City Council — 2023-04-11

Good evening. Call to order, we have a quorum may we have the roll call please Weston?

Do not believe there are any correct yes.

We will move on to public communication. And just a reminder to everyone, these are items that are not on the agenda and because they're not on the agenda we cannot discuss them but we can agendize them for future reference. Each comment is three minutes. You'll hear a gentle chime at the end so please respect that. No giving away time. So thank you very much for being here and we will begin with Community first, we have Valerie City of Ojai speaker card event organizations cards special color so first We have Valerie Freeman and then wonderful Ron from the library Thank You

Good evening there's flyers that I have been passed out. I'm Valerie Freeman, a local artist. On April 22nd, Saturday evening from 730 to 930 p.m., at OVA Arts Gallery Back Courtyard located at 2238 East Ojai Avenue we will host our first exterior immersive light art installation. The collaboration is a diversity of several local artists who will project an evolving hive of light expressions. The theme is Be Light, and all projections will have a honeycomb hexagon frame format shown simultaneously to fill the courtyard space.

This will be a celebration of Earth Night. One dynamic visual artist and creative technologist with 13 years of experience in projection art is Emily Ehlerd. Her work centers around finding harmony between sound and light frequencies, utilizing touch designer to create generative art that pulls data from her surroundings. Her public art and guerrilla projections challenge traditional notions of where art belongs and how it can be experienced.

New to Ojai, artist-designer Ben Grace embraced the opportunity to creatively collaborate. His passion for experience and emerging technology drives his interdisciplinary approach and appeals to a contemporary audience interested in spiritual and intellectual exploration. For Be Light, which is Ben's projector and computer will have an interface interactive element.

Another artist, Jamie Stratford is a first grade teacher and claymation artist living in Ojai. She loves using the art of stop motion to capture her audience for a precious 15 seconds or less. Her miniature movies feature miniature characters and miniature props. An Ohaiku will be projecting. We receive poems from around the world, including India, Indonesia, Croatia, across the United States and many from Ojai.

I have combined all of the spring haikus with images to project an earthly poetic cell within the hive. The fun evening event is free for the community. Please enter through the front door at Over Arts Gallery and enjoy strolling through the gallery filled with an array of arts and crafts as you make your way to the back courtyard for a new immersive light experience.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Valerie. Much appreciated. Next we have Ron with the library report.

All righty, thank you so much members of council. This is Ron Solorzano the regional librarian for the Ojai Valley just wanted to give you a little bit of an update There are a couple of things I wanted to mention that are coming up pretty soon One is actually a recurring event every second Thursday The mobile library and some of our library staff head on over to the Ojai community farmers market And we are there from I believe it's three o'clock to about 430 And we have our mobile library there, you can get a library card. You can talk with our staff and specifically we also have a story time at 330. So if anybody wants to join us for that, we will be at the Ojai Community Farmers Market Thursday April 13th which I believe is this week.

And in addition to that, this is another event. This one actually is put on by our Ventura County Library Foundation. They are a group that supports the libraries throughout Ventura County, our whole system not just Ojai but they have an event going on it's gonna be on Saturday April 22nd and it's called Rising From The Ashes. It is an event that highlights some of the homes. It's a home tour for homes that were rebuilt after the Thomas fire So if that's something that you're interested in, you're interested in supporting the Library Foundation, you can visit their website which is vclibraryfoundation.org to see about tickets. I think they're going fast so maybe check that out if you would like.

Two more things real quick. Recently at our library, we launched an additional entry in our Library of Things. Right now we have a limited number of sewing machine kits that are available. These are something that you can search for in our catalog. You can place a request for them or you can come into our library to see about getting yourself on the list. There are only a few right now so there will be a list but go ahead and ask our staff about them or again go online to check them out there.

And then finally, I wanted to mention that in the next couple of weeks we're very very excited to be introducing our new youth librarian to the community. Her name is Blanca Ramirez and she is coming to us again within the next couple of weeks and she'll be doing you know all sorts of good work with us most importantly she'll be taking over the story time That we offer on Wednesday mornings at 1030 and Additionally, she's going to be helping out with the parent and child together classes that are offered on Tuesday mornings And if you're curious about any of those again Just reach out to our library staff and we will answer any questions. You have that's it Thank you so much and take care.

