma'am. Thank you. Wait a second.
Can we clarify what we're voting on here? The motion
is to defer Councilmember Rule's accusations to a closed session, to be scheduled as soon as we can. Minimum 24 hours notice for the four members of the council to consider in closed session.
And Councilmember Rule not to be there. Correct. Thank you very much. Roll call
please Weston.
Roll-call vote 0–1 · 3 under review
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I'm not comfortable to not have her be in the closed session, but that's because you're saying that she's threatening to sue the city? Am i hearing that right?
That is incorrect!
That is incorrect. There's nothing that says in that letter from my attorney, it just gave you justification for why I could speak on closed session. It did not say that we would sue the city. It gave you sound legal reasoning.
Again, any letter regarding a matter for which you have put yourself adverse to the city including by hiring a separate council and having that council send a letter making accusations to the council majority, put yourself at odds with the city.
It's not a
direct threat of litigation
it
is a
common
law
bias situation. This is not time for this discussion. Can we please finish the roll call Weston?
I'm in need of Council Member Lange's response
I vote yes to have this in a closed session, and if this does not involve any kind of lawsuit. It does not. Never did.
If I could speak to that, Council Member Rule cannot be in the closed session because she has taken a position adverse to the city. You cannot... Mr. Drucker is not an order, Madam
Mayor. Mr. Drucker, if you could be quiet or leave the room please? Can we continue the roll call lesson?
Roll-call vote Passed 2–0
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Okay, thank you. All right moving on we will have approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve?
I want to make a motion that we move item 3 to number 2. The referendum before the rent stabilization discussion.
Is there a second? I'll second
Okay. Anyone like to
comment?
I just would like to hear the reasoning for doing that.
Well, to me that seems to be the priority for the evening is the referendum. There's a lot of people... I've seen a lot of people in the audience that are involved with the referendum And it just, it feels I'd like to air it out now as soon as possible. I think it will help clear the air actually.
I'll second. Did I already second? If I didn't I would do it again. Yeah
and a third. And I would argue that we should keep it the way it is that people have planned to come and speak at this appropriate time that we and we posted this um and it makes sense philosophically to talk about rent stabilization before a development agreement So we have a motion and a second. Weston, you want to do... And this is to move the agenda so you want to do a roll call on that?
Yes Mayor. Council Member Lange
I need a moment And the reason why I need a moment is because what Mayor Sticks said about how people have planned their evenings in order to speak at a certain time on this topic. I don't feel like it's fair to those who had planned, many of you whom told me that they wanted to speak on this topic knew the agenda And I also agree with Councilmember Francina that it would clear the air in the room and that if we finished this ahead of time, then we could move forward without as much contentious energy in here. And so my...I'm weighing between these two decisions right now.
Go ahead.
0:16 – 0:2314 turns
Do you want to take a Weston do you want to ask the other two and D. Do you wanna say something
well just maybe because of I Councilmember Lang's comments, we should open it up for discussion. I certainly haven't presided on enough of these meetings to understand. I'd love to get guidance from James and Matt on the issue. I think there is merit to both what Mayor Sticks and Ms. Francina have stated.
Well, just thinking quickly obviously when we put the agenda together we try to Try to stick to the order as much as we can. I think one of the comments was that More speakers are here for item three than two and I'm not I'm not sure if that's the case I think the cards are there so that could be one crate. That is one typical criteria for moving items
And
I'll just note on the legal side There's no there's no law regarding this it's up to the council majority As to how, the law is setting the agenda but not the order within the agenda. That's up to the council. Thank you.
May I say something? It's not unusual for us to change the order of agenda. We do it all the time and this is not a dramatic move. Sometimes we've been asked to change the last item to the first item but this is a simple switch and I
do believe it will help clear the air. Okay then I vote yes to move item, agenda item number three to number one.
Roll-call vote Failed 2–2 move item, agenda item number three to number one. OK, continuing roll call.
Show transcript
but it looks like we're going to move so we will do that okay? So we have a we're gonna move item Three before I am too So do we have a motion to approve the agenda now?
I'll move to approve the agenda with Switching two and three
okay and a second please all second okay roll call please Weston Or we can just all in favor, aye? Aye. Okay great alright we will move on now to honoring outgoing Ojai Police Chief Jose Rivera's service and introduction of new Ohio Police Chief Trina Newman very exciting so it's my honor to I'm not roasting you don't worry Thank you for taking the podium, Jose. Chief Rivera has served the Ventura County Sheriff's Office for over 30 years.
He became Ojai Police Chief in January 2020 replacing previous chief and now newly elected Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff. Congratulations, Jim. During Chief Rivera's tenure, public safety remained his top priority but he was also focused on public engagement. He created connection between himself and the residents which fostered a culture that encouraged his team to do the same.
Here are just a few of Jose's career highlights and accomplishments while in Ojai. Assisting the navigation through the COVID-19 pandemic, not an easy job so thank you very much. Reinstating foot patrols in Libbey Park and the downtown arcade, so much appreciated. And a few of your major community engagement efforts Helping to lead a series of conversations on public safety and engagement, opening dialogue for the community to ask questions and share feedback.
So appreciated.
Big thanks to my partner, City Manager James Vega.
And strengthening communication and trust between officers and residents. Chief Rivera has received a promotion and will now serve as an Assistant Sheriff of Operations under Sheriff Fryhoff. The City of Ohio is immensely grateful for his service to the community, and his commitment to community engagement and public outreach. Thank you so much, Chief Jose Rivera.
I just want to say it has been my honor and pleasure to work with Jose, and I had the opportunity to watch you in action twice on Ojai Avenue deescalate a couple situations. And I was just so moved and awed by your composure, your kindness, your compassion, humanity, and also being firm on what needs to happen. So you're just a master at what you do, and we are really grateful to have had you here for two years, and we wish you all the well. Thank
you.
Now I get to read your proclamation! Proclamation Recognizing the Law Enforcement Service and Contributions of Ojai Chief of Police Jose Rivera. Whereas, The City of Ojai recognizes the contributions of the law enforcement career and community contributions of Chief Jose Rivera who began serving as Ojai's chief of police in 2020 Whereas, the City of Ojai holds a deep concern for all citizens' well-being and recognizes the essential value of law enforcement service.
Whereas, we recognize Chief Rivera's Ventura County Sheriff's Office career spanning three decades with a variety of positions to build a well-rounded repertoire of experience to serve the City of Ojai. Whereas, our community recognizes Chief Rivera's vital assistance to the safety of our community and enhancing local quality of life. Now therefore be it proclaimed, Chief Rivera's tenure will be remembered because of his kind and professional demeanor, his commitment to public safety, and his focus on community engagement.
Now, therefore be it further proclaimed that I, Betsy Sticks, Mayor of the City of Ojai and on behalf of the Ojai City Council do hereby recognize Jose Rivera for his years of service and congratulate him on his promotion to Assistant Sheriff.
0:23 – 0:298 turns
Well, the list of people to thank is very long. So I'll try to cut it short. I was going to write something down but I figured it'd probably be better just to speak from the heart. First of all, I would like to thank current council and prior council members. Randy Haney, Bill Weirich and Ryan Blatz. They were here pretty much my entire time the last three years that I've been here in Ojai.
And I'm very thankful for the leadership they provided to the city and I've learned a lot from them My partner in crime over here, James Vega. We've had many conversations about city issues and best way to deal with those issues and I really enjoyed the partnership that we shared made a big difference to me And also to the communities that we serve. I'd also like to thank the men and women from my department, they are out there day and night 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
And serving the communities here in the Ojai Valley and they're out there constantly always doing the right thing. So, I appreciate them very much. Many of them are here today out in the patio. They stayed over their shift to be here to attend the meeting as well. Most of all, I'd like to thank the community. You know when I first got here, arrived here in Ojai you know I'm not from Ojai so But everybody here was very accepting and I quickly learned what it meant to be an Ohioan.
So, I learned a lot from the community, the conversations that I did have with residents about It was different things from issues to compliments and a lot of it was compliments about how my deputies did their jobs. And I really enjoyed the feedback, developed a lot of great relationships here which I wish to continue. So thank you all very much and I appreciate the relationships we all shared so thank you, appreciate it.
So I'd like to
introduce your sheriff, Ventura
County
Sheriff
James
Fryhoff.
Now one thing that Jose didn't share is that he and I were Academy classmates together. So, Jose and I worked together for 32 years as of last September. I'm thrilled to have him as an assistant sheriff. I am sorry for stealing him from you but just know that what he did here for Ojai much like when I was your chief before Jose was really embracing the community We cannot do our job without your support.
The majority of our community are good people, hardworking people that we are here to support. There is only a very small percentage out there to seek to do us harm and that's what we're there to protect you from and work with you to solve. Not everything needs to be solved with a ticket or an arrest. Sometimes it's notifying a parent maybe there's diversion programs other resources that we can provide to our residents that are going to have a longer lasting outcome than tickets and arrests Jose embraced that philosophy when he got here. The officers that work for you here in the Ojai Valley understand that. That is certainly my position as sheriff, and I couldn't think of anybody better to oversee all of patrol operations for the Sheriff's Office than Jose Rivera.
He's a fantastic asset to the organization and I'm thrilled that he accepted the appointment as assistant sheriff. Now we had to find a replacement Right and I love Ojai for those that don't know me, I love the Ojai Valley. This was my first patrol station as a deputy in early 90s. I worked at the Honor Farm in 98. I was your chief of police from 2017 through 2020 during the Thomas fire and I gave James several applicants to interview and I said I'm giving you four very highly qualified applicants And I know that Trina had done her homework because she had met with me, she had met with Jose. I think she met with our finance director and did as much studying as she could to prepare for the interview so it was no surprise to me when James called and said we've made our selection and we've selected Trina.
Trina has got 25 years on with the sheriff's office. She's had a variety of assignments in that time as a captain She's been our watch commander, which oversees patrol operations out of our dispatch center for the whole county. She was a patrol sergeant here in Ojai for both Jose and I. So there's a lot of experience in the Ojai Valley. She also happens to be an Ojai Valley resident. Which I don't think has happened for your chief in a very long time, where you've had a resident of the valley that is also your Chief of Police. So I'm thrilled about that. She's got experience in operations, detention services, investigations, she's done background investigations. She was a supervisor of our mounted detail and our incident review team. So she definitely comes with a large background that is going to help her continue the torch that Jose has started along with Jose's assistance because he'll be her boss as the assistant sheriff for patrol operations.
And so without any further ado, I would like to introduce your new chief of police Captain Trina Newman.
0:30 – 0:4517 turns
Thank you. This is special for me, I couldn't be more excited like Sheriff Fryhoff said I worked for both Chief Rivera and Sheriff Fryhoff during their tenure here as chief of police in Ojai so this is a pretty special moment for me I'm thrilled to be here, I'm excited. I want to thank the city for entrusting me with this position and I look forward to the many times and days that we spend together in the future so thank you again.
Absolutely. Yes, we would.
Please stand.
A couple more. Okay, are you going to take a picture? A
little closer.
How
are you?
Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Awesome. Thank you.
Okay. Yeah.
Please everyone go enjoy the cupcakes, they're outside. We will be back in five minutes. Thank you. Okay, if y'all could take your seats. We're gonna come back please. Good? Okay, if everyone could come to quiet and find a seat please. We're gonna move forward with commission reports so we'll begin with the Arts Commission Smitty West and Christine Steiner yes Can y'all come to quiet outside please?
We're back. We got enough here, right?
That was quite impressive. Wasn't it? Smitty said we should go rob a bank. This is the moment. Ready? Oh, thank you. Thank you City Council. I'm Christine Steiner. I am the co-chair of the Arts Commission. This is Smitty West, the chair of the Arts Commission and in what we heard to be so far
Can we wait, there's still some ambient noise it's really challenging to hear when people are talking so could everyone please come to silence. Thank you. Thanks for
what we've heard so far this evening to be contention and dissension. We're here to tell you that the Arts Commission the newly constituted arts commission is In total agreement and in total alignment, and we are excited about doing lots of good work which I'll let Smitty tell you about. Thank
you Christine so at the risk of being optimistic and uplifting. I would like to congratulate the new council on your really important positions and thank Mayor for attending our first meeting last week, and celebrating we had a lot of public there that were winners of the Haiku contest. If you didn't enter the Haiku contest, you lost $50. But I just want to thank you and say that we're heading into our five-year planning visioning session and we're really looking forward To having a new start, it's been really rocky coming. Nigel led us through our COVID cloister and so we're really optimistic and looking forward. We serve at your pleasure, council, and ultimately to the people. So we should be the funnest commission, we do public art, grants for arts organizations in the community.
We do mentorships for the children of our community to learn what it's like to be an artist as well. Did you have something? And music and theater. Music, theater, everything. All the arts too. So again just thank you. You have a hard job but it is a hard job to... A democracy is a hard job because it's about collaboration and ruling together and that people are sovereign so we stand at your service and look forward to it and wish you all the best of luck.
0:45 – 0:515 turns
Thank you Christine. Thank you Smitty. And congratulations Chair Smitty on your appointment. We appreciate all your work in helping our community stay beautiful and be beautiful. Thank you. Next we have a commissioner report from Brian Akins, the Historic Preservation Commission.
