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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
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You guys ready. Okay, good. Welcome everyone. Could we have the roll call please question.
Roll call, called by Weston Montgomery · 1 under review
Show transcript
Thank you Weston and welcome everyone to the March 28 2023 meeting of the Ojai City Council, James we please say the pledge for us.
So the flag is at the front of the room. And so please join me in standing right hand over your heart, ready to begin.
Agenda Discussionitems moved / continued / pulled, click to expand
Thank you James approval of the agenda. Motion to approve.
I'll move to approve the motion,
okay all in favor. Okay, wonderful. All right we have a presentation tonight. Thank you Chief Newman police chief Newman will provide a presentation of the city of Ohio's crime statistics for 2022.
Good evening, Mayor and members of the community I am here to update regarding our crime statistics for the city of Ojai for 2022. The information contained in this report is compiled from our sheriff's crime analysis unit and our Ojai Police Department records. Crime and law enforcement to excuse me statistics from 2022 are compared with those from previous years and include part one in part two criminal offenses arrests Ojai municipal code violation calls for service police response times traffic violations and traffic collisions next slide please.
This real quick that for the council these stats are in the packet as a consent item. So if it's tough to read you can look in your packet as
well, which item is it
is one B. I know it's hard to read on the screens
This slide depicts part one offenses, which are considered to be among the most serious and they're broken down into two categories. Violent crimes against persons and crimes against property. Violent crimes against persons include homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. And in 2022 there was an overall 33% reduction in these crimes from the previous year. In regards to crimes against property which includes burglary Grand and petty theft, auto theft and arson.
And in 2022 these crimes were reduced by 15%. Next slide please. This is a little bit hard to read, but with this slide I just wanted to show if you look at the very bottom and those blocks it just illustrates the bulk of what we deal with here in the city of Ojai in terms of property crimes. So that's the bulk of our calls for service and our reports on a daily basis.
Next slide please. I know this is a little bit difficult to read and there's a lot of information on here. This slide depicts A 30 year span from 1991 to 2022. And the reason I put this up here is it gives a historical perspective of part one offenses in the city of Ojai over the last 33 years, and I just wanted to note that between 1991 and 2022. Crime rate has dropped from 46.20 crimes per 1,000 persons in 1991 to the current rate of 10.31 crimes per person per 1000 persons and 2022 next slide please.
This slide depicts part two crimes, which are all other crime excuse me crime classifications including. Other than those included in part one crimes and they include simple assaults sex offenses not defined as rape vandalisms drug offenses and other crimes and in 2022 these decreased by 17%. And just to note, all other there's a section in here that you can see where it says all other crimes.
Thank you that slide. And those are reported as and could be anything but not limited to trespassing illegal dumping elder abuse child crimes mutual calls that we assist with other agencies and municipal code violations. Can you go back one slide? Okay. This shows the arrests made in the city of Ojai for 2022 and compared to 2021, there was a 14% decrease in arrests but I wanna point out that also overall when I was talking about part one and part two crimes, there was an overall reduction in those crimes so hence a decrease in arrests in the city.
Next slide please. One more. Okay, this shows the breakdown for Ojai Municipal Code violations and in 2022 deputies issued citations for 48 municipal code violations at the top of the list being consumption of alcohol beverages in a public place. Next slide please. This slide shows call for service in the city of Ojai. In 2022, deputies responded to 3,760 calls for service which is an increase of 225 calls compared to 2021.
Again when we talk about crimes for service you see the first category there which is a listing of majority of our calls And that's just to categorize the ones that we can categorize. We obviously respond to several other calls for service that aren't necessarily categorized in some of these entries here. Another note that I wanted to point out, and I'll circle back when I get to some other slides is it shows a decrease of 11 collisions.
Again this is just strictly a call for service so if we don't get the call for service, it's not counted here. If it's a collision, we may respond with county fire and they may have gotten the call before us and we're just assisting with them. And I'll explain why that's important in a few slides. Next slide please. This is a little bit refusing, this is our response times in the city of Ojai and it's broken down into our different beats which is two different beats for the city.
And then it gives you a listing of several categories and the category that we're focusing on is strictly the third to last where it mentions the average response minutes and that's the time that our deputies receive the call for service and then arrive on scene And these are, I'm gonna go strictly for priority one calls. That's our emergency calls where we're responding with lights and sirens in an extreme emergency where it's in response to an injury accident or an in-progress call such as a domestic violence call.
So category one calls in 2022, our average response time for the city was 6.4 minutes. Next slide please. This information depicts the various traffic violations enforced in the city of Ojai in 2022. And we issued citations for 486 traffic related violations. The ones highlighted that you see here are what we refer to as moving violations, and those are the ones that are typically related with traffic collisions. So majority of those you'll see driving while using a cell phone failure to stop at a stop sign exceeding speed limits. Those are all highlighted and majority of what we issued citations for And then the next slide, the list goes on in terms of the numbers of the different violations that we did cite for.
And same with the next slide. And next slide please. In 2022 and 2021, this is a comparison of our traffic collisions. And this is what I kind of wanted to circle back because you'll see here that there is actually an increase of traffic collisions in regards to 22%, which when you looked at the last slide in terms of our calls for service where it was a decrease of 11%.
So again, the previous slide where we're simply talking about our calls for service. But this actually goes into information about how many responses we actually had in terms of traffic collisions. So we did have an increase of traffic collisions in the amount of 22%. And next slide.
So
overall, those are our numbers for the state of Ojai and what we're looking forward to in the next year. To address some of the things that we've talked about is continuing our high visibility patrols which means
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having our officers out there, having them contact the public, having them do foot patrols and let be parking in the arcade And, and just being out there and connecting with the community talking with people when they are on a call for service and educating them about why we're their additional traffic enforcement. Obviously with the 22% increase in traffic collisions that's going to be a huge focus that we're going to be working on for the next year. As well, and hopefully we will be developing some partnerships with another agency to help bring extra traffic enforcement especially on the busier days holidays weekends that sort of thing.
I did mention the foot patrols bicycle patrols. That's something that during the nicer months, we'll be able to do. And along with foot patrols i know the community is very, we get great feedback when we end up doing that the foot patrols and the bicycle patrol so those will be coming back as well. We're looking forward to having and planning, hopefully a station open house. There's a lot of logistics in doing that but we'd like to eventually invite everyone to our station so they can see what we do where we work out of meet our personnel that work there and just communicate and give information about what we do and why we do it, and hopefully get some information back from the community as well.
Social media, I'm still learning this myself but we are working on a better social media platform. We've developed a social media collateral which we have a few people that are gonna be working out of the station that will be doing some social media work and just presenting things that we have going on in terms of events at Ojai PD and then putting information out there to our community as well.
And I know this is an important topic. We definitely want to do continued homeless outreach. This is always a hot topic and it's a, it's difficult. It's a difficult issue to attack when it's just one organization that's trying to do it. This involves the community in doing it, and in terms of the Sheriff's Office we have dedicated individuals that are going out there and contacting our homeless members and trying to give them services and get them help, and that's something that we're gonna continue to do.
Obviously we will enforce the laws when necessary, and if we get called from the public we will respond and address those issues as needed. And that's all I have.
Thank
you.
Thank you, Chief. Any questions or comments? Susan, could we talk a little more about the homeless outreach? Some of the questions perhaps you could clarify for the public what the state law is as far as their legal right to camp on city property so that the public understands that. And then also some of the questions that have come up is I've heard, I've gotten complaints that some of the deputies have removed their blankets and their art supplies books and just personal belongings. And maybe they don't as I understand from speaking with our city manager that you do save those items at the and maybe clarify where they are And, and if the seems like maybe they don't know that they can go pick them up. Just for starters I might have some other questions.
Thank you.
Okay. The first part of your question was just a little bit more detailed about the outreach that we're getting What that involves?
Yeah, but mostly the people understand the law. Oh
yeah. OK. Yeah. So yes, there is there is currently case law that outlines in a lot of detail and if anybody has would like some heavy reading, the case law is actually referred to as Martin versus Boise. And it basically states in summer in summarization that we cannot criminalize homelessness So if an individual is truly homeless and there is no other means for them to find housing, whether it's by the city or by other private organizations that we cannot arrest them or cite them for being homeless in a public place.
That is a very short summary of the case law, but essentially that is what it is. So when we talk about criminalizing homelessness, that means we don't go and harass individuals just because they're camping in a public place such as a park. However, there are limitations. They can't be in streets or sidewalks or block any egress or ingress to any particular public place.
So I hope that answers your question a
little bit. But it doesn't mean that they can, you know we changed the signage because there were complaints about people sleeping in their cars and that's form of homelessness. And so Can you address where they can safely park. Are you noticing people sleeping in their cars, is that a problem. Sure. Uh huh.
That
means you have for the person but is it a problem for the public and for you
right so And we do have individuals and that you know when we say homelessness it includes whether or not they are, you know sleeping in a public place or their own vehicles and parked somewhere in the city. We do have individuals and again, we there are in terms of parking in, in the city, we do have limitations in terms of parking. But again, these are the people that were reaching out to and trying to give services to and and Come up with a long term solution versus just a short term solution about chasing them around the city,
but
can we're not
legally park in the city parking lot.
So they can. However there are limitations to how long they can park in a city parking lot or on a city street so well we've all heard of the 72 hour parking limit.
Yeah, but they can sleep legally sleep in the city parking lot. Nobody's going to knock on their window at two in the morning right home to move right and then in the morning they can leave right yeah so that's legal. Yes. Okay.
And I think I'll speak to this a little bit because we get, we get calls from sort of both sides, which I think tells us that Fairly balanced, because we get calls from people who say we enforce way too hard and people who say we don't force enforce at all. The challenge is the 72 hour rule if somebody parks their car leaves it spider webs are growing over it then we are going to knock and ask people to move.
If they're moving, and there are a couple of people in a couple we know by name who moved back and forth between two locations every couple of days. Technically, they're within the spirit of the law and they know that their follow. They know the law better than we do or maybe Matt might be able to argue with them but uh but they they know the law they are following the law and to us that's accomplishing the goal I think one thing that we hear from people is that 72 hour rule a lot of people say well what does that really do?
We hear from those private property owners who have a car park in front of their house and say I don't mind if they're there for a day and then move on, and then you know and eventually come back but when somebody permanently takes the space in front of their house though that's when we get the calls typically from people saying why doesn't the city do more. So, we try to enforce those, those rules reasonably.
That I'm pretty confident that we haven't enforced or you know, I think there was some concern that maybe we were not letting people stay even up to 72 hours. I don't think that's the case. I've kind of been in the loop on most of them and I think we're following that 72 hour rule pretty closely so
And if I could jump in with one further point not to override the chief of course but we, the rule on a Martinsville Boise prohibits the city from coming or any organization from criminalizing sleeping or camping. It doesn't apply to the rest of the penal code so somebody is. Dealing drugs that's still a crime and that will be enforced by the sheriff's department. So it's, it's more something else you know it's about if somebody is existing who is unhoused and they're existing outside. That's not a criminal act under existing nine circuit case law and will not be criminalized by the city. If they're committing other crimes that are independent crimes and that would be addressed as an independent crime so there's the distinction there.
And as noted, the city has not exercised any remedies regarding persons on city property. With one key exception there is a safety component as well as another exception under Martinsville's Boise. So if somebody is camping in a driveway or camping in an ADA wheelchair access path or in an unsafe location imagine somebody who camped on top of a utility box that had a transformer in it something like that something unsafe then the city can enforce in that situation and then where we've had to do that in the past The city has worked closely with Public Works and Sheriff's Department, and our resources partners to help the person who is in that situation find a better place to be.
Can you tell us how many people approximately are camping in the back and is there a bathroom facility, a way to wash their hands? Just basics,
a trash can. Sure they do have access to any public restrooms that anybody else in the community has access
to. But I mean is there's a bathroom back in the back? In the
back of the campus here?
Yeah, you know where the people camp. Can the people that are camping need to go the bathroom in the middle of the night? Is there a bathroom?
Yes, there is a restroom and it is open. However, there are times that they do lock the bathrooms when we do have things like vandalism that happen in the middle of the night. I know that's a
problem, yeah. But we're trying to make it as humane as possible as we can under less than ideal circumstances. And then my other question was about their belongings.
So when we do contact someone and if we do end up transporting them to jail, we do store their belongings. And it is in the city yard and it's in a locked box. And they are told that they can come back and get their property any time when they get out of custody. If they choose to do that or not to do that, that's up to them. But we do hold their property there and actually it's probably to the point where we can't even fit any more property in there because it is so full but we do instruct them that we will be keeping their property under lock and key and that they can come back and get it at any time.
I had actually had something else in mind when I asked, but that's good to know. Thank you. My question is these people do not have lockers and sometimes they leave their belongings on a park bench or where they're sleeping that night and they come back and as I understand it the blankets are gone. So, and they're not under arrest as far as I know and we have someone in the audience who's who's more she made speak on that during public comment but but is there is it's my understanding that if you if you find if their person isn't And you see a pile of belongings and sometimes it's really crazy. I know, I've seen in Matilija.
Do you take those belongings as well to the public
works yard or what happens? No, typically if someone leaves their belongings and we know that the individual is there and camping there on a regular basis and our deputies typically know who those individuals are because they contact them regularly then we will leave their stuff there However, if we see that day after day it's been abandoned and nobody has attended to it then we will take those items and put them in the locker as well.
Okay thank you very much I really wanted to know that.
Sure. Thank you so much chief. Any other questions or comments from Council?
I have a couple of quick questions. Is there still a porta potty behind the pickleball courts? There used to be, but I do not know. OK, so I know that the city used to provide that for the pickleball players. And my second question is the 72 hour time frame does start from the time that you go out to look at the vehicle or does it start? You know, someone says they've been there for two days
So it starts at the time that we receive the call and we respond if it's, if it's a call that we go to. And our processes we tag that vehicle, whether it's marking or a slip that we place on the vehicle and that's where the 72 hour starts
right thank you.
I just want to thank you chief for this report and great to have you. Yeah, and, and also the foot patrols and bike patrols I know that the community is going to be really happy to hear that. And I do have a question 22% increasing collisions what purse, do you attribute that to cell phones or it's hard to say
it's hard to say if you have to look at each each one on an individual basis. I think it was last month, we looked at a couple and we could attribute it to speed. But we would have to go back and look at each individual collision in 2022 to find the commonality for those. Yeah,
I know Chief Rivera had talked about that. OK. All right. Well, thank you so much. Much appreciated. All right, we will move on to public communications just a reminder that these are items not on the agenda and because they're not on the agenda we cannot discuss them but we can agendize them for the future. And a public comment is three minutes at the end of three minutes you will hear a chime so please respect everyone's time In the spirit of equity, stop talking when the chime sounds. The council's agreed to a half an hour at the beginning we have 16 public comments that I have in my hand so i'm suggesting we take all 16 and then if there are any additional ones in the box or on zoom we'll take them at the second episode. All right so we'll begin um and thank you Weston for these beautiful event organization cards color-coded.
So uh we'll begin with Jill Dolan and then Renee Roth and then Carolyn Goldwasser
At this time of the day, late at night.
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Okay, my name is Jill Doan. I'm with the Ojai Art Center Theater and I'm not in the current show. The current show is Red by John Logan and it is the perfect show for Ojai because it is about the American abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko during the time when he was painting the then largest art commission in the world which was a series of murals for the Seagram's building in New York City.
It is a wonderful show, it is a smart show and I think everybody should come and see it. I mean, I think it's just a really brilliant piece of writing. It won all kinds of awards when it was first produced in 2010 To my knowledge, it's the first time it's been in Ventura County anywhere. Once you see our set and that we had to take the whole art center apart for it, you'll see why probably it's not done very much. I know there are some season ticket holders in the room. Thank you very much for buying those season tickets but now your next step is to go to the play.
Coming up after Red, we have a new show written by a local playwright Peter Fox And that is disappearing act and that will open. I thought he was talking to me. Anyway, so Red runs for the next two weekends. We were also fortunate for this production to have two local artists from OSA contribute our not really Rothko paintings that are used as props during the play, Pamela Grau and Gail Childress. We also had two artists from Ventura, Otis Bradley and Julie Merrill contribute paintings as well. So we've reached out to the community of artists and we hope that everyone will come and enjoy the show Friday and Saturday nights at 730 and Sunday afternoons, at two o'clock.
Anyway, thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you, Joe. Next we have Renee Roth then Carolyn Goldwasser and then William Wyrick
Good evening council members I'm Renee Roth, I live in the city of Ojai. I want to thank Weston very much for organizing this meeting and this much bigger place, I think this is a much better venue for all of us to be able to present and talk to each other. Two things just two brief things. The homeless shelter, the family shelter ends in March and as we heard tonight homelessness is an issue.
We do have people who are looking for places and needing places to live and eat and get food and get services I think this is a very pressing issue Because our family shelter is closing, and it is part of the county and the city. I think we need to be doing more to address our housing population. I think this is a very serious and ongoing issue that must be addressed. We can't just pawn it off to the churches.
A concerted housing effort to deal with our homeless population. The other thing I wanted to add, many people on Nextdoor and Facebook are talking about the condition of our roads. And James, I don't mean to upstage you on this but there is a very great map and I want the public to know there was a very great map about the road improvement projects. There's a street overlay project map and it is coming up for opening bids on April 12th this is the kind of project that I would hope James would be able to address in council meetings there's a map available here but I know you've been very busy with many other projects such as dealing with valet parking And many in the town are concerned about the condition of our roads. I prepared the map,
I'm familiar with
it. Okay so i want people to know the map is here and the bids are going to be opened and I'm hoping we can get something in the newspaper that might even explain what is happening with our roads and our road services in the City of Ojai. Thank you very much. Just a
quick am I on? Can you hear me? No so I'm not on okay I'm on now Renee, I just wanted to thank you for bringing that forward and to point out that there are lots of these great materials available on the city website that you may not know about these map overlays so all Do diligence that the city manager does eventually makes it on to the website. And so, if you are truly interested, it's not that hard to actually find detailed information about anything that's even remotely going to be on an agenda. So I thank you for pointing that out Renee and I would.
Suggest that citizens who would like more information, you actually can find it. You could also contact your council people. That would be right on. Okay.
Next we have Carolyn Goldwasser and then William Wyrick and then Lee Hindman.
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Hello my name is Carolyn Goldwasser I live in Ojai and I am having a couple of comments and questions One of them is regarding the people who are homeless or who are living in their cars, or various stages of not having a stable long-term place to live. Each person is different and has a different background, different needs. And there are so many programs like Whole Person Care, things that are done at Help for Ojai by Whitney.
Everybody's halfway through trying to get help. Not everybody but most of the people who are homeless are being worked on by some group or other. One of the questions that I have is, the things that are in the box at this police department. Do people need to have their ID with them when they try to retrieve their things? Or can someone just come up there and say hey, so and so you took my stuff and I want my laptop back.
Or whatever, because this is in my conversations with people who are homeless around town. I have heard many complaints or confusions about how do I get my stuff back? Why are they taking my art supplies? I'm not going to hurt anybody with my books and art supplies. I need my blankets, you know. And so why things are taken and it seemed that what the Police Chief Jeff said was that only when someone is taken to jail are these things taken away. That's not what I've been told, but it may be generally the case.
But something that a person needs to survive the night or to maintain their life like some food medicines or sanitary supplies or whatever they need I don't think it should be taken away from anybody. If they have them in their hand, if they're laying on a bench somewhere maybe That's questionable. But the other comments that I have is that I used to work in a boarding house, it wasn't here.
But we rented out rooms individual rooms couples or maybe a single woman with one kid or maybe just a single person for a very small amount of money but included a meal every day, a hot meal. People had a door they could walk and leave their stuff, and go to work or go volunteer somewhere. Or take your kids to the park or whatever. And it was not a flop house. It was well managed by my husband actually.
He did a good job of saying you can't stay here anymore! You know, we don't allow drinking in this building, whatever. You know he was a good manager so it would need a manager but if Ojai could have a boarding house or a rooming house of some sort of type like that it might help with some people who do have some income many homeless people do have some income thank you very
much. Thank you Carolyn next we have William Wyrick then Lee Hindman and then Jeffrey Starkweather
You know, I think we pride ourselves on sometimes trying to have a positive influence outside just our city limits with the kind of insights and visioning that our community can accomplish. And two things have occurred to me that I want to share with you and suggest you think about it. One is that, you know, we had a positive influence When we endorsed the objections and the collaboration to the objections to the Sky Island on the law old growth logging at that in Los Palos National Forest, we had a outsize influence on doing that. And right now, nature is giving us a teachable moment with the reappearance of Tulare Lake.
Nature was telling us where we should have a wetland for carbon sequestration, where we should have our major recharge going on. Where we should have a restoration of a major migratory flyway that was there historically in our ecology of California and we forsake it. We forsook it for industrial agriculture pumping. And now it's back. And I suggest that there is a nascent movement that we should think about researching and joining to buy up the bottom land of the old lake bed, and restore it to its natural purpose in the California ecology.
And I think this is the kind of thing the city of Ojai might wanna take a little properly research step in terms of other groups to work with towards that end. And the second thing I wanna say is that I hope That number three is changed to include the issue of how we can improve our infrastructure for homelessness programs. For homelessness, this is what the law saying you got to take responsibility for that infrastructure and those programs in your own community.
It's a valley wide problem. And again, in terms of having an outsized influence I think the county is ready to work with us in terms of looking at that on our farm seriously and successful cost effective programs that have popped up around the country in terms of rehabilitation homeless programs. and a sense of internal dignity to places to live in sort of a village atmosphere. There are people who want to come here and could participate in talking about how that honor farm could be reprogrammed for that kind of purpose, because I know of no other location in the Ojai Valley that we could possibly do the right thing and consolidate these programs that we've been talking about tonight into something more effective for our homeless citizens.
So thank you.
Thank you, Bill. Next we have Lee Hindman and then Jeffrey Starkweather and then Jeff Schneider.
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Hi, I'm Leigh Hindman. And I've lived in the Ojai Valley for it's getting close to 20 years. So I have questions about our city attorney and funding and this information may be available but I couldn't find it so I'm just requesting answers to be presented so that they can be found publicly. So, I have witnessed the city attorney call out certain public commenters as being out of order. So I am ignorant on this, is that part of his role?
During public comments the speakers are covered by the Brown Act and our constitutional rights to free speech. So please clarify the city attorney's role during the public comments of City Council meetings. Is it his legal responsibility to is his legal responsibility to the mayor, to the majority of the city council to the entire city council to the city manager or to Ojai citizens, or all of the above. I just would like to know. So please let us be known where we can find these answers also.
