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0:00 – 0:0922 turns
We are back. The rooster brought us back. Anything to report out Mr. City Attorney?
Yes, thank you Madam Mayor. The city council met at closed session to consider public employee appointment and public employment for two positions interim city manager and city manager On the interim city manager, the council is pleased to announce that they've directed the mayor and myself to negotiate a contract for interim city manager with Carl Alameda which will come for approval on December 12th at their regular meeting.
So again, the council's pleased to announce the appointment subject to council ratification on December 12th of Carl Alameda as interim city manager. We're very excited and looking forward to, I personally am, the council looking forward to working together with Carl.
Welcome, Carl.
And second, the council met regarding the city manager recruitment, public employee appointment and public employment. The city manager recruitment is an ongoing process and more information will be available as the process continues. Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. All right we will adjourn the closed session and we will go ahead and open the regular session Welcome everyone to the Tuesday November 28th 2023 meeting of the Ojai City Council Could we have the roll call please Weston?
Roll call — called by Weston Montgomery
Show transcript
Thank you,
Weston. We have a quorum. Would you please say the pledge
for
us? Of
course, Mayor. Council, community,
Agenda Discussionitems moved / continued / pulled — click to expand
commission reports? Okay, all right we will move on to public communication and just a reminder Everything okay? Okay. Just a reminder, these are items not on the agenda and because they're not on the agenda we cannot discuss them. We appreciate your viewpoint and participation and we can agendize them in the future. Normally the public comment is three minutes at the end of three minutes you will hear a chime so please stop talking then there's a request to say your name and address although you don't have to when you come to the podium And just a reminder, this is the time to allow the council to become informed on your opinions.
Please kindly refrain from any side conversations or ambient noise. It's very challenging to hear when there are people talking in the audience and let's also remember that we are members of the same community and we all care about our community and that includes all the people here in the audience, on the dais and behind the scenes So while we won't always agree on everything, we all need to come from a place of mutual respect consideration and civility. So in that spirit and also in the spirit of peace let's all just take a deep breath in And Let's get going alright so we have Three cards first week or four cards. First we have Larry Steingold then Carl Heinman and then Joel and Barbara Aronson thank you
Good evening, Larry Steingold. Oh hi and happy Thanksgiving. I hope everyone had all the food they wanted I'm here about the arcade There have been recent conversations on Facebook, on Nextdoor and my own personal experience about possibly getting run over by a kid on a bike or a scooter or what have you. I would like to have the city council and the public works and the owners of the buildings and the tenants and the property managers and the companies that insure everybody for liability get together in the police department to come up with a solution to resolve the problem, because somebody's gonna get hurt.
And whether they get run over by a scooter or the kid gets knocked down or what have you, or a senior citizen or an elderly or me, or somebody gets run over it's gonna be... Get very expensive and very bad, cause injuries as we get older are now forever. So please if you could somebody look into it and solve that because it's getting a bit much Thank you.
Thank you, Larry. I have a quick comment if I could thank you Mayor Larry. I just wanted to say that I think that issue is part of the larger safety in the downtown corridor issue and I would like to see it brought together with that so thank you for your comment.
Next we have Carl Heinman then Jessica McCrea and then Joel and Barbara Aronson
Make it short. I agree with everything that Larry says and later tonight with Alan Greenberg I agree with what he says and just incidentally you might want to consider the fact that in Thousand Oaks a gentleman died about two or three weeks ago, and He happened to be Jewish at a demonstration And the man that was Arrested Was I believe Middle Eastern descent so that would be something worthy It's a it's in our county. That would be something worthy for us to talk about condemning violence Particularly anti-semitic violence. Thank you
Thank You Carl next we have Jessica McRae then Joel and Barbara Aaronson, and then Alan Greenberg
Hi, it's Jessica McCray, Ojai Valley. Once again I am here to ask the City Council to do something about the encampment back there. The Encanto, the campus grounds and the demonstration garden from our viewpoint nothing has been done. I do know that there is work being done Uniform tents, there's coffee being served food being served place that people can go to Charge up their electronics all wonderful stuff. Please keep doing that That's awesome. But from the community's viewpoint is still growing. There's trash everywhere It's still it's still chaos out there No one has gone and gotten anything under control put any organization Did anything but let them just free-for-all all over there One of the biggest problems is the garbage. I know I put in a request to have the Public Works come and just pick up the garbage, but they don't do it.
It smells—I don't understand why we're not going every day and doing that. Isn't that Public Works' job? One of the biggest, most serious issues over there is a person who everyone seems to be really afraid of. And he has I guess above the law has no rules. He is the one building his castle out there. He's collecting and piling up garbage everywhere. He plays loud music midnight two o'clock four o'clock in the morning.
Currently he put up erected American flag with leaves all over it night and day in the rain which in our country is disrespectful On city grounds, no one's doing anything about it. He has a propane gas grill out there in his camp which could burn up this very building, all the homes around it, all the homes on the next mountain over. It's very dangerous. No one is doing anything about it.
Also he has been what sounds like shooting a gun out there. So I have repeatedly asked that the City Council do just the bare minimum of sanitary services, police services and safety services which includes the fire. What you can have in your campground. And from our vantage point nothing absolutely nothing has been done it just gets worse by the day So again, please have Public Works Department go through the Encanto and collect garbage on a daily basis or very minimally put a dumpster out there and encourage them to actually throw garbage away instead of piling it in their tents. Please ensure that there's regular patrols there so that even those in the encampment feel safe and the neighborhood feels safe Please talk to those, ask those that are in the demonstration garden to go find another spot in the designated place.
