City Council — 2023-11-14

Good evening. Call the order, please. Could everyone please take a seat and come to quiet?

Meeting time.

Can we have the roll call, please, Weston?

bring forward children and young people to learn, to be part of things and even to be in leadership roles. There was a theme of refining and extending the existing paths and trails so that we're better connected within the site, but also connecting potentially all the way to Creek Road or down to Ojai Avenue. And then there were a lot of comments that were about doing a variety of nature-based and sustainability educational activities that truly tap into the richness of the place that we live in.

There were many comments, another theme was about rejuvenating and tending the demonstration garden area which has a long history And finally, there was definitely a theme about finding ways to better care for those in the tent encampment which was expanding during the entire time we were doing our work. So in summary, we feel like people were telling us that the city campus property has the potential to be sort of an essential ecological hub for the community of Ojai, a place for children and adults to enjoy and learn about our ecosystem together Think how fortunate we are to live in a place that has a campus like this, that offers a refuge for humans and non-humans alike.

So let's not squander this opportunity. Let's really move forward to bring some of the ideas expressed to fruition. And so Kathy is going to talk about the more practical what our next steps or recommendations

All right, so in closing, consider giving the site a descriptive name such as Ojai Ecology Hub. This can be done many different or numerous ways. The council could do it. We could go out to the community and have a contest or something fun but it would be nice to give it a name. If you decided you want to move forward, we'd love to get an MOU with the city.

We know that the site survey of the entire property needs to be completed and to identify the actual boundaries. Assure that we are in compliance with the Smith-Hopson deed so anything that we did on the property would be compliant with that And then we did receive a wonderful gift, and we have the whole report included in our report. And that was a tree survey that was donated to the city to the value of about $10,000.

All the trees are identified and assessed. And there are actually some hazardous trees that are out on the property, so I'm hoping that the city will take it to the Public Works Department if they haven't and make sure that they look at that information and any hazards are addressed because there are a lot of people, of course we know living and using the campus.

Another immediate thing would be to start mini projects in the garden just to keep the community alive. And as Betsy mentioned, we had so many people volunteer that said you know hey I'll dig a hole or if I was a teacher I could teach a class but people who actually want to come out and be involved and volunteer. And then we wrote on there, determine an appropriate response to the tent encampment.

And I hope thankfully that this has been started. It sounds like we have a really good task force and the city is trying to figure out some solutions. And then I just wanted to give a big thank you once again to council, to staff who worked with us while we were doing this project, and to the entire community for everyone who participated. It all made it happen so. Thank you. And then we're open to any questions if you have any. OK,

thank you so much Kathy and Betsy really appreciate it. Thank you for loving our campus so much and putting so much time and attention in and also talking to so many community members that's beautiful. So thank you. Any questions or comments?

I just wanted to also thank you. I had the opportunity to go to one of the World Cafe events and it was incredible to be in a room with people brainstorming all the Potentialities for that property and it was really inspiring And what was interesting was how many? Of our ideas even though we were sitting at different tables and all coming from different places how many of our ideas aligned and related to one another And I loved the way that you organized that process in addition to the opportunity that you provided for the community itself. So thank you so, so much for your leadership in this effort.

You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you.

Council member, thank you. So from what I understand have you submitted like a next steps proposal yet? Or what if we did want to move forward with The mini next steps until we get a better sense of the space and how it's going to play out. What would be, would you submit something? Would you like to I mean, how would we get in dialogue with you about that?

Well we actually did submit something and that was

several

months ago. And we actually proposed a couple things, one that the city get the survey completed and we would help orchestrate that with the local server because we know who had done the past work There was that and then we actually put in a proposal for a mini grant or a small project, and that would be in the demonstration garden. And that would be to keep the community involved and actually to help do some cleanup which is big. And then just having a presence in the landscape, in the garden just kind of helps create boundaries and engagement with the community

But you

can

tell

us too if there's a way we should yes We're flexible.

Well, perhaps we can speak to our acting city manager and see if something bubbles up from What you've what you've proposed because it would be unfortunate after this year's long work if it were to just sort of dissipate for lack of You know activity or engagement or follow through even if it were minimal follow-through of just keeping the community That's been built over this last year together so We can we can work on that.

Yeah, of course Okay, thank you so much

We will move on to commission Reports we have one from chair Smitty for the Arts Commission and then chair Aikens from HPC

All right, thank you guys let's have some fun. You know it's going to be upbeat I Have a painting to show you guys okay? And if any of you, I was hoping they could maybe put it on the screen too. Can you see? If you remember your art history class, you'll remember Marc Chagall. Marc Chagall was a Russian artist and Impressionist 100 years ago. He moved to Paris early on, but always loved his former Russia.