Thank you so much Ron much

appreciated Give me your email I'll try to find it on the internet. I have something to send you

Oh, absolutely. Yeah I'll leave a card with the staff here.

Okay thank you.

Thank you Ron. Next we have Gail Birch then Ron McCrea and then David

Wyand. Hi there, I'm Gail Birch. I've lived in Ojai for some 45 plus years and what brought me here tonight is on Easter Sunday well let me back up. I love walking in Libbey Park loved. The last few months I've discovered an explosion of trash And the gazebo. Have any of you been there recently? So, you know all the blankets, all the towels, all the trash, all the wrappers and it keeps escalating more and more. Easter Sunday, it reached a real peak where people were yelling expletives at... Oh yeah! It started with I think one woman and I thought oh she's down on her luck She'll move on eventually. Well, anyway it's she's obviously gotten a family of people who are there and I'm starting to feel unsafe walking in Libbey Park now. I'm not someone who's a shy violet.

I grew up outside New York City. I don't worry about people but it's it's a little sketchy okay? And when I pass there these guys are yelling they're yelling all kinds of stuff not at me or maybe at me. I don't really know but um I'm just wondering, is there something we can do to bring back our lovely gazebo so that people can actually use it for music and events as opposed to many people's domicile? Also, I see that there is an explosion of All kinds of aged men who kind of hang out nearby, who look like they're dealing something. I don't know because I don't buy or take part but I get the feeling that they think there's no law in Ojai. There we got the gazebo, we got this.

Anyway, I'm just wondering can we do something?

Thank you Gail.

Yeah, I can just note. I walked by the gazebo this morning and took a look and we talked a little bit about this last meeting but by state law there are limits to what we can do being homeless is not illegal so it's not something that we can force people out of certain areas but what we do commit to doing is if you see a crime call the police and the police will respond They'll address the crime and my understanding is the police have responded and have addressed some issues at the park, but it's going to be We need to kind of keep on that path if somebody sees something that looks like it's illegal call the police. That's really the answer

One further point on that front so While homelessness being unhoused is not criminal and is not approached in a criminal manner, other things such as the reference to potentially drugs being dealt or other crimes that are crimes. There's always the police department available and the non-emergency number for those who don't have it handy is 805-654-9511. That takes you directly to the Ojai Police Department and can be valuable resource as well. Thank you.

Thank you James, thank you Matt. Next we have Ron McCrea then David Wyand and then Wendy Larner.

I don't know if they're gonna be able to hear me over the pickleball over there. It's pretty loud Well, yeah, I'm here to complain about the pickleball noise What you can hear right out your window right now all of these neighbors around here. I live down here hear that seven days a week Yelling Can you hear it? I mean if this was your house, would that be okay seven days a week seven hours every day You don't get Sunday off nothing and And I understand that the park and Recreations are recommending possibly increasing the hours over there and send spending more money on mitigation than trying to prove To the neighbors here that we don't hear it. That's what their sound meters are trying to prove, that we don't hear it you know? The decimals or if they're over 55 well maybe we'll do something about it.

If they're under 40 Well, too bad. We'll just go ahead and let them play longer right? I mean you play every day Don't you I'm sure that's Leslie Most days The neighbors They can we all complain whenever for the last three years were complaining. You don't hear us. I mean but You know, for another $5,000 maybe you can pretend that it's invisible and we don't see it either.

It's every day like this where the meters, the decimals mean nothing to us. It could be 55 or 155 or four, it doesn't matter. All of this money you're spending on all this time and wasting with these meetings we can still hear it. I don't care if you had a dog barking in your yard and the neighbor went out there with his decimal meter and says it's under 40, you can't hear it?

You still couldn't sleep at night could you? It's annoying, can't you hear it right there? I suggest that you give them the pickle people. Six months to find another place. Go to Salt Park, wherever you want to go. You'll find it someplace and find something else. If you went over, you try to find some other places that will work. You went over to the skateboard place over there. They denied it. They wouldn't do it. Why? Because it's too close to homes. All these places, there's no place to have it. If you were starting all over again Would you have that out there? It's not your fault. It was the last City Council fault to put this here. Johnny Johnson says let's have it right out of there. Randy plays every night on that thing, everyday. The lady at the park and recs plays everyday.