Hello council, it's nice to be here tonight with you. Two weeks ago I was doing my best to get to the Honolulu airport and then thanks to that beautiful FAA I was just trying to get home two days later so and not end up in Phoenix which is where they were going to send me So I'd like to thank each of you for your vote in supporting the Historic Preservation Commission and moving forward. I will tell you that we did have a very beneficial ad hoc committee meeting with Gina Craig-Walker, who's a Donna Commissioner and myself this last Saturday via Zoom And so we've each got our homework to take going forward and kind of a pause, and then moving forward into kind of lessons learned in addressing what we've heard and what we want to do.
I also want to thank the mayor for her favorable comment right there at the very end of the night because I was listening to the last hour-and-a-half of the meeting sitting on that airplane wondering if we were gonna ever leave. It got canceled. I'd also like to thank those that are working to submit, nominate our commissioners for the historic preservation. I do look forward to having a full commission in line with the Ojai Code and being able to meet again.
My target is now March so again thank you for those and thank you for the communication that I got today. I also want to thank Robin Godfrey, who managed to find the email that I sent early Tuesday morning to the council that somehow ended up in a spam folder in James' office. I joked with Robin that's because it was spam, you know? It's the favorite thing in Hawaii. So thank you all very much.
Thank you, Brian for working so hard to preserve our city. Much appreciated. Glad you made it back from Hawaii. Okay we will move on to public communication and just a reminder to everyone these are items not on the agenda And because they're not on the agenda, we cannot discuss them. When you make a comment, we're not ignoring you. We appreciate your viewpoints and participation and we can agendize that item for the future.
We will be dropping public comment to two minutes because we have so many comments overall tonight. At the end of the two minutes, you will hear a chime. So please stop talking and respect each other's time and the spirit of equity. And just a little note we want to create and maintain an atmosphere at our meetings where the council and members of the public can attend to business efficiently, fairly, civilly, and with full participation. Therefore I ask that we all strive to be our most gracious selves To that end, please, excuse me. I'm gonna ask, oops, to refrain from making any noise. It's really hard to hear and we have important decisions to make.
To that end, please refrain from side conversations, clapping and of course booing. Please turn off your phones. If you need to talk, please go outside. Ambient noise and distraction hinder good decision making. We truly appreciate your cooperation. Thank you very much. And I'm going to ask everyone, we have children watching this. We have many members of our community watching this. Let's be our best selves and model the kind of behavior that we would like to see in the world. So civil, respectful, respecting other people's viewpoints. That's why we're here.
So we'll begin public comment first with Peggy Lacerra, then Leslie Litofsky and then Anita Cram.
Hi I'm Peggy Lacerra. I just want to say very quickly that the thesis of my two-minute comment is making sure that You use verifiable facts in decision-making. I may make reference to some issues that are on the agenda, but that is not the thrust of my comment. I'd like to welcome the new members of the council and express my appreciation in particular to Mayor Betsy Sticks who continues to guide the Ojai ship with evenhanded grace no matter how rough the seas or unruly the deckhands.
Like many Ohians, I had hoped that the election would have put an end to the divisiveness that has plagued our community for some time now. It has not. Much of this divisiveness results from a misunderstanding of issues and some sadly from intentionally deceptive rhetoric I supported Mayor Stix's campaign because it was based on verifiable information rather than emotional fact distorting narratives designed to sway public opinion.
A lack of clarity and or intentional misrepresentation of facts can cause social problems, and it can also result in our elected officials making poorly informed decisions that result in lawsuits being brought against the city For example, one might try to justify a decision to allow a development project to move forward despite its failure to meet the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act on the basis that Ojai badly needs affordable housing. But a project currently under consideration Doesn't provide any affordable housing in Ojai We think it does because the rental rates for the 20 moderate six low and one low income units In this proposal were based on the most recent Ventura County per capital per capita annual income of a hundred and fifteen thousand four hundred dollars Rather than the most recent Ojai per capita median annual income $50,000 so it was completely incorrect Thank you, Peggy.
Basic basis of the...
Thank you. Next we have Leslie Latofsky then Anita Cram and then Jeffrey Starkweather.
0:52 – 0:5910 turns
Hello good evening and okay thank I have nothing prepared. Thank you very much for allowing me to get up and speak. My comment is simply about a safety and security matter that applies to the downtown core, specifically the Arcade Plaza. I'm a business owner. I have had some vandalism happen and there's been a lot of sort of safety and security issues that have gone on within that plaza and so all i'm asking is if for your attention to perhaps a security camera or something that we could do to sort of step up security within that area.
And that is all that I'm asking for tonight. Thank you for your attention, that's all that I am asking for this evening. Okay thank you Leslie,
appreciate it. Okay next we have Anita Cram then Jeffrey Starkweather and then Elle Caldwell
So I would like to correct the record on a comment that was made two weeks ago on the 10th meeting. It was stated that Mayor Sticks came to Mallory Way bungalows and told residents what to say, that's a fabrication. She listened patiently gave consideration to what people were saying and their concerns. An admirable trait in a leader going on it's so disappointing to see what happened in this meeting right off This is, you know, this is not who we are. We are the community of Krishnamurti came here. The Theosophical, Crotona, the Ojai Foundation has worked years for council Council, please. This is so unbecoming of our community. Remember who we are. This is not who we are. Passionate speech is different from attack divisive civil discourse, civil discourse, civil discourse.
Thank you Anita. Next we have Jeffrey Starkweather then Elle Caldwell and then Larry Steingold
Thank you City Council members, Mayor, fellow citizens. I want to have you go on a quick journey with me. It's going to be quicker than I expected but maybe I can get back to it. You know, I moved here in 1953 when I was six years old and I went to the public schools. I walked to school And everybody in the community went to our public schools, regardless whether you're a lawyer or a shift worker like my dad.
When I moved back here in 2018, I lived right across from the school and the most exciting thing every morning is to watch these kids with their parents, with their fellow citizens holding hands, riding bicycles happy excited about going to school. Just put yourself in watching that. And then last night I sat in Metella Auditorium where I went to school and high school and I saw parent after parent in anguish crying that they were going to lose their schools, that they were going to be consolidated. And why were they told that? Because we haven't had any housing And our demographics are going down. We've lost half of our students since 2020.
Fortunately, and it made me mad to be honest with you sitting there listening to that, and I said to the trustees nobody on the trustees since I've been here nobody in the school has ever gone to the City Council and said we need housing And likewise, but now we have three new city trustees who vowed last night that they're gonna come and speak about housing. So I am looking forward to it and thank you for listening to me.
Thank you Jeffrey. Next Elle Caldwell then Larry Steingold then Sharon Mahari.
Good evening. I understand that a Housing Commission has been or will be set up Either way, I urge that one gets going by sometime in February. Our community needs to be enlightened as to the projects that could be underway as soon as possible and address our housing crisis. We need an assessment of our housing needs, the possibilities for addressing them, the availability of local state and federal assistance and monies that could be available We need recommendations on how best to proceed and how our City Planning Commission and Council can facilitate a variety of possible solutions.
After all, our housing crisis is the root of most of our urgent issues not the least of which is the current crisis of our school system, the shortage of local workers, and the dwindling diversity of our community How much worse does the scarcity of housing have to get before we get in action? Thank you.
Thank you, Elle. Next, we have Larry Steingold and Sharon Mahari and then Marion Niglio.
Larry Steingold, homeowner. We had somebody up earlier who mentioned people's sovereignty, all right? If I choose to be bankrupt, that's my choice. I want to vote to either be sued, defend or have the city go bankrupt. I don't need you five nice people honorable forthright with character integrity to help bury my city. I can vote for that so I want a referendum because simply Ojai proposed the referendum and then they sued well okay give them the referendum because Becker he'll also go for the referendum and that'll be the end of it so we can move on because we got bigger issues here Okay, you people are burning political capital and you're going to own this thing. And this is a mess and there's no reason to be here.
The city made a deal, live with it. How many units are we talking here? 27? 15? Big deal! Okay, you got 50 they want to shove them up on three floors on Bryant. That's 50. You got, he wants to build another 20. They want to have them 55 over on Olive. They want to build some here. You've got how many units getting built? 150, ask planning. How many are in the process? 200, 250?
Who knows? We're arguing about 27 here, 15 units and maybe a $40 million lawsuit and a loss. You wanna risk that? I don't but I'm willing to vote on it. I don' need you to vote on it so please trust the public They may vote against it. They may vote for it, but you guys walk away hands off. You look like mensches. Okay? Just walk away and wash your hands of it. Leave it on our heads.
But it's my right to decide if I want to go bankrupt or not. Thank you.
Mr. City Attorney, do you want to explain that those two lawsuits are different? No. Okay. All right we'll continue with... Yes, yes. Okay next and just kind of confirmation that this is open public comment not on an agenda item we have Sharon Mahari Marion Niglio and then Jill Dolan
0:59 – 1:057 turns
Hi, everybody. I'm going to be very brief. Like everybody else, I think we feel this very tense energy in the room. It's not a good feeling. I think we want to get back to happy, loving, kind Ojai but we need transparency. We need to know what's going on and I think a lot of us are very concerned about these secret sessions I mean, just the word secret is troubling.
So I really am reaching out to you saying please be transparent. Let us in on what's going on because if you don't tell us the facts that's how rumors get started. That's how misinformation gets started and that's just very destructive for our community. Thank you.
Thank you, Sharon. Next we have Marion Niglio then Jill Dolan and then John Drucker.
Okay so there are three items I want to bring to the public's attention first the Ojai family shelter is segregating an under served population second item the government's COVID website is not current with the CDC's report on vaccine safety and impacts Third, I'm here to provide the public with some of the V-safe vaccine safe data recently released by the CDC. First, the Ojai family shelter does not assist unvaccinated guests. Not assisting this underserved population is a form of medical segregation.
In fact, their policy on the website states quote in order to participate in the winter shelter program. Shelter guests are required to have a COVID vaccination there are no exceptions This policy demonstrates that OFS is unaware of the updated information regarding vaccine safety and impact from the CDC. Second issue, the government's COVID website is not current with the report recently released by the CDC. The government's COVID website states that the vaccines are safe and effective. However, according to the CDC information obtained from their V-safe data 7.7% of vaccinated people had to seek medical care after vaccination because of adverse events. Furthermore 1.3 million COVID vaccine recipients missed school or work resulting from adverse events And 25% of vaccinated people became severely ill after receiving the vaccine.
I am confident that after reviewing this recently released CDC v-safe data, the following shelter hosts will rescind this egregious medical segregation immediately. The following shelter hosts St Thomas Aquinas Church First Baptist, Ojai Wesleyan, St. Andrew's Episcopal. Thank
you. I appreciate your enthusiasm but could we please refrain from clapping tonight? Next we have Jill Dolan then John Drucker and then Anson Williams
Hello drama fans. I'm with the Ohio Arts Center Theater but we got nothing on you, okay? Boy oh boy! But what we do have is we have comedy and I am here to invite you all to come to our season opener which is Becky's New Car which opens this Friday at the Ojai Arts Center Theater and I would also like to encourage everyone here and at home Consider buying a season ticket to the Ojai Art Center Theater because we have a great season and we are your community theater. And I know that at least one person in this room has a season ticket because I looked up the list. Okay, I also want to take just a brief minute to talk about the Arts Center because I think a lot of people may not know that we are The art center in our community is the oldest continuously operating art center in the state of California.
And we are, the building was built in 1939. The community theater portion of it is actually older than the building. Most of the arts groups are older than the buildings. Sometimes I feel older than the building. Okay! Right now, we are desperately in need of your support. Maybe you haven't heard that live theater across the country is in danger right now. Ticket sales have fallen 30% in theaters across the country and many theaters are closing so we really need more time. We really need your support. So I see some folks from OPAT here. I don't know what happened to Joan. I mean, Joan Kemper is currently spearheading our effort for all the theaters in Ojai to work together, to help each other out. But we really need people to come to see our shows and we have great shows this season.
So Becky's New Car opens this Friday night. We always have a party after it is so worthwhile. We have audience talkbacks. It's a great place to hang out and I hope you guys will come and see the show. Thank you!
Thank you, Joe. Next we have John Drucker then Anson Williams then Robin
Gerber.
1:05 – 1:1110 turns
I'm legal counsel to Leslie Rule and I can assure all of you that she is on solid legal ground in disclosing what she plans to disclose In a moment I'll give you my legal briefing on the relevant issues so you can decide that for yourselves. I gave it to Mr. Summers at approximately 540 p.m., not two minutes before he opened his mouth, but I would like to point out that one of the central reasons that Ms. Rule can disclose is because Mr. Summers provided an incredibly narrow legal ground on which to establish a closed session, namely government code section 54956.9 subsection D1 that section limits confidentiality to existing litigation specifically simply Ojai versus the city of Ojai as you all know you all spoke about many other issues including potential
record you're not going to be disclosing I'm not going to
disclose anything So if Mr. Summers is insisting on confidentiality on all these extraneous matters, I would submit that he is likely trying to protect himself from an accusation that he committed legal malpractice so he should recuse himself on any discussion about that issue before all of you at any rate Councilmember Rule is willing to take the risk of defying Mr.
Summers and make her oral statement available in writing to anyone who wants to read it because she believes in transparency, transparency, transparency. Thank you.