How specifically is the city attorneys law firm compensated, is it hourly flat fee. If it's hourly how many hours a month. Is there a contract or commitment and does his role include attending closed session meetings When is the expiration date of his contractor commitment? Again, this may be information that's out there but I can't find it. So lastly please let us know also the cost of retaining both a city attorney and a city manager. I understand the roles are different but i'm just kind of curious thank you. Thank you Leigh.
Any
comments, Mayor Council I can just comment very briefly if you'd like. I'm seeing nods from a majority so I will do so one is my client is the city, which is an institution as controlled by the City Council by majority vote if there's a dispute so I work for the city as controlled And through the city and through the council. It does work for the public but my direct client from whom I take direction is the City Council, not the mayor individually and not the city manager it's this whole city council. Second, my law firms contract is publicly approved by the city council in three votes 2015 2018 2021.
Most recently, the all of those are on the city's website. I honestly forget the exact dates, but they're available on the city's website under the council agendas and The funding every month is on the warrant register as included in the council packets each month with some detail. We don't go into the detail regarding each item of expenditure per hour by hour, as that is more detailed than you need for a warrant register and significant portions of information are privileged subject to the City Council's discretion to waive that privilege but the top line figures are Warrant register and the current contract with the city provides for a mixed compensation.
General services are for a flat fee per month, and then litigation and other specialized services are by the hour on top. Thank you.
Thank you very much Matt. Next we have Jeffrey Starkweather then Jeff Schneider and then Leanna McNally
Mayor City Council fellow citizens. I wanna talk about the theory behind why I've been lobbying to create stakeholder committees for housing, climate change and other issues. According to the Institute of Civility in Government...
Oh,
can we start
over?
And I thought it was on.
So Jeffrey, do you want to speak on the agenda item or are you speaking overall?
This is overall, this is a public comment. It's not an agenda item. Well, it's not all the agenda items actually I want to talk, oh I already said that. According to the Institute for Civility in Government, civility is about more than politeness although politeness is a necessary first step it's about disagreeing with respect seeking common ground as a starting point for dialogue about differences listening to one's Preconceptions, listening past excuse me and even teaching others the same. Civility is a hard work of staying present even with those with whom we have deep seated and fierce disagreements.
It's a political in the sense that it is necessary prerequisite for civic action but is political too in the sense that about negotiating interpersonal power such that every voice is heard and nobody is ignored. James Madison said If men were angels, government would not be necessary. Dependence on the people he said no doubt the primary control of government but experience has taught us mankind necessarily needs auxiliary precautions.
Of course he was talking about the constitution checks and balances And as he said, it's designed to ensure that strong laws were not enacted by a small group of partisan individuals. We hold city elections here and candidates and their campaign managers essentially have an uncompromising mindset. We stand on principle and we mistrust our opponents. That's normal.
But when candidates win, the majority of the voters expect those elected officials to move from campaigning to governing which means adopting a compromising mindset. Municipal government unlike state and national government is essentially a majority government. One effective way and I'm running out of time to approach that is through deliberative democracy A deliberate democracy is a system in which people discuss before they make decisions, but typically include equitable participation, lack of coercion, censorship and interactions among people who disagree.
Therefore talking and listening to diverse group of stakeholders is the essence of what I'm talking about in terms of promoting deliberate democracy. I care very much about outcomes May finish the sentence, but I am more passionate about creating policymaking process where the outcomes are truly by the people and for all the people. Thank you.
Thank you Jeffrey. Next we have Jeff Schneider then Leanna McNelly and then Bradley Smith
0:45 – 0:507 turns
Council citizens. First off. I was happy to hear that, and read in the paper that the County DA has decided to provide governance guidelines for this body. I hope that they do a very thorough job. You have created a huge mess in my mind. And when I say you, I essentially really mean the three of you on the left side of the center. The Mayor, Councilman Whitman, Councilwoman Lange but especially you Mayor, because you have led this debacle.
I think we also could look into a new city attorney. You have acted with reckless disregard for propriety and the honored protocols of those who have governed before you by knowingly breaking rules, ethics and possibly laws While pursuing a greedy, narrow elitist ideological agenda with little interest shown for what the community wants or needs. You also have ignored calls for transparent action and instead have proceeded full ahead with selfish agendas.
Secondly I believe the best way to rectify the mess you've made is for the three of you to resign and let others step in to do the cleanup. Step one in that process should be the rescinding of any ordinances you have passed. Thirdly, because I doubt seriously you will resign, I believe that the council should at the very least stop voting on agenda items until you have completely restored integrity, transparency and trust city governance back to the community.
Yours in my mind will be a legacy of shame for the city characterized by an ideological greed that has always favored the ends at any means. Thank you.
Thank you, Jeff. Next we have Leanna McNelly I'm sorry I can't read your writing and then Bradley Smith and then Wendy Larner
Good evening, my name is Leanna McNeely I live at 306 South Blanche which you can see from the City Hall. Bought the house in 1986 it was next to a vacant lot at that time. My husband and I were gone for two months we had a house sitter who was at the house the whole time and we came back and we found yesterday That there are to be two new charging ports right next to our house.
And we weren't consulted on this and I know that there are statutes within the city of Ojai, stating that adverse. impacts on residents need to be looked at, and nobody contacted us. We weren't contacted either when the ports were moved from right in front of city hall to closer to our house. And frankly I wouldn't have Found anything wrong with that. At that time, what we have found though is as people charge their cars, they're very loud.
They're having conversations kids are running around right outside our house so if They move even closer to more, even closer. We'll have headlights in our house will have voices 24 seven it's a major impact to our quality of life and my husband and I are here tonight because Mr Siebert apparently We didn't have time for a 15 to 20 minute conversation to address these issues until next Thursday, I believe that's nine or 10 days away.
And by that time those ports may be installed. So this was our only recourse. Thank you.
Did you respond. And also for starters, could we put out a sign reminding people to be quiet.
Yeah, we can take a look at that issue and I can follow up and ask the staff to meet with them before then. We have not received any other complaints about the charges up to this point so I'm not going to commit to anything but
if I can say we're the only house that's impacted. When I bought the, and you may say but does she care? She lives next to a parking lot. When I bought the house there was no parking lot there. I actually came home and found the vacant lot next to my house bulldozed. And when I inquired, I was told that was a parking lot. Now this is ancient history that was 1986 but I wasn't notified about that either which was a pretty big impact.
Thank you, Leanna. Next we have Bradley Smith and Wendy Larner and then Marion Niglio.
0:50 – 1:0214 turns
Hi
my name is Bradley Smith I live at 306 South Blanche Street and Leanna is my wife. We were away for two months. We had a house sitter. We came back this past Saturday Late Friday night, early Saturday morning. Yesterday I noticed a gray pipe sticking out of the ground over in the adjoining City Hall parking lot and to make a long story short, I found out that they were going to... The intent is to put in some EV chargers there right on the other side of our fence.
I contacted Public Works I contacted Sherry at building and planning, and she was the one that told me that yes there were going to be two charging stations installed there. There's gonna be a charging station. She didn't indicate whether it's one, two or six. She didn't say. I asked to meet with the person who is in charge of the project. And she said that would be Mr. Siebert And he contacted me today and said that he would be available or she, I'm sorry.
Sherry contacted him. He said he would be available next Thursday not this Thursday coming but a week from Thursday to talk about this project. Um, and then Sherry left a voicemail and we apparently have an appointment to see him. Then, um, what we're looking for is reassurance from city council because this is our only recall that work will not be completed over there until we've had a chance to talk with the project manager.
This is going to affect our quality of life 24 seven three 65 for eternity. And we feel that just these things happening without some kind of input and some kind of oversight is not right. We don't believe that the city, and according to what the city puts on their website they are really concerned about the quality of life here. And this as Leanna mentioned, we're the only ones directly impacted.
Think about how you would like if your living room bedroom and bathroom were flooded with headlights at a charging station, and that's what's going to happen if this goes through. We weren't notified when the existing charge reports were put in. We think it's a good idea. I'm not opposed to what they've done. The issue is it's gonna now directly impact us and we'd like some...we'd like to be heard about the matter. Had we known about this before? I wouldn't be here tonight.
But we were away. As I mentioned, we had a house sitter, nobody contacted the house sitter. Is there anything you can do for
me?
Friendly
question. I just want to ask a question to the city manager is there Do we have a procedure for letting residents know about things that we're going to be doing that impact them? Is there like a communications protocol
Depending on what the issue is, in this case converting a parking space to an electric charger. We don't have a protocol for that. But to answer I think the question I expect to get is... I'll ask the person installing it to hold off until they can meet so.
Yeah thank you. Thank you very much. Next we have Wendy Larner then Marion Niglio and then Dr. Kess.
Hello, I'm Wendy Larner. I live in Ojai. I'm not an attorney but I can read and reason. And it seems from careful study that the use of the government code subsections cited to justify having last week's meeting in closed session was illegitimate. On the following day, the council reported out that the Ventura County DA had sent the city council a letter requesting the council record closed sessions in the future because there had been Brown Act violations.
This much, at the very least, ought to have been revealed and discussed in the open session that preceded the meeting. In order to qualify for the cryptic closed session the council conducted, the government code sections the agenda cited requires quote Significant exposure to litigation, to be based on facts and circumstances that might result in litigation but which the council believes are not known to a potential plaintiff or plaintiffs. After reading the DA's letter it is impossible to believe this city attorney and the three people who voted for this to go into closed session honestly believed that the DA did not know the facts and circumstances on which to litigate. The DA stated that if the council did not grant his request, he would strongly consider issuing a cease and desist letter and list all the Brown Act violations of the council to the community.
The OVN, Ojai Valley News quoted the DA official as writing I remain hopeful that we may resolve this matter informally without a cease and desist demand and potential litigation, implying the DA knew well the facts and circumstances for potential litigation. So why did the city attorney and the three council members take this to closed session? What were their motives? It was to hide all the Brown Act violations from us, from the public. It was to conceal the rest of the story from us as well, namely the mayor's conflict of interest and her collusion with an actor in a lawsuit against the city. The city attorney and Whitman and Lang are now complicit in the mayor's subterfuge as well. In addition, I want to ask that you take item number F off the consent calendar.
Please defer considering the Mayor's recommendation until the public knows whether the Mayor's intentions toward the people of Ojai are honorable. Can we trust her judgment and her loyalties toward the city considering her past recommendation from an attorney suing Ojai and the cover-ups that followed? Thank you, Wendy. You're welcome, Betsy.
Can I ask for a point of clarification from the city attorney? Sure. I just wanted to ask the city attorney if he could clarify some of the code and the reasons why it was necessary for us to go into closed session
The question from Council Member Lang was for me to clarify the situation as discussed by Ms. Larner's comments, with the consent of the council I can very briefly speak to that but it is not on tonight's agenda so i'll briefly make a statement and then we'll defer discussion to the future forthcoming Brown Act workshop. So, the city council met in closed session is approved by a three to vote. We're on an item of anticipation related to facts and circumstances the council believes we're not known to potential plaintiff or plaintiffs plural as noted the district attorney in the same email that was I believe report in the newspaper agreed to said close session discussion.
And the council believes that the district attorney obviously is a potential plaintiff. But there are other potential plaintiffs that I'm not going to disclose that exist, that would also could also file suits. And those additional potential plaintiffs justify the inclusion of the closed session exemption as included. The second component is the district attorney is not aware of all facts there are all facts on that, not all facts have been publicly reported. So both of those components mean that the statement of facts and circumstances The city believes are not known to potential plaintiff or plaintiffs, which were and are true as allowed the closed session discussion. However, the critical point to then note is the council by consensus that's all five members of the council agreed that the matter needed to be discussed further in open session, as was also noted in the report out that was provided to the public in the newspaper that night the next day.
The debate dates to determine but the council has directed Staff to put together a Brown Act and Transparency Workshop. to come probably in April, date to be determined depending on scheduling. We have invited the district attorney or one of his representatives to come. We're also looking at bringing a speaker on Brown Act issues from the League of California Cities, the Institute for Local Government. We're looking at a couple of other Brown Act authorities who can speak independent of anyone in this room, independent of our existing situation On the brown act and its strictures and rules and regulations, and how to work within those two accomplishes these goals. So the council did meet in closed session to close session exemption was lawful and the.
The matter has been deferred by unanimous consent to open session for further discussion, including response to the district attorney's request to record closed sessions. The council will provide that response in the course of considering a variety of options for public transparency measures that go beyond the Brown Act's minimums to be held in April or early May if not April date to be determined probably April. Thank you.
Thank you Matt. Next we have Marion Niglio and then Dr Hess Tonight,
is
this
on? Okay. I will address the city council, the citizens and the sheriff. First City Council we remind the city council that you govern by our consent. We consent to be governed when the city council abides by the oath they swore to uphold the constitution. The power to govern comes from the people who are the highest power Second, citizens. The true power lies here with us not with the city council. Government works for the people and protects the rights of the people.
We consent to giving up our power to governance as long as that body upholds the constitution and obeys the rule of law. Otherwise when the governance abuses the power we give them then it is our right to take it back because the people voluntarily give up power to a government They can take it back. Let us put aside that which divides us and come together to protect our freedom, we will not comply and we will not cooperate with the City Council members breaking the law.
Third, Sheriff you too have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, the blueprint that protects all of us. Do you serve with honor and integrity the people or do you serve the edicts of the elite? We remind you sheriff that the mayor's past political platform I believe was to defund the police. We do not support this platform, you need us and we need you in summary, the power to governance to govern comes from the people who are the highest power because the people voluntarily give up power to a government the people can take that power back city council Citizens and Sheriff, let us put aside that which divides us and come together to uphold the rule of law. Thank you.
1:02 – 1:1412 turns
Good evening and thank you for your time. Let me just say that many of us, the public I mean are not okay with your so called concession of restricting comments to 30 minutes nor to any amount of time at the beginning of the meeting, the middle of the meeting or at the end for any reason. Nor will we, the public tolerate the measly time allotment of three minutes to ever for any reason be cut down to two minutes.
Any reduction of the public's time to speak at the beginning of the City Council meeting is like feeding breadcrumbs to the birds and there's an old Hawaiian saying that goes if mama ain't happy ain't nobody happy Which is to say the community, like a well-respected mother must be appeased before anything else may happen or function with ease in the family.
If there are comments that go over 30 minutes by the public, then obviously there's a problem that the public feels urgently needs addressing. And this absolutely should take precedence over any other agenda items because the council serves at the public's behest not the other way around. I am inclined to believe that this is the spirit of the law, the Brown Act and indeed our first amendment rights under the constitution which is a supreme law of the land.
So after we deal with the public comments issue which I think has not been adequately settled, I think this nebulous concept of climate change what it is and what it is not needs to be addressed As almost all the agenda items of the City Council now have to do, it seems with climate change. Thank you.
Thank you, Dr has all right we will move on to the consent calendar and then we will take the rest of the public comments and the comments on zoom after the first agenda item. So, we have two public comments on the consent calendar. Renee raw. No. Okay. Jeff Schneider see here point of order don't we have to pull and approve. Yeah, we take public comment for this Jeff here.
Yeah.
Okay. All right, I would anyone like to pull anything?
No, no, I'll move to approve the consent calendar. Okay, do we have a second.
Second.
Okay
all in
favor. Aye.
Okay, wonderful. Alright, we will move on to the first discussion item that number two second reading of a rent stabilization and just cause tenant protection ordinance names we have a presentation.
Yes, thank you. I have a couple of slides, about six slides so give me one second to share those on the screen here. Okay. Okay, so we have a few slides I'll get through. I know we've talked about this the last couple of meetings so we won't go too deep into it. Tonight, when we're talking about rent stabilization, we're going to be talking about four main points. The rent stabilization provisions, tenant protections, penalties and enforcement of the ordinance, and then the modifications that were made to the ordinance at the introduction. And so briefly just a little reminder, the city cannot implement rent control but can implement and is legally allowed to implement rent stabilization Statewide rent stabilization via AB 1482 went into effect in January of 2020, which was intended to stop rent gouging.
The state law prevents landlord from raising the rent of unit by more than 5% plus the rate of inflation, with a maximum of 10% in a year. The state law also includes some tenant protections based on at fault or no fault eviction are with with some information related to at fault or no, no fault evictions. The city has the ability to exceed either of these things. And so on March 14, the City of Ojai introduced an ordinance that would exceed those protections.
The ordinance included rent stabilization measures that reduce the maximum annual increase allowed to rent to be no more than 4%. However, it allows a landlord to apply to the Community Development Director if they can justify an increase above 4%. The director's decision would then be appealable to the Planning Commission. Landlords must provide written notice to tenants advising them of the ordinance and their rights under the ordinance. The ordinance includes civil and criminal penalties, which we'll get to in a couple slides. Tenants would also have to notify landlords if there is an issue and give the opportunity to cure defects 30 days before a civil lawsuit.
Again, the goal of the ordinance would be to gain compliance not to lead to litigation if at all possible. And then the ordinance does though if the defect is not cured in 30 days, the ordinance gives a tenant the ability through civil remedies and attorneys fees provision for the tenant to go to court to enforce the ordinance. And potentially award the tenant with damages and or attorneys fees and costs.
So the second piece, again we've talked about this recently but there's rent stabilization and then typically as a second piece there's tenant protection measures, the ordinance also includes 30. It qualifies you for tenant protections after 30 days as a tenant. And the ordinance expands on the state's no fault, just cause eviction by including a stricter definition of quote unquote substantial remodel. So the tenant protection measures in the city's ordinance has for no fault reasons for terminating a lease. Those are the intent of the owner or owners family to occupy the units themselves.
As one number two withdrawal from the rental market, which is subject to the provisions of the Ellis Act and we spoke about that last week, our last meeting. Number three. If an owner must comply with a government order that requires the unit to be vacated. And for the an intent to substantially remodel the unit. And again, the city's ordinance expands our expands the definition for substantial remodel so that there's a little bit added upon the state's minimums in that definition.
And if it's one of those four no fault reasons for terminating a lease, then the tenant would receive relocation assistance of two months rent or $5,000 whichever is greater. Just a couple sort of miscellaneous points again the landlord would be required to post notice of the ordinance in English and Spanish and provide information about tenants rights when terminating a tenancy.
The ordinance also includes civil and criminal penalties, and again tenants would have to give a landlord 30 days to cure the defect before a civil lawsuit is filed. So both of those, but the rent stabilization and the tenant protections note that there's both administrative and civil penalties. Essentially the administrative penalties means the city can issue citations as we've talked about last meeting, we would likely do that if if we are provided with all the information and all the evidence needed to do so have a clear case.
If it was not a clear case, the tenant would likely be encouraged to proceed through the second remedy which is a civil suit by the tenant against the landlord and the ordinance gives them the ability to do that after that 30 day cure opportunity. So both of those options are allowed through the ordinance. And then, last what's changed from the prior introduction to now the second reading.
There's three fairly minor modifications. One is we added a definition of eviction to try to make that clearer and I think the city attorney will mention that in one moment let me get through this too. Second, we added language saying that there has to be a good faith intent, which is why it's underlined. So, a good faith intent to occupy a unit as a primary place of residence by a landlord when evicting a tenant in order to meet the are to allow the tenant to satisfy that criteria Exception that we, we had talked about. And number three, the modification.
Amends the just cause tenant protection section of the ordinance to provide an exemption for landlords from having to pay relocation fees. If they are their family live in the unit for at least six months before a tenancy and then have a good faith intent to reoccupy the unit after the tenancy, that's the situation we talked about which I think we've heard is fairly common where Somebody lives in Ojai, stays with a family member for a few months or and then moves intends to move back into their property.
And this would ensure that they do not have to pay the tenants rent in that situation. So those are the three modifications made based on Council's direction at the introduction. And I'll ask Matt to just speak to the eviction language.
Right on the 1st, point regarding definition of eviction. We received an inquiry today on could that eviction definition be strengthened? And the answer is yes. As present at present, the definition is eviction shall mean a landlord attempt to recover possession of a rental unit by initiating unlawful detainer action against a tenant or requiring intended to vacate a unit.
Termination of tenancy shall have the same meaning. That shows up twice in section 11-1.03 sub D and 11-2.03 sub A, and the request was received could we modify that to be stronger so that it would be eviction means an action to terminate a tenancy lease or rental agreement, including but not limited to the following. Serving any notice attempting to terminate any tenancy lease or rental agreement, threatening to terminate any tenancy lease or rental agreement, demanding possession of a rental unit, or serving any notice to quit or vacate or any other eviction notice and I'll note that it will be up to the council majority as the majority may lie but staff would have no objection
1:14 – 1:2031 turns
I have a question.
Thank
you very much, man. Um, who
where did you get that comment
customer women send it to me by email.
Okay. So, um, okay.
And the question is, if a motion is made it will be directed by the majority. So perhaps we know there's an option.
Okay, so I am assuming that Councilman Whitman will discuss why he sent that particular change without notification to the rest of the council line copied CC so that we could have a chance to review that but thank you for the information on who sent back and comment.
Just a reminder Council if you could
because I was concerned Sorry. I'll just, I'll just respond. I was concerned that if I sent a message concerning tonight's meeting to all five council members without sending it to the entire public that I would potentially be creating a Brown Act that I would be potentially creating a Brown Act violation in order to avoid that. City Council have the language available already, and I do plan to propose that change in the definition of eviction.
Thank
you question.
Yep. Yes. Why would that necessitate going to The city attorney, when it seems like all of us on this panel will have comments that we did not actually send to the city attorney to have him broach them. On a platform like this my question is why? How is that different than any of our comments. I'm just, you know and once again, I would have liked you to have said, I got this from Councilman Whitman, not we received a comment because we received over 400 pages of comments on this particular item.
Yet, only one was mentioned by our city attorney. And so that to me is confusing at best and troubling at worst 400 pages of comments we probably have received. So that is why I asked that particular question. But I will get to the idea around adding these last minute changes to definitional items, which are important and require a certain amount of time so thank you.
I have it very briefly know that was the only comment I received from a council member Hence, and as noted it is up to the council majority. That's the only comment I received from a council member. We've reviewed the public comments but I don't respond to public comments individually because they're public comments not council comments. I received one council comment and that was the common on the table right you did we await majority direction. Thank you.
Okay. Just a reminder, please bring it through just in the spirit of equity and fairness if you could wait your turn. Susan did you want to say
something? It is maybe because Council Member Whitman is new normally we would just bring that up during our meeting as far as I understand. I don't have a problem with it but it is different usually we... We've
done both in the past if I
could state. Yeah I didn't know that but now I'm reminded that Weston where are the public comments that you printed for me Oh, I need them now. Okay. Can you can someone go get them.
Okay, thank you. Okay, are you finished with the presentation James. Okay any questions from Council. Yeah, Leslie. Thank you. If I could see the
slides again, that would be great.
Give me a second.
Yeah for sure take your time. Yeah, you can go past the first one to the second one. So, okay.