Just move it and find someplace else. It annoys the neighbors. Thank you Ron. And just go ahead James.

If I could, yeah. Just a quick update because the Parks and Rec Commission did create that ad hoc committee that looked into the pickleball issue and they worked on this for several months and I think just for anybody interested in this topic or anybody who's curious they provided their recommendation at Thursday's Parks and Rec meeting and it's a lengthy report with a lot of information So anybody in the public can read that. I don't believe, I read it and I don't believe they recommended increasing hours anytime soon. I think, I don't think that was part of their recommendations but those are available on our website under the Parks and Rec Commission people can read those and see what they had recommended so and that'll come to Council in probably two or three meetings.

Okay, thank you. So it'll be back in a few meetings, Ron. Okay? Thank you. Next we have David Wyand then Wendy Lawyer then Larry Steingold.

Hi my name is David Wyand. I just came in to sort of follow up on what Gail was talking about and I was in the park on Easter and I noticed the encampment in the gazebo that was getting out of hand And I think it's a little close to the playground for something like that to be going on. So what i did is, I took the initiative to go talk to the police department yesterday they said that their hands were tied so I took the initiative to go down and talk to the homeless people yesterday Something worked because I went there today and all of the junk was cleaned out of the gazebo. There was maybe only three or four sleeping rolls in the gazebo, and my thing would be to have it put on the agenda for further talking at a At a later date at the City Council meeting and that way I would only started on this yesterday.

That way it would give me time to put together some type of presentation that I could offer to maybe find a place for the homeless people to go because I'm not against homelessness, and I'm not here to complain I just want to find solutions on what we could do to maybe put together a transitional housing situation for the homeless that wouldn't allow drinking or drugs on the premises. And the transitional part of it would be they would have Look for a job and try to better their lives And I would even go out and beat my feet and ask community businesses landscaping dishwashing whatever it may be To try to help me out with Getting jobs for the some of the homeless people to get them off the streets. I was one of the homeless people Four years ago I cleaned up my act and I just want to be a bridge between the community and the homeless people to try to find a solution to what we could do to help each other.

And that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you David. I like

your contact information if you can just write on a card and give it to Weston.

Leslie? Excuse me, David? David can you come back for one second?

I

just wanted to say that we are later in the agenda discussing a housing advisory committee and it is possible, I mean it's obvious that unsheltered people are part of that umbrella. of housing and housing issues. So it may be that this will come up, and depending on how that particular item plays out, it may be that your suggestions and or expertise or willingness to contribute might be, there might be a place for it so I would say hang on and we're working on it, so thank you.

If you can wait about 15 minutes will probably be there on that item

Thank You David next we have Wendy Larner than Larry Steingold

Good evening. I'm Wendy Larner and I am a resident of Ojai It's not is it Reasonable or appropriate for Matthew Summers to conduct a workshop on the Brown Act if he is compromised because he contributed to Brown Act violations? Did he allow and participate in discussion of items not on agenda of closed meeting? Did he facilitate The hiring of a law firm recommended by council to a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed against the city, did it create the opportunity for the City Council to secretly plot to acquire private property while the city was in an agreement with the owners that allowed them to develop that property?

Is he now helping cover up all of the above. Additionally if he and the city have not openly sanctioned the mayor for behind-the-scenes malfeasance Including conflicts of interest, collusion with an interest group. Leaking confidential city communication through same information though the same information is denied to the citizens of the city? Is he doing his job if Mr. Summers does not act in the City of Ojai's best interest does not encourage honesty, integrity and transparency in the conduct of city business and does not hold council members to the highest Brown Act requirements then Mr. Summers needs to step down and he certainly ought not to be involved in a Brown Act workshop. We need an objective legal advisor to conduct that meeting and we need an attorney for the city of Ojai to recommend to the City Council to have closed sessions recorded

Thank you, Wendy. And just to confirm the workshop will be held by an outside entity?

Yes, we're working on a number of options for outside facilitators for the Brown Act Workshop with decades of experience on Brown Act issues.

Can I add one thing? I just want to say that I really appreciate all that our staff does for us. Sometimes it can be a really thankless job, and so I really appreciate your work. Thank you.