Mayor Betsy approached me a few months ago and said, one of the residents in the encampment here outside City Hall had approached her and said I have this beautiful painting that's worth millions than the original would be. And she came a few times and finally Betsy says Smitty can you check this out? You know I said okay I'll check it out so I got a hold of the painting. I'm not going to use her name, I don't have that permission right now. But I researched it a little, got hold of the painting and heard this story.

This is a print. It was bought at the thrift store, The Help of Ojai Thrift Store for $15. And the owner asked that, you know, I'd like to sell it and hang it in City Hall. Sell it and get some money. So I scheduled through her social worker at the help of Ojai to he or she or her. Their social worker at the help of Ojai to have a look at it. And I immediately, even to a musician, I recognized immediately it was just a print. In fact when I turned it over, it said IKEA on the back and I noticed that...

And you can still get a Chagall. It's called Flying Over. Flying over town, OK? Very impressionist. And it was his town in what is now Belarus and his hometown as a very famous painting. It's at a museum in Moscow right now. And it's one of the most copied forged paintings that there are as well. But I'm curious because whenever I frame something, whatever used to be in the frame, I leave in the frame, in the back.

So I open the back of it, OK. And because I have some Ukrainian war refugees living at my house right now, I recognize Cyrillic and handwritten signature. But as I pulled it out, I noted that it wasn't signed on the Shigall. It was just signed on another painting that was underneath it that's an original artwork. Let me show that to you. This is where I use my gloves.

It's mainly for drama. The signature says Vladimir Makhaev, and this is the painting. It's original oil, and I was able to run down the... Can you see it over there? I was able to run down the artist. $100. Isn't that delightful? It's called Love

Triangle.

It's called Love Triangle, it's signed by his name and called Love Triangle in Russian and it's just delightful a woman with her burrow and her kitty cat and that's a little love triangle so I did a little research on the artist. research on the artist, and I was able actually to find him and contact him. He lives in Crimea, kind of Ukrainian sort of right now, and he's a working artist. He's of some renown. He is known for exactly what this is, oil on paper rather than oil on canvas, and he's totally influenced by Chagall. In fact when I told him His response, I asked him how did we come across this? He said I have no idea. We've had auctions in America but he's never even been and he said I just want you to let the owner know that I'm honored to share a frame with the great Marc Chagall.

So, I just wanted to share a little story of art here in Ojai and tell you my plan was...my hope. I wrote a little pitch to the media trying to find a journalist or someone in the art world that would get ahold of this and we'll see what happens but I would love to get some media attention. It needs cleaned and framed properly And I would like maybe the city to consider doing that, maybe hanging it here or at the museum.

And maybe a philanthropist art collector will buy it and it will certainly help the owner of the painting out a lot. So that's it.

Well thank you.

And with that, I have earned two minutes. Thank you, Chair

Smitty. Great story.

I have two minutes. Just because the commissioner criteria is on the agenda tonight, I just wanted to offer that I was very I was very pleased to see that in the draft one that you have now, you gave us on the Arts Commission the flexibility to have five to seven commissioners and the terms aren't tied to an election cycle. The mayor and a council person, the way you guys select it will work with the chair to select new members.

I just want to talk a little bit about the residency requirement and make a pitch for this a couple different ways. The arguments that I want to make just to kind of give some examples.

Just one, this is an agenda item that comes later Chair Smitty so can you wait and save your comments until that item comes up? Or you want to go home don't you? Can you yeah because uh, you know, we're really supposed to stick to the agenda items when it comes up Okay, if you can wait I will do that. Okay

The only other thing I don't want to say is that the mural jury met today and uh Is going to be sending approval for the mural? Uh Through the mural ordinance to the commission meeting thursday night thursday night. We'll also be having The presentations by the grant applicants and I hope you or any of you, it's the best meeting of the year that we have. And I hope maybe I'll come to that so thank you for your

time. Thank you for all you do for us. Thank you. Next we have Chair Akins from the Historic Preservation Commission. And thank you for helping our community member, Chair Smitty.

Hello, I'm Brian Akins. I'm here on a Historic Preservation Commission chair report and I too was gonna lump the two items together but I'll be back. So first thing I want to do is I do wanna congratulate the Green Coalition on the efforts they've done. I went to an early meeting where they put big maps out on each of the tables And I went to the maps and I drew three red circles on those maps. On the Carriage House, the Pickleball Court and Downtown City and said these are landmarked other than that enjoy yourselves and they have just done a fabulous job.