I think this is the end so second when he said is this
yet so that's the first one we can go through that one. Okay, I assume that will discuss this so I don't have any questions on this one. The next one please. I don't have any questions on this one. I mean, all of this is going to come up in discussion so the next one please I thought I had these will come up in discussion. I guess the definition of eviction was the only one that was a new definition. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you going through them for me. Thank you.
All right we will move on to public comment
first question. Yeah, I do want I can do this, I think during discussion. I want to go through the whole staff report and the ordinance. Should I wait then. I think, oh wait.
Yeah,
yeah, just want to make sure it
can do
it. Yeah.
Okay. First we have Dylan Cooper and then Shiloh Sullivan and then Sabrina Vince kiss.
1:20 – 1:3229 turns
Hi, my name is Dylan Cooper. I'm a resident of the city of Ojai and i'm a renter and I'll be brief just like to say that I support this ordinance and although I very much hope that there's not many landlords in Ojai who would raise the rent by more than four percent without a good enough reason to get an exception, I do think it's worth having something on the books to rein in anyone who would do that And I'd also like to say just, I appreciate everybody here on the stage for doing what you guys are doing on a regular basis. Thank
you. Just a quick comment if I could. We technically don't know how many landlords there are in OI that this would affect but thank you for your yeah i'm hoping too yes
thank you okay next uh Shiloh Sullivan Sabrina Venskas and then Savera Lara
Hi, this is my first time here. My name's Shaila. I lived in Ojai for 12 years and I was living in a two-bedroom unit at Triplex downtown Ojai with my two children. They are school age. One's in public school in Nordhoff and the other one's at Summit. I'm self-employed artist, local performer, and singer songwriter. I teach singing and music And been a single mother here for many years I have no family, no government supporter.
I contribute to my community was hosting local music events and I performed everywhere all around Ojai over 10 years. I support the local businesses libraries rec center. I've done volunteer work through my kids schools track and field team. My best friends live here. My children's best friends live here, my boyfriend lives here. Our life has been based in Ojai a long time. I lived in this triplex for eight years.
I was a great tenant and had a great relationship with my landlord. He was always helpful and supportive and asked me to fill the vacancies when they arose. In 2021, a real estate speculator from Los Angeles bought the triplex from my landlord and told me I had to leave because their son was moving in. Their son never moved in and someone new lives there, but I don't know.
I lost my home for dishonest reasons. I tried to find comparable housing you know hi, but I could not, and I had one month to vacate my home and I move me and my children to Santa Paula, and I've been there almost a year. I now pay double the rent that I was paying in my Ojai home. I'd have to drive back and forth every single day to bring my kids to school. I drive almost two hours some days just with the trip back and forth, and this has increased the cost of living for gas and my utility bills just based on the unit that I was able to find.
For a while I did not have a car, I had to borrow friends cars to get my kids' kids to school and had I been living in my Ojai home, my kids could have taken the school bus to and from school or rode bikes. That's not the case now. A lot of my work as an artist is still here in Ojai and I have to arrange with friends sometimes to stay in town just so I can be here in the following mornings And make sure that I get my kids to school on time.
I don't think I can continue to shoulder, my rent burden and may have to move even farther away from Ojai. Had the proposed Ojai tenant protection ordinance been in place? I still would likely be in my Ojai home today if only this ordinance had been placed two years ago things will be different please don't wait for this Ordinance to pass, please protect other families from the fate that me and my children have experienced.
Thank you.
Thank you, Shiloh. I have a quick question. I wanted to say hello. I live right on North Fulton and often came to your garage sales and have massive amount of beautiful jewelry. Very nice price. So thank you for that. I just I wanted to point out that there is a California law That all of your situation would have been covered effective in 2020 by the California law, what you would get now from us is relocation fee of up to $5,000 but a shady landlord or corporation you have the same.
Remedy under California law that you would have under our law. Just so, you know, that the main difference in your particular situation would have been, you would've gotten a relocation. You would have gotten a relocation payment right? Which of course who can discount that nobody can discount that but I did want you to understand that this particular. Ordinance is a strengthening of one but in your case the only difference would have been that the relocation fee that you would have gotten.
And I miss you, because I listened to your music from my backyard to your backyard because I live on North Fulton right behind you. So thank you.
Any clarification on that, Mr. City Attorney? Thank you. I don't know. OK. All right. Thank you. Sabrina Venskas, then Savera Lara and then Tom Weber.
Hi, Sabrina Venskas. I'm a citizen of Ojai and you would be absolutely incorrect Ms. Rule. In fact the ordinance had it been in place fills holes that are in the Tenant Protection Act and I'm not going to go into detail with you but you certainly do not know what you're talking about And in fact, had this I think I do.
That's my point of privilege, I do not think that general comments allows a public speaker to defame me so i would ask you to bring actually
it is her right to say whatever she wants
okay let's remember that it is your right to say whatever she likes Very
good 47 does not there is no defamation law in this space. All right, section 47 is an absolute privilege okay I'm still speaking civil code section 47 is an absolute privilege against any. Cause of action for defamation are liable in a public space and in a public, official judicial legislative or administrative proceeding including Brown Act body meeting so there is no defamation in this space. Thank you
for the clarification I appreciate
it.
All
right. You said, Are you saying that under the California Rental protection in Shiloh's situation, she wouldn't have been protected. Is that what you're saying? Correct
because the Tenant Protection Act doesn't say that the person that moves in has to live there as their primary place of residence and it has no good faith intent requirement so what that means is under the Tenant Protection Act somebody can move their kid in for 30 days or a day or actually not even move their kid in and just have it be there as Their vacation home and so on and so forth. So actually in Shiloh Sullivan situation, she would have been protected had this ordinance been in place because of the good faith intent requirement, and also the primary place of residence requirement In addition, Shiloh Sullivan could have brought a lawsuit on her behalf had she found out about the fraud that was perpetrated on her because there's an attorney fees provision and civil penalties, which actually incentivizes attorneys to bring the case.
Whereas in the Tenant Protection Act, there is no such remedy. And so therefore tenants who have been gamed or defrauded can't find attorneys to bring cases especially because of the provisions in the Tenant Protection Act that are squishy gray and have no teeth So there you go Miss rule now I'm going to finish my comment. One thing that I would time has not yet
started
we need to figure this out. No, no, excuse me, Councilmember will apologize. This is my coming to you I'm running this meeting and I'm Sabrina was as answering the your comments so you have a public comment now yes
thank The one recommendation that I would make, if you make the change tonight is on page two dash 22 under subsection for intent to demolish or substantially remodel the unit. If you look at number Roman numeral small four. It says in the event the landlord seeks to rent the remodeled rental unit within six months following the completion of the remodeling work, the evicted tenant shall have the right of first refusal to reoccupy and rent the unit unless the landlord provides written waiver by the tenant their right to reoccupy the premises pursuant to this subsection. I would highly recommend that you change it from six months to 24 months and the reason why i would recommend that is because It disincentivizes the landlord to sit on the remodeled unit as a vacant unit until after six months, because after six months according to this language then the landlord won't have to offer the unit back to the former tenant.
I think that if you have the 24 months, what that does is it financially disincentivizes the landlord from sitting on that unit. You want the landlord to offer that unit back to the former tenant. You want to get that unit tenanted so that we can have people living here. That would be my recommendation. Six months is really not long enough to have it hit the pocketbook especially of owners, landlords that have a lot of units So that would be my one recommendation. Otherwise, I agree that the definition of eviction should be now that I heard the language, I agree that that should be expanded. I've actually never seen a limited definition of it being for unlawful detainers or defined as applying to As defined as an unlawful detainer, actually I've never seen that in any of these ordinances.
That's a really limited definition and it allows more gaming of the system. And if you broaden it, it makes it so that people that have had notices to vacate and they vacate pursuant to that notice or they're told by the landlord, you have to leave A lot of tenants, they don't even know what the laws are or what their rights are. So a lot of them won't even know about this ordinance and if they get a landlord that says you have to leave some of them will just leave pursuant to an oral request. I think you want to cover those situations too. Actually, I liked the definition that you articulated.
Thank you so much for this opportunity to present my comments. Thank you. Thank you, Sabrina.
I do have a question? Can you bring it through the chair please? Yeah,
could I? I do have a
question.
Okay. For
Sabrina. Yeah, yeah. So, this is pursuant. Did you not suggest to Councilmember.
I'm on the stand and I'm just
asking you
here and answer your
question then don't answer it hostile then don't answer it. Okay. Then don't answer it keep moving up. My question would have been, did you not ask Council Member Francina if she would like you to sue her landlord pursuant to the California 2020 law?
All right next we have Savera Lara then Tom Weber and then John Boetti.
1:32 – 1:4013 turns
Thank you mayor, council members and staff. It's kind of hard following that public comment. Just a quick question clarification so this ordinance only pertains to multi-unit multifamily units correct? Is that or is that
the rent stabilization?
The rent stabilization yeah so that's the only part the tenant protection does apply to single family
Correct and that's because state law has said we can't apply the rent stabilization to anything but multifamily.
Okay, so I just wanted to clarify that before I start making my comments well I really do appreciate you guys starting to work at trying to keep renters here in Ojai. I grew up here born and raised in Ojai actually have the house I grew up with Jeff. Snyder was our front neighbor. And so I you just run into community members here, I would say that it's a good first step.
I honestly think it's a safe step. I think we got so much more work to do. We have a community here that is losing its youth. That's you losing their artists, like the lady that spoke a couple comments ago. We have seniors that don't have housing. And I would love to see more be done here in Ojai, to really address the people that have left and are being pushed out.
I think this rent stabilization will help to a certain degree but is not going to help the most vulnerable population of our community. I stand here not speaking for any organization that I'm part of, but I'm here sharing a perspective that where most people that I grew up here would not come up and speak to the mic. One because they don't have the time because they're working trying to provide for their family. Second is that it doesn't speak to them I hope that you guys would continue this just as something that, okay we did something formal. Now let's get into the weeds. Now let's talk about really what the issue is here because I want to know and I want to be in a community that is full of diverse people that are here to cherish this community.
We live here. I have a unique opportunity to raise my daughters here I want my friends to have that opportunity if they can. So I stand here in front of you to ask that you keep looking at other ways of really addressing this issue, so thank you.
Thank you, Severo. Next we have Tom Weber then John Boetti and then Wendy Larner.
I'm going to be swimming upstream, I can tell. I've been attending the city meetings here for over four decades and it seems to me that the city's councils oppose development in this town for many, many years. And I'm sure if you took a vote of everyone in the town, they don't want to see the development either. And therein lies the problem. We have a housing shortage because we're not building enough houses and rent stabilization or whatever you want to call it, fine but the real stability comes from people owning homes not renting homes. It provides security, stability, it helps them with wealth in the future The city, and we have a lack of supply in that area. The city does its eight-year housing element showing how it could provide housing but you build very little.
The current housing element calls for 53 units to be built by 2029. I have no idea where those are going to be and that has nothing to do with the hundreds that were already behind The housing element that you have says the city shall actively seek development, and yet here we are hundreds of homes behind. And now you want to shift the burden of that to those small landlords like myself property owners like myself.
Mayor Sticks, you used the term greed when referring to landlords and you said you have a moral responsibility to help people. And I'd like to say that you have the moral responsibility all of you to help all people, all of us. You wanna pass this ordinance now and iron out the details later? That makes no sense what... And I can see already the disagreement just amongst the five of you The diamond study in your very own staff report says that rent control doesn't work in the long run.
The ordinance that you have calls for Ojai to maintain moderate rents and the most recent housing element that you have shows that Ojai right now, the moderate rents are 2% below Ventura, 30% below the county as a whole and 8% below Oxnard, the very city that you're modeling your ordinance on. Mr. Whitman said landlords should be allowed a reasonable return, and then the ordinance calls for a just return. I have no idea what that means. And yet a landlord is supposed to come to some group of people to have you justify what a reasonable return is.
The first few years of owning a rental property have zero returns. The COVID shutdown allowed for rents to not be paid, and yet all of our expenses continue. My insurance has doubled since the Thomas fire. Property tax goes up 2% every year. Utilities, trash, repairs, water heaters, supplies have doubled in the last three years. No other business in Ojai is limited to a 4% cap. We already have statewide rent control, I haven't raised rents in six years until the statewide rent control came into place and I think if you polled other landlords you might learn that's not greed. We are all in this together put a committee together of all the parties tenants everybody put it together and And look for a solution other than this. Thank you.
Thank you. Excuse me, I have
a question. Mayor, another question? I just have a question for you. So if there is a cap at 4% for an return on investment and there is an inflation rate in our metropolitan area of 5%, How do you figure that helps or hinders your return on investment?
You don't get a return on investment.
Thank you.
You're going to chase people away from one another. You need housing, all kinds of housing for all kinds of people. That's what you need.
Thank you. Next we have John Boetti then Wendy Larner and then William Wyrick.
1:40 – 1:4613 turns
Evening Council. So I, like many citizens who live in the OI area am concerned about the number of people that have had to move from OI or who are barely holding on to their residency due to the rapid and excessive rise in rents. I would venture say that most everyone if not everyone in our community knows someone who has been priced out of OI because of these skyrocketing rents 763 apartment units in the City of Ojai would be affected by this ordinance.
That is a very significant number of dwelling units and consider that many of those units have multiple people in them, meaning this ordinance will affect the lives of close to 2,000 Ojai residents Over 50 cities in California have written their own ordinances to address this problem, and it is about time that Ojai joins these cities' laudable efforts to protect their citizens from crippling rent hikes.
Tonight our City Council has the opportunity to do just that so I urge you council members to do what the people of Ojai elected you to do by protecting their most vital interest, affordable housing.
Thank you, John. I have a question. John, do you have any information on the number of the percentage of the rental increases that you were speaking of? Do we have any data on that whatsoever? The gentleman just said he hasn't raised his rent. Do you have any data on the average or the mean of how much rental rate increases there have been
I do not have that information.
Okay,
but I live here and I've spoken to many people who have told me, I'm about to rent my property to someone because he couldn't afford the rent that he was being charged And what I'm providing him is a home to live in at less of a rent than he was paying for.
Right,
what I'm saying on what I'm hearing people say
okay and you understand that by the current law is, you
know, comes my rule. I'm going to interrupt you just because this is not this is time to take public comment not to have conversations with the public actually is a time to question the public. That is exactly right. It is the time Mr. City Attorney can you think john could you
Council members can ask questions of the members of the public, the members of the public and refuse to answer the questions or they can answer them as they desire. No one's under oath no one's on the stand. No one has a no one's being compelled to answer. I would suggest that council members draw the lines between questions in argument in the form of a question.
Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Next we have Wendy Larner than William wire Rick, and then drew mashburn
Hi, Wendy Larner. I'm a resident of Ojai. The council has determined to make bad political practices adopted in Sacramento even worse in Ojai with their latest ordinance. Why should one small group, in this case certain income property owners and I in Ojai shoulder the burden of our rent distressed renters? Is it council's job to capriciously decide landlords are the haves and renters are the have nots?
For all they know, some renters may be far better off than their landlords. According to council persons Francine and Rule there have been no studies we don't know and I don't think BlackRock or other huge private equity firms own any apartments maybe they bought the one the LA group may have been BlackRock, I don't know. Do we have any evidence of rent gouging in Ojai? And how many complaints have you received? Where's the data?
Major Stix said, it is our moral responsibility to step in and help people. But Betsy Stix is not participating in that offer to help. She is not having her income controlled or being told to pay relocation fees nor to my knowledge are the other yes voters on the council. Mayor Stix or Council Members Whitman and Lang may be better off than some landlords It's sort of like picking $20 out of the pocket of your neighbor to put in the Salvation Army bucket, then claiming credit for it. I think there's another name for it. It certainly is not called moral responsibility.
Shouldn't charity begin closest to those in need and be voluntary? First from families, friends and neighbors. Then from churches, private charities and service clubs. Finally if the people of Ojai wanna help the council could put it on the ballot and let them decide by a two thirds vote to pay a local tax earmarked for that purpose creating a fund from which to distribute rent supplements on as needed basis Fund renters could be held, fundraisers could be held. Donations could be solicited. In fact should this come to pass I will pledge right now to personally match any donations that you on the city council are willing to make by way of disclaimer, I am not an apartment owner.
Thank you Wendy next we have William Wyrick then Drew Mashburn then Jeffrey Starkweather.
1:46 – 1:548 turns
That public policy goal should be to prevent rent gouging and we need more tenant protection. However, I also hope that we could stipulate that we want to do that in a way that does not reduce the supply of housing or at least try to minimize the effect of reducing the supply of housing. You know there's two ways number of units is our supply of housing and also the condition that units are kept in.
And I wanna mention Let's start with the inflation unadjusted. Rate of return is defining 4%, not inflation adjusted as just and reasonable. I appreciate y'all's attention to what I circulated late this afternoon. If you take the long-term view from 1913 to 2020, the long-term average rate of inflation in this nation has been 3.1%. That means you're defining just and reasonable rate of return as a presumption without a petition to change as 0.9% long run.
Over the last 12 months, the rate of inflation has been 8%. Therefore your definition of just and reasonable without petitioning to include the effects of inflation is a negative 4% To think that defining rates of return in that fashion with having a petition process, it's onerous and expensive to not have any effect on any decisions to repair and maintain or build units or do whatever I think defies any kind of logic or reason.
So there are ways to fix this ordinance in a way that does not inappropriately reduce the supply of housing. And I want to make one other point, do you want to induce sprawl? Have a negative rate of return as a presumed capital rate of return on capital for housing stock and think what happens if everybody moves outside the city limits for that kind of housing development. That's sprawl development. I thought we were against sprawl. Thank you.
I have a question. Thank you, Bill, or bill. Maybe I missed it but did. Did you use to a council member in Oxnard right yes is what's this
like he made a very good point. A couple of things I'll be very quick and respectful of this number one. Because 1995 and above is exempt, and there's a lot of housing stock that therefore is exempt that's being built in Oxnard. A lot of permitted units. Who is this affecting? Not the highest rents in the new housing stock but the lowest rents in the older housing stock. That's who it's who's being affected because those units are being sold to corporations that can handle a regulatory framework as an overhead cost Or they're made into ownership units or condoization, they call it. Or they're simply refraining from repairs and maintenance because a small landlord can't get a negative rate of return on, let's say, a major roof replacement. That's one point that he made that I think very clear is that it's actually reducing the supply of housing particularly and disproportionately affecting lower rent scale.
Thank you, Bill. Next we have Drew Mashburn then Jeffrey Starkweather then Sue Williamson
Good evening all. I've been in the Ojai Valley since about the Topatopo bluffs were starting to rise out of the inland ocean that used to cover the valley and my family here longer than that so anyway, I'm urging you to vote in favor of passing the rent stabilization and just cause tenant protection ordinance agenda item number two After the second reading tonight.
As you're aware I emailed the city council to on your, on your March 14 meeting for passing it and I also encouraged you to move forward with the ordinance at that evening I went ahead and I addressed this podium. The same things that I need, I would like you to go ahead and pass it. It's a true emergency in the valley here. It is a little step but it goes ahead and is a step in the right direction in helping our community be a community. I mentioned last time we're turning into a green community. We had another resident Cocker here tonight saying the same thing.
We need some children here, look at our school system I mean we can go on and on but I implore you to continue in voting for this tonight I most definitely don't believe there should be any housing committee formed to banner around the need for rent stabilization. I think it's a terrible idea to form any committees, in my experience issues are kicked to committees often just stall in those committees.
The solutions are slow, the conclusions are slow and oftentimes in committees they just simply die. So please pass this ordinance. Thanks.
Thank you, Drew. Next we have Jeffrey Starkweather then Sue Williamson then Grace Malloy.
Good evening. I support the concept of a rent stabilization and Tenant Protection Act. However, I think we're doing public policy backwards. Normally when you do public policy, you start with the problem And you look in detail at it, and you come to an agreement what it is. And of course, you can't separate rent stabilization from all the other stacks of housing.
And we're starting with a solution before we've even addressed the problem as the city manager admitted to me there have been no complaints about evictions. Partly because we don't do complaints about evictions. The number of 763 units, I believe is way off because multiple family that includes all the rent. What do they call them? Rent restricted ones in affordable housing. They're not covered by this, and it certainly wouldn't cover the gables and all these places where people rent for sure. I don't know what it is. I think the...I wish we did know the number but I was told there's about 400 units. Not that that changes anything completely.
We just don't know the facts on the ground and we ought to be studying that. The second thing is as the city manager said in his Agenda notes, there are a lot of potential negative consequences of this. We're not really careful of how we implement it and we know how it's going to play. We're borrowing from two cities that are totally unlike Ojai. Oxnard 200,000, 75% Hispanic, Bell Gardens which is 40,000 which is 96% Hispanic I don't know that we haven't looked, and the other thing about both of those cities and virtually everybody else has done rent control or rent stabilization. They have built a lot of new affordable housing which is your safety valve when people get evicted even legally. And we're not, we haven't built anything for 25 years.
That is our problem. I'm really concerned that we're gonna create a legal conflict situation. We've got enough conflict in the city as it is, we're going to incentivize attorneys to start going after landlords? Why don't we do mediation? We all believe in collaborative solving problems. Why don't we have mediation and then arbitration and not having peaking people to court?
And some of the language, I just heard the word threatening as an attorney If I'm on either side of that. I can make all kinds of arguments whether something is threatening or not threatening. How many times have I been involved in criminal cases when the definition of threatening has been greatly disputed? So, the more things like that, subjective things we put in an ordinance, the more likely we're going to have legal conflict, it's going to cost landlords money and how does that benefit our community? Thank you.
Thank you Jeffrey. Next we have Sue Williamson then Grace Malloy then Renee Roth.
1:54 – 2:016 turns
Good evening, everybody. I have a core question. Why should landlords be entitled to raise rents 5% plus the rate of inflation up to 10% a year? Do tenants get that same entitlement at their jobs? Why should landlords be an entitled and privileged class Are they not already privileged by the very fact of owning a home? They have options like reverse mortgages, loans based on equity, sale at a huge profit these days, etc.
Tenants do not have those options. Everyone knows the recent rise in minimum wage is too little too late. The state's parameters in AB 1483 are overly generous to landlords, as has always been the case. And they're not real any tenant protections. Ojai's proposed rate at 4% seems far more appropriate and fair. Keep in mind that this will be the first thing Ojai has done for renters in a very, very long time. If ever isn't it about time to do something?
I would agree the current ordinance as proposed has some flaws. It doesn't go far enough to protect tenants renting rooms and single family houses or whole single family house I personally think that every tenant, regardless of the type of rental should benefit from a cap on rent increases. But can you imagine the uproar of the property class if that were proposed?