I'd like to echo that. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to ask staff This is not just a Brown Act workshop. It is also a workshop on transparency Is that correct? Correct. Thank you. Thank

you

Also will be open to the public and we're trying to lock in dates We're hoping to be able to announce those maybe by mid next week

Okay And also social media is on the docket.

I'm sorry one more question will council have The ability to review the facilitator and their qualifications

I am I've spoken to several different possible facilitators, and I'm planning to send out information about the different options One challenge is per the Brown Act, the council can't make a decision outside of a council meeting. So I'm sort of working through how we're gonna do that and how that choice is made but there will be information provided. Great thank you very much

Okay, next we have Larry Steingold and then Dale

Hanson. Good afternoon, Larry Steingold I'm turning into that guy No one here wants Ojai to be LA let alone us if it did my children would want us to be closer If we wanted LA We would have moved to LA people stay here because they want to if they didn't want to they would leave But I'm stating the obvious except it puts everything on in context Do we want Ojai to be Greenacres?

I'm all for green acres, but I want my roads paved. We want to go back to 1974? Fine! But I want my roads paved. I want the pension paid for. All right? I want beat cops on the weekends that aren't grant-paid for. They should come out of income. We need more money. Okay? I'm here. I love it here. I like dark skies. A neighbor with a cockatoo on her shoulder. People riding donkeys. New friends. New conversations. Discussions. Learning and listening.

I want to be able to go out at 9 p.m. at night and hear nothing but animals and coyotes, but I also want paved roads. I'm not here to debate the ATP. You people have funded the damn thing. Now we're overfunding it, and Mr. Whitman, to his credit, has said we're not going to be able to buy things in the future—I'm paraphrasing. Why? Because we don't have enough money.

I give Mr. Vega credit, he's got to do a tap dance. He's got to fix all the things and find money for all the things you people want to spend. You voted for the Maricopa, where is the money going to come from? Okay, he stated the truth, he voted for it. Rent stabilization, I'm not against rent stabilization we need rent stabilization but the law was poorly written. You have two attorneys here Mr. Whitman is a longtime attorney, he's educated, he's trained.

Mr. Summers is trained and educated, too. They could have taken two weeks with people and have rewritten the law so it makes sense. So now we're going to go months and months and months, and there are going to be lawsuits, and there's going to be legal consequences and more money spent. And it's just not right either its incompetence or its intent. This is stupid. If we wanted to be Green Acres tell us but pave my roads. Do the things you're supposed to do.

Okay, this is not a problem. Are they going to record closed sessions from now on? Yes or no. If they aren't why? Is there a reason? But where are we gonna get the money? Raise the TOT, raise the sales tax I don't care but the roads aren't paved they're patched Pleasant today. They patched Pleasant you don't patch a road you're gonna pave does that mean they're not paving Pleasant please Thank you.

Thank you, Larry. And just for your information the next budget meeting will be on Thursday at 9. Okay do you want to comment?

I was gonna say the same thing and then just the second point is that we are currently out to bid for paving and we've never had this discussion in a meeting but I'm pretty sure that if I asked every council member if they wanted to pave right this minute the answer would be yes But we are out to bid. We're following the state mandated, state law process which takes longer than we'd like but we're currently out to bid. We'r expecting to be able to open the bids and then bring an item to council to approve a bid in the next few weeks So we're working on that aggressively but just to answer the point Yes, we have a pothole crew going out right now because the rains tore up the streets. And so we're trying to prioritize that You know there it would have been great if it didn't rain and we didn't get a bunch more potholes right before We were paving but we are trying to do that right now some

And we had six questions about potholes and six potholes filled so far, right? So

that's a good start. Although I think we've got two more since then,

so they're coming in. Okay next we have Dale Hanson.

Dale Hanson, I live in the city of Ojai. I'm here to talk about pickleball. It's been a long time we've been fighting this and what bothers me most of all, as we know pickleball is a wonderful sport outdoors meeting people and good exercise all that wonderful stuff but it is the fastest growing sport. And that's a concern. Is it gonna get worse? I don't know where we are with the Soule Park management with the county but I hope we're moving forward with it and I hope we can get everyone excited about going out there And when that happens, I certainly hope we close that court down. Because you yourself said one time and I so appreciate it, you're saying it, that there are different kinds of parks. This is not a park for that kind of activity.