I am, I was talking to Kathy beforehand. I will tell you that the historic Carriage House Barn is mentioned amongst their own reporting and amongst the people that were participating in it. Carriage House Barn was mentioned 12 times. I like it when potential landmarks are mentioned multiple times. So as was mentioned glad that the mayor and others were able to go to the tours we're able Go to to the spooky haunted not haunted a carriage house. And so that's wonderful, too grateful in the report that as I said the carriage house was Mentioned several times in page 8 it says and Ojai Arts Commissioner overseeing education for the Commission That's Pamela growl was able to tour the old carriage house and become very excited about possibilities Gotta love that lead Later, refurbishing the Ojai City Campus Carriage House into a vibrant learning center.

I love it when we have landmarks that are used for something that doesn't take away from its status but moves us forward in enjoying them. Group five said historic barn. Chumash knowledge? Question. Events? Weddings? Halloween haunted house? Use barn events for revenue generation. Now, I'm a finance guy. I like that one too. One member of the Arts Commission created a proposal, again that's Pamela Growl. And so I would really like to thank Kathy Nolan, Betsy Van Light and Pamela Growl and they all took tours and went in there with the questions I had and came out with all of these great ideas. So congratulations to them for doing that.

I will also congratulate you on an item that we'll get to tonight and tell you that fortunately with the now having three resident commissioners as well as two non-resident commissioners, we did meet last Thursday. Sousa was probably a four hour meeting did that tour Susan was there as our liaison, as we went through and we discussed the different things at that.

In that meeting it was suggested and approved that instead of talking to it as a local downtown historic district, I got to explain the fact that we have currently a state historic district and now we're proposing a local downtown historic district and what the difference was And so the motion was made and it was agreed to that we rename that as the Ojai Civic Center Historic District. Again, civic center going back to what Libby's first intent was for the city and that will make it a lot easier to explain to others. So again that we are looking forward to well, I'll say I'll leave you on the edge of your seats and I'll make that comment in just a few minutes. So again, thank you It was wonderful to see that this was supported not only with the green coalition That was led by a former planning commissioner Who did a fabulous job as the chair of that but also incorporated?

The Arts Commission that was made a contribution to it and then again, we were able to open up the historic carriage house barn And find out just what was in there. So thank you all very much

Well, thank you chair Aikens and uh, it's exciting to see what's gonna happen with the carriage house It's a really beautiful building Thank you All right, well we will move on to public communication and just a reminder These are items not on the agenda and because they're not in the agenda. We cannot discuss them We appreciate your viewpoint and participation And we can agendize for the future And public comments are three minutes, so we'll take the first ten public comments and the remainder will be after the first agenda item. At the end of the three minutes there's a chime, so please respect all of our time and stop talking at that point. No giving away time, and there's a request to say your name and address. That's optional though. Just a reminder that this is the time Becomes informed on your opinions and Kindly, they'll refrain from side conversations and ambient noise because otherwise we just can't hear what's going on.

We can't hear the speaker and Let's all remember that also we are all part of the same community and this community includes all the people here in the audience on the dais and behind-the-scenes And while we may not agree with each other on everything, we all need to come from a place of mutual respect, consideration and civility. So I appreciate your efforts in that area. And we'll begin first with Ron Solarsano from the library and then Journey Wade Hack and Cyrus Mayer.

All righty. Thank you so much members of council. My name is Ron Solorzano, I am the regional librarian for the Ojai Valley and I'm here tonight to give you an update on what we have going on at the Ojai Library. And I want to start by highlighting that this month we have a special craft kit available for kids to help them to design and make their own zines Children can create their own, their small sort of ephemeral booklets or magazines that they can then photocopy and distribute to family and friends. So we have kits that will have a bit of supplies to help them do that, a little bit of advice on maybe some topics they can get into, and all that will be available this month while supplies last so come on by the library to check that out.

Then later on November 20th, we're going to have another youth activity. This is going to be a Smash Book creating activity. It's basically an opportunity for participants to create their own personalized journal which they can decorate by writing or drawing, painting, gluing whatever they'd like onto it. This can include pictures, quotes that mean something special to them, tickets from old concerts or events or other keepsakes that they might want to include.