Even though close to one half of our citizens are renters in this town Ojai has been entirely derelict in its duty to provide affordable housing or any legislation to help renters in this highly inflated real estate market. The landlords have been making a killing, let's face it! The last several years have seen so many longtime residents leave town. This ordinance will at least discourage big investor entities from coming in to snatch up houses for investment purposes, because they will not be able to get such an exorbitant return on their investment.
Other tenant protections in the ordinance will also discourage evictions which is a major way property owners have been able to raise rents to outrageous levels. I see no reason to postpone any further this ordinance which can be adjusted and modified as time and circumstances change a committee to work on this issue could also be a positive step if it had 50% tenants.
But it's no reason to not support the proposed ordinance. Relief is needed now, as one speaker said don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. And I would add that we should maybe change it and make all units instead of just built before 95. Thank you Sue. Next
we have Grace Malloy then Renee Roth.
Good evening everyone thank you so much for taking time for this today
No, it's not on.
There we go. Okay. Um, I just want to ask you to please pass this ordinance without first diluting it. It feels absolutely urgent so many people have said this before this is an emergency in my community of young families. We weekly lose community members to rent weekly. I could list a whole name of wonderful, a whole giant list of wonderful humans that have had to move to Texas and all different places to be able to afford to live less paycheck-to-paycheck or at all And as a landlord myself, I'm asking please set these limits. We are privileged.
We need that incentive. A lot of us at this point are choosing to look at what we're renting our homes for but many of us are not. My, my in laws actually rent their place for at least twice what it's worth. And they just bought their home maybe three years ago here. I can't change their minds, and I love them and they love me. So imagine what it's like to try to get a neighbor or another community member to change their mind about how much money they are entitled to with their home. This needs to do that. It is one drop in a very empty bucket that we keep getting bogged down in all the tiny little details and the studies and all of these things. It is very clear everyone Rent is too high in our town to be able to support a healthy public school system.
Healthy children are healthy community, I'm saying as someone who has a young family and his friends with many other people with young families. And I love many elderly folks in this town who can't afford to live here. Please make this change, it is so small. It's such a tiny thing don't send it to a committee. This is only five people making the decision for a whole community that's a small enough group already. I've heard Council Member Francina speak about this issue so often not being able to find an affordable place to live And we saw that with hearing all the testimony of the cottages. This has got to change and it's got to change now and you have such an amazing opportunity to take action on this please listen to stories like what we heard tonight, and really weigh them heavily against folks who can afford to pay a down payment on the home.
Thank you. Thank you
grace. Next we have Renee Roth.
2:01 – 2:1116 turns
Good evening Council members, and good need. Good evening audience. I adore grace grace is one of the most precious people in our town, but I'm going to have to strongly disagree with you tonight at the podium and in front of the city council, and I wish we had a housing. Place that we could go and discuss these issues, and come up with reasonable alternatives. Because really this is not going to do anything for the people who've already been displaced from our town. It's not going to do anything to help the homeless people who are living in their cars, it's not going to do anything to help the people who are living in their tents. And what we need to do is really look at the whole thing holistically, and not just be able to make a slice and say we checked off this one thing.
And aren't we good. We now can say we city council members have passed rent stabilization. This to me is a political This is not the way to do it. You look at holistically, you look at the people who are renting and rent burdened or with programs that can offer them assistance. You don't do it by passing rent stabilization, that's going to have unknown consequences and who is going to pay for the attorney's fees? Who is going to pay for the five thousand dollar relocation fees if I were a landowner and I am passing Of course I'm going to pass those costs on to any tenant who lives in my units. So anything that comes vacant from now on, of course they're going to have to have relocation $5,000 of relocation fees added to their rent and the possibility that Sabrina Venskis would love to come and create a lawsuit against me?
I think there are ways to give people the help they need based on those who need the help. Not passing something like this that looks good and you can say, look what a great job we did. It's going to be a burden and the city is going to be in the middle of rental and property owner disputes up to the tune of $125,000. That's ridiculous! I think this needs to be rethought and we need
to go back to the drawing board. Thank you. Thank you Renee. Weston any comments on Zoom?
Yes, Mayor. We have two raised hands on Zoom for item 2 so far. Max Sherman followed by Anita Hendricks. Max you have the floor?
Thank you. My name is Max Sherman, I'm speaking on behalf of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles. Tonight the City Council is once more considering a draft ordinance that will create a new local rent increase cap and add additional restrictions that will seriously hurt small independent mom-and-pop rental housing providers. This ordinance is being rushed through without stakeholder engagement or justifying data indicating a need for the proposed restrictions.
The city's own staff report highlights that the bulk of renters facing relocation are due to the substantial increase in single-family home values where most Ojai renters are located. For example, a quick internet search on available rentals at Ojai showed 15 rentals available on apartments.com all houses and 23 rentals listed on realtor.com all single family except for six. This ordinance will provide no relief for such renters Due to the exemption contained in the draft ordinance, and many were made excluded from statewide rent increase caps and just cause protections under AB 1482 as well.
As a core problem in Ojai are the single family house renters and not multifamily renters, which only account for 22% of the housing stock at Ojai including 13% being properties with fewer than five units. It makes no sense to rush through this draft ordinance that will miss the vast majority of renters that the city intends to help. Additionally, as mentioned last council meeting Ojai would be by far the smallest city to adopt any type of rent increase cap and a staff report dramatically underestimates the cost of administering such a program. Those are monies that could be spent in a much more impactful manner such as direct rental subsidies to renters in need. We strongly urge the City Council to reject this permanent ordinance and instead work on a temporary ordinance with a specific sunset date that will allow the City Council time to fully develop an OHAI-specific regulations that will address all renters' needs while fairly balancing mom-and-pop, multifamily owners as well as single family rental homeowners needs.
And additionally, allow for a workshop to be conducted with all impacted stakeholders. Thank you for the time and consideration. Thank
you, Max.
Next we have Anita Hendricks followed by Becky Winninwood. Anita, do you have the floor?
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay. I just want to say, I don't think we need facts and statistics or statistics to show us that many people have been displaced from Ojai because of the rising rent costs. People have been forced out of their homes and we are not finding more homes for those people. I just recently talked to a man who was displaced in the fall with children in school because the landlord wanted the place or he raised the rent. I forget which one it was But the man now moved to Oxnard, his kids were partway through the school year. Every day he doesn't have a lot of money. He drives all the way from Oxnard to Ojai so his children can attend school here and then he has to spend time waiting here for his kids to go back.
There are tremendous hardships that people are undergoing because they're forced from their homes And in terms of inflation, yes landlords have inflation but the tenants have inflation and many landlords not all of them have vastly reached the benefits of our skyrocketing housing costs whether rental or buying. So this to me is just the beginning there's so much more we need to do We should have this apply to all the units, whether it's before or after 1995. I just cannot believe that this is even an issue.
We have at least as of several decades ago the lowest per capita income in Ventura County. The so-called affordable housing is based on a much higher surrounding income area than the four square miles of Ojai. And affordable housing here for the people in cottages amongst the flowers and people have one rooms or a little tiny place is so much lower than the county average affordable housing.
We can't keep using that as a reference for Ojai. I am appalled, appalled and I know people aren't going to like me for this that we are not doing more for our citizens And I would also like the tone of these meetings to change. I don't like people picking on the left three people or the four people on the left, or whatever it makes it so I don' want to come to these meetings.
I do not I dread coming to these meetings because the tone and I don think it's coming from the so called they're not elite at all they're concerned about the people of this town and I'm talking about Mr Whitman our mayor And perhaps another person or two, but please let's not pick on people. And thank you for listening. I have a
question here, if I could. For Anita? Are you still there, Anita? Yes, I'm here. Yeah. So I appreciate all of your comments and I absolutely believe that we need to do much more. But I also feel the need to point out the vast difference between A landlord deciding to move in and someone being kicked out because of the rise in rent. If a landlord decides to move in, this will do nothing for them except forgive them relocation fees.
I just want people to understand what this ordinance is and what it isn't. I would like even the council to know what this is and what it isnít, but if raising rent was the cause then yes, this would have some effect on it. If a landlord wanted to move in, it would have no effect on it other than The relocation.
Can we wait till discussion, though? Well
I
want her to
understand I think it's important that our citizens
understand yeah i understand we have a time for discussion and thank you this is time for public comment next question.
Next we have Becky. Becky you have the floor.
2:11 – 2:198 turns
Good evening. Thank you Weston for granting me the moment to speak here. I'm Becky Windenwood and I've lived in Ojai Valley for 21 years, and I'm very concerned about what I'm seeing in our community. First of all, I want to say how grateful I am to the tenants and former renters like Shilah who spoke tonight to present the tenant's point of view I'm also very grateful to Sabrina Venskis for helping Shaila and the rest of us to better understand the very real benefits of this ordinance over and above the California Tenants' Rights Law.
At the March 14th council meeting, I mentioned the importance of passing this ordinance now as an emergency measure without kicking it down the road again. Sending the issue to a committee will only allow more landlords to evict current renters and to raise rents to rates that are unsustainable for local Ojai renters. Building more houses isn't going to solve the problem. We need to focus on housing our local renters rather than Enticing other people from outside of the area to come and live here. As rental prices rise, so do housing prices and vice versa. This prices more ordinary people out of the market for renting and purchasing housing.
Building houses only makes developers richer and brings more wealthy out-of-towners at a time when we need to focus on housing our locals. We have a real rental emergency now, and we must give current renters some relief now rather than trying to iron out all of the details which can be modified as needed by the council in the future. Rent stabilization does not affect all rental properties but it can help at least some renters to have some relief.
Contrary to what Renee Roth maintained, we do not have to solve all of our entire housing problem tonight. If there are unknown consequences the ordinance can be modified as needed in the future. If landlords consider their obligations to renters and the community a burden that's a problem of consciousness and they should not be allowed to shift the burden to the renters.
Landlords are not victims here. As a previous speaker mentioned, they are already entitled. Remember there is nothing that prevents landlords from raising the rent between tenants so which... So they can still make a healthy profit when one tenant moves out and the next tenant moves in The rents in Ojai will still rise over time, but it may give us some time to develop more creative ways to house our locals more securely first and foremost. Please pass this ordinance tonight and let's get the ball rolling. Thank you. That's all
on Zoom Mayor, but if I may for efficiency, we have a card from Bianca Rowe. Did you wish to speak on item two? Rent stabilization Last one. Please write your name.
Good evening, nice to see you again. I'm a little surprised that we're back so quickly but thank you for having us. We... I brought my son this evening. I think that these are important lessons for All of us, even though a lot of the focus this evening has been on the older generation, the people that are here and who we are protecting in the moment. I wanted to talk this evening a little bit about what makes us unique.
We are very small fragile tapestry and we have elected you And this is not a political conversation, this is a conversation about what do we want our town to look like in the future. And I think that the most precious part of Ojai is that we look after each other. And we're not a landlord-tenant dispute, we are not a them and they dispute. We are really making a choice about what do we see ourselves as?
Who are we together and what are we making these choices for? I think that what we've all established early on is that any ordinance can be changed You can vote to refine it over time. As we evolve, things change. Everything will require us to make amendments to vote again. But in this moment in time, we're like faced with pretty big issues. We've got money coming from the inside From the outside in that we haven't had before.
We've got our neighbors losing houses, that can't find anywhere to live and we have an opportunity to make choices to affect a community in really big way. And we have to be brave enough to say yes this is important. I've shared that I'm a landlord and I think that I'm privileged, but I'm here tonight to say I think choosing to vote for our neighbours who don't have the privilege of owning their own home is really important.
It's really important. Home is your safety And it's important to be able to choose that we're going to support the safety of our community and know if we need to make an adjustment, you come back twice maybe three times to council and you can vote to make a change. So vote now to enact it and protect the people that need our help. Thank you. Thank you, Bianca. Bianca,
have you actually read the ordinance? I have. You have read it? Yeah, I've read it. Okay, thank you.
And I read it before coming last time and this time. And know that even in my opinion there are slight differences that I have with the ordinance but I don't think that my opinion of a nuance is enough to stop it from happening I think that overall the blanket statement of what we're choosing to do is the most important thing. You can refine things based on your perspective of it, but we're all going to look at things from a slightly different angle.
But in general, I believe in it.
Thank
you. Thank you, Bianca. Thanks.
All right. We have one more. OK. In the same manner. Leslie Ferraro?
2:19 – 2:3122 turns
Mayor, Council, staff thanks for being here. This is my last City Council meeting in Ojai. I have lived here for 15 years so relative newcomer. My landlords who had provided me with a lovely place to live under market value have both passed their boys live in Seattle and the distance was just too much for them so my place is being sold and I can't find anything in Ojai.
And I can't find anything in Ojai that I can live in. So, I'm moving down the hill and it breaks my heart because I absolutely love this community. I beg of you to pass this ordinance. It's too late for me but it's not too late for people that are coming up behind me so please take action now. Thank
you Leslie.
I need
to
ask Leslie how does this ordinance if you can't find housing now that you can afford, how does this ordinance change that?
It isn't just something that I can afford. There isn't a lot available out there. That's my point! Right right but then you add to that the fact that there's not a lot that is affordable makes it worse. I look at the cottages and they have a place for rent at the cottages for two thousand dollars and it's ridiculous To look at and to speak to what you've commented on relocation fees are huge when you're a renter and you're looking for someplace to live so you made it sound, you really minimize that and I think that was really unfair. As you would say, I don't think you understand what it is to move when you have 60 days to scrape together security deposit and all of that. Not to mention the stress of looking for a place to live.
Yes,
so I do ask that you please pass this okay
thank you Leslie all right we will move on to Council discussion would anyone like to begin. I'll
start.
Okay.
So since I'm the homeless council member I'll start. Um, I have put my heart and soul into understanding what's before us tonight. And I'm going to try to go through and ask the city manager some questions. But for those of you who don't know me, I've been looking for 16 months for housing it's like my part time job. So I'm well aware of the, if there's a vacancy. You know the whole, I checked Zillow every day. My story is very typical of what's happening in Ojai. An investor bought my rental that I had leased for eight years And I tried to get it back for six months, and I like the part of the ordinance that says I would have had first right. But the landlord, the new property owner also had the right, correct me if I'm wrong, but after the remodel, the rent was raised from 1,650 to 4,000.
That's the problem that we cannot solve, correct? We cannot do rent control. I believe that some people still believe that this ordinance addresses rent control. It does not. I did speak just before the meeting with an Oxnard council member and he according to him I tried to get ahold of him earlier, and Bill Weirich also spoke with him. The rent stabilization in Oxnard has been an utter, an absolute disaster.
It's had the opposite effect and of course this can all be...I'm just repeating what he said to me He said that landlords immediately raised the rent 10% during the 30 days, right? During this 30 day interval. Is that correct? That landlords if they wanted to... I'm not saying that because we have some very good landlords in Ojai. And I'm going to speak to that, including Sabrina and Carolyn fund risk others good landlords. I'm sure there are other good landlords in the room or they wouldn't be sitting here they're sitting here because they care.
But he said that the tenant with the 4%. What did we, did we get that 4% from the Oxnard ordinance or where do we get that figure
outside has 4%. We did not directly base ours on theirs but they, we looked at all cities and a lot of cities transport
percent according to what the council members, the Oxford Council member said they cannot cover the cost of repairs. And they're saying that if this continues, they're going to sell. And if when they sell, and we have at least 10 letters from local. We had 160 comments last time not all on this, but majority, and we've, we have a lot of comments tonight that I haven't read all of them.
But I'm going to read one letter that we received from a landlord, and it happens to be Dale Henson's landlord. And so she can vouch for him. He wrote, I am an 82-year-old 40-year owner of a 21 unit apartment at 102 West Summer in Ojai and property in Ventura. I am a house and property in Ventura. Maybe he means Ventura Street. Does he mean Ventura? Okay, I am a housing advocate and have worked with Cabrillo Economic Development and Santa Paula financially with Housing Development. I have several HUD tenants in Ojai and many other tenants well below market and have questions and concerns about this.
And I believe that Oxnard and we mean is our ordinance went also went too far And, and the letters that we received from landlords allude to the fact that they might sell. Okay and I and i i know there's there. There's some things happening already with apartments Where they can, I mean there are apartments in Ojai that are locally owned and I know I'm well aware of one apartment.
Ojai Garden Apartments it's owned by a corporation and that's where the rent increases are really I believe the worst you know. I have friends that live there and for example she said when her neighbor died They immediately, when the apartment next door was vacant, the landlord immediately raised the rent $1,000 or somewhere close to that figure. So my question is, that does not stop...
When there's a vacancy in an apartment or other multi-unit dwelling, if there's a vacancy for whatever reason, a death or the tenant moves There's no rent control. Is that correct?
Yes, state law the Costa Hawkins Act prohibits the city or any any city with certain exceptions from regulating the rental rate for a new tenancy so after a vacancy, the city cannot limit the rate and the landlord can charge
Yeah, and one of the speakers even said that the landlord can recover the rent. You know the market below mark if he wants to the next time there's a vacancy. So you know let us be clear what this does and doesn't do. Okay so now I would like to go through The through here, and ask some questions. And it's mostly have okay for one thing to let them. And maybe this, maybe I missed this but this landlord.
Many, so some landlords are out of town. In my case I had an outside landlord and if we're going to pass this and I don't know, I'm totally open. I've learned a lot tonight but shouldn't it say landlord slash property manager or because the landlord's never going to come to Ojai and deal with this? It's the property manager
The responsibility is on the landlord if they hire a property manager, that would be their agent but the law applies to the property owner.
Okay, that's good. Okay. I've already mentioned the problems with The 4%, no adjustment for inflation. Okay, and then I have a... I think I'm just gonna try to ask. So the planning commission is being asked to deal with this, right? But this has not gone through the planning commission process, right? They've never seen this, correct?
The Community Development Director is tasked with dealing with this decisions by that director can be appealed to the Planning Commission.
Okay,
and the planning commission hasn't seen this ordinance, the city council could refer to the planning commission that would be a choice for the Council.
My other question, sometimes I forget where I saw this. But we have not decided... You know, I'd like clarification how this works. My understanding is that every landlord will have to register with the city and pay a fee to cover the cost but we have not yet decided that fee. or how this works. We don't know how this works as it stands now we barely have staff enough to keep up with what's already on our plate such as going after short-term rentals and all of that so I am not you know in, of course i'm in favor of rent stabilization only You know, a criminal isn't in favor of some kind of you know any decent person is in favor of rent stabilization. But I want to make sure whether we like it or not.
In my, and I've had, I've been a, I'm currently what is considered a low income renter. But in the past, I've been a property owner. I've been a property manager and my whole family is...I have four landlords in my family so I know what they've gone through with tenants. And whether we like it or not, landlords and tenants must get along. I don't want to set up any kind of adversarial situation.
All kinds of scenarios go through my mind because we're not dealing with completely honest tenants nor completely honest landlords. If everybody is a decent person, probably we wouldn't even need to be doing this. But so what is the process? If this passes tonight, how is this implemented?
2:31 – 2:3719 turns
So it's essentially modeled after how we did our cannabis program. So when we did our cannabis program, we adopted the ordinances that allowed it and then staff had to return with base once those the rules had been established, staff returned and said here are what the fees would be to implement that here is a I think with the cannabis we did it as a resolution where the fees came back in the program was established with guidelines and criteria So we would do the same thing. In this case, it's not unusual and we've done it in the past to speak briefly to the comment about, we have one public comment about the costs and asking if you know Oxnard had spent over $1 million and asking if our estimate was realistic. Essentially what we're proposing to do it would be adding a staff person.
Who, a part of their responsibilities would be doing this and that's why we came up with $125,000 estimate. And then the staff person would also be able to perform other tasks as needed. Fortunately were on top of short term rentals so we actually issued a citation on those last week. So, so we wouldn't need them to take that on but they would take on this and some other duties.
But I don't, I still have a question with the cannabis you're talking three businesses with apart apartments and landlords. How many people are you talking about that has to have the register.
Yeah, so that would be to be
and how do you, how do you make them register. Like how does help you know are you I mean you must have some data on who owns. I'm sure you can figure it out but
we would have to get it we have not spent the staff time on it because we didn't have the rules in place so yeah. The next step in this process would be coming back and with that program with those guidelines, and with the fees. Based on those estimates,
Mayor Pro Tem I'm. I don't mean to interrupt interrupting because could
we
let the other yes they
can circle back to you just been to finish this train of thought what is your isn't there some figure in your mind what each landlord would pay it has to be some reasonable figure to cover the staff time right
Right. Yeah, so it'd be have to be based on reasonableness we'd have to look at how much staff time divided by how many property owners that would be impacted all those things. So that would come back but no we haven't we haven't started figuring that out and it would come back in the council would approve it so the council,
we would have no choice but to approve it at that point
well no I'm saying you would if the fee comes back and it's too high or too low the council would have input on that so it's not something that can be created without the Council.
Okay, it's unknown. All right. Okay
at this time.
Yeah okay all right next
um yeah I'll make some comments uh first just because it was raised am I incorrect that if I had sent around language to five council members prior to the hearing that I was potentially breaking the Brown Act by doing
One-way communication would have to have been disclosed to the public and it raises the risk that any reply then becomes a bionic violation. So, it's not uncommon and we've certainly seen that in the past where one will email James and I with a question or a comment and then depending on what it is, we'll bring it up.
Okay. And my intent was to bring the amendment up and I'll explain why I requested an amendment. The language as it currently reads I thought would potentially create ambiguity. I think it's subject to argument, and I just thought that having a cleaner language would be more prudent and lead to less dispute so the And I think, I think at the last hearing I had asked for a definition for eviction and. And I think I only gave vague direction so i'm not upset at all that we didn't get it exactly what made me happy but let me talk about the language That concern me. So, I'm going to look at two dash nine and the definition for eviction there.
It says a landlord. So these are definitions eviction means a landlord attempt to recover possession of a rental unit by initiating an unlawful detainer action against a tenant. or requiring a tenant to vacate a unit. I think possibly the second part of that, or requiring a tenant to vacate a unit allows the broadness that I was hoping for but I was concerned that the use of the term unlawful detainer action would have given Excessive emphasis towards unlawful retainer actions as being the basis for eviction and wanted a broader definition.
The language that I've provided to you is, I think covers that.
And yes to staff senses that the second clause in the existing definition of the ordinance Requiring a tenant to vacate a unit picks up any actions taken by a landlord that require a tenant to vacate the unit. But as noted, staff would have no objection to the revised language that specifies the forms in which that may come. Mindful that unlawful detainer actions are a lawsuit and tenants may not recognize that this ordinance picks up actions earlier than filing a lawsuit.