Quiet please outside. Next we have Anson Williams then Robin Gerber then Tom Francis.
Wow. I had something else I wasn't going to talk about tonight, but the beginning of this meeting just blew me away and I just had to write down some notes. And Mr. Summers, I'm a little scared and I'm going to be careful. Despite the efforts of the city attorney and the mayor to shut council member rule up We now know, from what she did manage to say, that there's a serious conflict of interest in the mayor's office and they want to keep it a secret from the public.
Democracy dies in the darkness. I love that quote. I grew up with that quote. I lived that quote as a Democrat but we are just starting to turn on the lights and trust me All of you, they will be shining bright. And we're going to get to the bottom of this and the voters are going to have their right as voters with the truth, transparency and fairness to our community, to keep our community. Thank you.
Thank you Anson. Next we have Robin Gerber then Tom Francis then Bob Kemper.
Hi, I'm Robin Gerber. I'm tear me in a lane my first chance to see the new faces here Congratulations to the mayor and and to the new members of the council you know What we're talking about is probably the most important thing in government it's how we believe in government and Government dies in the darkness. It lives through the public being informed, and the Brown Act which Mr. Summers is so vociferously trying to protect is actually about the public's right to know all of our right to know That most of what you do should not be in the dark Mr. Summers and you know well, and I'm a lawyer too by training by the way so I know that Mr. Summers knows that it is very very narrow exceptions for closed sessions And there can be disagreement about what is allowed and what isn't.
And in this case I give Councilwoman Rule a great deal of credit for believing so deeply in the public's right to know that she actually retained a lawyer To be sure she was on firm ground to say what is allowed and not what isn't. And it is not your job, City Attorney, to shout down members of this body. They are elected you are not. You are a staff person.
And so I say, we will get to this. We will get to this and the public will know what they should know so that we can all make informed decisions in the way that Ojai wants to do intelligently and with grace and kindness. Thank you. Thank you,
Robin. If you're going to make noise I'm gonna ask you to leave because we need silence so we can hear. Thank you. I'm gonna ask the people outside to have some decorum and some manners. Thank you very much. Tom Francis and then we have Bob Kemper.
Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. You know just in the interest of respecting all the people that are here tonight I have some things I wanted to say but I really want to see us get to the real agenda items as opposed to the grandstanding in the public comment session so I'm not going to join the grandstanding I'm gonna try to speed up the process by staying silent thanks
Bob Kemper
1:11 – 1:2117 turns
Good evening mayor council members We hear tonight there's a groundswell of concern, if you will over these issues that we're going to discuss later and public confidence in the City Council is waning. I think it's safe to say and even worse those people who are concerned about potential wrongdoings Many are afraid to come forward and to talk openly in public for fear of retaliation.
That includes property owners and business owners as well, and the problem with that is that the city council chamber is deemed to no longer be a safe place to speak, and I don't think that's what we want for Ojai. And giving the mayor the benefit of the doubt, I was here on the 10th and asked the mayor to recuse herself because of the perception of conflicts of interest was simply Ojai. And I don't know whether or not there are real conflicts of interest. I don't know how deep the bias might go or if there is one but there's a real perception that it exists and therefore it's in the public best interest To recuse yourself until such time that the City Council can establish some sort of a committee and address the very issues with which Councilwoman Rule brought up on the 10th.
Those are the issues of ethics versus strict legality. And the city attorney commented that ethics was the subject for politicians, not the law. I agree so let's go there. Let's immediately form a committee to establish a set of ethical standards by which all elected officials must comply. Do we want to be governed by legality or do we want to be governed by a higher standard? By higher ethical standards.
Any comment? No, okay. I do have one card from Joseph Wells and he wrote the item number is 9-1-1 Is he here by chance? It's a joke. Okay. All right any oh Sorry, is this for public comment? For public comment though Okay Okay, that would be the reach codes. Okay. All right. Thank you Okay. Thank you very much any public comments on zoom Weston?
No mayor no raised hands now.
Okay. Thank you Alright, we will move on to the consent calendar is there
part in that we just had one raised okay Catherine Donwin Catherine Don when you have the floor
Hi Good evening everyone I wanted to speak today regarding the four hour school board meeting last night. It was a very frustrating meeting to attend for various reasons, but the particular one being that families as demographic have been neglected for an extremely long time in our community and we're now starting to see the effects of it Some of the reasons include a lack of affordable housing.
And now those of us with families are in a position to watch our schools be consolidated and stripped down to the bare minimums, and so I just wanted to speak today to implore the city council members and our mayor to make sure that when you are voting and making these decisions impact our city that you're taking into account some of our most vulnerable populations, which include our children and our lower income families. So please keep that in mind when you vote on any items now and in the future, the families would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you, Catherine. All right we'll move on to the consent calendar. We do have one public comment on item G, Larry Steingold Larry? Oh, there he
is. Letter G is about hiring the consultant for the asphalt, for the road. I'd like to know when asphalt will actually be laid. Pick a date, any date but pick a date. Pick a road, have a contest between all the different district commissioners who's gonna get the first asphalt Also, how much money do we need to complete all the roads within a certified part of time? 15 years, 30 years. Do we need $100 million, $60 million? Where are we going to get it?
Is the consultant here? Has he looked to see how much money we need to generate to do all the asphalt, as they say back east, the ash-a-fault, to put on the ground? When? It'd be nice. They've been working on it for years. Ask the study, the previous public commissioner of Public Works. They were working on roads. They must have some study. What roads are the worst ones? When will they start paving a road or scraping a road or filling in a crevice? Me taking pictures and sending them to Public Works for potholes isn't going to work.
I'm sorry. Okay, I'd like to see all these people who have lousy roads actually come here. It would be nice if they showed up there.
Thank you, Larry.
Can I just answer a couple of those questions because we do get a lot of questions about paving that I think everybody would appreciate hearing? Just the report explains it a little bit more in depth but the very simple answer is that we're finalizing the city's prior 10-year plan. We're on the last year of the 10-year plan So this consultant for this project is just doing all of the work to finalize that last year of the plan.
And so, the question of is the consultant giving us feedback on other streets that need paved? That consultant is not. We are separately working on the next five-year plan. I've said this a couple times in council meetings The current, or the 10-year plan that we are closing out this year and we're trying to pave this year. It was a plan where the city was only paving every other year because the city did not have the funds to pave more aggressively. With the passing of Measure C in 2020, we have built up funding and we're planning to pave every year. And our goal in our next five-year plan is to actually increase the score from right now it's below a score of 50 out of 100 citywide and for the first time have a plan to increase the score after five years to a score of 70 which is a passing pavement score after five years.
So just to speak to those questions, those two things are currently happening. They're kind of separate. We're finishing our last year of paving and then we have a new team working on the five-year plan to actually improve our paving score. And so again that's included in the report and we were happy to answer any questions on that.
I just want to say thank you James great news thank you for Finally, we have a plan.
Oh I'm sorry. I wanted to speak to Larry's comment as well. There are a number of those streets in my district, District 2 that are scheduled for pavement and I am really excited to say that a number of the problematic streets that I heard about when I was walking our neighborhood are going to be the first on this list and I also want to yes I know And I also really want to thank James for your leadership in this.
James and I sat down, and I got a real clear sense of what streets are going to be paved and what this next plan is going to look like. And I will say that I am just completely impressed with your leadership. This is an aggressive plan That is going to really make our streets much, much safer and much more drivable and walkable for our kids, for our pets and for anyone walking with assistance. So thank you.
Leslie? Yeah, thank you. I also wanted to thank James and it's great and likewise when we were canvassing we heard a lot about the streets and the unsafeness of them so thank you very much. And I wanted to let Larry know that there actually are documents available that will show you the particular streets and when they are planning to be paved. So the plan is there, the streets are highlighted, the dates are good The cross streets are indicated, so you can come get those and start to rest assured. Thank you very much.
Can I add one thing? I forgot to answer the most important question when Larry asked, when are we actually going to pay? With the approval tonight, we would send this to bid. If we can get the bids back from the contractors when we're hoping to get them, we're looking to pay between June to August is our goal.
Great news, thank you James. Weston any public comments on Zoom for consent calendar?
No Mayor.
Okay all right is there a motion to approve the consent calendar?
1:21 – 1:2711 turns
I'll
second that motion. Okay all in favor? Aye. Wonderful all right thank you
we will move on to item number three Ventura County Clerk's Signature Verification Certificate for the petition entitled Referendum Against the Ordinance passed by the City Council approving a 67-unit development agreement at Cottages Among the Flowers, Mallory Way Bungalows, World University and 304 South Montgomery. So tonight the council will vote to either rescind the development agreement or submit the referendum to the voters.
Do we have a staff report James?
Very briefly, Madam Mayor. Mayor and Council before you is the decision regarding the referendum as just a very brief background for those who may not be aware of it although I know it's been a topic of quite the discussion. The council on October 25th adopted an ordinance approving a development agreement. The development agreement provides for a multifamily housing project that totals 67 units of which 20 would be de-restricted affordable for 55 years at moderate income, six de-restricted affordable at low income and one The new districts are affordable all for 55 years at very low income levels across four sites, 312 West Aliso, 107 North Ventura, 304 South Montgomery and 412 Mallory Way. Including the sites properly known as the Cottage Among the Flowers, the Mallory Way Bungalows and the former World University site.
The last site on Montgomery is a vacant parcel of land. The prior council approved the development agreement. A valid referendum petition was received and processed through the county with sufficient signatures to force a referendum that came to the council at your prior meeting And the City Council decided to continue the matter for further evaluation and now has two choices before it. Choice one is to repeal the ordinance, which would rescind the approval of the development agreement and return the matter for future action as may happen or second submit ordinance number 934 to the voters of the city and the two sub options there are the election timing First option is the general election, the next general election in the city which is November 5th 2024.
The second option would be a special election there's two sub options there so sort of a decision tree. March 5th, 2024 primary or any Tuesday that's not after a Monday holiday. That's at least 88 days from today We received information from the county registrar voters regarding the cost for the elections The November 5th 2024 general election cost is $6,000 plus legal publication costs the March 5th 2024 election would be twelve thousand five hundred dollars plus legal publication costs and Or a standalone special election would be $88,000 plus legal publication costs. Those are as noted by the county estimates not final numbers but we wanted to provide them. We've also made that available to the council and the public packet at the lobby.
has that information as well. So, as noted the council has two choices repeal or submit to the voters if to the voters we would need direction regarding the election whether the general election or a special and the necessary ordinance I'm sorry resolution to repeal it or to submit it to the voters are in the packet thank you
Thank You Matt all right any questions from Council Sousa
Microphone, please.
Could you review for myself and the public what are the drawbacks? I mean we'll save money if we wait a year but what are the other legal repercussions that we waited here just to save? So March 5 is $12,500 but a special election is $88,000 and that's actually the first time I've seen Figure so I have to absorb that. Yes, what are the repercussions? Delaying a year both for the developer for lawsuit implications all of that.
I'll provide some of that information. The rest of it's been discussed previously the. Options regarding election timing. All our constitutional options So the council can choose freely among the three choices for the election date. Things to consider are turnout, Historically, the city has had a higher voter turnout at general elections as opposed to special. And historically the city has had the highest voter turnout at presidential elections which November 5th 2024 is going to be a presidential election at which President Biden may or may not run for re-election that I don't know but the turnout is historically high at presidential elections if you look historically so the council may wish to consider whether a higher or lower turnout election would better accomplish your goals The cost is as noted from the county.
The delay may or may not affect the legal situation, it will be up to the developer if the city put it for a special election earlier, the developer might choose to sit on their applications that have otherwise been filed including several builders remedy applications and not pursue those in favor of running a campaign for their project They may also choose not to do so. I do not know what they will do.
They may choose to pursue those if we set the matter for the highest turnout election, which would be the general election but again, they may or may not...I can't predict what they will do and my expectation is that the developer may well choose to pursue their applications anyway But that will be up to them, not to the city. And the city will defend any losses that may be filed against any of the following options.
Thank
you.
Okay thank you Matt. Any other questions? Okay we will move on to public comment now and I remind you it's two minutes. We'll begin with Teal Rowe then Sharon Mahari and then William Wyrick.
1:27 – 1:339 turns
Good evening Mayor, City Council, staff and chief. Welcome I'm Teal Rowe. I am a county resident This is a list of all of the meetings that we've had that have led well the city has had that has led us to this point tonight. I wish I would have added tonight's meeting onto this list When I go over these meetings. I realize it comes down to some certain points that I have this list up because I'm speaking to the people at home. If you want to know how we got here, please watch these meetings and use your own critical thinking in order to come up with your decisions if this comes to a vote.
I trust the council and the mayor tonight for your right action for your decisions I'm concerned about a vote because of the misinformation that's going on in our tiny, beautiful town. I may be putting a target on my head right now but I have to because I gathered probably 55 signatures for the referendum and I will tell you People are afraid to put their name on that document.
They are afraid of what's going on, they don't want to be evicted, they don't want to be blacklisted and they don't want their rents to be raised. The public of Ojai is afraid And I witnessed that. And I'm shaking in my boots right now as a citizen by saying this, it's terrifying to witness people in fear of the law that backs them up. Thank you, Teal. Thank
you. Excuse me. Teal? I believe you made an incorrect statement James, those are not the only dates that the council discussed this.