So this is an event for ages 8 and up, so yeah stop on by. That's November 20th again for that. Other youth activities that we have coming up some of our regular recurring ones we have our Perler Party crafter activity which is happening on Sundays from noon to 2. We also have our story times on Wednesday mornings at 1030 a.m., and then we have Lego play available on Fridays from 1 30 to 4 p.m.. So a lot going on for youth over at the Ojai Library I also want to mention that next month we're going to have a local author and Ventura County prosecutor, Richard Simon who's going to visit the Ojai Library. It's going to be 6 p.m. on Thursday December 7th he's gonna talk about his book titled Bring Me To Life it's a mystery thriller about a homicide prosecutor who's been assigned The case of his career, where a local tennis pro has murdered his ex-girlfriend and the case seems obvious until a high priced defense attorney hires an expert with a record of creating reasonable doubt.

So the author, Richard Simon, graduated from CSUN and Loyola Law School. He's been a Ventura County prosecutor since 1984. He's worked on cases that include the murder of Norma Rodriguez by Warren Mackey, the murders of Lisa Gondek and Rachel Zendejas, and the Seabee murder case. He has twice been named Prosecutor of the Year for the Ventura County DA's Office. So that again December 7th next month at a local author talk. This is all going on in addition to our normal activities, the ukulele club, the knitting and fiber arts clubs. And if you have any other questions about that, you can reach out to the library or visit our website. Thank you so much. Thank

you, Ron.

A

lot going on. Exciting. Thank you. Next we have Journey Wade Hack then Cyrus Mayer and then Carol Wade.

I have a resolution proposal that I wanted to talk about, and I wanted to know if I can hand these out to you folks now or maybe leave them for later. Thank you so much. So, good evening. My name is Journey Wadehack and I am an Ojai resident belonging to District 1. My family has lived here for 25 years since I was four years old. I have deep roots here and this place will always be home no matter where I am in the world.

I am proud of the fact that the city of Ojai proclaimed itself an international city of peace in 2015. That is consistent with the Ojai that I know and love I am here today to urge the city of Ojai to make good on that proclamation of peace by passing as quickly as possible a resolution calling for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Gaza. It is important because, as Americans we are in a unique position of influence and therefore responsibility for what the Israeli government is doing at this very moment.

Rather than describe the situation over there in my own words, I want to share with you the words of Omer Bartov, a respected Israeli-American scholar of the Holocaust and IDF veteran speaking to a news program just a few days ago about the situation in Gaza. Quote, There is clearly disproportionate killing of civilians. That is, the numbers are now estimated to be over 10,000.

And even if we don't believe the numbers given out by Hamas, they're still in the many thousands. There may even be more because many bodies are probably buried under the debris and of those at least 4,000 are children and one has to remember that half of the population of Gaza is under 18 years old. So to me, there is an indication that there are war crimes happening in Gaza, potentially also crimes against humanity".

There's so much to say on this topic and history to look at, but my time is limited. Even more so, the time of innocent civilians in Palestine is limited. I am ashamed to be late in coming here to ask for this ceasefire resolution. The reports coming out of this part of the world are horrific, and crucially they are continuing with our support as Americans.

Besides the moral problems with bombing one of the most densely populated areas of the world, I don't think this makes Americans or Israelis any safer when we kill innocent people like we are doing. We unavoidably create new enemies. Please listen to your hearts. I am not asking the Ojai City Council to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict, I am asking that we do our small part to stand clearly for peace and to stay the hand of a government that Martin Luther King called the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.

Let me close by reminding everyone that the definition of a hypocrite is one who focuses on someone else's crimes while refusing to look seriously at their own. Thank you so much and peace be with you.

And I appreciate your enthusiasm. If we could just hold any applause or any noise and that would be great. Next, we have Cyrus Mayer then Carol Wade and then Ray Powers.

Yes, it's an honor to be here today to speak with you all. It's my first time here in City Council. My name is Cyrus Mayer. I live here in Ojai and I've been coming here since I was a child. I'm also here today to ask for support from you as our city council in this ceasefire resolution in solidarity with peace between Israel and Palestine We're asking for a special meeting to be called due to the urgency of this matter and at the very bare minimum for this to be added to an agenda.

However, I want to highlight the urgency of this matter in the ways that we can act as a voice. Since October the 7th, over 11,000 Palestinian civilians and 1,200 Israelis have died. Over half of these Palestinian civilians have been children. Thousands more are starving beneath the rubble and dying in the hospitals due to the denial of aid, of water, of food, of electricity, of fuel and medical resources into Gaza.