2:37 – 2:5220 turns
I also just want to remind that I asked that we put in that provision that allows a tenant to give a notice to a landlord, actually allows the landlord to receive notification from a tenant 30 days before bringing any type of an action in order Advise that they believe that our ordinances have been reached and that gives them a 30 day period of time in which to discuss whether there's a problem or not. If they disagree, then they potentially head towards civil litigation if but hopefully they'll discuss how to resolve whatever dispute they have. And that was my intent with providing that provision. I was going to ask questions about the multiple people who raised the idea that this is unfair to a landlord who has unforeseen expenses, but I'm not gonna ask those questions because as I was flipping through, I found that we covered There are nine factors that allow a landlord to go forward.
Nine factors for the Community Development Director to consider in increasing the rent beyond that 4% that we've put as our default point, so those are at 2-10 and 2-11 I'm not gonna read those, but they cover most of the things that were addressed tonight in terms of a basis for looking at and deciding it would be unfair to limit. That the fair thing to do would be to allow the landlord to increase beyond the 4% because of things that had transpired that were beyond I want to say a couple other things that include that.
I certainly have never viewed addressing rent stabilization as a way to address a problem with our landlords, I don't view the landlords as the issue. I view the rapid increase in property values as the issue that we're addressing. I don' think that we have a bunch of ill-meaning landlords in our community, but what I think we need to address The cost of housing in Ojai is rising more rapidly than the people who live here have the ability to adapt to.
And so tenants, there's a huge economic disparity between the landlord and the tenant but this I agree this does not change. This doesn't even the playing field But it does something. It does something to assist tenants who live here with having a degree of security that they can continue to live here because their rents aren't gonna rise beyond what we're presenting and that they have some protections from being evicted unjustly, I think it's the biggest single thing that we can do as a city council.
We do not currently have the control, well... We don't have the ability to pass out rent subsidies We don't have the financial wherewithal to do that. Figuring out how to do that would be a monumental task, and it would involve going to our taxpayers and saying you're gonna start paying for other people's rents. And I'm not, I think this is a much better way to address. We're not catching everybody. I mean we're not protecting against every circumstance but we are protecting against some circumstances.
I'm convinced that we have, we are adopting what amounts to a middle of the road type of approach To rent stabilization, meaning that we aren't being overly aggressive and we aren't just being satisfied with the minimal protections that the state calls for. I wanna comment briefly that just like rent stabilization maybe hasn't seen Type, you know the type of protection in some communities there are the the type of results.
Building homes more homes Does not guarantee or even create the likelihood that the cost of housing is going to go down in Ojai. There's a whole lot more that would have to go into that before it would result in a reduced cost of housing. So I assume that the $125,000 estimate for staff time in addressing these issues is something that would end up being passed somehow to Renters and or landlords, is that what's contemplated in that?
Yeah. And what we would do is so we'd come back with a staff report that would both create a position that would be responsible for that and then we would have the analysis at that time of how many landlords we have and what those costs would look like based on kind of those two factors. All right,
those are all my comments at
this point. Are you ready to put a motion on the table? Well
yeah actually I would like to move that we do pass the ordinance tonight and that we include the language in place... That we replace the definition of eviction with the language that was on the screen earlier. Is there a second for that motion?
I'll second that motion, but with one friendly amendment.
I have a friendly one
too. I just wanted to...I believe Sabrina mentioned a change, a potential change on 222. She mentioned change 222. I believe that's what it was. Correct me if i'm wrong. I'm reading my notes
Yeah, subsection four. Yes.
She recommended changing it from six months to 24 months. That seems
I'm fine with amending my motion to include that. And also I mean this, making the motion before everybody's had a chance to discuss. We either schedule or include I'm not going to make the motion to do this but all listen to somebody's proposal that we have a way of revisiting. what we're doing here tonight and how it works in practicality. And I don't know the typical mechanism for doing that, but I would like there to be more than just a black hole for landlords and tenants to say, I'm not happy. I would like there to be a place for them to deposit that where we would eventually see that, I assume maybe with the community development director and I would be fine with an amendment that sets up some type of mechanism like that with a time to review.
That was my amendment. Okay, yeah all right. Council Member Lang do you want to continue?
Yes so i will second that with the friendly amendment but the 24 months seems a little long to me. I'm just thinking if I were a landlord I would think that's two years that seems long So, I would like to amend that 12 months. It seems like a middle of the road. If that's okay. Okay, I'll accept
that.
And one other thing too I wanted to mention just to respond to some of the comments that we had here and some of the comments that came in from landlords. You know, I really hear you Mr Weber i'm looking at you, in particular, I really hear The concerns that you've raised about inflation about the cost of, of insurance about all of the, you know, all of the costs of home ownership. I have been a landlord myself, I have been a renter.
And I think this ordinance, I just want to specify that this ordinance does make accommodations for major repairs. I spoke with one landlord who's having to get some sewer work done and it's very expensive in their rental unit and they are one of the good landlords in this community offering their property at below market rent. And so there are provisions in here to ask for some of those additional increases in rent.
If there are substantial repairs or renovations that have to be made. So I really do feel like this does a good job of protecting landlords, and also want to say that landlords do have more privilege in these relationships. And I know we have landlords who are great people who are doing good things for this community, but you have, And when you own a property, you're building equity. When you're renting, you inherently don't have the power that someone who owns land has.
My default is to protect those who have less of the power in that relationship. Also, I just want to say too, I believe it was Leslie's point that when you are evicted or when you have to move scraping together $5,000, $6,000 It is so hard, because you can't get a loan. You can't take them alone out on your mortgage when you're renting you don't have many choices for making money your choices are basically moved to somewhere where it's going to cost you less or Couch surf or live in a van, or move back home to Tennessee to your family. I mean these are the kinds of things that I hear about from the people in my district and when I was campaigning these were the biggest concerns that families had and their children go to school here so you're not just talking about individuals we're talking about children being uprooted from their homes and so I feel Is this perfect?
No. Does this meet all of the needs? Is this the overall solution? Absolutely not! We need a comprehensive solution to these problems that we face, but is this one step that we can take? I heard that four different...I think three or four different times from Savara Lord, from several different people. This is a step, one step and so I think it's a good step to take
for right now Councilmember rule me to stop, we're taking turns I know but he
gives me. I wanted to respond to and council member. Yeah, do you want to go
ahead. Oh, I was gonna let this. I was going to let Council Member Francina.
Yeah just to respond. I wanted to respond. Yeah. So if we instead of considering this a permanent draft ordinance. Can we consider this a temporary ordinance with a specific sunset date? Is it is that the because he asked how we could rather than I mean, I heard people saying that we can just change it anytime. It's not that easy. We can't just change things willy nilly. But I feel that this is an experiment. We don't know yet how it's going to play out and it just seems prudent to have a sunset date. Not too far off into the sunset either.
Okay so that wasn't my motion and I would not like to add that one, and the reason why is that I think we can pass the Ordinance and if it turns out that it works poorly, we can bring it back to revise or revoke it there. So putting a sunset on it. That I guess that's my comment. I don't, I don't think it's necessary to put a sunset clause into it and I think that whatever we would gain by that you know would potentially be some future city council it can decide to amend or revoke the ordinance.
2:52 – 3:0420 turns
Mayor, could I? Yeah. You want to comment? Yeah, I did want to comment on that. So I understand that a sunset might be a little bit too final but perhaps we could agree that this ordinance would potentially be the first thing that a housing task force might look at because it's existing. It could bring all parties together To discuss we're not talking, I mean when we get to the housing ordinance we can talk about what might make up that task force. But I mean if we talk about wanting to deal with things holistically. I mean we can ask them to come back with comments and recommendations, not that we are in any way forced to do it but what it does do is it sets up a framework for that particular housing task force to start on. I mean, they can look at it.
It's something that exists. They're not out there in the ether trying to figure out where they start. I just think that it's a place and we can put the responsibility on that task force, give them something tangible to start with They would just come back to us with recommendations anyway. It wouldn't be anything that we are in any way obliged or obligated to pass, so to me it seems to be a reasonable compromise If we're talking about that it makes sense for holistic, systematic approach to things. And this has no obligation for anything other than to if we do have a complete stakeholder and we will get to that in the next discussion item, a stakeholder based housing task force then this is something very tangible for them to look at. That would be my suggestion on that but that's only one comment many more.
Um, relevant to what we were discussing so that would be a potential way to deal with all of this.
So
I'm going
to
take
a turn
now.
No, I mean, I'm not done. That was just a comment on that. Okay.
Okay, I would like to. Yeah, absolutely please. I just, I think I hear what the landlords are saying and i and I understand that also think that we as a community owe it to our renters to protect them now. And I don't see any reason for waiting, we can always readjust this ordinance and make changes to it as it evolves their 50 other communities doing this in California. We are not Inventing the wheel here, and I agree with my council members this is the single most important thing we can do the most effective thing we can do at this point. to protect the less advantaged people in our community. And that is our obligation. This has been going on for two and a half months, and if we continue to delay this, we will continue to see people getting kicked out of their homes and evicted.
We need protection now. And if we delay then the renters may have to shoulder that 10% increase in rent that is presently allowed by the state of California If we pass it now, that won't happen. So we have the discretion here tonight to help our community and we've all heard stories. We have the data because we hear stories every single week. And I'd like to let us all remember that America's mission statement is articulated in the Declaration of Independence. Governments are instituted to secure our inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
When you're living in chronic economic anxiety, you do not have those rights. To paraphrase FDR, a necessitous person is not a free person. So if you're worrying about whether you can pay your rent or buy food, you are not free. So I think tonight the council has the opportunity to give our community members stability. Key word here is stability that renters don't have at this point.
And they're carrying high levels of stress, very very unhealthy. So once again this is the most important thing we can do tonight is to pass this and two council members or I can always put this back on the agenda if we need to readjust and then to make improvements And we all know that Ojai is a beautiful place to live. That's why so many people want to live here, and we've seen rents going like this while wages are going like this. We need as a community to fix that, to bring that together so people can continue to stay in their homes.
And so I personally want to do everything I can to increase housing equity here and the current approach is failing. We've heard story after story tonight. Thank you all for coming and sharing your stories And let's also keep in mind that the vast number of speakers who've come to last two meetings to discuss this have supported rent stabilization. We're hearing it over and over again, so I would support passing this tonight and not waiting one more moment so that more people can get kicked out.
Leslie. Yeah, so I'm a couple of things I'd like to respond to one is I agree with Sousa that only criminals would be against rent stabilization. So everyone who is now saying yeah you're a criminal. No actually I'm not. And I would like to respond to Leslie and her comment about my being very unconcerned or not giving proper weight to a relocation. I absolutely do but I just wanted to understand, I want people to understand what this ordinance does and what it doesn't do and it will give you Well, excuse me. Yeah, so, so based on the comments I have heard over the last month and the degree that the complexity of this.
I don't know that people understand and I think it's really important that we have A populist that does understand the laws that we pass me. I'm not was not meant to imply that you did not understand, but I can tell from some of the comments that people are focusing on things that this ordinance is not going to do and that is not serving them to under to not understand this.
That having been said, I did have a couple of points here. The housing data, I'm incredibly disappointed that we have no housing data. The housing data that we have from the housing element is from five to nine years old. It doesn't even take into account which is when the whole world of housing changed which was during COVID, when people started moving out. We don't even have any of that information. I am uncomfortable making laws when we have no data and we have no data. Let's be really- I mean, we don't have any data. Our data is very old and it predates COVID. That will tell you right there. Once again, I'm uncomfortable making laws with no data. I think it's bad policy.
So then, I have this idea of the rent stabilization versus the tenant protection and I want everyone to understand and I want to have clarity on this. The tenant protection which does give renters Relocation expenses, correct? Am I am I correct if they're subject to it that includes single family dwellings
depending on how their own yes.
If they're okay, only if they're owned by the land trusts and the corporations. So there's no tenant, there's no tenant relocation for single family dwelling for families that live in a single family that rent from a single family dwelling is that correct?
It depends on how the single family dwelling is owned. So if the single family dwelling is owned by an individual landlord, John Smith title is John Smith, an unmarried man then that would be exempt. If it's owned by a corporation or our IRS registered real estate investment trust or a limited liability company which at least one member is a corporation then it would be subject to ordinance.
Okay, so and that is the tenant relocation fee. It's the
entire just cause fiction
or it's okay so it's the so there's no you don't separate those two and who was eligible for what other than if a corporation owns it.
Yeah, the separation is the rent stabilization ordinance has one set of exemptions. The just cause eviction has a different set of exemptions but within the just cause eviction ordinance there's no separate set of exemptions for the different provisions within that.
So I own a single family dwelling. I rent it. I decide I want to move in and I am not required to pay a relocation fee or I am required to pay a relocation fee
If you own the single family dwelling with your name on title, then it would be exempt.
Okay thank you so then my next question is we talk about a tenant here what if there are three tenants and let's take out the single family now if there are three tenants or each tenant Eligible for the $5,000. So if I have three tenants, I am now paying out 15,000 if I have four tenants, I'm paying out 20,000 do kids count for this? So that to me was incredibly vague and has deep ramifications for it for deep financial ramifications. And I think that should be very clear. This brings my point is that to rush legislation is to overlook things this took me Three times looking at this it wasn't until today that I'm like, Oh, is a tenant one person. It would have did that mean that they had to sign the lease. Is it all of them.
But it doesn't say tenancy. So if we want it to be, excuse me I actually am not speaking to you right now so you're not to talk thank you. So I would like clarification on that what are we actually talking? If we're talking tenancy then let's say tenancy but what we say is tenant. And I do know that there are places in California where it is per-tenant and I want to be very clear about that.
3:04 – 3:1229 turns
As presently drafted the or if you want to answer,
please
as presently drafted it's tied to the tenancy not per tenant.
Okay.
That is of course a council choice.
Yes, but I would like to make that very clear where we talk about tenant versus tendency because, because I could have two tenants on a lease. So it was confusing to me. So if it's confusing to me, then I think that you know it might be confusing to others is my only point. So I will talk about the annual rent increase. I think when you have a cost of living, when you have inflation at a higher rate than what you are allowing a landlord to raise the rent, at least call it that. Don't say that you have right to make this return on your investment.
Say you don't have a right to make a return on your investment if it's over the, I mean let's be clear about what we're actually doing. We are not saying that they should get a 4% return on investment. Right? We're saying that they should get a 4%, minus inflation from that. That's not a return on their investment. So I don't necessarily have an argument against it but once again, I would like us to say what we mean So that is that one. I would just like us to say it's 4%. That's all it is. Inflation can be 6%, 7% but it's four percent and once again, I'm fine with that but let's just say what we mean because I think we should and I know I've said that twice and Susan tells me I say things twice so I'm not going to say that again Um, so also I think the appeal.
I think the determination by the Community Development Director to the planning and unless I miss misunderstand then anything that any decision the planning makes can then be appealed to the City Council. So we now have a three yes that may not be true
as drafted it would be Planning Commission to accord
It
would go Planning Commission directly to court. Okay. It's drafted, it skips the City Council that obviously is a council choice.
Okay. All right. Even given that I think in many jurisdictions there are just pass-throughs that are allowed. Capital expenses are just a pass through and then you basically split at 50-50 and you prorate it over 10 years. I just see a morass here of bureaucracy that doesn't really serve anyone, and I would like some of that to be tightened up if there are potential pass-throughs. And you are required to prove this with receipts to your tenants that these capital improvements happened. Those kinds of things may be it might be easier just to have the pass throughs written in here so we're not Taking up staff time and, and all of that it's it's pretty standard in other jurisdictions. So you know I just think we could try to tighten up the process, and I am not against passing this now.
Depending on whether or not our city attorney says that these are changes that warrant another reading. I think these are important changes, but I am not making a determination on whether or not they warrant another reading. Um, we do have
a motion on the table with a second. So
well but
but that
thank you but that's not gonna you know that doesn't in any way preclude me from continuing with my comments
could you
no I can't this is very very important we don't make laws like
this I understand that we can always bring this back though but we know we do let me finish my sentence we have a motion and a second so if you can wrap up your comments
I am going to say to you, Madam Mayor that this is the only time the five of us can talk about things. This is the only time we can listen to each other. This is the only time we listened to the public. I know that it would be nice to rush this through but this is a law that we are making.
No, I understand and I have no interest in rushing. This is the second time that we have discussed this I
will, I would like to finish. Thank you. This is the 2nd time we've discussed a very important law. So also 30 days to qualify for tenant protection seems to me to be a very short amount of time to qualify for tenant protection it is by far the shortest I've ever seen so. What this really does it, whether or not this is the purpose and I don't know if it is. This is a run around on short term rentals.
So basically, you know, if you go over, you're allowed to have a short term rental for 30 days or more. But yet if you do have a short-term rental for 30 days or more, then the tenant becomes eligible for a relocation fee. So it actually has ramifications for a short-term rental and if it does have those ramifications let's at least be honest about it. Let's say that short term rentals Are now actually you have to pay $5,000 to get them out if they don't want to you know if it in other words.
They now have the right to $5000 let's at least say that yes of course they do short term rentals if I ran to someone for 2 months. They are now a tenant, even though normally it would have been what we know is a short term rental or even 32 days they are now a tenant. They're now subject and the $5,000 is now available to them for relocation fee. We are so we are essentially changing the definition of The ways we think about short term rentals by adding this $5,000 relocation fee to a short term rental and if we decide that in Ojai we don't want artists became able to come up here for two months or three months without the landlord having the obligation to pay $5000 let's just say that it's yes.
So the exemption that was added by the council as number nine on page 2-25, in part would seem to apply to that situation. That exemption which provides that real property rented by occupied by a landlord or family for at least six months that is then leased for up to six months and then is reoccupied by landlord or family after the lease is exempt.
Yes
it doesn't fit all the situations you're describing but I want to note
No, I understand that and you clarified that was indeed the case. But I'm talking about someone who has a short-term rental and they have whether or not it is an apartment in a fourplex or sixplex or whatever it is but it's a short term rental which they have by law the right to have as long as they don't rent it for less than 30 days If they come in and they rent it for 45 days, their tenant is now able to ask for relocation money.
That's all I'm not
otherwise exempt.
Yes, so, so that changes the nature of a short term rental and I want to be clear about that and I want people to know that right that's all I'm saying I'm just saying that it changes the nature of that short term rental. Okay. All right. But I have other things Councilmember
you've been talking for about 25 I'm
sorry but this is
a law, Madam Mayor. Yes, I will do it as quickly as I can and I apologize for putting you through this. Can I ask an important question?
3:12 – 3:2238 turns
Yeah, yeah. Are you making notes to and then we'll see if my of our colleagues are willing to have what Councilmember rule calls a pass through?
Well, we have a motion and a second so we'll vote on that as soon as we finish
discussion.
Yeah,
she was made before all of this discussion right I understand that
can I respond to. And actually asked this to the city attorney as well. My understanding is that we have capital improvements pass through language in this ordinance already. Is that, is that correct?
Yeah I was just double checking that we
don't have to
go to the development.
And the list of in section 11106 210 and 211 yeah pages to 10 into 11. There's a list of items that the Community Development Director can consider in deciding if their return request including inflation is item one. And then including capital improvements in item three.
Yeah,
so there is language that allows it and customer rules correct and many cities have much more robust language that dictates a process detail process for capital improvements pass throughs. And that could also be done but there is existing language that covers it, and then it could be expanded upon right
You would have to excuse me, I'm going to ask the question you would have to appeal to the community director in order to make that. In
order to get that it's a application to the committee on the director for rent increase above 4%
right and not
an automatic pass
Yes, and it is, it is one of the it is one of the however many nine things that would allow Is that correct. Yeah,
it's more than
I okay so my point is is that it's once again it's bureaucratic and where many jurisdictions do not require it to be approved they only require that the receipts be sent to the tenant with a letter. You know there's there's a, there's a million ways to do it. My concern, once again is that this is overly bureaucratic and so I am trying to find ways to
ensure that we can. Okay, I'm trying to move us forward yeah okay is this Council willing to make this less bureaucratic and not what we have a we have a motion but can we amend would you be willing to consider amending the motion.
We haven't.
Okay.
So, we have not heard from staff yet, what the bureaucracy is going to be. Some of the things that are in here are addressing the issues that are primarily being raised by the public in terms of being fair to a landlord so yes there's bureaucracy involved in deciding that somebody gets to raise their rents by more than four percent And so there's gonna be some bureaucracy.
Staff is gonna come back to us with what that bureaucracy is gonna be, I think that's the right time to look at whether that's reasonable or not. We're just trying to get to the point of saying that it's good for our community to do something to help the situation that renters living in the city of Ojai are presented
with. And I think it's also very important to remember that communities have been doing this for decades, decades and there're 50 communities in California at least and if you look nationwide, if you read the national news so many other cities and towns are doing this right now Minneapolis, Boston just Google it It's happening everywhere. So, I we do have a motion i think it's time to know I'm sorry all this call the vote.
I'm not finished talking so please don't interrupt me. I would like to call the vote. We have a motion and second if council members need just a couple minutes to wrap things up and then we will vote.
I found a mistake, I think too. Okay on page. Well,
I'm sorry this is this is a law that's huge I'm sorry, but I'm going to continue on page 14 we talked
to member I'm gonna give you three minutes it's nine,
excuse
917 your,
I would like your authority for giving me a time
limit. Because we, we need to move this along and excuse me. Yeah, let's go for can you wrap them three minutes please.
I am not going to accept that. Whether or not I could is one thing, but I'm not going to accept that making laws has a three-minute time limit. I'm sorry we need to talk about this and we're not involving any other stakeholders in this so you know it's me or nobody. I''m sorry.
So can we move the discussion about Creating committees to some future event because we're already at nine o'clock. We've got people who have been waiting to finish make their public comments and it, you know, could be viewed by somebody as just pure obstruction at this point.
It could, it definitely could but this is what people say about the Brown Act is that the only time that you can get together to discuss anything as a council and with the community is at a City Council meeting and that is a problem with the Brown Act that people are Choosing to discuss, I don't know. I don't know if you believe that two hours is long enough Councilmember, could you just make it making me I'm replying to please make your points and then let's wrap this I would be happy to make my points. So,
page
14 of 23. I am confused over the subletting, number seven. That any action to terminate a tenancy based on tenant's sublease of the rental unit if all of the following requirements are met. The tenant requests permission, the tenant continues to reside, the sublease replaces one or more departing tenants, the landlord fails to respond to the tenant. You know, my problem with this is how do you monitor this? Whether or not a tenant continues to reside in a rental unit as their primary residence.
And what does this actually... The ramifications of this I just don't understand so I have to ask a question about it such is my job. If you could talk to me a little bit about the subletting, because this is the first time that we have really discussed this.
Sure. If a landlord applied or took a step to evict a tenant and claimed that it was an at-fault just cause eviction under the Subsection A7 for prohibited assignment or sublet, then it would be up to the landlord, that'd be the basis for them to move forward with an eviction. It would then be up to the tenant to go through the process to say that's a violation. Typically what we would see is the tenant would come back and say no I didn't do a prohibited assignment or sublet and then the question will turn on whether Did or did not violate the terms of the lease, so that'll turn on the terms of the lease. And then there's this further exception protects a sublet that meets these four requirements.