This is the most recent that I've witnessed myself in my research to find out the truth about this issue. This is taking away Existing housing, thank you.
Thank you to
I Didn't see the dates but the staff report includes a list of dates we've discussed it So if anybody wants to know what dates we talked about it that's in the
staffer James next We have Sharon Mahari then William Wyrick and then Tara Jeffrey
Sorry, I just want to say that list is very interesting because it demonstrates how difficult it has been for the City Council to make a decision on this project. So I think it's time to take it to the people. I think that's the fair thing to do. They may not vote the way you want them to, or the way any of us want them to. But they have a right to step in on this. It's got to come to an end.
We're spending so much time and money and thought and grief over this. It has to come to an end. Thank
you. Thank you Sharon. Next William Wyrick then Tara Jeffery and then Jodi Kaler.
To walk down memory lane, and again in limited time. I want to remind everyone that when this issue came to council it was because Council objected to the Planning Commission recommendation and to the staff recommendation to renew the entitlement for these properties without any affordable housing, without any deed restricted. And that is what the council objected to. Actually I led that effort.
We appealed and won that decision by the majority and we specifically used the replacement housing ordinance as justification for overturning that recommendation to not build affordable housing with the development that was proposed, 10-2.904. It is supremely ironic now that that same ordinance is being used by some members on this dais as a reason to not proceed with the development agreement when in fact this was the tool that we used to get an unprecedented level of non-subsidized housing without taxpayer support.
We need that kind of housing too, but this was the idea of using all available tools to get the housing that we could get built. It is supremely ironic now that the same ordinance we used to get affordable housing is now being used to say we should not have affordable housing from this agreement. And last night, the school district's arguments were especially poignant about the fact that the city needs to get more positive about workforce and diverse income classes of housing of all stripes because the lack of housing is part of what is systemically killing our public school system. And so I would argue that you should respect the wisdom, intelligence of our people and let's have a focused debate as soon as possible on this issue.
1:33 – 1:4012 turns
Good evening. I filed this referendum because of my very long history with the city of Ojai, and I think it's crucial to re-examine the decisions made by previous City Council members that illustrate the inequitable concessions given to developers over a long period. I was in an now defunct group called the Citizens to Preserve the Ojai, the group which got its start by fighting and stopping a four lane freeway into the meadow Land Conservancy of Valley Meadows project so Los Arboles condo project on South Montgomery Street was very similar to the project before us it destroyed well over 20 low income homes. Call the evergreen cottages and swap them out for luxury condos. At one time I lived in one of them, they were run down but a great place to live if you didn't make a lot of money.
The city actually changed the general plan so the developer could squeeze in more of the condos by diminishing the allowable setbacks. This was unprecedented to favor a project enough to change the general plan and we fought against it but the city gave in. Promises were made by the developers to have a trolley for increased traffic. They said they were only artists lofts No one not one promise was kept and the condos sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars more than they said We appealed the decision in one there was an appeal by the developer And we lost The second travesty was the city's complete and utter disrespect for its own general plan once again by setting the dangerous precedent of decimating even more low-income housing, allowing a hotel to be plunked down in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
The city allowed the change of zoning against the huge opposition by the neighbors and then let the developer use a traffic study that was 10 years old to get the project through. So here we are. It feels like deja vu. While not personally involved in this current potential litigation, how are you all surprised that this could happen given the history I just outlined?
Building low-income housing while taking away already existing ones is the same pattern you have been repeating for well over 20 years. While this is the last bastion of low income housing and Ojai's on the chopping block, this deal does little more than create more soulless dense and expensive condos for the privileged
few.
Thank
you all.
Next we have Jody Kaler. Just to be clear that all the people standing here are in support of the referendum
Next we have Jody Kaler, then Sharon Alisky and then John Drucker.
Hello, welcome to your new positions. I could easily point to water usage, traffic flow and spiraling housing costs as reasons to ask you to reject this deal tonight and I do yet I also point to the questionable aspects of the deal. My understanding is that the deal was accepted based on the developer's word that the residences residents of the cottages and Mallory Way were earning average incomes An official correct canvas of income levels should have been done because 1.
Most residents living there may have low, very low or acutely low income levels and 2. The affordable housing replacement ordinance requires like-to-like replacements and this development seeks to build rather pricey residences that are not like-to Questionable too is why the cottages and lodges don't have historical preservation status.
I'm sorry, Jody, I'm going to interrupt you and can we stop that time? Could we stop the conversations in the public because we can't hear what Jody's saying. It's on now. Go ahead and finish, Jody. You're good. Thank you.
Questionable too is why the cottages and lodges don't have historical preservation status. As it was mentioned at the meeting last July, something about how that didn't happen doesn't seem to be on the up-and-up. And has the legal requirement to maintain these properties been met? I find it really commendable that this developer wants to leave a legacy of ongoing income for his children. I'm a daughter, that would be great and it's a nice win for them.
To make this transaction a consensual win-win though, Ojai needs a win on water, environmental impact, legal and above board procedures, and rents that Ojai residents can actually pay. Please reject this deal tonight. If it's not on the up and up send it up and out.
Thank you. Thank you, Jody. Next we have Sharon Elitsky then John Drucker and then Larry Steingold.
Hi, thank you all for your service. I just want to say this is a difficult issue and I do have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I'm very grateful to what our former council people Wyrick and Blatz were able to negotiate but they're sort of temporary protections and ultimately there's going to be a loss of units for Low income extremely low income, very low income and acutely low income.
And also knowing that our workforce needs housing I just it seems to me that most of this housing is going to be out of reach for For even those who are within our workforce, the moderate income units certainly are workers in the hospitality industry. Those who are teachers I don't see that there's going to be very many of these units that are going to be affordable to them so I don't see it really helping our town in the way we need it to be helped. So I ask you to reject this ordinance thank you.
Thank you, Sharon. Next we have John Drucker then Larry Steingold then John Boetti. Is there a way Weston on the hallway?
1:40 – 1:4712 turns
Good
evening again. I simply want to use this opportunity to deliver the legal memorandum for you that I mentioned earlier
Mr. Drucker, that letter was addressed to me. I will ask the council to pass it to me
Next we have Larry Steingle, then John Buetti and then Tom Francis.
I agree with Tom Francis. We need to have the voters vote on the referendum. All right? Very simple. You people get to walk away and look like nice people. You solved the problem, you got it off your table and you left it. I may vote for it, I may vote against it but that's my business Because I don't want to risk the town on this deal. And by the way, those people who may be afraid of moving to not having enough lower income, if they build Bryant, Ohioans should have the first shot.
Not out-of-towners because that's why we're going through this mess. You want Ohioans to have first crack at the low-income housing? Then make that part of the deal with Cabrillo. Make it part of the deal on 55 plus over on Oliver, make it wherever. Ohioans get first shot then we can bend over backwards and whatever but otherwise why go through this? But I want to vote.
Tom Francis wants a vote in Kudos he managed to get all his people here congratulations he's got done a good ground game okay but he wants it Becker wants a vote Just ask him. But the $80,000? That's egregious. So I want to see where the numbers are coming from and how they're coming from. They don't just ratchet up 1230 to 80. Somebody is playing with the numbers. That's idiotic. And by that fact, maybe simply Ojai could come up with 30 Gs, and Becker can come up with 30 G's, and the town will come up with 50, and I'll even put up 500. OK,
thank you. Thank you, Larry.
Yeah, Larry I just wanted to let you know. We don't comment on... We have commented, we have commented for good God's sakes you know give me a break. Larry I just wanted to let you know that there is a new housing law that allows developers to prioritize long-term residents who have been displaced I think it is. It's an ordinance, so yeah, I don't think it's a maybe.
Next we have John Boetti then Tom Francis and then Bill Miley
Good evening, Council. Eight days ago the nation celebrated the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Martin Luther King Jr Day. The things that Dr. King is most well known for as we all know are racial... The things that Dr. King is most well known for, as we all know, are racial equality and civil rights. What he is less well known for are his views on economic equality but he had a lot to say about this and spoke about it on numerous occasions.
Here are some of the statements on the subject. Quote, the property is intended to serve life and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on but it is not man unquote. Quote when profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people materialism is incapable of being conquered unquote Quote, whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
Reportedly a member of our community said on social media that Dr. King would have supported the development project being discussed this evening. I believe the quotes I just read from Dr. King indisputably demonstrate that he would have been against it. Profit motives and property rights in this case are more important than the displacement of many of the current tenants who will not be able to afford the rents that the developer will demand when the project is completed.
As a member of this community, I cannot support a project that will displace many of my fellow citizens, especially when the likely result will be that they will no longer have a place to live in Ojai. Let me repeat the words of Dr. King that I mentioned above. Quote, whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
Thank you John. Next we have Tom Francis then Bill Miley And then, Al Caldwell.
Good evening again, Mayor and Council Members. I just want to start by making the point that you guys inherited a bad decision. Last year, a council majority voted to approve a bad project that's not good for our community. That's why a referendum to overturn that decision was filed. That's the bottom line. The perspective of the people that filed the referendum is that this proposed for project development agreement is not in the interest of our community, it's not in the interest of the environment and it's definitely not in the interest of protecting that historic resource which many people feel a lot of emotion around.
And I do want to speak to you quickly Councilwoman Francina, I know you've talked to us many times about the losses of other places in our town that also had similar cottages that are now gone So to the project It's a total of 67 units 60 of those units are high rent. What do I mean by that? Okay, so 40 of the units or market rate That means the sky's limit whatever they can charge 20 of those units are for a family of four over $3,500 a month Then you get six low-income units for a family of four. Those are close to $2,500 a month. You get one very low income unit and that's close to $1,500 a month.
Extremely low and acutely low income families get nothing. Nothing! What I think is most egregious about this whole thing is that this project has been billed as an affordable housing project. That's a joke! This is not affordable housing, most people cannot afford to live in any of these units. I'd like to propose tonight that the council consider a housing truth ordinance.
It just came to mind for me as I was sitting here listening this tonight because when the public is told that this is an affordable housing project, they actually think that people that work in Ojai that earn regular working wages could actually afford to live here and that's not the case. This project moves out poor people. Okay,
thank you. Next we have Bill Miley then El Caldwell and then Sabrina Venskis
1:47 – 1:556 turns
Good evening, for the record my name is Bill Miley. I believe the council should place this referendum document on a future election ballot so the voters can decide. I recommend a March primary. The only question tonight is to rescind, repeal or let the voters decide. My reasons, one, a super majority on October 25th 4-1 voted in favor of the development agreement Two, we need wider voter representation about the project's future.
Three, just who are the decision makers here? Who gets to decide whether the referendum petitioners, they rule today and get the project rescinded? Will it be simply Ojai or the Ojai voters? It should be the Ojai voters. Four, there's an ambiguous language in the petition. You can find it on the website, city website. In my interpretation, it implies but doesn't clearly state the following. A, it says 18 Mallory Way cottages and eight of the cottages among the flowers were and are affordable. My comment is they were never designated as affordable before the replacement ordinance was applied.
B, The petition fails to mention that the proposed new and rehab units will be affordably deed-restricted for 55 years at the income levels of $200,000 in 2019 when the survey was done. C. Petition fails to state what could happen to these affordable units if the development agreement is voted down In my opinion, the units could revert to market rate. And five, in our democracy we value allowing the voters to be the final arbitrators of issues.
Six, informational sharing and debate is foundational for democracy and part of the transparency value of our city. It will happen that way if we put it on the ballot.
Thank you Bill. Next we have Elle Caldwell then Sabrina Venskis and then Jay Simmons.
Hello again. I want to begin by saying please vote for the referendum, please don't dismiss this out of hand. I suggest the March option is kind of the middle ground between the super expensive and waiting for such a long time. I've lived in the Mallory Cottages for 15 years, I'm a 20 year Ojai resident And I want to speak especially to everyone who wants to stop this project. Who are you serving and what is your vision for Ojai?
The project, built or not built, will not solve the housing situation for the people who live there. The project gives us a package of things that help us either way We're talking about a three to four year time for the residents to see what else can happen if we build some low and very low housing in the meantime, and we get the first option to live there that would solve that.
If the project is stopped, we're at the mercy of continuing rent increases and many other ways to get people evicted. So we lose a lot as tenants if this is struck down. And the last thing I want to say, are you serving water security for the valley? The new Mallory project would most likely decrease the overall use of water from the current residents who are there now. Our plumbing is very old. We have a plumber on site almost every week to deal with problems that we have And I understand that the new project will provide a lot of catchment for rainwater and where do we need that. Thank you.
Thank you Al. Next we have Sabrina Venskas then Jay Simons and then Jeffrey Starkweather
Hello council members, Sabrina Venskis. I'm counsel for Simply Ojai and I just wanted to make sure that it's clear to the public that the lawsuit against the city has been stayed by the court so it's not actually active right now until the referendum issue is decided. So there's no money being spent on that. It's a non-issue at this time I also want to make sure that people understand that it's Tara Jeffries is the one that filed for this referendum and nobody else. So, to the extent that there are people claiming that there are other organizations or people that filed the referendum, that would be absolutely incorrect.