If you look all across the country people are suing the regions where they live because pickleball isn't tenable if it's in a neighborhood. You can't live with it. You have no peace. And I think we have to face reality here and realize it doesn't work in the neighborhood. Please don't put it at Sarasota Park or any other park with their homes, you'll have the same problem. It's got to be out there. I questioned one of the neighbors that live out there, the closest neighbor to it, and I asked him, I said can you hear the noise from your park? He said oh no, there are orchards between me and my house, I don't hear it. And he himself said that would be a great place for it. He didn't care.

That's the closest neighbor to the Soule Park area. There you'll have bathrooms, you can have lights, you can have parking and no one to bother. No one yelling at you for doing something that shouldn't been done. I know when Ryan Blatz was here he said that oh it was a mistake we shouldn't have done it. Yeah! It was a mistake and it shouldn't have been done so why do we keep doing it? Please Please close that down and get the Soule Park going as soon as possible.

Thank you. Thank you, Dale. Any update on Soule Park?

I think the Parks and Rec Commission started to talk because the Parks and Rec Commission asked to be able to have some input on it so they started to talk about that at their last meeting and I think they're planning to agendize it for their next meeting to do a what we've asked them to do is sort of expedited review to keep kind of keep that moving

Great. Thank you, James. Weston, any comments online?

No, Mayor. No raised hands.

Okay. Thank you very much. All right. We will move on to the consent calendar. Is there a motion to approve?

I'll move to approve.

I'll second it. I'd like to pull a couple of items just so we can discuss them real quickly

if that's

okay. D and E.

D and E. Okay. Is there a motion to approve the rest?

I'll move again to approve the rest.

And I'll second it. Okay all in favor of approving everything except D and

Aye.

Okay, okay go ahead Andy D.

All right so item D is the franchise agreement with Harrison and I just wanted to ask a couple of questions but start out by you know pointing out that This is the one place for the city where we as the City Council are really the only voice for the ratepayers who pay for their trash service. And so I was a little bit concerned that I did not see in the report anything that I could tell a ratepayer with confidence that were doing the right thing for them, And so I wanted to ask a few questions and just, we don't know the total amount of the fee. But I guess the more important question is how are the rates going to be under this new contract compared to the contract we have today? I guess it'd be question number one

So the extension request was simply for the five-year extension. It did not, typically when they submit requests they can either ask for just a straight time extension or a time extension with a fee increase. Harrison had just asked for a time extension so By default, this extension would not result in increases although they'd be able to do their standard increases as they can under their current agreement which they typically consider once a year.

So this doesn't include any additional fee increase it just would continue the current contract for five years and allow for those annual fee increases

okay and then does this does the agreement include a franchise fee?

Yes.

And how are we using the

franchise fee? There's a few, well actually so there's a couple things that we fund with it but I don't have complete information on that handy but for example we actually do, the city has a solid waste services contractor who's paid for from that who provides analysis and things related to our solid waste services trash services But I can there's no Well, there is a deadline on this but the deadlines not tonight So if if the council wants more detail we can bring a report back in two weeks with more detail

on it Okay. So I have a few I have a few more questions and then that could potentially be part of that but So with AB 939, which was adopted maybe 20 years ago we were required as a city to divert at least 50% of our trash away from the landfill into recycling or composting. Other methods and It looks like with the materials that you gave us that we are Struggling to hit the 50% mark. Mm-hmm, and so I'd be very interested in having Harrison explain Why we're having an issue with that and what we can do to make sure that we do achieve that. I understand that we are potentially subject to penalties if we don't hit the 50% diversion.

And my understanding and Actually, so it sort of works with what we were suggesting because Harrison couldn't be here tonight because they're scheduled at Fillmore tonight doing their Update but they can be her next meeting so we can have them answer But my understanding is that they're struggling sort of across Ventura County. So I think they can explain why that why that is Okay,

and then I understand that we have, we're required by law to have new containers and just wondering if that's encompassed within the franchise agreement or is that going to be an additional fee that ratepayers are gonna have to pick up? And that could be another thing that goes to a subsequent meeting.