The tenant asks for permission to sublease. They continue to reside in the primary unit. The sublease replaces one another tenants, so it's a multiple tenants situation and the landlord doesn't respond within a reasonable amount of time And we have a reasonable amount of time up to, and if it's for lease of more than a year, it's deemed approved. So if a tenant sublets the lease in violation of the lease or doesn't fall within that category then the landlord could prosecute an at fault just cause eviction.
If the landlord had done so without those triggers being met Then it would be up to the tenant or the tenants lawyer to then move forward with objections to that attempted eviction.
Okay, so if a tenant. If a tenant was already. I'm just going to give you a scenario. Sure. Okay, you have one guy who rents the place and his lease has a no sublet clause. Can he bring in a second tenant without approval of the landlord?
3:22 – 3:2853 turns
No because it didn't start out with two tenants.
The lease might
cover it. But it will depend in part on the lease terms.
The lease covers a number of
people.
And if they
don't
have a lease,
but okay.
Anybody without a lease is foolish.
Right I know
that. Straight up.
Yes straight up. Anybody without a
lease is 100% foolish.
And any landlord without a lease is 100% foolish. And any tenant without a lease. Everybody is 100% foolish if you don't have a lease
Okay, Councilmember will I think it's time to call the vote so we can we can vote and then there. We can still talk about these issues that we have a motion. We have a second we have the roll call
make a correction.
Yes, ma'am. I still have one more point. I'm sorry the city. So this is our council
member rule. I am calling the vote. Can we have a roll call please?
That is
not yeah, I can call the chair can call the vote and
then
the chair called the
vote.
You can ask you can call a vote that ruling of the chair can be appealed to the majority.
Okay well I would like to appeal that I have one more point. Is there a second to the appeal
How long is your last comment going to take
it's, it's one number and you know it's a question to the city attorney so I don't I won't. I don't expect to have a follow up question. Okay last question. Um, so this is on page 22 of 23 number C. It says the city attorney is authorized to bring a civil action and or proceeding for a violation of this chapter does that mean that the city? Ojai would be a.
Would bring a suit and if so, we will be paying your fees. Is that correct or whomever? So if the city attorney is authorized to bring civil action in and decides to do so, that is the cost that the city would incur. That is my question.
Yes, and I would note that under the existing contract I have a can't speak to future city attorneys. The, I always seek council approval before I initiated civil lawsuit for the Council can retain the control on that in the course of the city attorney relationship. The area where I have an infinite power is on the criminal side there the elected officials have no power on the criminal side, but this line that line is about civil actions.
Is there any line about criminal actions. Okay, there we go. So that would be the city attorneys...
In wearing my city prosecutor hat independent of the elected officials I have the power to bring forward a criminal action for criminal violation of the Ojai Municipal Code if there's reasonable probable cause to believe that a conviction can be secured. The council controls the budget for that not the individual prosecution decisions And on that front, we only bring criminal prosecutions in egregious cases.
We have done so on a very limited basis.
OK, fine. I'm fine with that. I just wanted to check on the city's liability for those particular potential suits. OK,
thank you. All right. Time to roll call. You have a quick question?
Yes. On page two eight and two nine it has two definitions for rental unit. It has one definition of the second page, page two
So B and G both have the same.
Yeah, they have the same
term being defined. Yes,
but it's
two. But there's two different definitions.
So the typo there is that subsection G should define. Two
to
dwelling unit.
So subsection g you can change the term to say dwelling unit instead of rental
unit and the reason that works is that if you put the two definitions together. Subsection G is dwelling unit is any. Living quarter use for human habitation, stitching together the civil code citation and the language there. And then subsection be any rental add dwelling unit that is not exempt from the stabilization ordinances but subject to ordinance.
Okay, thank you. Good catch. All right, can we have the roll call please Western
Yes ma'am.
I'm sorry, hang on one second. So, I want to just speak, I want to speak to the 30 day 30 day if, if a lease is and then we have to. Yeah. Okay, so
respectfully, I think we should finish the vote and then
okay. And a request for modification with a friendly modification. Can I ask you to ask for a friendly amendment? Yes, yes, yes. Okay, Andy, friendly modification. This is this is not parliamentary procedure.
So the request is to modify it.
Yes
in the middle of the vote.
Okay, okay then then just Yes. Okay continue. Thank you.
Roll-call vote 1–1 · 3 under review
Show transcript
3:28 – 3:281 turns
Okay, thank you very much. It passes three to two and I will take a 10 minute break. Thank you.
3:39 – 3:5319 turns
We're back. Please take your seats and come to quiet. Excuse me, we are back. Could you all
take your seats and come to quiet please? Council, Steve from Alta drove three hours to get here so I'm going to make the suggestion that we move the ATP up right now to accommodate Steve. Thank you, thank you Steve. All in favor?
I'm in favor yes
okay okay all right well we will move on to
um
I did not vote on it I'm gonna abstain there's no good option here
do you want to say something oh okay uh
we will move on to item number four the active transportation program or the ATP update Right, but Steve from alt Steve Thank you. I'm suggesting that we allow Steve to give his presentation now because he's been waiting for how many you drove for three hours and you've been waiting for three hours so out of a common courtesy,
Thank you. Okay well I think we need to acknowledge that our first, well we would like to acknowledge that our first time putting public comments to the end of the first discussion item we are now bumping public comments i just want to say that yes
no public people here we have a few cards up Well, we have an agenda. I just let's take a roll call on favor of
allowing Steve to give us counsel vote on what how do we order the agenda? Okay.
Um, I would I would make a motion to allow Steve to give his presentation now right because he did drive three hours to get here and he's been waiting for three hours so anyone okay all in favor. Okay, all right. Sorry Steve.
I love you.
Okay, we're ready for you Steve thank you so much for being here
and Mary I'd like to do a brief introduction. Yeah. Because Steve's here tonight and. Steve's here tonight to go through some of the design, but there's a lot more than just the design on this project. The design at this point may be the easy part of the project. So let me start with just some background and I'll keep it brief. But this is a big project. This is a huge project for the city, the size of Ojai multimillion dollar Caltrans partnership project with four over a little over four and a half million dollars in grant funding.
So it's a big deal. And I think when we talk about it tonight. I think will realize sort of how big a deal it is. One thing I want to start with is in the past when we did look at the design, we went through and went through street by street sidewalk by sidewalk crosswalk by crosswalk. And we went into really granular detail. Time and time again, if you look at the staff report it has the list of every time we've talked about it at council and that list is three pages long.
Well two pages long. So, we've done that, and at this point we're moving to a new phase, so I'd like to start just by kind of encouraging the Council to look at it a different little differently today. We are not planning or encouraging us to go into that level of detail at this point. We have two designs for both Maricopa Highway and Ojai Avenue that we have submitted, that we submitted in time to meet grant deadlines. And Caltrans is reviewing for very minor modifications where essentially you know I think we could call them safely 99% complete designs so the question today is really more the big picture a because we did redesign Maricopa we want Certify to the council, what that final design was because the last time we talked about this 18.
Well, maybe a year ago, we knew where we wanted to go but now we know if we made it to where we're trying to go. Really, the question now is going to be more with these 2 designs. The deadlines that we have in front of us, the costs that we see. Are we ready to proceed because we are at a point where if the answer is yes, we will be moving full steam ahead.
And there will be significant costs starting pretty much immediately sort of leaving this room probably in the next couple of days. We will get a team. Working on this, and if we aren't ready to do that we should make that decision tonight so. So let me start with just that big picture slide bullet point two notes that the design designs are essentially final they've been submitted to Caltrans.
We really can't be modified any further under the current grant. If we wanted to modify them we'd essentially have to pull back and let some of the grants lapse because we don't have time To do that, just to sort of give people the boots on the ground on this. If we want to modify the design that sounds simple enough but we would have to then send it back through all the review processes and even changing for example one curb would probably take four months and we don't have four months so like I said suggesting that the designs be considered final at this point There will be a couple of choices at the end of this presentation.
The current instruction from the Council was to move forward so that the Council can continue with that direction, not give any new direction or reaffirm that direction, that we proceed with the project and the current design as I'll get to in a couple minutes. Costs are going up every day that we delay or every day that we aren't getting this project done. This project started in 2016, costs have gone up significantly so we expect that costs have increased since that initial budget was set.
Alternatively, the council could decide not to proceed which would essentially involve us returning the grant funding $4.5 million in grant funding or if no decision is made tonight and I understand sort of in the past we've decided to wait to make a decision until later it's not fun to make these decisions but if no decisions made tonight there are some deadlines for large amounts of money that will miss So we need to make a decision.
And once we do choose to proceed, if we do choose to proceed We are going to start working immediately with like I said a team of people and move forward on this project So, let me start with the ATP. What is it? And I actually try really hard not to call it ATP because I think that doesn't mean anything to most people. It's the Active Transportation Project and that could mean a lot of things so what it means in Ojai is it's a project that we received a grant for in 2016 That was intended to install bicycle and pedestrian improvements, all the way from the edge of Maricopa highway all the way through town through Ojai Avenue to the other end of town. And so, you know essentially our main highways would have bicycle and pedestrian improvements.
This notes the three key components of the project first Maricopa Highway which we had gotten to a 95% design in 2018. We did our demonstration project got negative reviews, we completely revised it and we now have that revised design final Ojai Avenue. That one gets received generally positive reviews when we, when we designed it so that is still final we didn't have to redesign that. And then the last issue was one that we brought up about a year ago the right of way acquisition.
Because these projects impact things like the sidewalks and curbs and things like that, and because it's a Caltrans project we have to acquire the right of way to correct some issues. And so there are 29 parcels that we need to acquire the right-of-way for About a year into the process, we've acquired eight voluntarily. Five are currently in negotiation and we're hopeful we can acquire those and 16 remain at this time. So we'll get to that a little bit more later too.
Phase one, just to give a little bit of detail. And Steve will walk us through this a little bit better but I just want to give a very high level and then a couple pictures just so people know what we're talking about phase one is most of Maricopa Highway. And when I say phase one we had to split it into two phases because Ojai Avenue is the section that needs all the right away and we can't start the project until we acquire the right of way.
So we had to split it into two phases phase one, which would be constructed first likely later this year is the Maricopa Highway portion. It includes improvements such as bike lanes on the north side of Maricopa Highway, and then the extended curb on the south side of Maricopa Highway from El Roblar to Vallerio. It is not the full stretch because the first two properties on the stretch did not voluntarily give the city the right-of-way. So it's the bulk of the highway but not the whole highway.
You may remember the original 2016 design had parking on the street that was going to protect the bike lanes and had planters between the parking spaces. I think a lot of people remember those because i still get angry emails about them to this day, but that was the design that was demonstrated in December of 2020 we did a survey 57% of people did not like the design So what the council did then was they asked for two new designs to consider. We designed those in 2021 to about 10%, came back to Council, Council chose the final design which was to widen the sidewalk on the south side of Maricopa about 8-10 feet depending on exactly where on the highway to allow for a shared use bike lane and pedestrian walkway And, and then we removed the parking and the planners in the quote unquote zebra Dillows that people might remember.
And so this is what that design looks like. And so you can see the extended curb, so that there's bicycles and pedestrians on the what we would call an extension of the bike path. And then the other feature that I think we got a lot of feedback on was the concern with the prior design, that there wasn't room for emergency vehicles if needed to sort of go around vehicles. With this design, there's enough space with that striped emergency or striped skip lane is what it's called where an emergency vehicle could go around if there was a traffic jam, for example.
So yeah, it's
an
8 foot skip lane slash no parking lane.
It's a no parking lane.
Yep, no parking. Yeah. And so previously in the first design the cars were parked there and we got the complaints about doors opening up into both bicycles paths and other vehicle paths. So this is the revised design in general Steve will go over it a little bit more but I wanted to illustrate it. Because I think a lot of people still visualize the old design with the cars parked in the street and the planters and all that which have been removed.
Just from another angle, another photo showing those bike path on the extended curb And so that's the Maricopa section phase one proposed to be constructed this year. Phase two is Ojai Avenue, to the two parcels on Maricopa that we still need to get the right of way on those are scheduled for late 2024 in order to give us time to acquire the right away for all of the parcels that we still need to acquire it for for that second phase.
And so the staff report has a bullet point list of all the different improvements but in a very summary form. The improvements on Ojai Avenue are different it's not a curb that's going to come out, it's, it's basically just a lot of pedestrian safety improvements, putting sidewalk or some areas decompose granite. Walkways in where currently people have to essentially walk in the street. So there's 1600 feet of decomposed granite path that would be put in 970 feet of sidewalk infill that would be installed six new pedestrian crossings going across Ojai Avenue.
And the four sets of flashing beacons were supposed to be installed as part of this project, we had gotten. We had, we were able to install three already. It's been so long I think people forget those were actually part of the ATP, but there's one more set of flashing beacons that are still scheduled to be installed as part of this project and is part of that final design that Caltrans is approving.
3:53 – 4:066 turns
Microphone please.
Yeah, it's at the arcade. I think it's the center of the arcade and I think Steve can show that maybe when we get to that. So and then Number five, there's actually a few improvements kind of grouped together just to keep the list short. We're doing a bunch of curb ramp improvements to make it accessible for wheelchairs and things right now you would not call Ojai Avenue designed for ADA accessibility, it just wasn't developed that way over 100 years. So this would give us the opportunity to fix a lot of those things.
It would include Sort of expanded center median island at Kenyatta, and we also have a couple of curb extension but we've greatly reduced the number I think the original design had 24. And I think we've reduced it to six that are in key locations where they're absolutely necessary. And so I only have one image on this just to give an example. It's very high level, but this is the current design of Ojai Avenue at Rincon and this is just an example of like the types of improvements we're talking about here of adding some striping for bike lanes and adding decomposed granite walkway paths. So people can both bike and walk on Ojai Avenue which is not if you go back not currently the easiest thing to do So lastly, those are phase one phase two the other thing that we will be working aggressively on and we have a team that we are working with on.
And we expect it to be a lot of work over the next year is right away acquisition as I mentioned. There's 29 parcels that are impacted, that we have to correct the right of way issues that have existed for decades if not a century. As part of this project, the majority 27 of those 29 or on Ojai Avenue tour on Maricopa Highway. We are in process and that we've acquired eight voluntarily.
As I mentioned earlier negotiating five additional ones currently we are trying to work with all of them but there's five that are in the process of negotiation. 16 remain, we're going to try to make another push to try to get those voluntarily but with at this point with this timeline and with that number. I would expect that we would need to move to the involuntary acquisition process which is obviously that's not was not our goal But it's not unusual with a project like this either.
And so involuntary right of way acquisition essentially would take a full year so we need to get started now to be able to meet the deadlines even for phase two, a year out and that would likely result in eminent domain against some of those properties. For the right of way portion of the property so it's not eminent domain, it wouldn't be taking taking you know entire properties would be taking small sections for the right away.
So that's a big decision we had tried to avoid that but at this point, it does not look likely When we get to the funding, the funding for the project, the grant funding currently covers voluntary acquisition.
I'm sorry James just point of order i'm concerned council member rule that you're texting under the dais and not listening.
Yeah, I would
agree with that. Yeah.
Right, so the funding is available for the voluntary acquisition part of the project. So if we were to obtain all 29 parcels voluntarily that we expect is covered in the grant but the involuntary process is not covered because that was never anticipated back in 2016 when the project started. So that is a potential cost increase that we will speak about in a minute.
The last thing and I have like two more slides I'm taking longer than I expected but it's a, it's a complicated project but one of the last slides here is that the other thing we would need to do that's not included in the project. Because the project originally had the parking on Maricopa Highway. When we agreed to move it off the highway, the Council asked staff to find a parking option. And the best one that we found that seems like it could be a win-win is a partnership with the Land Conservancy and they've expressed a willingness to have that partnership Where we would install a small parking lot off of St. Thomas drive at the edge of Maricopa Highway, which if you look just under that it's the meadows preserve and it ties into a couple of goals of theirs and works well with the condition that we'd have to move Trail a little bit to connect to, to the parking lot.
So that is the proposal, but again because of the parking in the grant was not moved off the highway. Those costs are not covered in the grant and we'd have to find funding to do, or we'd have to allocate funding to do that. So all of this is to say all of these things have to all happen at the same time overlapping each other over the next six months to a year.
And we are going to have to spend a lot of our time and resources to make all these things happen. And we didn't need to know that, that we are going to move forward with it because we're gonna have to start negotiating agreements for all of these things and contracts for each of these things. And so it's just, we're at that point where we need to make that decision to either firmly move forward or not.
So, last slide. There's this and one more but we have $4.74 million in grant funding currently 3.6 million is for construction. The design and the right of way of come in close to budget 434 design 642 for right away. They're probably both going to exceed a little bit because we had redesigned the second part are the Maricopa And the right of way engineering.
If we have to go to involuntary that's going to increase that cost, but we also have sort, we have started to look at comparable projects and how their construction costs have been impacted. Just a general rule we're hearing from other cities right now is any construction that includes asphalt, concrete oil based products. You can expect to go 30 to 40% over budget currently because of supply chain impacts inflation and all those things. So when we designed this project in 2016 and we said it would cost $3.6 million, that was in 2016 dollars and it's not the same in 2023 so we estimate that the costs would likely exceed each phase would probably exceed by about a million dollars so we're talking two million dollars For both phases that we expect to exceed that cost.
And I would say even that is optimistic, because with the federal government about to release a lot of infrastructure funding and all of these people that do this work having more and more money being thrown at them i think that the costs are just going to keep going up. So on one hand if we are going to do this thing it's not going to get any cheaper than it is now so And then last.
So what does that mean for us because we don't print money unfortunately so what it means is that when we, when we proceed with the. If we move forward with this, the first thing that I'll have to do is come back with potential items that can be removed to make up what you know. I think we said two million dollars because it's two years it would probably be a million dollars that we need to reallocate and so that gets more complicated when we also realize that every project is getting more expensive right now. So this slide might be a little bit confusing but Essentially, all of these projects are getting more expensive. We're going to have to probably make the choice to delay some because we're not going to be able to afford the increased costs on each of these.
And so this is not like a detailed recommendation. The Parks and Rec Commission is involved in three or four of these projects and they haven't given any input yet and we're not trying to bypass them but just as far as tonight realizing that We've said that a top priority is to pave. That cost is expected to go up $1 million, just like this project is. So we're talking about potentially needing to make up $2 million.
So we'd have to look at other projects that we had planned to do this year and figure out which ones were going to hold off a couple years on. So as I quickly looked at those this morning and looked at the project we had and tried to find some that would potentially add High dollar amount. There are things like holding off on the parking lot resurfacings, the Libby bathroom remodel, the Boyd Center roof, the Sarasota sports courts, the solar microgrid for public works and other city facility repairs that added up to about $225,000. Again this is not a Moving forward with the project doesn't implement these things, but I will be coming back if we do in a month or two with a list of projects that we will have to choose which ones get delayed.
And you know that shouldn't be a surprise with our budget. If something goes up in cost, we have to find savings somewhere so we'll have to So the next steps. So tonight's item, as I started with at the beginning, the goal is for the council to direct staff Either proceed or not, and essentially it's very high level because what we would then do is every contract that we now need to move forward on every agreement every consultant.
Like our right away consultants, all of those things will have to come back over the next couple months and we'll have to approve those things and each one's going to have a cost. But so rather than each time do a full revetting of the ATP, the idea was to get a consensus tonight and move forward one way or the other. So that we're able to move forward on those things quickly.
And then last before we start discussion Steve Reason our project designer from Alta it was going to give a high level overview of the actual project
4:06 – 4:1111 turns
Thank you.
It's just a Tuesday night,
it's just a Tuesday night. So I'm going to try to go through this relatively quickly thank you James for the overview. I'm going to share with you two different phases and what this does is it allows us to leverage the money that's available in a way that gets actual construction done sooner than later. So phase one which is on Maricopa highway, is does not have at least the portion that we're going to build first doesn't have any right away impacts and because of that were able to move that one faster so we're looking at being ready to go out to bid in June, at the end The areas that require right away as James spoke about, those are predominantly on Ojai Avenue with a little piece near the bonds center on Maricopa Highway. And that for all the reasons he gave will take more time to resolve but because of the color of money were able to take advantage of the fact that the non right away portion then can go ahead and we're using non-federal funds for that work.
And so, that's what we're talking about here. So to get into the details this is at the... I'm going to refer to Maricopa Highway as north and south. We're starting at the far north end up by Miners Oaks and up at El Roblar. What we are going to be constructing is on the southbound side adjacent to Nordoff High School a what's called a class one or a two-way bike way It's actually going to be on sidewalks what's out of the street, there is the breakdown lane is that hatched area that you see in the top panel. And so that does allow for emergency access I was a concern of of the community, and so this does allow if there is an event for people to get by it. The same time it doesn't allow for parking on that side so it does provide for safer environment for bicyclists adjacent to the two way bikeway will be a DG pathway for pedestrians.
One of the concerns initially when we're doing the design was whether or not the tree line along the street was going to be damaged. The answer is no, we are going to be keeping the trees. Now, I will say that with the caveat that if we run into something where there's a tree that's diseased or something by the time we get ready to do construction. That would be an outlier but in general this proposed these proposed improvements do not remove the trees on the northbound side from Pirie all the way up to El Roblar. We have what's called a buffered bike lane again i'm going to use some terminology here and so it's a buffered class two bike facility and what that means is that it's on street But then it has buffers, it has little striped out areas on either side and that's for the following reasons.
On the curb side there will be parking that's allowed and this creates what's called a buffer for the door zone so that if somebody is riding by on their bicycle and a door opens they're not, the bicyclist isn't knocked off their bike. And on the other side adjacent to the moving traffic the same concept exists that there's a buffer between bicyclists and the motor vehicles that are in the traveled way.
And so this construct carries on, this particular panel goes all the way down to Pirie. Next slide please. Yes go ahead.
I wasn't clear
because presently there isn't parking on the north side is there?
It's not precluded. It's not signed against it, but just nobody parks over there.
Yeah, I'm just trying to imagine. Okay, so... Okay. And you start this at the... Where are you starting this? At El Roblar. At El Roblar. So from El Roblar to the Y.
That is correct. Yes, yes I'm moving. Yes, just to be clear from north to south so the northerly limits are at El Roblar and Maricopa Highway, and we're going to move towards the why
the
goats weren't here when we started attachment be page one of five. That's what's on the screen.
So on this next panel, as we proceed from north to south towards the Y. The two-way bike way on the southbound side continues all the way to Vallerio. For this first phase it will end there because the adjacent property where the attitude adjustment and Lavon's parking lot and so forth, there is a need for right away that location. So we are stopping the project on that side until phase 2.