The deal that was struck by the last council for this development agreement was a bad deal. One of the things that I had asked the council to do before agreeing to approve that development agreement, was to make sure they get a pro forma from the developer so that the council would understand what benefits, monetary et cetera, that the developer was getting as a result of the contract, the development agreement's a contract And the council decided not to do that, why I don't understand. Of course you'd want to know what the consideration is on both sides right? It's supposed to be a quid pro quo, you're entering into a contract. So the council didn't have all the information the council should have had in order to determine whether it was a good deal but it's just not a good deal.
Because we're losing low-income housing, and it won't be replaced. That low income housing will not be replaced. The housing ordinance says that the council can require a one to one replacement for the type of housing that's being lost. And so the last council didn't do that and in my estimation they circumvented the housing ordinance and that was just wrong because it results in us losing many affordable units that people can really afford.
Finally I would recommend Microphone, please I gathered signatures too. Yeah, a lot of people gathered signatures but Tara Jeffries is the one that is the person that filed for the referendum she's the proponent of the referendum. That's what that means. I don't know what you're talking about, Suza. I don't even know what that means. These are community members that go out and get the... Quiet please. I could explain it to you.
If I could jump in briefly, a referendum has a legal proponent That is the person who files the request to initiate the referendum process and then who returns to file the petitions. There is one legal proponent for this referendum, it is Ms. Jeffries as she noted earlier. She filed the initial letter beginning the referendum process and she filed the petitions. Obviously a number of other people signed the petitions. The list of those who signed the petition is confidential and will not be released per state law. And those who gathered signatures is subject to community discussion but not legally relevant.
1:55 – 2:0215 turns
Microphone,
please.
Only if the people who gather signatures choose to disclose it. The city knows who gathered signatures because they had to sign the circulator's declaration on each petition. However that document is also not available for public review.
May I ask, what is the process that the people who solicited signatures went through? Is it just they just gathered...
The process is the referendum proponent, Ms. Jeffries, filed a letter initiating the process. There are two ways to do referendum. Either you use the full text of the ordinance or you ask for a summary. Ms. Jeffries asked for a summary. I wrote the summary as city attorney that was then provided to her within the statutory timeline That then became the front page of the petition. She then, her and whoever she worked with gathered signatures. The city doesn't validate or regulate who gathers signatures upfront. Instead it's tested on the back end when the petitions are submitted to the city clerk and then to the county clerk or county clerk recorder, each signature petition section has to have a declaration of circulator at the bottom and that declaration of circulator is tested against the relevant standards.
A person over 18 who is a registered voter um uh no pardon just person over 18 they don't have to be registered voter person over 18 who declared that they witnessed each of the signatures on their section but that's it there's no further process
Thank you. Thanks, Matt. Leslie? So can I ask you who paid the filing fee for that? Was that information that you have?
There is no filing fee for a referendum.
There is no filing fee for referendum? Nope. OK. Thank
you. So there was no fee paid.
OK, great. Next
we have Jay Simons then Jeffrey Starkweather and then Judy Murphy.
Good evening City Council and staff. I won't go over the actual units that are in the development agreement. I think we understand what those is, what those are. So under the development agreement 40 units Oh, sorry. Okay so under the development agreement 40 units or 60% are at market rate and there is a net reduction of six affordable units going from 33 units to 27 units in order to make this work for the developers the city has allowed increased density with zoning changes for the market rate units The developers gain millions in revenue by the addition of their market rate units, and lose virtually nothing by deed restricting existing mostly moderate-rate revenue.
So this is not an affordable housing solution we need. The developers in this city previously negotiated a development agreement saying it was in keeping with the small town character of Ojai. My definition of small town character includes allowing for a rich diversity of residents. My some 15 years as an Ojai trolley driver has led to a deep appreciation for those active and potential residents who truly need affordable, low-income housing.
These are not residents who will appear on the front of the Ojai Quarterly or Ojai Magazine. They will not frequent the upscale tourist shops and restaurants that dominate our village. They have little power or influential wealthy backers to push for their inclusion But they are real. They work here in low-wage jobs, they have stories to tell and they should be an integral part of the fabric of our community.
We as a city need to support them. We need real affordable housing solutions not projects that disproportionately benefit the already well off. Please repeal Ordinance 984 and energetically pursue real affordable housing solutions. Thank
you. Next, Jeffrey Starkweather then Judy Murphy and then Marcy Tosher.
Well I want to remind you of the massive audience that was at the Nutella Ha parents who were basically having to deal with their schools being closed because we've lost so many families. Families are fleeing Ojai because they can't afford to live here, and it's a simple supply and demand. We haven't provided housing units in almost 25 years. There's been no deed-restrictive housing units during that time. Now people say that they're affordable but nothing is ultimately affordable unless you deed restrict it Because the market eventually is going to make it unaffordable. And that's what's been happening in Ojai. So it's great to say, oh we'll save something for a short period of time unless we deed restrict them. We're not creating affordable units.
The second thing is I think it's kind of interesting that simply Ojai seems to have redefined what affordable housing means. HUD has very specific income criterias and in Ojai 16% of our population is moderate, 13% is low, 12% is very low and 15% is extremely low. All categories that we need housing, as well as moderate housing. Finally I would say we need to do this referendum as soon as possible. You can see the conflict we're having. We need to move on and I think we need to have a referendum that's focused just on this one and doesn't get caught up in the political parties that you're going to get if you go to a presidential primary election or if you take it back To the general election when we have the mayor running and Sousa's seat is up, we ought to have something just on this issue.
Educate voters, debate it, and let's move on to all the other things that we need to be accomplishing. Thank you.
Thank you Jeffrey. Next Judy Murphy then Marcy Tosher and then Joe McDonald.
2:02 – 2:1116 turns
Good evening council members, mayor staff. I have to tell you, I'm disappointed to be here tonight. The city council worked for over two and a half years to come to an agreement on the Becker agreement. There were multiple hearings, the public spoke and they spoke again. And now it's all being turned upside down and we have to start over. That is a mistake.
If we have to choose one or the other vote overturn, or take it to the voters of the city. I certainly hope you let the city residents get their say One last thing, several have mentioned tonight that the rents are too high and in the Becker agreement they don't include low and extremely low rentals. That those rentals require subsidization. They require government money, they require city or county state federal money. You cannot pencil out an agreement for extremely low income housing without that now we We'll have other projects coming before us soon, and I think that's a chance that we will be able to see provision for those very low-income people that everyone is very concerned about. Thank you.
Thank you, Judy. Next, we have Marcy Tosher, then Joe McDonald, and then Mary Nelson.
Hi. Words have consequences. Please examine the word affordable. What does it really mean? Legislation governing the meaning of affordable housing would have you believe that affordable means truly affordable. It makes everyone feel good and want to support any developer coming along who has co-opted this word and hides behind it, the consequences of building out units that are anything but truly affordable and eventually will evict people from their current truly affordable homes. That will be devastating.
So-called affordable housing is nothing more than a clever marketing strategy propagated by the real estate lobbyists. Don't be lulled into a blind acceptance of the label, look behind the curtain of so called affordability. Affordable is defined by Webster's having a cost that is not too high and if rent is affordable it means that price is low enough that most people have enough money to rent it. It's also been referred to as being accessible So Becker is proposing removing 30 truly affordable units and instead offering, this has been discussed before. I didn't know he was going to do it but 20 40 market rate which sky could be the limit for what that rent would be 20 moderate rate at 3463 six low income in quotes low income 2509 And one very low income unit that would rent for, or could rent for $1,568.
That basically would be a one room, the corner of the room equipped with a dorm fridge, a hot plate, a microwave and a small sink. I don't even know if this unit could qualify for Section 8 housing. So banish the word affordable in this context and instead look at the actual numbers and ask can most of the low and very low-income residents of Ojai really afford these units? Don't think so, but why don't you ask them?
Thank You Marcy next Joe McDonald then Mary Nelson then Robin Gerber
Hello City Council The overwhelming majority of people in our community don't want the residents of the cottages and Mallory Way removed from their homes. They know that this is not a good project, and they want you to reject it We need to keep people in their homes and keep these historical Ojai buildings intact Please vote to stop this project, and if you don't And it goes on the to the voters please put it in the November vote so that most people can vote on it Thank You
Thank you, Joe. Next Mary Nelson then Robin Gerber then Renee Roth. Is Mary Nelson here? Yeah.
Okay. Good evening council and thank you for doing this thankless job I have a letter here to read that someone who had to leave wrote. But first, I just want to say do we really want these giant developments, 60-unit condos in one of our older quieter neighborhoods? I wouldn't if I lived there. So this is the letter. While I have come to this issue rather late in the game as a non-City of Ojai resident, I still want to make my thoughts known about this proposed project.
Aside from issues of water scarcity, traffic Insufficient parking, gentrification by replacement of 42 existing truly affordable units with 40 market rate value units and 20 moderate unions. The income threshold of which is far above what many current residents could only dream of making. I would like to address the issue of tree removal As you know, the city of Ojai has an ordinance which prohibits tree removal of specific dimensions and specifies terms for remediation if removed. And while culling of dead trees is non-issue planting oak saplings intending to them for five years before their self sustaining requires time effort and care to combat disease Browsing by deer and damaged by pests.
They only grow a maximum of three feet per year and don't start producing acorns for regeneration for 20 to 30 years, and older trees store more CO2. Do you honestly think a developer who hasn't maintained That was fast.
Thank you, Mary. Yes, thank you. Next we have Robin Gerber then Renee Roth and then Leanne McDonald. Thank you, Robin Gerber
again. I don't really believe in legislating by referendum. I believe in you so I'm not happy about this but I think we do have to put it to vote of the people and if we're going to they should know all of the information that you know but Because in closed session, you received information from a private attorney who the city is going to be paying up to $30,000 and who was recommended to you all by the mayor on the recommendation of Sabrina Venskas. Who as you heard is the attorney representing Simply Ojai in a lawsuit against the city.
Not a good move. And I'm sorry, I'm sorry for you that this was not disclosed to you. Don't interrupt me Mr. Summers! You know who you work for? You work for me!
I pay
your salary
as a council member. Excuse me, let her speak. Let her speak as a council member if we want to vote
on it we can. Could you please let me speak?
So the city has a couple points number one the city does neither Confirmed or denies any comments regarding closed session, but the alleged statements regarding closed session information is not an appropriate disclosure I might be wrong. I'm just a member of the public mr.
Sun
It is unclear how Miss Gerber has that information nonetheless the city cannot and does not confirm nor deny anything
2:11 – 2:1631 turns
Okay, could we stop yelling and Council, council.
So as noted Ms. Gerber can finish her comments of course regarding the question of submitting to the voters or repealing them at the ordinance. The council could also allow her to continue our other comments regarding closed session information as council rule has asked for. I understood that to be a motion to overrule this chair. I will
not be censored by you or this council. I am a member of the public making a
public comment Madam Mayor. Could we let our city attorney finish his sentence please?
So as noted, the mayor as chair can rule Ms. Gerber out of order regarding her attempted leak of closed session information or apparent closed session information and the council can seek to overrule that as an appeal of the ruling of the chair. That appeal requires a second and then majority vote of
course. I would say
it's out of order is there a motion? I
want to ask Mr. Summers why can't the public All public funds are public, that is correct. The warrant register will reflect that at some point in the future at such point as invoices are received and checks are paid. The city cannot pay money in secret
And it has not done so and it will not do so. That is not on tonight's agenda. Really,
who knows about it Mr.
Summers? That is not on tonight's agenda. The broader question...
Excuse me, could you let me
finish? The broader questions regarding the information that City Council received in closed session about the options and the risks is privileged because it provided the City Council an unvarnished uncensored assessment of all of the options and all of the risks thereto The City Council alone is privy to that information. I realize that puts the voters in a bit of a tough spot, but the reality is the City Council's entitled to have confidential conversations with its attorneys regarding any matter that is a lawful subject for closed session. The City Council did so. It received confidential advice from its attorneys regarding the subjects of those closed sessions and the City Council majority alone can waive the relevant privileges. We have no majority vote to waive the privileges, so we must protect those privileges.
The
City Council can vote in closed session to waive the privilege. Okay, thank you But it would take a city council majority vote to waive the privilege not any one okay, two
three
three is
I'm just gonna suggest to move things along that we give Ms. Gerber the option of speaking about the agenda item not including this material that is going to be discussed in closed session but if she insists upon speaking about that issue then I would prefer that she not speak
so is that a second to the mayor's motion or is that a motion? I'm sorry, I'm confused are you making a motion
As I understand it, the mayor made a ruling as chair. Councilwoman Rule, I believe you made a motion to override that? I did. I didn't hear a second.
I'll second Councilwoman Leslie Rule's motion.
I'll second. Understood then Mayor Pro Tem, then I'd recommend simply taking a vote. Majority rule.
All in favor?
Aye.
No. Rachel?
It would be a yes, would allow Ms. Gerber to finish her comments exactly as she proposes. A no, not overruling the motion would mean that Ms. Gerber could comment on the agenda item but not the closed session information that she may or may not have. Unclear how?
Ms. Gerber I would really ask that you keep The city in mind when you make your comments, and that you that you recognize that there are some of us on this council that are really trying hard to move decisions forward. And the best way to move those decisions forward. are by coming together. And even if we don't agree on everything, that we can at least have conversations that are civil.