Yeah, we could bring that back with the other

information and then my my other comment is Is on e and that and and Harrison would maybe be the ones to answer or maybe in conjunction with the city, but somewhat related. Yeah E is also a trash diversion item for the for the new rule in terms of How we're to dispose of our food waste. And the report says that the county is going to take care or Harrison at the county is going to take care of the reporting requirements in terms of receiving it, but it seems like there almost certainly is going to be requirements at RN at the city. For at least some data to be gathered.

And so we are going to have some fiscal impact on that and I would like us to start figuring out how we're going to address that. It makes sense to me that if a place like Fillmore, maybe some of the other cities Are going to be faced with the same thing that potentially we find a shared position between multiple cities To address that data collection Data, you know the information that we're gonna have together. Yeah and I Think I guess my final comment isn't exactly on this point but One of the boards that I sit on, every item on a report starts with a fiscal impact analysis and a statement Well, their statement is this mandatory. I'd actually like to see a statement that says what are the rules that apply?

Just so we know if there's some state law or maybe it's our own laws but so that we can actually look at the rules and laws that should be impacting our decision making. Got it,

yeah. And just briefly to that this is one of the phrases that we've said a lot lately and cities say a lot lately is unfunded state mandates and this is kind of another great example of that where the state says cities need to do something I need to figure it out need to pay for it So this, the idea with that MOU was all the cities are struggling with it. The county's struggling with it so let's all you know form signed an MOU and work together and like hire one person so every agency doesn't have to hire their own staffing for this But it does tie in somewhat with the Harrison item. Neither are time sensitive Well, like I said they have deadlines but the deadline isn't between now and the next meeting So I think my suggestion would be that we bring those back We can put them as sort of maybe one discussion item on the April 25th agenda to have Harrison come do a presentation and explain so

I think it'd be good

just

Just for the ratepayers to know that they came and yeah, talk to us about all the money We're gonna spend on them

know what they're getting for what I pay.

Yeah Rachel yeah also so I actually took a tour of EJ Harrison's facilities today And I recommend all of my colleagues do, because what they're doing with food waste in particular is something that I think needs – they're only getting about 5% participation. And food waste is a major contributor to climate change if it goes into the landfills. So that's something that hopefully they're going to talk about next week, too. I think one thing that was an eye-opener was just that there were certain that recycling is only as good as the market that's able to receive the recycling items. And so I was wondering if maybe that percentage was also because China isn't taking as many plastics and things like that.

But Nan Drake at Harrison is just a wealth of information, and she's been so helpful in answering some of my questions about the contract but also about where our trash goes.

And I'll make one final comment is that by asking all these questions, I should also go on the record as saying I've been an EJ Harrison customer for over 30 years. And I don't have something against Harrison. I actually think we're very fortunate to have a local business as opposed to a national business serving us, and I do recognize that they do a lot for our community.

I just wanted to make sure that there was more information for the public to understand when their rates, you know, when they're paying their bill what they're getting.

Yeah, to give them some credit people may remember about a year ago. Another unfunded state mandate went into effect and we had to separate everybody was gonna have to separate their waste even more with plastic bags inside of the trash cans and We reached out to Harrison and told remind or you know They sort of knew but we reminded them that we in Ojai, you know, we don't Support using things like styrofoam or plastic bags and things like that And so they actually Went out of their way to create that program where they brought buckets to To our public works department and we had hundreds of people come get these buckets to help meet those goals, so They've been very good about being sort of sensitive to the needs of Ojai in the community But I also I don't think they'll have any problem coming in and presenting and giving more information next meeting.

So

Yeah, very responsive. Appreciate that. Anything else?

Yeah so thank you Andy for the due diligence and I've also taken the tour it's quite a trip and I think James to your point it was really confusing for Ohioans when we were told to put the food scraps in a plastic bag To then put it into the yard waste. That was really tricky to understand, so that they were willing to sort of change that to make it more convenient and make a little bit more sense but I think As a city, we haven't really been able to tackle and really understand that food decomposes into methane which is really bad.

So maybe we can think about some sort of educational outreach or maybe they have something in the works already for other communities around that I think would be really helpful.

Yeah, that's a good point. They do try to do sort of like monthly What do they call it flash then yeah flash watch I think somebody said Trash watch okay? Yeah, and they do a monthly newsletter But both us and them could maybe do another effort at that because it is it's confusing It's another new thing we all have to deal with