4:11 – 4:1625 turns
I have an important question on that.
Yes, ma'am.
Because it also includes the parking lot in front of the Laundry, then Franklin and the restaurant. And that is an area where a big mistake was made. The parking lot goes all the way to the street. There's no path. And so you have watched that area for a long time, many years. They can't walk, they have to go through the parking lot. You know, most of them do unless there's absolutely no traffic.
Microphone please. Oh, I'm sorry. I better start over. This is a real area where people have asked for a sidewalk, they have begged for a sidewalk. We're talking about in front of Ben Franklin. I'm kind of hoping that the property owner might be watching because there's no side... The parking lot goes all the way to the highway There's no they never planned for people to do any walking through there so you see mothers that with kids and, you know all the pedestrians. They if it's busy it's very dangerous but after school, all the kids go through the parking lot. You know, the where the cars are driving. I'm sorry point of order but
is that because we agreed that there's no texting at the Oh,
I'm not texting and
we didn't
agree to anything and your business.
Well, can we have an agreement that we don't text under the dais
nobody is texting Betsy nobody is texting
me. Let's just get I want to focus. So my question is. The reason the project is stopping at Vallerio, is because the property owner will not voluntarily give the right of way. Is that correct?
We're still working on it I don't want to, I don't want to cast aspersions on anybody but we have not obtained the right away for those two yet. We're still hoping we can. And I think now I've seen several drafts of this but I think that the goal of the final draft and if we could obtain the right away was to put some sidewalk. That's correct yeah. So that's a goal. It's now moved to phase two because we couldn't get the right-of-way by now, which we needed to get to meet the state's deadline for phase one.
Yes.
But we are still working on that. We are trying to do it.
Okay.
We'll need to get the property owner to volunteer.
Because even if we're not doing this project, it seems just for health and safety reasons, the city would want to put a sidewalk in aside from everything else. It is just a dangerous So,
so striping that's depicted is going to happen in phase one. And it's just the acquisition of that property that would allow...
Microphone please? Yeah if I might and go ahead and finish
there. Yeah, I mean that was just my question. So we're gonna stop at Valley Rio but is the striping of Maricopa Highway that is depicted in these drawings going to take place in phase one?
Yes, sir.
Okay.
Yes, sir. So it will create what amounts to a road diet because right now Maricopa Highway has four lanes so this takes it down to two, one in each direction so that striping will be done the chevroning out Right most travel lane will occur during phase one. So that way during phase two, the construction can happen in a much more less intrusive manner because that traffic's already been moved over so when the contractor comes in he can use the breakdown lanes as a lay down area and also there would likely be some provision for putting materials off site on the parking lots and so on to be able to construct but by doing the striping at this point In Maricopa Highway proper within the state right of way. This allows for the future construction one of the things that happens when you do a phasing like this is you have to have what's called a conform or natural terminus, so that it has independent utility so that if nothing else ever happened, it still would be functional as it sits after we do this first phase of construction.
Thank you.
I'm sorry, I just want to be clear and I'm sure that the public wants to be clear too. The current bikeway that goes now to the Y intersection will remain and be clearly striped so that the project doesn't suddenly end at Vallerio. What we have now will still exist. We already got rid of the extra two lanes And so now we're, how do I ask this?
But Susan it looks to me that the striping is going to change from what's there today. To what's somewhat depicted on this drawing. It's not a hundred percent clear but it's different than what's there right now. Yes
yes because the current demonstration was of the original design not the revised design
4:16 – 4:2429 turns
That's what I'm asking, it will be painted. Yes. And it'll be in both directions so that kids don't have to suddenly cross the street
at Vallerio because there's a light there. That's where you would cross because on the other side is where the other bike lane, the northbound bike lane would exist.
Yes but that's going.
So what you have essentially is you have sort of three opportunities. You have a two-way bike lane on the southbound side and you have a one way bike lane on the northbound side.
Yes, that's okay. Yeah. I think it's
phase
1
because we don't have to ride...
That is correct. That's right so there'll be a brief period of time where the bike lane from Valerio to the Y does not exist because we have to reconstruct that. We have to build that facility
And my if my, I believe that. That was specifically as part of the Caltrans review that we couldn't make that work i think that that was part of we had submitted some changes back and I think that was part of it yeah
what happens is that if you try to continue on all the way to the why As part of phase one Caltrans was actually looking to piggyback on the city of Ojai, to rebuild that intersection and they were looking at you as a deep pocket for something would probably cost me an excess of $1 million to redo the signals to provide for bike movement at the Y so we made the decision to not let that happen.
Okay, so but we as a city can go look at this there must be something we can do to make sure it's safe because you know they're going to connect to the bike trail or they're going to go. You know the more experienced ones will just keep going up Ojai Avenue But that little stretch is critical. It just is, we have to do something with it. We can't just not... If you said that if I think I heard you say that there's going to be a period of time when there's nothing there.
When there's not a bike lane there yeah yes
well and to be clear so if we think about this from let's take let's pull out the calendar for a moment So the overall construction period will probably take somewhere in the vicinity of eight to nine months. And you know that's discounting weather, if it keeps raining like it has it may take longer than that. And so we're going to be in the background doing Imminent domain if it comes to that but the right away process just to keep it simple. So that'll be going on in the background, so these things may converge in time going forward so that what ideally what we want to do so that again saving money for the city is that we don't want to mobilize two separate contractors What would be ideal is if we're able to clear right away in a timely fashion such that as phase one is being built The right away for phase two is cleared so that the contractor that's already mobilized on the ground can be given a change order to just add this in and keep on moving.
Yeah,
but again, you know the as James said earlier, this was basically a balancing act to make sure we didn't lose the money to actually get something under construction. As soon as possible.
Thank you. Thank you.
You bet. So to move on here. So, this continues on down to the why and as I just said, you know we are basically stopping the improvements at Vallerio because of the need to acquire right away. And so one thing I did want to note and this was some of the feedback we got during the design process is that there is a sort of an under there's a monument there that's on the I guess that's the northwest corner of the Y.
And at one point in time we were going behind some of the improvements, and we found out that there were some things that we did not want to touch, to put it simply. The Weinberger
Memorial.
Yeah, the memorial.
The memorial. And so what we've avoided that. So now what we're going to be doing ultimately the design will come around the corner, the sidewalk will get wider but we will not be touching the memorial, it's being preserved.
Yeah, that's definitely one of the most dangerous spots. That very spot because the cars are turning right now. Yeah, I can't see anything.
Next slide please. And this will come in and there we go. And so now this is where phase two starts and so this is the portion of the project that is on Ojai Avenue, and on Ojai Avenue, the improvements are predominantly what we call class again class to or on street bike facilities they will not be buffered as they are in Maricopa Highway and it has everything to do with available with a roadway.
And so as you saw in one of the renderings on this stretch, and it goes all the way into the town I'll walk you through the sheets here in a second. We'll be using decomposed granite for walking paths will be striping the street to provide for the bike lane, and then we get downtown we have a different treatment which I'll talk about in just a second. So, you know as you look at this these areas that you see there like a little green dashes those are the conflict areas that Warren motorists that they should expect to have bicyclists moving through that area. And this is kind of typical throughout that we're using pavement colors and markings and so forth that are in accordance with the state standards manual on uniform traffic control devices and so on for these types of facilities.
And so as we continue on to the east, going past Country Club and actually past the school and then past Country Club in Bristol. Again, we're talking a class two facility with the deep composed granite walkways. As we head over to downtown that is true all the way over to Ventura Street Aventura because of the adjacent development or Jason land use. We are going to use what it called our implement was called a share or shared roadway and so instead of a dedicated bike lane, you and you probably have seen these the markings on the pavement have the bike symbol. And so what that means is that the motorists are just share the road with bicyclists. And this makes a lot of sense because this is getting into your central core you have a lot of pedestrians, you have a lot of tourists and so forth.
And so you don't want people know speeding through that area and during the summer months when it's nice you know you have A lot of bicyclists out there I've been, I've been working on this thing since 2019 so I've had a chance to be out here at different times of the year and you do get quite a bit of usage on roadway through that area on. Let's see next sheet please.
Oh, I have a question. You just stopped at North Ventura, right? Yes. Or south of Ventura. My question is did we end up... It's hard for me to read maps but did we end up with that extra crosswalk in front of the mop shop on the...
At El Paseo?
No. I
don't think he's gotten that far yet.
We're not there yet.
Okay, we're not there.
4:24 – 4:3436 turns
Right. And so again, this is what I was talking about before so again this is where we have the class to bike facility. We continue on next slide please. So this is as we get to the central business district and at Kenyatta there, one of the things that we are building is a basically an island refuge at the little knuckle there. That's where Canada and El Paseo come together that little y intersection. And so what we're producing there is a little pork chop Island that shortens the crossing distance for pedestrians and for bicyclists so that they have a refuge.
And so then that continues, we continue on past that point. Again all of this is still on street with a class two bikeway all the way over to Ventura. At Ventura that's where we have the share roads and the share roads will continue through the major downtown area at the arcade you know there's a question about where we have the curb extensions. So right there and you can kind of see it I'm going to point to one
Can you see if there's a two sidewalk, two crosswalks now? Is there another crosswalk because we definitely asked for that. No, in front of the mob shop. So there's already a crosswalk to the library on the left side.
Yeah, so it's a four
way on Ventura
Street. Yes, there's two of
them. That's great
because
that's really important
yeah we were able to get I think all of the changes from the last time we talked except just to be transparent, except for the paseo crosswalk. The answer from Caltrans on that was there wasn't enough time to do it as part of this project so they said we could apply for that later separately. So,
thank you.
So at the arcade, we do have a curb extension. And again that's to shorten the distance across the street there's quite a bit of pedestrian traffic there so that's again intended for safety purposes. Next slide please. And so the on street or the Cheryl portion extends all the way over to Montgomery at Montgomery, we go back to having a class two facility and actual striped bike lane on street.
And that continues on basically throughout the balance of the project. Now we have curb extensions at at bald, also at Fulton and leave I've got one more somewhere. I think that, I think that covers them and just to be clear the reasons why we did the curb extensions for a couple reasons on. In the case of the arcade that was a natural place for them to for one to exist at the other locations in order to put in a.
a proper ADA access, there wasn't enough space because of the adjacent development. So in order to make it work and not obviously be taking somebody's frontage or building we pushed out into the street just enough to be able to accommodate an ADA compliant facility And so the project then continues on all the way over to its terminus at Gridley. And that's the overall project again, I want to emphasize the fact that it is being done in two phases, so that we can leverage the money in an effective manner so we don't lose the funding as James talked about. It also gives us time to deal with the right away.
Process because you know hopefully people eventually will come along, you don't have to go through a possession process. Also when we talk about parcels just to be clear we're not taking any whole parcels at all. These are slivers one of the things that we discovered when we started working on this project is that in a number of instances the actual right away line is not at the back of sidewalk. It's actually partially within the sidewalk which creates a liability issue for the adjacent landowner so by us doing what we're doing in those areas where we're acquiring right away. We're actually creating a benefit to the adjacent landowners by removing a potential liability from them,
I have a quick question. Yes, ma'am. How many of the landowners are does that apply to the parcel split being right in the middle of the sidewalk? Oh, it's not likely.
Yeah.
Probably half of them.
OK, thank
you about half of them are temporary construction easements and so those aren't even right. Those aren't even really right away issues than the other half are the right away issues. Thank you.
And when James mentions temporary construction easements are you all clear on what we're talking about.
Basically permission for us to do the construct
so and yes, and so in this gets into the law also it used to be that you could basically get right of entry and go in and kind of post up and do whatever you need to do and take however long you wanted to and the laws have changed over To require that construction that is going to occupy somebody's land, even if at the end of the day you give back. That utility that there has to still be a negotiated price to pay for the use of that land for the period of time you're doing construction so that in this case is what we call it temporary construction easement.
And just to add to that very briefly, Caltrans is also required a much greater formalization of that process. We're still able to use right of entry agreements for city projects not involving Caltrans as we sometimes do on smaller projects but with Caltrans in the mix they require signed sealed and delivered Guaranteed ownership of right-of-way for permanent improvements or for temporary construction.
They require signed, sealed, delivered temporary construction easements which is the property which is noted can the easement themselves can be condemned in part if a property owner isn't willing to do so and if the council chooses to do so with the appropriate formalities
Yes. Um, on the on the sharrows and the signage that usually goes with it is that determined by Caltrans because in Ventura I really you know studied what they've done i mean it's fabulous and they have signs when the bike lane ends the protected bike lane has then it says bikes may use full lane And so we'll have that.
Absolutely.
Okay, that's great.
Yeah,
so nobody can complain.
No, as a matter of fact, well I don't know about that.
There
will be there will be signage and in fact the company that I work for all to planning and design this is how we started you know back in the late, you know pre turn of the 20th 21st century Our company founder started the business with the premise of creating a safer environment for people to walk and bike and so forth. So this is what we do, and a lot of the things that in the current NACTO guide that prescribes how to put in treatments like this and so forth, we wrote it. So we are very anal, to put it bluntly about public safety and putting in enough signage and pavement markings and so on to make sure that we're able to protect the public to the extent we can. One other thing that I wanted to mention to you all and just sort of kind of plant a seed based on James's presentation when he was talking about looking at projects that you may have to pull funding from in order to construct this.
These are Caltrans facilities and with all of the rain we've had there's potholes everywhere And Caltrans has some other work that they're planning to do in the area. That will probably coincide with this so there's an opportunity here for leverage by the city to get some things done, and I'm not going to go into great detail because I don't want to get myself in trouble since this is on public TV, but I would encourage you to explore a collaborative Operation with them as they're looking to fix the pothole damage, the paving they were already planning to do it's going to be much more extensive. And because of that some of the things that we're talking about here improvement wise particularly for the second phase, you may able to get some financial cover so I'll share that with you today.
And
I have a couple questions. So on the Maricopa Highway section. Is the north bound bicycle lane a one direction only? It is. Okay, it is northbound only. And does it start at Cabrillo and what is how do we address bicycle traffic that might be between the corner of Ojai Avenue to Cabrillo?
So, it does on the
northbound lane sorry.
Yes. And so actually there will be a bike line if you on the drawings that you have.
Yeah.
It does go all the way back to the Y, through the bus stop. We are providing a bike lane against the curb through that area so you can see where the green markings are going towards the Y on that side of the street.
Okay, so I see that east of the bus stop and then would that same be extended between that hash mark Area going to the corner of Avenue.
4:34 – 4:4128 turns
Yes, and so as in fact this is kind of missing something on here but yes it does go that far because ultimately when phase 2 comes in, it will reconfigure the sidewalk on that corner to put the bike facility it'll come off street. From the class two bikeway that's on Ojai Avenue. Actually, if you can... The person running the slides, if you can go back to let's see.
The first phase two slide sheet 45, that one. Wait till it comes into focus. Okay there we go. So if you look at the corner there What is going to end up happening is that the bike facility will actually not be on street around the corner. We're going to widen the sidewalk around the corner from Ojai Avenue onto Maricopa and so if you look at the drawing from Del Norte, right there at Del Norte, the bike facility goes from being on street, goes across the crosswalk and then it goes onto the sidewalk.
Okay
And that gets you out of the traffic in the Y.
Takes
you around the corner, through the bus stop and then it jumps back out on the street.
Yeah. I'm particularly concerned and oriented towards the idea that we're not going to lead somebody into an unexpected conflict with automobiles where they're expecting to be protected and all of a sudden they're not. Right? But you address that by getting them up on the curb and taking them around until you start that bike lane.
That's correct.
And then I had another question, and I don't want to hog the time but I see that there is what looks like some infrastructure between El Paseo and Del Norte on the north side Which looks like to indicate new construction, but I'm not sure what that is that's going in there. Is it sidewalk? That is sidewalk. Just basic concrete sidewalk like...
I think that's DG. I'm not entirely certain. I have to defer to my design. Decomposed granite. Yeah oh I'm sorry let me explain what that is for the audience. That's decomposed granite
And we at council's direction replaced as much sidewalk as we reasonably could with decomposed granite to sort of keep the, the rural feel so that.
Well it's it's like fake concrete it's pretty hard pack stuff. So yeah, it even concrete will technically allow water to seep through it. That's why pavement heaves but
there's going to be a curb there that's right separating the bike lane from the sidewalk that is correct okay.
So, we make a statement. You know, the bike advocates have right rightly in my opinion criticized us for having sharrows between Libbey Park and the arcade, and I agree with that viewpoint, what we should have done is remove Car parking, because one of our greatest problems is families riding bikes with little kids down the arcade and to Libbey Park. Down that whole little stretch
there.
But the good thing about Sharrows is that the whole thing can still be done. It can be changed. I just want people to know that this is as far as we've gotten and As the world changes, perhaps we can do something about all the cars on those at least on you know restripe it and have real bike lanes for their kids that's exactly right to the park. Yeah. Yeah, thank you.
So one other question, and I apologize because I'm brand new to this project should Is it feasible or have we tried to kind of direct bicycle traffic onto that bicycle path that we have? That's, you know.
Yeah the
trail because I don't see anything that's Kind of an interconnection with that and I would think that there would be some interest in getting people off. Yeah, and on to that if as a way of avoiding more bikes on Avenue and Putting more people onto the path.
And you're talking within the parking lot area there for
the
trail starts going off to the south? Yeah, and so you're right. So again back at the very sort of the beginning of this project that was something we looked as a matter of fact I think the first time I came out here to look at the project I brought my wife with me and her comment was somebody's gonna get wiped out on here because you have all these conflicted movements but what that requires is an extensive redesign of the parking lot. Because of how the flow works in through there, particularly right you know you've got the bus stop that's there on the corner and then you have this sort of like little circulation thing that's kind of oddball that kind of goes around if you go over because it's like to cut the little country I forget the name but there's like a little country no no no there's like a little yeah yeah right
yeah
this is over over here You got the bus stop here, and then the trail starts here and goes that way. And so there's like a little restaurant here because I eat
there. So this is kind
of like a whole no man's land if you watch how they're traveling. It's nuts. Yeah. And so in order to fix that, you'd have to come to an agreement with the Vons people whoever owns the shopping center. That's a relay out of a good portion of their parking lot to make that work right. So we left that alone.
And I think maybe I was wrong, but I think Council Member Whitman's question was more on the south. I think yeah, on the
South side of Avenue for that the Ojai Trail. Yeah.
Yeah. And so what we talked about here with Caltrans and this was again there they were looking at the opportunity to get you to pay for an expensive symbol because in order for that to work right, they wanted a separate bicycle phase for that which meant new poles Yeah. So you get to put in brand new poles, okay?
4:41 – 4:5625 turns
Yeah, I think when one kind of philosophy moving forward I would suggest because I think Caltrans wants to help us with this project and they're working with us and they're letting us do some of these things like the DG. Because it's better for them if we do it than they do it. I don't think they want to go through the 400 people at the bowl that we had, you know, at the start of this. But moving forward though like my suggestion would be on things like that. I'm like let's advocate with Caltrans for them to improve their traffic lights because it is Caltrans Highway. We are doing our part here but we also should advocate moving forward for them to make those improvements rather than trying to figure out how to pay for that as part of this project as well so
There's another, I think easy way to make it safer. There's, I believe there's three lanes at that spot. There's like, okay you can go down Ojai. There's a left turn lane and then there's a lane where you can go left or right. And then there's another lane where you can only go right?
Correct.
So why don't we do something about the middle? I mean, to have two Because there's all these people crossing on bikes. Sometimes there's 20 bikes trying to cross and yet you've got these people that want to make a right turn, they're getting impatient. Is there something...
See again once you start to touch all that because the controller I'm not sure you can see them
So, actually, if you put people over here, we also have to buy on this side. You can't necessarily see it in the pictures somewhere in here. But there's the actual controller section
is also like a little stone wall with a bunch of stuff that's in the way. And from an engineering standpoint, it's not going to do but the state again looks at that as you start touching all of that and they want you to fix the entire energy. Because again, you know, Councilwoman we definitely wanted to fix those things. And as we got into it, particularly the issue with connecting to the regional trail.
Yeah,
because there's a lot of people that are coming out and you just dump out into a parking lot
yeah
and so we were aware of that but again, this gets into the whole right away issue and so on and so no, that's a battle for the future.
Thank you.
Yeah, I think the theme of tonight kind of along with the lines of the last discussion is this is a step in the direction it's not the full... It's not going to fix everything at once but it's a step and council's decision isn't the right step so that's what we're...
So my next question and I'm not sure who I'm directing this to but when I first became aware of this project I got the feeling that we were gonna hear from property owners not happy about their uneminent domain process. So far, I haven't heard that other than maybe talking about the fact Some of the property owners over in the, you know, the Y shopping center area are not being particularly cooperative.
But I'm more interested in whether we're getting any type of feedback from the folks who are along Ojai Avenue where we're going to be acquiring property to do some of these Curb improvements to make them more ADA accessible. And so actually while I'm saying this, and I don't know who's gonna be watching this, I'd love to hear from you if you have an opinion on this. Some of these improvements are gonna be in my district and I would really like to hear about that if you're just looking for Fair property value, then you know that's fine but if you got other concerns about what we're doing.
I would very much like to talk to you.
Yeah, I think that's. A fair point and it's something I think I was maybe the person that warned you that we would hear from people so I'm guess I'm like, I think one
person said it but I think you were included.
Yeah, but the We have a spreadsheet of the 29 property owners and who's talking to us, who's not and all those things. And I think offhand, I think there's about six people who've just said, I don't like this project and I'm, I don't really wanna talk to you. And so I don' know exactly what it is they don't like. I think Steve made a point earlier that we need to reiterate as we're addressing a liability issue for the property owner and paying them to do so. The city in the grant is literally cutting them a check to take this problem off their hands.
But because that is the situation, I assume those six people who say they don't want to talk to us Are not fans of the project first for one reason or another and it could be a couple of things. One thing on Maricopa is I do think because they know that the, they put their parking lot all the way out to the property line and that's going to have to get pushed back a little bit, and I don't think they're excited about that so i think that I think there's a couple other businesses on Ojai Avenue that have said that people park in sort of What almost looks like a little drainage channel now and people are used to parking there and they don't want to change that because now would be a sidewalk. So, so there are you know a variety of reasons I don't know that there's like one standard answer, but I do think there's some people that don't support the project.
And unfortunately that will probably do for a few of the properties at least we probably will have to go through that process of acquiring that that sliver essentially.
And so, I don't want to take up all of the comment time or question time. But I'm getting kind of a sense that the way things are structured we don't really have the opportunity to say because of these increased expenses Let's just take care of Maricopa Highway because the public is really anxious to have us redo Maricopa Highway. But it sounds like because of the funding, and I just correct me if I'm wrong that we're kind of tied into doing the whole thing?