The civility of our council and the civility of what happens in these rooms is in question Yes, there are perhaps some things that need to be disclosed and I am all for transparency in the right ways. And so I'm going to vote to let you proceed and I'm asking you please to keep that in mind.
So the motion passes?
That's correct. Madam Gover can proceed.
And thank you Matt. I think the Constitution gives me that right too, but Let me say councilwoman Lang there was a lovely statement and I truly truly appreciate it So let me finish by saying there has been Items that have happened in the closed session then that the public need to know if anyone wants to see them They can take a document from me And you can see what else was said that should not have been said. And I think there's very firm legal ground for doing that. I won't take up any more of the council's time, thank you.
Thank you Robin. Next we have Renee Roth and then Leanne McDonald.
2:17 – 2:237 turns
Good evening, Council. I do want to make a special welcome to our new chief. We don't normally have fireworks like this tonight. This is an exceptional night and we're managing to remain as calm as we can so welcome to you too. I would like to say that You know, I'm really kind of discouraged by what I'm seeing here and the display of emotions. There seem to be a lot of people who are new experts on what affordable housing is and they're coming up and telling you that you're not going to have any affordable units in an agreement that was developed over many many years with many people involved It's very disconcerting to me.
You have an obligation to do the public good in this situation, and we need to get the facts out. The way you get affordable housing is not by sticking a private developer in the middle of a development agreement to start demanding all the units now be affordable units as that private developer goes forwards. That's not how you get affordable housing. My husband and I owned a house, there was a guesthouse on the back. We rented it out and the renters we rented it to asked us to make it Section 8 housing. We made it affordable housing by choice The way you get affordable housing is you have people who provide subsidies. They provide grant funding, they provide government funding. That's how you get affordable housing. You don't stick a developer with new demands in the middle of a development project and say you must provide development for all these affordable units.
They're not affordable, they're substandard. They are 100 year old units. I just need to say we need a housing trust and a housing advisory committee to fill the gap because we don't have enough good information coming from the city on how to do this right.
Next we have Leanne McDonald and then Christine Golden
Thank you City Council for letting me speak tonight. I wasn't intending to, but as we debate this issue of the cottages on Mallory and the cottages in the flowers my thoughts continue to go back to the families. I'm a mother of two. I've raised my children here in the Ojai Valley My kids went to the public schools and yes, declining enrollment is a crisis at the public schools. The schools get their money from the attendance of students so the more and more students that we hemorrhage in this housing crisis really costs our school district. But that's not the focus of why I wanted to talk to you tonight. I want to talk to you from the standpoint and the perspective as a mother, and having small children which I know some of the families in those properties have.
The prospect of displacing small children from their homes two or three times In the process of a development phase just seems like too much. Too much on a family, too much on children, too much on mothers and I urge you to really investigate the idea of forming with the public a public housing trust for these low-income and very low income families with young children that can thrive in our schools, but not if they're asked to be displaced constantly or in fear of rent increases or eviction. And if they're living in substandard housing. We have to hold our landlords accountable and we have to work as a city to provide a safety net to our families and to our young children, and to our mothers and fathers who work so hard to provide their children with a valuable full life here as full community members and school members of the Ojai Valley.
Thank
you. Next we have Christine Golden.
Well, hi. I see you have a choice here to vote either for repealing ordinance number 934 or submit ordinance 934 to the voters of the city of Ojai. I want to encourage you to go with number two. Submit this to the voters of Ojai not to get yourself out of the hot seat. You're in the hot seat. You're not going to get out of it that easy, but it's the right thing to do. It's the democratic thing to do this is it's you could see by the public comment here This is just way over-the-top. It needs to go to the voters You did not any of you I think I could fairly say Get a mandate to sit where you're sitting tonight The vote was so close So take this to the voters Give it to us and trust that we have the intelligence To sort through the facts and we can make the correct decision for the citizenry of Ojai And since I have a little left over time, I'll bet you didn't know that when your nose gets cold all those things that prevent viruses go to sleep.
So close the doors because anybody out there with a cold nose and I saw Susie going like this... You're just gonna get a cold. So that's my little bit of wisdom. I know you guys really miss me. I miss you too. Thank you Christine.
Any comments on Zoom, Weston?
Yes Mayor and I will remind zoom attendees we are speaking on item 3 before item 2 due to council action. First we have Karina. Karina do you have the floor?
2:23 – 2:2813 turns
Hi, thank you so much. Thank you Mayor Betsy Stix and council members really appreciate this opportunity to speak to you about this situation. I just want to point out that a person working minimum wage In this town in the state of California, let's say they make $16 an hour. They're making $33,280 a year. The quote low income housing that is proposed is for $75,000 income people.
So that doesn't really solve that issue. I would also like to say that I am really disheartened and appalled by all of the people, Robin Gerber, Anson Williams, John Drucker etc., who are just hiding behind technicalities about Closed sessions that we may or may not know the information about as a way to dismantle what the council is trying to review. And I strongly disagree with this type of politicking, especially in the ninth hour when we as a city are really trying to figure out how we should go forward with these historical Sites.
I'm so sorry that we have to do this is completely unnecessary but sadly, this is politics. regarding the public school system and everyone tying in the enrollment to low-income housing. I'm not sure I see that, so I think we should look at that.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Karina. I just got a message that the Zoom link is not working?
I've got it working after 15,000 tries.
People are speaking on Zoom,
so it's working. Okay, great.
Thanks, Karina. All right, next question?
Next we have Catherine Donwin. Catherine, you have the floor?
Yes hi again. I, thank you. I thought I was planning to say my piece in the public comments but then listening to some of these additional comments it made me realize that for people who may not have been following this process since July which was the first major meeting I attended might not be aware of like the major changes that have been made to this proposal over time and some of the considerations that I was staunchly against this proposal from the get-go, but after attending meetings and seeing how hard the former council worked to revise the agreement and have the additional protections in place started to change my mind.
And what was especially impactful was the fact that without this type of agreement Though those homes are affordable, they are not affordable housing. They're not protected by law so there is a possibility that those plots are already owned and who knows what could happen if they're not protected? There was also a comment about the effects on traffic having more people Well, if anyone is aware of the current proposal by the school district to consolidate schools you may or may not be aware that that consolidation will significantly impact traffic in our Valley.
And I do think that affordable housing is directly tied to the enrollment in our schools because we have seen, I have seen it growing up here graduating from Nordoff between 2006 and now We have seen a significant reduction in our enrollment, as well as our population. They are absolutely tied together. So I strongly advise you to at the very least send this to the public for our vote so you can see what we really think. Thank you.
Next we have Karina. Karina do you have the floor?
We already had Karina.
Yeah, you already... Oh. Okay, that's all ma'am. Am I talking?
Apologies. No more on Zoom.
Okay, thank you Weston. Council would you like to take a break before we come back or are you ready to keep going? Ready to deliberate? We're ready to go home. Okay. Can we move on to discussion and then we'll take a break? Okay so we will move onto discussion.
2:28 – 2:3750 turns
I like to keep going because I already took a break. Who
would like to begin?
Well, I'll start. Go ahead Leslie. Ms. Mayor, I would like to ask My fellow council members, if I may make a statement that is not tied to any lawsuit towards this city. It's just simply a statement that I believe needs to be made. I think that transparency only happens when people stand up for it. There is not a right or way wrong or right way to do transparency. And for those who have accused me of being horrible, you don't know what you don't know. So please and so I'm asking for my colleagues to allow me to speak. I would like to stay on the agenda. We have
a very packed
this is an agent This is an agenda item. This is this isn't a giant. This is an agenda item. This isn't the development agree Yes, I'm trying to get people yes, this is on the development
speak you don't need our okay?
Okay as long as it's the oh, it's absolutely the agenda item Absolutely Okay So as has been mentioned we hired an outside law firm for $30,000
I didn't understand the council's direction to include disclosure of potential disclosure of closed session information
Well that is which is what I am asking here legal correct
unless the council votes to waive the privilege. I'm asking the council certain other exceptions apply
okay, so wait Yeah, so we need to vote right now to waive that privilege
Or to further matter, it's not necessary to decide the item.
Okay, well I would defer it and let's
continue and talk about the development. This is very pertinent to the development. I will say this is all about the development agreement so I am asking my council members to allow me to speak in public to be transparent about what has occurred and I will say again that I'm not speaking about any ongoing litigation. This development agreement is not in litigation It is not. It is in
litigation, Council Member Buol.
In what way?
Simply Ojai versus City of Ojai as Ms. Venskoos noted the lawsuit has stayed.
The lawsuit
has stayed. But stayed does not mean non-existent. So. The matter is currently in litigation. The
lawsuit is not against the Becker Agreement. The lawsuit is against the city.
The lawsuit challenges the city's approval of the Becker Agreement that is absolutely against the Becker Agreement. The lawsuit has half dozen causes of action that the council has been provided and those are available. That's a public document The lawsuit challenges the city's approval of the development agreement directly. Thus, the Becker Agreement is very much the subject of that lawsuit.
And I will say to my colleagues that there is nothing that I am going to say that in any way will affect the outcome of that litigation which is the main reason for having a closed session That we discussed many things that have nothing to do with the outcome of that litigation. I am asking my colleagues To vote to allow me to speak publicly Okay, so that's a motion you
just made yes, please okay is there a second to that?
So I want to comment In My career as an attorney I've been in Matt seat and And advising boards about litigation. And those always happen in closed session, they never happen in the open eyes of the public and one of the main reasons they don't is because it would be really dumb to play your cards to the other side. Although that happened quite a bit before we ever got a chance to look at this.
Look, there is very important it's a very important principle that we not discuss what happened in closed session. Council is telling us That you're violating closed session confidences. So what you are proposing essentially to do is to destroy our ability going forward, to hold a closed session because we cannot trust those people who are participating in the closed session with us. People are concerned about division? Hey, we're getting it right here.
Yes we are. Can I respond to that please? Thank you, yes that is really really true if what I was going to disclose had anything to do with the litigating matter which it does not and I agree but my problem is that so much went on in closed session that should be made public
Well, we have a motion. Do we have a
second? We also have a motion That we're going to have a closed session to lift the privilege information.
We had a motion to have a closed session regarding the claims made by Councilmember Rule. One of the options would include waiving privilege, although there was no guarantee that privilege would be waived. That will be discussed in closed session. Okay. So- That has been approved. That was approved earlier.
But I can't be there?
Correct.
Correct. Is there a second on Councilmember Rule's motion? No? So that, do you want to make a statement about the
development agreement? Sure. A statement about the development agreement... Wow! Let's see how this is actually going to work. Councilman Whitman When Sousa Francina asked about the mayor's ties to Simply Ohai, you told her that she was talking out of her ass. Excuse
me, when
I said... Councilmember Ruhle. When I said
there were dotted lines... We made a motion that you would
not talk about closed sessions so... Oh, I'm sorry. I thought we made a motion that I would. I so apologize. That
motion did not get a second.
Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it. I thought no. It's more than what somebody
like oh my god The development agreement that's on the agenda would anyone like to?
Okay, so um councilwoman Leslie rule and I We're ready to vote, to submit ordinance number 934 to the voters of the city of Ojai and direct the city clerk to prepare the necessary resolutions calling an election for council adoption. So I would like to make that motion again as I tried to do at the last session so that we can move forward. This is our, I believe this is our 26th meeting On this item. I've calculated hundreds of hours, and I hold you responsible for bringing this around around in circles again for another two hours, I want to take the, you know, go, I would like to know, you asked More time to investigate.
I'm interested to know what you learned in that time, but that is my motion that we submit this to the voters. And what was the date? Did you give a date or no? The date?
Which election?
The date for the election?
Yeah, which one would you like to submit it to?
Okay, I think we need council discussion on that Yeah,
so we have a motion. I would like to second that motion to take it to the voters and to discuss the Date,
okay. Okay. Okay
All
right. We have a motion do we want does anyone want any more discussion?
I Thought I'd get the opportunity to discuss My views on the project
this would be the time So
2:37 – 2:537 turns
I appreciate the people who have said that we've been put in a difficult position because we've been put in a horrific position We We are here to Either take away a decision from the prior City Council or Take away a decision and give a decision to the voters. And there are, first of all I want to comment on Councilman Francina's concern about why this has taken so long and why another two weeks were necessary.
And another two weeks were necessary for the same reason that you voted yes, you voted no on this development agreement and then in the same meeting voted yes. So there's a lot of issues swirling around here that are very difficult to determine, and I want to make the right
decision.
My first comment is that my belief is that we have a limited capacity to grow, not no capacity to grow but we have a limited capacity to grow. And because of that, we have to make the most effective housing decisions that we can make. That benefit the goals that we have for housing where we provide housing to the part of our community that is in most in need of housing.
I do not agree with the proponents that say we just need to throw lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of houses and then eventually Suddenly, families with small school children will be able to afford to live here. When I was going to school here in 1978, we had declining enrollment. When my kids started school here in 1996, we had declining enrollment.
We will continue to have declining enrollment and we cannot build so many houses to get us out of declining enrollment where are those people gonna live? Where are they gonna work I mean, we don't have the jobs in this town to support another thousand kids and their families to move into this town. So suggesting that this is going to cure the school problem I mean, I'd love to see someone do an actual analysis on that.