This military assault in response to the attacks of October 7th is said to be an effort to eradicate Hamas and retrieve the precious lives of Israeli hostages. However, several ceasefire hostage negotiations have been denied by the Israeli representatives and it is clear that this terrifying assault on innocent Palestinians will no doubt bring more hostility and extremism between the two sides.

I'm an Ashkenazi Jew I want to be clear that supporting a ceasefire is not anti-Semitic, and that this resolution when passed will actually improve my feelings of safety here in this city and in this nation knowing that we support and advocate for human rights of all people regardless of race, faith or creed. As our representatives within this political body, this political world I ask you please to hear this call for ceasefire.

We are uniquely tied to this war. Our country sends billions of dollars of military aid to Israel which is currently being used to kill thousands of Palestinian people and to remove millions from their homelands Please represent us and join the thousands of elected officials, community leaders, cities and individuals in support of this ceasefire in Gaza. Please join us. Thank you.

Thank you, Cyrus.

Yes,

ma'am.

Is this a resolution? Are you saying that other cities have adopted?

Absolutely. So this resolution that we've drafted for you has been put forth by the city of Richmond in California, as well as another city in Southern California most recently. I can't pronounce the name but it's in Los Angeles right outside of Los Angeles. Alameda County has put forth a resolution. The City of Providence has put forth a resolution. The City of Dearborn as well as a few other cities in Michigan And it's a growing popular movement to provide an advocacy campaign on our most local levels, to pressure our states and eventually our federal government to support the ceasefire. Because currently the United States is one of the few nations to deny a ceasefire within the United Nations resolution of a ceasefire So we see it as an imperative, urgent matter for us on the local level to build that movement and campaign for our federal representatives to agree to the ceasefire internationally.

Thank you.

Thank you Cyrus. Next we have Carol Wade then Ray Powers then Didi Dorskund.

Hi thank you. Thank you for your work and thank you all for being here. My name is Carol Wade. I'm a citizen of Ojai for almost 25 years at the end of this month. I live in District 1. As I stand before you, there are armed conflicts in several places in the world. Sadly, the end of armed conflict comes at the high cost of human and other suffering and is not permanent.

There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. It's a question of time. Do we do it now or do we spill more blood and have more orphaned and dead children, create more bodies of all genders and all ages? More destruction, more starvation, more pain mind body and spirit. We human beings are capable of horrific things And too often the spotlight shines on that aspect of us.

We are also brilliant, bright beings of light with a core of good that is difficult to extinguish. Let's emphasize that. I feel blessed to be a member of the Ojai community. I am pleased that we have declared ourselves a city of peace I urge our council members to support our draft of the ceasefire resolution. I ask our council members to support this draft resolution and to get it on the agenda as soon as possible, including through if necessary setting up an emergency special meeting to get the resolution to the finish line as soon as possible and demonstrate that Ojai demands a ceasefire and opening of humanitarian aid to Gaza now.

Thank you.

Thank You, Carol. Next we have Ray Powers then Didi Dorskind and then Brianna Skelly I think?

Good evening, I'm Ray Powers. I've also been living in OI for 25 years. Good to see all of you. I'm taken aback that Mark's not sitting right there. In a short time I grew to respect and love him a lot. I'm not here to talk about the ceasefire resolution because honestly, I haven't seen it. So I am here because several people in the community asked me to come and speak about peace.

I am one of the core founders of the Ojai International City of Peace along with Kathy Nolan Is she still here? She left. And Brian and Lisa Berman, and a handful of others. So we proclaimed 10 years ago Ojai as an international city of peace. And someone just before this meeting said so I'm paraphrasing you know what does that mean being an international city of peace like what does that mean philosophically or boots on the ground?

And it's an inquiry I'm constantly in There's a lot of symbolic gestures, a resolution, a flag, International Day of Peace. I guess what I'd like us all to do is just take a moment, brief moment of silence and quiet not only to send love and compassion to anyone who is suffering and not at peace I'm going to give you a couple of minutes. Try to ground into this concept of oneness that is so much thrown about and bantied about.

You know, are we all connected? And if so, can we treat each other better than we treat ourselves? And can we exercise emotional intelligence, restraint, give more than we take You know, I googled how many wars were going on right now in the world. There's 32 more than half of them have 10,000 plus people who've been killed either in a short amount of time or a long amount of time Every now and then, there's a nodal point like now in the Middle East that brings all our attention focused in one place.

And hopefully that breakdown will lead to a breakthrough and more peace in the world whatever that looks like. So be open to what Ojai International City of Peace looks like in our daily lives.