Yeah, and if we dug into this because I really wanted I've had the project for about a year and I really wanted to dig in and know all of our options and all the possibilities, and present them to the council and we've gone back in all from 2015 which was the original grant application on. One of the challenges is that every single grant and there's, there's multiple that table in the report shows multiple grants this isn't just one grant. And it's multiple grants which was great that we were able to get multiple grants, but all of them were for the whole project.
And, you know, I've said this a couple times recently so maybe people have heard it but, you know, looking back in hindsight I think it would have been great if we had sort of divided up what each grant was for and we could have had grants for Maricopa and grants for Ojai Avenue and then we'd have the choice to say we're going to proceed with these and not these. But in 2015 on it was for all of them, and they're all sort of wrapped together now so we have talked to some of those agencies about what if you know costs have gone up What if we could only do this.
And I really think the answer is they are not comfortable telling us, especially in writing that we would not come back and ask you for the money back if you only did part of it. And so there's a risk there. We could choose to do that. We could decide we're going to do that. But the risk would be two years from now if they come back and say, well, we want our money back because you didn't do everything you promised to do We'd have to go through that process with them. So, it's a
risky choice. So what does money back mean? Are we... so they have allocated it to us. Are we holding on to it or have we already spent it?
So for example like the preliminary engineering, we're about done. We're at 99% on preliminary engineering. We have received that funding and we've paid that funding out for the engineering, for the design work. I believe the construction funding at least the ATP construction funding, the $2.1 million, we have received it. We have not spent it but we've received it. So that's an example if we don't build it and they come back, we may have to cut the check to send the money back to them.
Um, we've received it. It's restricted we haven't spent it so that is what it is that's a choice, but like for right now I would say with the engineering and the right of way where probably we probably spent about $600,000 to this point to do the design completely and just start acquiring The chunks of right away that we've acquired. So that's $600 that if somebody came back and said, well if you're not doing the project we want the funding back, we'd be cutting a check for that so.
And a lot of those are if they might not do that. We might be able to say hey we did our best but it's
there's no guarantee on it. So my I know you're asking us for direction tonight right I mean my Feeling is that we do need to do the Maricopa Highway part of this project, including the phase two stuff that involves Maricopa Highway. I'm a little more lukewarm on the highway 150 Ohio Avenue may be less than lukewarm but because I'm concerned that if we're allocating as much money towards this project, and our streets kind of in general are in horrible shape.
And it's been exacerbated by you know three months of more rain than we've seen and three or four years that You know if I, if I could prioritize I'd say yeah let's take care of Maricopa Highway. Well let's take care of our potholes and paving. And then when we're in a financial position to do something about it that's look at these. You know, improvements to traffic safety bicycle pedestrian safety that we can do.
But I guess i'm hearing from you that the this complex budgeting process makes my simpleton approach not easy.
James may I respond to that. Sure, I want to go back to something I said a little while ago about leveraging Caltrans is money because they also have some striping improvement projects they have in place in fact, James I think you've been talking to Joseph a little bit about this, so they have some stuff on the books they're getting ready to do and the rain has delayed them and so that's kind of worked in the city's favor And then again all the you know the deterioration to the pavement conditions so forth. They're on the hook to fix that it's a state highway, you don't own the highway they do.
You'll kind of set another way if they have to go out there and fill potholes and slurry seal an overlay and so forth, they didn't have to come back in and restripe it. And that's where you get to sort of horse trade about who gets to pay for that so I appreciate where you're coming from, but don't discount some of the leverage you may have to use other people's money.
And just one more point to that is that slide I showed one of the intentions of that slide that showed the projects that were We had preliminarily planned to do next year in our prior adopted CIP. One of the intents was to show that there are other projects that could be postponed, none of those are easy decisions we all want to do all of it now but we should be able to if the council's direction is to prioritize paving and ATP, we can do that. We just can't do everything else then. And so, and then I guess to answer you, I guess they sort of answered your question in a different way to answer your exact question.
Could we decide to choose our to do Maricopa, and see if we can get it, you know, get out of doing Ojai Avenue potentially, we could, you know ask, we could make that request? I don't think that they will. I haven't been able to get anybody to concede that at any point in the last year and i don't think i'll get them to concede it and then the challenge is that at the same time, we have to meet deadlines that are immediate. So it's the risk of if we don't work on it, and then they say no, then we're out of luck. So we are and I guess to answer.
Very simply, the complications of the grant like you started to ask make it difficult to see how we would do that.
Yeah and I don't know how things may have changed since our closed session but I got a sense that i'm probably the only one uh of the five of us who would want to take that more conservative approach. It doesn't make sense to Beat a dead horse over whether you're going to go because I'm kind of interested. Well, let's make the attempt at that ask to see if we can cut down on the Ojai Avenue part of the project in order to save money and address it in just more basic street maintenance areas But if I'm the only one who's interested in doing that, there's no reason for you to make that ask.
4:56 – 5:0613 turns
Council we'd still do need to take public comment. Any final comments Steve.
No.
Thank you so much much appreciate thank you for making the trip. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Wendy's not here. Dee Reed and then Renee Roth. Okay, and then Jeffrey.
Well I want to first say thank you to Mayor Sticks and to James and to all of you for bringing this on the agenda. I've been waiting for this moment It's been a long time. You've just done an awesome job and it's been very, very complicated with the pandemic and everything else. And you know I give credit to the previous council as well for all the work that they did.
Obviously i'm very excited about the project. I've been excited about it from the very beginning. I'm a lifelong bicyclist from the time my father put me on I took the training wheels off and put me on a little blue and white cruiser and push me down the grassy knoll and let go. And I looked back, and I never looked back again. But for me it's not just about recreation which it is, it's fun. I feel like I'm 10 when I'm on my bicycle but for me its primary transportation The active transportation program, the only thing I would change from what James said is it's not just making it safe for bicycles and pedestrians.
Improvements for bicycle and pedestrians we've improved the highway for driving. It's a much safer highway to drive on now and I drive on it all the time when I'm using my car And I bike on it almost every day so it's, it's safer now for everybody. But what I feel like we must do is we must go forward because we have to make it a little bit safer right now we're kind of in limbo and I'm seeing an increasing number of young people riding their bikes all across the city.
And that's going to become even more so regardless of what we do with school consolidation and reconfiguration. We could end up with a bunch of 7th and 8th graders riding their bikes and saying to their mom, hey I can get to school. They've got safe lanes on Maricopa Highway and on Ojai Avenue, and then there's the bike path. And we can get from my house to the bike path, so why can't I ride my bike to school? All the way to the high school, perhaps in seventh grade or maybe just Matilija. But so many students are going to be going to different schools than they used to go to in their neighborhood. They're crossing the city and we absolutely have to make it safe for them. Once you get into seventh grade, you got two years before you're gonna start thinking about driving a car but you're already thinking about you don't want your mother dropping off at school So you got the bike.
That's all I'm saying. Thank you, I looked at the whole proposal where it is. I love it and thank you Stephen. I think it's amazing. It's not absolutely everything we want need because of the situation but as a bicyclist I gotta tell you I think it's stellar and I think we have the money. I hear what Andy's saying. I mean I kind of feel the same way. I'm more excited about Maricopa Highway than Ojai Avenue because I've always got the bike path for going downtown.
But if we can make Ojai Avenue safer for the kids, if they're at Moteleha and they want to go to town or they want to go to Nordoff, they can get there. So I think we have the money. I think we have the project where we need it to be. And I think we have to go forward. So, I hope you will go forward start with phase one and just go for it.
Thanks. Next we have Renee Roth then Jeffrey Starkweather
Good evening, Council. I too am praising the Lord that you're having this meeting finally at the beginning of your term. Here we are in April. I've been waiting for this project for many years. I was part of the project when Greg Grant was here and we had the Complete Streets Committee meetings. My hat is off to you James Way to go. You took it over, it was a big hole and you filled the void so I really appreciate you stepping in Betsy, you made a major change in this plan by increasing the safety on the Maricopa Highway but that also increased the cost in a major way. So I live on the road. I travel the road every day. The safety is my biggest concern always has been. I educate people every day about these improvements and how amazing they are gonna be for our city, for our children For our tourists who are coming to town, who are now wanting and expecting to be able to have a safe place.
To be able to travel toward downtown restaurants. The question I have, I have two questions and it has to do with the artesian buildup of water on Church Road. Church Road is the biggest pothole street in Ojai, I believe right now but I tell everybody potholes are fine because it slows traffic down
Yeah,
it slows me down. It slows everybody down please stop complaining about the potholes. They slow everybody down. You should have done that on Brown Street. The only problem is when you trip and fall and you get your bike wheels caught in there they're I mean they're hazard But there is some artesian buildup of the water on that property where the goats and the lambs and the sheep were doing their thing. There's lots of water that's running off we need to do some kind of rainwater catchment distribution, there has to be something because it's really going to wear and tear and be a problem later on The other thing I would like to see, and this has to do with the people who live and drive and use Maricopa every day. Those striped lanes, is there any way that people who are turning to go into the street could have a little turn lane With an arrow, because the people who are wanting to go past you want to see you turn out and not slow down and slow up the traffic for the one lane that is going through there.
Is there any way we can have a little term lady for people going into the hospital for people going into all of those little streets? Is that a possibility? I just think it'd be easy, it'd be much more neighborly and friendly for the people on the road. That's something I would like to see added to the project and I hope you do the whole thing together. I think it's really important we do it all together
Thanks Renee. And just to clarify for council, those of you who are in here the original design there was a class four bike lane that was on the road so the cars and the bikes were next to each other. So I proposed maybe in a class one bike lane which would...I mean the most important thing is to keep cars and bikes separate so it's safer and you know there is a little bit more expensive safety first.
Go ahead.
And there are just to answer the second question, there are turnarounds included in the project that can be seen in reviewing the plans as well so in certain places yeah. Thank you, Jeff for
start with, sorry. As a planning commissioner and we deal with bikes and stuff all the time this is really important for our city, and our planning We talk about climate, having bicycles getting people off the road. We talked about traffic in downtown with tourists. You know more and more tourists are being given or loaned these pedestals and sometimes these people don't know how to ride them but it would be much nicer if they had lanes and would get people off the roads so we would encourage all of our tourist venues, our places where people live to go there. The other thing is that I know Mark's brother, I mean Andrew's brother Mark has a project at the bowling alley. And I was concerned that if that is cause he was going to have kids go out there and buy that we need before that is built or when it's being built that people can bicycle out there.
The same thing for Soule Park as we talk about having pickleball out there. We constantly are asking businesses that come before us, we need more bike lanes. I mean bicycle racks. So if we're asking them to have bicycle racks, we oughta make sure we have the lanes so people can bicycle to these places. So I am 100% for this. The other thing I would just mention too Mr. Whitman's concern, this is leveraged money.
The projects that you would delay is not leverage money So if you delay something a year or two, maybe it's a little more cost but you're not losing the matching money that you would lose if you didn't do this project. Thank you.
Thank you Jeffrey any comments online?
Yes Mayor one raised hand on this item Anita Hendricks. Anita you have the floor.
5:06 – 5:2139 turns
Can you hear me
yes
okay Well, thank you so much for all your hard work. I know you've been working a long time on this and I just want to say I think it's really great that you have the two lanes right next to Nordoff. That is so excellent and I love that you got a new parking lot off to the side for that and save the trees! Thank God. So that's great work I have a concern about the safety at Montgomery and Ojai Avenue. I'm not real clear about that safety measure, but I know me and another lady were almost hit because you could not see us as we were about to cross because there were cars nearby.
I'm wondering if you did have to save money or maybe you could get Caltrans to do the part of Gridley. We have a wide enough shoulder at least on one side, maybe both for bikes but i don't know if there's some other improvements you want to make but maybe that's an area that may be uh could be less of a priority um and also it's a bike path have a big sign there saying you know indicating that people can go to the bike path even larger and so that everybody can't miss it And I think there are markings there now by the Y, before you get to the Y when you're coming from Nordhoff that will probably remain there even though your development will stop sooner.
Anyway, I just want to say please move on this don't miss the opportunity and thank you so much for your hard work great work and congratulations thank you. Thank You Anita
That's all me.
All right, we will move on to discussion. Who would like to begin? Go ahead. I actually had a couple
of questions for the city manager because of the rains that we've had and because many places in the state of California have been considered disaster areas. Would that be an opportunity for us to go back and modify any of this or renegotiate any of this If we wanted to say, as Councilmember Whitman proposed go forward with phase one and then delay phase two.
The challenge is if we modify the plans any further. Almost by default, don't meet one of the upcoming grant deadlines. So we have that capability but we would just have to know that we're giving up a grant to do it and you know and you know one I said earlier, like our options now are either move forward or don't there is like another option would be. And I hesitate to say it but it's no you know take a step back and pause and say these grants are gonna we're going to let these laps and then we'll take our time and start over and we'll come back and he'll be.
You're, we're risking four and a half million dollars when we do it and there's no guarantee that we will obtain these grants again. So, but that is the hard thing is looking ahead to almost every couple of months we have a grant deadline coming up for one of these multiple grants that we have. And so we'd have to keep And, you know, Steve and I know this is we get one grant application or once the middle done at 11 o'clock at night on a Friday. And by Monday we come in and find out we're behind on the next one because there's just so many at this point.
So that's why I started with just like very simply I'm like there isn't time to do any of that without giving up these grants.
Thank you.
I want to ask one more question. Have you done the math on if we did Maricopa Highway and then we lost on every prayer to a funder, what would we be out if we did Maricopa Highway but not the OI extension?
So Maricopa Highway portion I estimate construction to be about three and a half or $3 million, three to three and a half million dollars. So if we could take all of the grant funding, which is about three and a half million dollars and apply it to Maricopa. I think it would cover it that we'd have to get all of those different grant grantors to agree that they're going to let us do that that's that's the challenge but but that could potentially The current grants should cover the cost of the Maricopa portion is really what it boils down to. So,
just add to that real quickly, I can't leave. The California Transportation Commission ultimately is the authority that grants the money for this to happen. And they're very particular about maintaining the original project, and so if you kind of go down that road there's a not inconsequential chance that they will deny you because you're changing the spirit of the project. This is one of things that came up with the previous council when there was an ask to get rid of the curb extensions And we had to keep some of them because it would have materially changed what was approved conceptually at the CTC. So they're very again particular about maintaining the original concept that they approved and eventually funded.
Yeah, that's a really good example. The original grant application in 2015 said and various curb extensions. And so when the council last year said can we scrap those? We went back and they said you have to have various curb extensions. So we started getting into that discussion that went back and forth of well how many is several or various? Is four enough? Is five enough? And then it kind of went back and forth and they ended up settling on dropping from 24 to six But, but again. And so the original grant said and improvements on Ojai Avenue and improvements on Maricopa and curb extension so to some extent we're a little bit locked in because all of the grants included that
language.
Just a comment but it would always be helpful A project kind of completed and approved within one cycle of your city council. Agreed, so I'm
the original application said this would be completed in 2018 I completely agree with
you. Let's remember
to
put emotion on the table that Leslie. And I want to make a comment in response to Andy but do you want to go ahead.
Yeah, I just want to say that I can't imagine why we would not do this. I think that we have talked about pollution in the valley. I think we have talked about health and wellness of our population. I think we've talked about traffic. I think these are some of the major problems that keep coming up over and over again And we have an opportunity here where we're halfway there to really put this forward, um, to change the way our tourists interact with our town. To change the way we interact with our town it seems to me and you know, with all due deference to my fellow council people.
That it would be insane not to move forward with this. The money, I understand but I also understand that it is not a do or die. There are ways for us to get the money and there are ways for us to manage this. We have other ways of we can leverage, we have other ways to get income, we can switch things around As I said before, and as I feel very strongly once this is actually built.
No one will be asking about the money it has many people who can will be biking on this. So, I am 100% in support of this for all of those reasons and think I would never try to guess whether or not any grantor would claw back their money because if they can, they probably would. So that's my comment.
Okay, Susan on that happy note. I'll make a motion to move forward with the whole project. Do I need to have anything more? You need a second. Oh I know I need a second but my wording
is... That works and then I didn't explain this maybe very well at the beginning but We are at a point, so the next step is moving forward aggressively. So contracts and things will come back and the plan would be if council agrees to move forward there'll be consent items where we don't have to have the designer Steve drive back up every time to get the approval. So that motion works knowing that then each item will be approved under consent moving forward.
Is there a second motion? Yeah. I would like to hear, I want to hear from the other council members. Did you want to know?
I'll second sure
all right has a
second. I understood we're just giving direction right so
well it's either yes or no yeah yeah
it's
yeah
its direction knowing that tomorrow we start spending money.
So we have a set, we have emotion and we have Go ahead. I just, I mean, I totally agree with council member rule for all the reasons that you mentioned it's a great project for those reasons. The $2 million concerns me. And so I just wanted to just bring up a couple things that are coming up that we really need to pay attention in terms of the budget. Employee retention and compensation because we know the cost of living in Ojai has gone skyrocketed, and we really need to make sure that we keep our staff and take care of our staff.
The road paving which we just saw has gone up quite a bit at least $1 million I have talked to so many people and I would say canvassing twice That is probably the number one issue that comes up every day when I walk in my neighborhood. I get asked that question, when are you going to pave the street? So I think that it's just such a top priority and one of the reasons why is that when we defer the maintenance, it can increase five to tenfold because you have to completely grind out the bottom of the road and redo it. So this is super expensive, and we have deferred that for several years. Previous council members have decided to use the money for other things.
I think though at this point we just really have to get on that because many of the roads in Ojai are at that tipping point and if it goes you know if we wait a little longer we're going to end up spending an enormous amount of money on that And then yes, this does help the climate. Also we need to get our city buildings off fossil energy and begin replacing our transportation fleet with zero emission vehicles so that's a top priority and then the rainy day fund, and we saw during coven.
And James, I don't ever want to put you in this situation again because James pulled off a miracle and if the inn hadn't opened. I mean, I just think of that month in April 2021 where luckily the inn opened up and we were able to keep going but the budget committee had decided to have 50% in reserves I think we need a whole year because that wasn't enough in that. And, you know, we just don't know what's going to happen. So I think in terms of good governance, we really have to focus on having those reserves. So that said, I would like to make a friendly amendment if that's okay to direct staff to proceed with ATP and work with the budget committee to find possible savings and ways to reduce costs in those areas, you know so that we can pave the roads.
Yes have enough in for our rainy day fund take climate action and take care of our staff.
Yes, I definitely accept that. And looking at that chart I can see that we don't we can defer remodeling the bathrooms there's there's things that that can wait, but
I think we just as a council we have to realize that if we do this yes and Just
a quick comment. I'm sorry, Rachel. I just wanted to say that I 100% agree and especially appreciate the idea that the things that we don't take care of could, you know, they could deteriorate more quickly and therefore end up costing us more money so and I'm sure James knows that so to prioritize those as paving also we promised everybody paving We can't simply not pay now.
Otherwise we won't be able
to walk around. I appreciate your comments and
agree.
Yeah, very good.
And actually you just spoke to my biggest concern when I saw that number for the street paving and saw that might be one of the things that was cut So many streets in my district need it really badly. In the whole town, not just my district. That was one of my biggest concerns but if we can with your friendly amendment I'm a yes.
Great. My reservation about going beyond the Maricopa Highway is exactly because We're going to pinch all of these other areas and we may not be able to do much of anything over the next year or two. I think James let us know, and I'm not sure if you mentioned it in your report tonight but that the staff time involved With this project is going to be tremendous.
And so, every time we have staff go in that direction. Then we're going to be losing staff and another direction. So that those were my, that was the basis for my concern.
5:21 – 5:2734 turns
Yeah, it is. It's the priority discussion and is this a true priority? And I think it's been true. I think for the past few years I sent an email blind copy to everybody today but I think There were a lot of times over the last few years where we said, why didn't this get done? Why didn't this get done? And looking back it's because we were spending our time energy resources money on this. Now the good news is we're finally at a point where two years ago there were I think two key questions can we get this done and can we afford it? We know at least now we can get it done.
And we, and I also now believe that we can find a way to afford it. That's the part that the budget committee is now doing but it's taken a lot of energy to get to that point and that is something that we should keep in mind whenever we're doing a project especially you know what is potentially the biggest project we've ever done is that it means other things are gonna have to wait even if we had the money to do everything right now we wouldn't have the staff to do everything so I guess in some ways it works out that we won't for another couple years.
Are we ready for a roll call? Yeah, okay. Roll call please Weston.
Roll-call vote Passed 4–0
Show transcript
on Maricopa Highway and abstain on the rest of
it.
I can't do that.
Yeah
no.
It's all or nothing. So you have three choices, yes no abstain on the motion on the table. Okay I understand the sentiment but yeah so
uh i'm gonna pull Rachel again because i'm gonna look around and think
take your time
uh so okay although yes on the basis that I think we have to do Maricopa Highway And so I'm stuck with.
Okay,
all
right. Was that everybody was 10 France. Yes. All right, passes by
zero Thank you very much so good to work together.
I was just going to note that I would recommend we if there anyone still here we take the rest of the non agenda public comment. Okay, don't know if those folks are still here or not but if they are okay
is there anyone here for general public comment. Now, anyone online anyone online Weston,
are there any zoom attendees online for general public comment, please raise your hand now.
Okay. All right, thank you. Alright, we will move on to council member reports.
It's going to be on top of the agenda
at
the
next meeting. I
think so, yeah. Okay. Council member reports? Any council members have any reports?
I'll make this really brief.
I went to the Green Coalition's World Cafe and they're moving forward it was... And Rachel was there. It was quite an experience and they are doing All of the due diligence that they need to do I'm happy to report.
Okay, anyone else
dang good.
I'll keep it very brief and focus on the next agenda, so that that can help us in our discussion of future agenda items. Right now, I think we just agreed that affordable housing committee will be the first item on the agenda on April 11. Item two will be the building code update with the Building Appeals Board's recommendations which we had continued a couple of meetings back Item three will be the plan right now is the first budget workshop we have our first budget committee meeting on Thursday so assuming that we're able to get some recommendations together, we'll plan to have that also.
And then we have our every year we have to choose a delegate who can we authorize to vote at one of the council members to attend the Southern California Association of Governments annual conference so that'll be the fourth item so those are the four items currently April 11 agenda.
Okay, thank you James any future agenda
items. Does it look like cannabis lounges will be we can make some money that way
right now. Right now that is on April 25. So that's the current plan although because affordable housing got bumped to the next meeting I had to bump. I'm gonna have to bump one item to the 25th so it'll either be April 25 or May 9.
Okay, thank you. Any other future agenda items? Nope okay all right well thank you all for a fruitful and productive meeting thanks for being here thank you everyone and we are adjourned. Thank you
for having us.