But I know that I just recently read an article about a school district here or a city here in Southern California that has developed extensive affordable housing and they can't understand why their enrollment is still going down. But it is still going down in that city, despite having built something like a 10% increase in housing over the past few years. So this is not simple economics like you can supply and demand. You can say how much if you have enough houses eventually the price is gonna go down. I've never heard how many houses that is.
Is that 10,000 houses? Is that 50,000 houses when people will suddenly say hey I'm not going to pay for a million dollar house in Ojai anymore. I want us to build affordable housing but I want it to be really thoughtful that takes care of the greatest number of people who live here today And one of the things that's been very disturbing for me, and I'm not gonna speak for Councilman Francina but I bet it has something to do with why she voted no and then yes. And that is that we've got, I'm just gonna call them 30 family units who currently reside on these properties.
They are going to be displaced if this project goes through. There are provisions for some protection, but those protections extend no further than two years and so they are not gonna have a place to go. Concept that they're going to be able to get in line for housing at the new moderate of housing. That's going to be built but you're talking about a 2,000 a month increase in rent for them and so it really Bothers me that we have actual people to look at here Who live in this community? This this small neighborhood They're gonna leave And we haven't done anything meaningful to make sure that they're taken care of.
The word workforce housing has been suggested, and I don't think workforce housing is provided by this project at all except with respect to the one Very low affordable housing unit because our workforce are making 30, 40 maybe 50,000 a year and they can't afford the housing that's being provided with the exception of I think one unit. There has been talk about this is great infill housing. No, infill housing is not when you have affordable housing standing there where people can live And you bring in the bulldozers and scrape it over.
That is not infill. Infill is when you have an empty lot, and you find a good purpose for that empty lot. So this is not infill housing. Don't call it infill housing. We as a community adopted an ordinance that recognized... Well let me back up a minute because I I served on the Planning Commission many years ago. And one of the things, and before that I spent a lot of time like you folks coming to talk at hearings and one of the things that I learned over that time is that our general plan says that one of the most important tools that we have to address affordable housing is protecting our affordable housing stock Okay, this housing that we're talking about in this project that's going to be eliminated is exactly that. It's affordable housing stock.
It means that we've got housing standing existing where people can live under affordable circumstances Now I think in recognition that a developer could buy up that property and turn it into market rate housing, our city council decided well we should have a replacement housing ordinance. And the replacement housing ordinance says that if you remove affordable housing from this city that you are going to have to replace it with the same number of units And with the same type of affordability.
But this project doesn't do that. Now there is a provision within that statute, that regulation that says or the city can come up with the equivalent. Well 27 doesn't make the equivalent of 33 under any definition of equivalent that I understand So I have a big problem and it's it's a it's a big problem in this city And I've lived here for you know owned a home here for 32 years and And lived here for much longer than that, but we have a problem enforcing our own rules and We have a problem with breaking rules when we find it convenient and And we should be a city that runs based upon its rules and the people who come to us to develop should comply with our rules.
And I'm upset that there wasn't enough, maybe I wasn't involved in these discussions but I never really heard hey This developer has to comply with our rules, which says we have to have the replacement of 33 affordable units at the value. And one of the really big problems I think it was a big mistake to allow two of our council members to negotiate with the developer and then sit on this board and vote.
There's, I know ethics is a topic tonight. It is really difficult to negotiate someone and then be making a vote on behalf of the people. So suddenly you're invested in that negotiation you had, and you want to believe that your deal is the best deal that could ever come out. And it just doesn't work that way. I'm someone who's been involved in lots and lots of negotiations, and I was somewhat dismayed by how this agreement with Becker for the Becker Development Agreement was carried out.
I think it was a mistake to have city council members repeatedly say in open session that this developer was giving us a great deal, so much better than anybody else. We've talked to other cities and we're getting such a fantastic deal out of this. That is not negotiation. Negotiation is if you want to build, you're going to build according to our rules. That approach saying this was the best we could do and it's a great deal was more like advocacy for the developer than negotiating on behalf of those people who live at Mallory and Cottage.
People have... yeah? I'll wind it up. People have talked about their frustration that we haven't built anything there has been a at least a three-person majority on council for the last eight years And if affordable housing wasn't built during their tenure, I don't think it's fair to come to us and say we're not doing our part for affordable housing. We've had a lot on Montgomery that the city has said is available for building affordable housing. It hasn't been built. So I know it's hard to build affordable housing But if we end up turning this down, I don't think that it's going to be because...
So another problem I have with the development agreement Is that it takes these 30 some families lucky enough to live in those neighborhoods, which you know is kind of a cottages and the oak forest type of a place. And we're going to if this housing is for them, which I don't accept, we're going to move them across town into 400 square foot homes next to a power station.
What I would understand, that's how you would explain to a elementary school class social justice. I'll wrap it up.
Thank you
Andy.
We have a motion we have a second any other comments? I have a comment actually.
So let me say one last thing and that is If I were to vote to take this away from the voters, it would be because I would be very much concerned about misinformation. I would be very much concerned about how unfair it would be to put the voters in a place that I found very difficult to work my way through with legal counsel. So our voters are not going to have legal counsel, but I will also say that if I vote to give this to the voters it will be because my understanding is that the best way for the city of Ojai to do a good job concerning affordable housing Is to give the vote to the voters. That is our best path forward legally as I understand it, I'm not going to share the legal advice I've received.
Go
2:53 – 3:0317 turns
ahead. Well, I would also agree. Thank you Andy. I would also agree that legally That is the best decision to give it to the voters at this point. We need to take care of our city Of course we know that this development agreement We've known all along it does very little to provide housing for the disadvantaged and it creates many homes for the wealthy and So I think that's just the bottom line. Is that what we want?
This is not what Ojai needs, we've heard it over and over again. We need low income housing and this does not increase housing equity at all. And we've gone over the numbers 67 units 40 market rate 20 moderate that's $3500 a month which adds up to $42,000 a year in rent. This is too much for those Ojai families So talking about increasing numbers of kids in schools, that is too much.
This means that 60 out of the 67 units are out of reach for those who really need help. That's why this does not make any sense. And in terms of the referendum, we had over 600 Ojai voters sign this referendum. That's well over 10% of registered voters. That a lot of voters. And nearly all of them signed because they understand that this development agreement is not good for our community.
So last year the council approved the development, this is a false solution that harms our disadvantaged members of our community. 60 more units of high rent housing is not what Ojai needs. And the overwhelming majority of the people who came and spoke about this over in all those meetings were against the development agreement. So placing this on the next general election, November 2024 is the best decision I think because this will increase the number of voters who participate in this important decision. It's a that November 2024 as I believe Matt said is presidential election and that's when we will get We have a motion and a second do you want to?
I want to make a comment. Okay, my comment is with all due respect Councilmember Andrew Whitman and Mayor Betsy Sticks there's nothing that you said tonight we haven't already repeatedly has already been repeatedly stated by either members of the public or myself when I was Opposing this development agreement, and I've also said it's not that. I don't disagree with your statements I agree But I took the advice of our city attorney and our city manager And I asked what are the consequences of a yes or no vote? okay, what are the consequences the consequences if we didn't go with the Development agreement were a lawsuit and I weighed I weighed that decision, putting the city at risk of a lawsuit.
It just felt that I wanted to put my energy into other housing projects and not fighting this ad nauseum. We've been around and around about this, and there was good reason why I changed my vote. Not that I disagree but that I felt that it was not worth the risk of a lawsuit. And I still do not know what you hoped... What the consequences are. No matter what happens I don't know. You know, we've had it explained but it's still in my mind if we can't...
As I understand it, we cannot force a private developer as Renee Roth stated and possibly others. We can't afford... We can't force a private developer. I mean, we've gone around about this that the The ordinance for replacement housing was before. The Becker project. That was the argument, right?
There's a basic dispute there between project proponents and project opponents. Yes. Project proponents believe that the prior council's action complied with the replacement housing requirement via the alternative compliance path as stated in the ordinance that approved the development agreement. Project opponents disagree with that and believe Alternative compliance approach was not properly met and that the only compliant approach would be to have 33 Units at a certain some unspecified income levels Low or lower or extremely low or acutely low?
That whether that's the dispute and my advice is that the prior council's action was correct, or it was lawful Not correct. That's policy statement was lawful The referendum is also lawful therefore the council has its two choices tonight submit to the voters or repeal
And we have a motion to submit it to the voters, correct?
I think you were asking for a date and I think Sousa asked Council to clarify on the date and then I jumped in and made a long speech.
Okay, and it's your motions is
okay So yeah Yeah,
I did want to make general comments But I'm not sure that this I mean should I resist the time? Yeah, yeah I would and rest assured there shall be nothing that happened behind closed doors. So I did want to say that to Councilman Whitman's concern about misinformation Trust the voters, trust the voters to be able to understand this. It really isn't that complicated. The more we delve into it, the more we start tearing it apart, it gets more and more and more complicated but indeed it is not that complicated.
Trust the voters, don't think that they're not smart enough or that they'll be swayed by disinformation or they can't get it. Or whatever it is that you think the voters are not smart enough to grasp, they are smart enough to grasp I promise you. And to Mayor Sticks, yes we have done very little for But this isn't solving that. We need to commit to doing more for the disadvantaged. This rescinding or whatever it is, that it's not putting it to the ballot, is not going to help the disadvantaged It is only a reason to stick the knife in to the developers. It doesn't, to me, make sense We need to take responsibility for doing more for the disadvantaged, not point the finger and stick the knife in somebody else.
I also think it was quite ungracious to slag on the previous council. That was not kind but I have one more, one more, one more, one more. I don't think- And slag
on the current council.
Yeah, no I mean, I don't think the gavel is appropriate at this particular point Okay. Good good The 600 votes that were put on the referendum Signatures were put to take it to ballot to assume that you know how they wanted to vote and is to me sort of, you know, how do you know how they wanted to vote? When you say 600 people signed, 600 people signed to take it to ballot. That's what they signed for. So take it to ballot. Take that to ballot and let's see if I have... You know the other thing, Suze is right. We've gone around and around and around and the people who don't like the development agreement see all of this one way and the people that do see it another.
In the end we have to trust the people to make the decision and so Yes, thank
you.
So we have a motion to
take it to the voters and Susie
about that Okay, so the three I'm not in favor of waiting for the primary election which is March 5 20 Wait a minute I'm not in favor of the of the November 5 general election. I'm not in favor of that. So for me God, that seems like a long way off. So one option would be March 5th, 2024 the primary election $12,500 unless we're willing to pay $88,000?
So there are three basic choices for the election date. Option 1 in reverse order from now going forward. Option one would be a special election at $88 thousand There could be any Tuesday that is not after a Monday holiday at least 88 days from tonight. That's $88,000. The next option in going forward in time is March 5th, 2024 which is the next primary, the presidential primary.
The next option and the last option is November 5th 2024, the next general city election which is also the next presidential election and that would be the $6000 plus each of those plus publication costs so three choices we would ask for direction
Do we make a motion on
this?
3:03 – 3:1242 turns
I don't mind if you weigh in. This is a dilemma. Did you say 88 days for $88,000? Both. A dollar a day? No, no, hold on. The special election options are 88 days from
tonight or later and would cost $88
thousand dollars. And who pays for that? General fund pays for it. We cannot charge that to the referendum proponents, we cannot charge it to anyone. The Constitution guarantees the right of the voters to referendum or any ordinance and that subjects the cost of the general fund. And to answer the next question I would recommend if there's support to take it all in one motion or if not then you could take it in the motion on the table to submit it to the voters and then vote on which election.
I'd like to divide up the motion.
The motion on the table is to submit it to the voters. Yeah,
let's pass that.
The next motion
will be direction on
election date.
Let's pass that okay
all right. Well I want to know the date of the election because that impacts my thinking about how to vote on sending it to the voters versus making the decision myself
Do you want to make a substitute
motion? I'll make a substitute motion that we send it to the voters on November 5th of 2024 when we can be confident that we will have the largest participation by our community in that election.
Okay, is there a second for the substitute motion? I will second that motion. Okay, can we have a roll call on that motion?
What about what happened to my motion?
We have a substitute motion,
so we vote on
the substitute
motion first. The substitute motion will be voted first. The maker of the primary motion could amend your motion but the substitute motion would still be voted first. Can
I make a
substitute motion? If there's comments in the second substitute motion max three motions on the table one two so you could make another you can make it third substitute a third motion
Okay. Can I make a substitute motion that's the same as the first, which is that we put the estimated March 5th primary election back on the table? As the... Okay so your... Can
I second? Your substitute motion is March 5th. Do we have a second? I'll second if Rachel
wants to second.
So
as I understood it, the primary motion didn't have a date. So now there is a substitute motion November 5th, second substitute motion March 5th. Okay so we would vote in that last made votes first. So the first vote would be submit to the voters at the March 5th 2024
election.
Could we have the roll call please Weston?
Roll-call vote 0–1 motion March 5th. Okay so we would vote in that last made votes first. So the first vote would be submit to the voters at the March 5th 2024 · 3 under review
Show transcript
And this is for the March election, is that correct? Right.
The motion we're voting right now is to submit it to the voters of the March 5th 2024 election. Okay. This motion passes, that's it. If it fails then we would vote on the November 5th one.
Could I make one comment? Is that alright right now or not?
You're the mayor.
Go ahead. The reason why November 5th, 2024 makes so much sense is because there'll be so many more voters who will turn out for that specific election. So yes, so that's why. Okay, so go ahead. May I make
a comment also then? Sure. The ideal would have been to have it as standalone so that it's just a clean debate on one item But we don't want to spend $88,000. And I'm in favor of March 5th 2024 because it's sooner.
That's reason enough. Can I make a
comment? Thank you. Why not? We're all doing it. Sorry but... It's getting late. I think that it is a reasonable Date, and basically it's the mid ground. You know, I mean yes it would be best to have it as a standalone so that people could actually focus and they would be less inclined just to simply you know. I'm going to talk a little bit about the primary election.
But you get people who are concerned and who care and who vote. They think about issues, and they vote. The general election is one thing. So my idea around this is that it is a mid-ground for the date. It is a mid-ground for the price. And also, it's a mid ground Well it's half and half you know okay so basically the people that come out are probably going to do a little bit of thinking about it because they're primary voters. So I think I've said enough, so that's why I have made this motion on March 5th 2024. Okay so we
still have this. I'm gonna comment too and that is if the goal give the democracy the greatest chance, then you would have the election under circumstances that would have the greatest number of participants from our community. As you told me, we should trust the voters that even though there might be other things on the ballot that they'll will carefully consider this one as well.
Okay all
right we have a motion on the floor could we continue the roll call Weston? This is uh for the March 5th 2024.
Yes continuing roll call for the second substitute motion council member Lange
I can see that my role here on this council is to be the tiebreaker. That's a really hard role. I agree with what my colleagues have said about November, the presidential election generating the greatest... No, no please! Please you know it is not easy to make a decision on behalf of the city I wasn't finished talking. And I would really appreciate it if every time I voted something, I didn't hear a lot of backtalk because it's hard to make a decision.
I wasn't finished. There will be a greater voter turnout in November And I came prepared tonight to vote that way. But as I've been sitting here thinking about all of the families whose lives hang in the balance, who don't know what their future holds, I feel an ethical pull make this decision to bring this to the voters sooner. And I know that that's going to disappoint some of my colleagues, and I know that's going to disappoint some of the people who are also being audible about my decision.
And I would just say that if we take this to the voters for the primaries, I would like to have debates, have discussions to make sure that we are giving our voters all of the information that they, that we have, that we can in order for them to make a decision. And so I want to be clear one more time That I'm proposing to take this, or I'm voting with my fellow council members to take this in March for the residents who have uncertainty.
And that's what I decide. Okay.
Weston?
Continuing. Council Member Rule.
3:12 – 3:248 turns
Yes on March.
Yes on March.
Mayor Stix.
I still think it's really important to get the biggest turnout for voters, so I'm going to vote no because I think it should be on November 2024. Mayor
Pro Tem Francina.
Yes. Okay, so we just passed three to two that it will be on the March 5th 2024 election. Thank you very much let's take a brief break and then
we'll be back. May I make a comment very quickly? I wanted to just acknowledge Councilperson Lange. You're my hero. I wish I could be you.
Okay we'll take a five minute break and I'll be back. So we potentially, we don't start a new item after 10 o'clock so generally speaking unless we decide we want to. So we need to pick one of the items to start with and it's either the reach codes or rent stabilization does anyone have a strong feeling either way?
3:24 – 3:3216 turns
I would vote for going for the reach code only because the rent stabilization is more a background and discussion. So, but I'm perfectly willing to go either way really it just we can make a decision on the reach code versus a discussion. And I'm prepared to go to midnight
to anybody I'm not I'm not prepared to go to midnight. Okay? Does anybody have an opinion either way? Hold on one
sec Okay,
so you're saying reach codes We have more speakers on the Reach Codes. Okay, all right. I did see somebody who's... The
person
who said 9-1-1 was
coming to talk about Reach Codes.
All right, well then sounds like we have a consensus
we will move on to item number four The first reading and introduction of an updated reach code ordinance Which will require all new buildings to be electric with no new gas infrastructure tonight We'll get feedback from the public about eliminating all exemptions except for infeasibility So do we have a staff report?
Yes, thank you mayor and I'll be pulling up. I have just two slides Give me one second. Oops hit the wrong button Okay So, a couple of slides trying to just kind of keep it very simple. You'll notice off the top the title of the slide is Greenhouse Gas Reductions Code formerly known as the Reach Code Ordinance and that's because as part of the revisions to the reach codes there was a motion from Council at the last meeting on January 10th to change the name of the Reach Code to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Code, and to help better explain what a reach code is. A reach code is sort of a term of art that doesn't necessarily indicate what it's actually about. The idea by calling them reach codes was saying that they reach beyond the state law's minimums but it doesn't really tell you in what way So in our context, we're talking about codes that require new construction to be built all electric unless an exemption or exception apply.
And for that reason the purpose is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Currently the city has a reach code adopted. The reach code has, I believe it's nine exceptions listed on this slide and I'll just quickly name them. First is temporary buildings such as construction trailers are able to be built with gas currently. Attached accessory dwelling units, freestanding accessory dwelling units that require an electrical panel upgrade are currently allowed to be built with gas.
Stationary emergency generators, deed-restricted affordable housing, property assessed clean energy projects and projects that have already received a final building approval. New restaurants and swimming pool heaters and related equipment are currently allowed as an exception under the current REACH code. The revised reach code would modify the current reach code. As I mentioned a moment ago, first thing would be renaming the reach code to the greenhouse gas reductions code but it also is proposed to remove all exceptions so those nine exceptions on the prior slide would be removed The only exemption left would be an infeasibility exemption.
And then finally, we had talked at the last meeting about whether or not to change the appeals process as drafted. We have maintained the current appeal process which is... The decision is made by the Community Development Director that can be appealed to the Planning Commission with a potential final appeal to the City Council. So, I wish I could keep it simple enough to just say that this removes nine exceptions and that's it. But we did want to give some examples because it's actually a little more complicated than that.
So, we have some examples on the slide of potential impacts. And so for example, a newly built restaurant So, somebody comes in and wants to build a new restaurant would not be able to have a gas stove. However, I think this is important for what we're hearing from people. I think people have the impression right now that a remodel of an existing restaurant also can't have a gas stove but that's actually not accurate under these REACH codes or the Greenhouse Gas Reductions Code.
A remodel is still allowed to maintain the gas stove. It's simply the newly built restaurants. Additionally, some other examples, outdoor fireplaces, outdoor cooking facilities or kitchens or pool heaters, any of those that have a gas lines running to them would not be allowed to be installed and instead electric versions would have to be installed. One of the key issues related to what we were talking about earlier today, ADUs and affordable housing projects.
ADUs are accessory dwelling units. An accessory dwelling unit under this new greenhouse gas reductions code would be required to install electrical appliances and that's whether the accessory dwelling unit is a standalone or an attached accessory dwelling unit. Additionally, an affordable housing project would also be required to be built because there would no longer be an exception for affordable housing projects. So any affordable housing projects that are built would also have to have electric appliances or electric equipment.
So those are just some of the common examples. Just to give an idea, I did ask community development roughly how many of each of these we've seen in 2022? They've estimated that there were about two outdoor kitchens that would have been impacted Three outdoor fireplaces, 23 pool heaters and then 27 accessory dwelling units. Under this code section those would all have to be built with electrical appliances.
So So the ordinance is provided For council to consider adopting the greenhouse gas reduction code that would eliminate all exemptions except for infeasibility And it's provided in your packet and we can answer any questions
Okay. Thank you James any questions from Council?
I have a point of order if I could I don't mean to be speaking for you, but Sousa is not feeling well and needs to leave. So we should discuss how we would like to proceed.
I'm
sorry, you're
not feeling well, Sousa? Yeah, you can go. Go. Thank you. We proceed. You let out a school
like that, right? We wish Mayor Pro Tem Fratina very well and the council can proceed. Quorum is three. The council could also defer the items. It's council's choice.
3:32 – 3:3829 turns
I'm happy
to proceed.
I would make a motion to defer. I mean, I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to jump in. It's okay. I was still deliberating in my mind of whether or not to move forward. I hate not having Councilmember Francina here to discuss this with us. And I'm also aware of all the people that we had who wanted to speak on the subject, who left because they weren't able to speak on the subject. Right. So I think it's fair to them, to the people who really want to speak about this topic, I think it might be fair to them and Councilmember Francina to defer this to next time.
Okay.
I'm anticipating that at least two of the council members are going to say they'd like to defer. I'll go along with that.
Defer
to a later date. So
there's a motion to defer, we have a second?
Yeah, staff would request that in order to avoid another round of noticing costs we the council should they so choose Continue the reach codes item to a date certain if we continue dates certainly don't have to notice it again and save some cash And that date certain could be the next council meeting on February 14 14th. Yeah,
I think I would recommend continuing Actually the three items to the 14th Then we have one or two items that were also going to try to get on the 14 as well
Okay, all right. We'll go ahead and do that. All right. Thank
you. Yes.
Yes, we can. I'll make a motion to move if it's not number one.
Okay, we will move on from there to the city manager's report.
Okay two quick items First tomorrow morning 10 a.m.. At Kent Hall We have the city's disaster drill that were coordinating with our public safety partners and so we expect to have some representatives from several different agencies in the valley We had scheduled it before the storm, so we kind of had a real-life drill. But we are proceeding with this. We figure it's a good chance to debrief on what went right and wrong during the storm and then to talk through some other scenarios.
Tomorrow morning 10 a.m.. At Kent Hall that's also going to be on channel 10 It'll be on our website and on YouTube so anybody who wants to To watch it can do so and then second we talked a little bit about this earlier, but with the streets Bids in our plans and specs being approved Earlier today those will be going out to bid We'll be trying doing some press releases as that proceeds so that the public knows how that's going And what the timeline is and so we'll be Starting to get the word on that now that we've approved the plans and specs. So those are the two items I have
Okay, thank you any council member reports Consensus action
to be to continue all three substantive items to the next meeting
Is that where the council is? That is what I voted for, only because Councilperson Francine is not here and I think she would have some valuable input.
I voted that all three matters could be moved.
So I'll be back on February 14th.
Okay, thank you any council member reports? Well, I have one yesterday Salud Carvajal our congressman came to town to tour Matilla Canyon and see what happened because of the flooding We were given a tour by Patrick Maynard, who is the head of OES in Ventura. He works for the Sheriff's Department and Matt LaVere was there and so we went up into the canyon. And Salud is working to get more – he has talked to an administrator at FEMA to get more money for emergency funding. And he's also writing a letter to President Biden so that the administration understands the needs of the area, so we can get future funding for emergency services. So that was great and very wonderful to spend time with him.
It's great to see and of course our heart goes out to all of our friends and colleagues and family members who live in Matilda Hall Canyon who were evacuated over 70 people were evacuated by helicopter But the road is open. So thank you to Ventura County, to Fire and Police for getting things going. Anybody else?
I just have one praise report for those who organized the MLK Day. It was a wonderful event. And I just really commend all of the students who participated in that. So wanted to give a huge shout out to them.
Future
agenda items anyone Are you
ready
I just have one it'll be
quick and it's partly based
upon a conversation
3:38 – 3:428 turns
I had with Sousa earlier, she mentioned that in the neighborhood... Microphone please. ...she's been saying there are no occupied homes. I have in the past lived with no occupied homes. That condition is affecting affordability. I don't know What we can do, I'm not proposing that I have a plan for what we do about second or third homes that are not occupied.
But I would love to hear a report on what other communities are doing and is there a way to generate money to go to some type of a trust to address affordable housing Which, yeah. That's my proposal for getting on a future agenda
item. Would anyone like to second that? So we have two council members. Thank you. Other agenda items?
Do we have the Housing Ad Hoc Committee agendized? We had talked about figuring out how that might work, so I would like to have that agendized and have some information on other Sort of housing ad hoc groups community members all stakeholders. However, that works I'd like to get that agendized as soon as possible. I think we heard from constituents that You know people pro and against the development agreement. We need a focus group to look at that who were Concerned and really committed you know who will do the work so I would like to have that agenda is thank you
Is there a second okay
So just Looking ahead at February 14th, and then just also keeping in mind today's actually a good example I think we got through one item and so so We do have quite the backlog looking at the 14th. It would be reach codes coming back from, you know, continued now rent stabilization continued from today and then we also are planning to bring an item related to the valet parking initiative so that'll also be on the agenda for February 14th We had planned to bring the Tiny Home Pilot Project Annual Report back as well that day, so right there that's a pretty full agenda.
And so as far as other items we'll start putting those together and plugging them into the schedule But I guess as we're starting to put the schedule together, we may need to have some conversations about what items are prioritized in what order. So for right now February 14th it's Reach Codes Rent Stabilization, Valley Parking Initiative and Tiny Home Pilot Project Annual Reports.
And our workshop?
Workshop would be the fifth item. I didn't mention it right now because I don't know that we'll get to it even that day at this point, so... All
right. Any other future agenda items? Nope. Okay. All right. Well thank you all for your participation and we are adjourned.