I'm hoping by now there's a designated area that you guys have identified. Ask them to move and enforce it, enforce the no camping. And the last one campsite should be a certain size and things should be regulated what they can be in their camp. Encampment managers should be able to enforce that with the help of the police. Thank You
Thank you, Jessica. Next we have Joel and Barbara Aronson and then Alan Greenberg.
Hi. First I'd like to ask if we're in the right time slot because we want to talk about the ceasefire resolution?
No that's agenda item number three, Barbara.
Can we go back and you'll call us at the right time? Sure. Yeah, I'll save your card.
Alan Greenberg. Just a reminder this is general public comment any items not on the agenda. Thank you for being here.
0:09 – 0:2845 turns
Well, you know my name I've lived in the city of Ojai for the last 20 years and I love it here and you're going to have to bury me here are you aware of the destruction that Hamas has caused during their horrific Mr
Greenberg? I'm sorry to interrupt but item number three is about the ceasefire resolution this these are items not on the agenda
Well, with all due respect, Mayor. The resolution does not mention Israel, does not mention Hamas and does not mention Gaza. Okay. So I want to talk specifically about Hamas. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
I don't know if you're aware of the destruction that Hamas caused during their horrific attacks on October 7th. Are the peace people who spoke two weeks ago aware of this? I doubt it. Let me give you the facts that, of course, have been denied and will continue to be denied by Hamas and their supporters. They just say, oh, that's not true. Parents were killed in cold blood in front of their children.
Children gunned down in front of their parents. Try for just a moment to picture that with your own family, it's horrific. Women were raped while alive and also while already dead and some of them were found decapitated afterwards. Infants and babies were actually burned alive. Hamas people deny this, it's absolutely true. Over 1200 civilians as you know were shot in cold blood like it was a shooting gallery at a carnival. Bodies were found without arms, without legs, genitals cut off. They cut off women's breasts and passed them around. They even cut open a pregnant woman and removed the fetus.
Do not listen to the naysayers, this is factual. Then of course taking the hostages, some as old as 85 and a 10-month-old baby. An American newspaper dated last Tuesday reported in detail about a team of Israeli women who are experts in the field. They have gathered extensive evidence about the attacks from eyewitnesses, from captured Hamas' cell phones, autopsies, hospitals, morgues and the testimony of the captured terrorists.
These terrorists told questioners they were given direct orders to go after women and children be as cruel as they possibly can," unquote. They told the investigators they forced family members to witness some of the rapes, some of which were with multiple Hamas men. Documents found on them actually confirmed their testimony. One terrorist said he received permission from his religious leaders to murder children so they would not grow up to be Jews.
Several young teenagers, mostly 14-15 year old girls were found dead in their beds stripped naked and had been raped. This is the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust when the planes hit the Twin Towers in New York in 01 there were overflowing crowds of so called innocent civilians celebrating in the streets of Gaza waving their flags and Hamas was passing out candy Switzerland has just outlawed the presence of Hamas in their supporters.
The UN and a UN vote few years ago, 80 countries joined in a vote to declare Hamas a terrorist organization. Based on the facts I've just told you, I think you will agree with me that Hamas is a cult of death that needs to be dismantled but we can't do anything about it here. We could just follow the news. Thank you.
Thank you Alan. Council Member Lange?
Yes, thank you Alan and if I could just ask that there are a lot of things that he said that might be disturbing to people who have experienced trauma and so if we could all just take a deep breath and anyone here who is Jewish or who has friends or relatives in Israel who is feeling this on a visceral level We We care, and so just everyone take a moment to just send love and send peace to anyone who might be struggling right now.
Thank you Councilmember Lange. Any comments online Weston?
Yes mayor we do have one raised hand. Jerry Schwenke. Mr. Schwenke you do have the floor
now. Good evening my name is Jerry Schwenke I live in Ojai. Long term Ojai Valley resident. I just want to first, it saddens me greatly to hear such inflammatory language used in opposition of peace when peace is so desperately needed in this world today. What I wanted to talk about very briefly, if I can is it has to do with the homeless encampment. I've been a volunteer with Ojai Valley Family Shelter for about 20 years. I just recently retired from my volunteer position there and what I saw in my 20 years is that 25 years of Shelter operation, and they are now spending more money to provide less service to fewer guests, fewer clients. The shelter I envisioned when I started volunteering there was like a stopgap measure, a temporary solution to a long-term problem that we've had here in the Ojai Valley.
You know, I'm grateful that the governor signed that bill and said homeless people can camp on public land if a municipality doesn't have beds for them. Great, you know? And I can imagine there is a great deal of clutching of pearls at the vision of a homeless encampment in Libbey Park. And so they all got shuttered off behind City Hall And even there now we're having people complaining when they're out of sight and out of mind, unfortunately.
And what I'm saying is that I am hoping that a tent encampment behind City Hall is not anybody's idea of a long-term solution. Those people need to get under roofs every day year round. Probably the only way that we're going to get eliminate homelessness, houselessness in the Ojai Valley is to enact a living wage ordinance so that local people can find jobs here in the city of Ojai that pay them enough to live in the city of Ojai.
Until that happens it's going to be camping in the backyard bring your own tent And that may be fine as a stopgap, but please don't tell us that's going to be a long-term solution. Thank you.
Thank You Jerry and just a note on December 12th at the next meeting a more permanent solution will be looked at by the City Council okay we will move on to
Yep, are we done with when we're done with public comments? I have a question of the council.
We are done with public comment
Even though we've approved the agenda is it too late to possibly reconsider Changing the order. I don't know how my colleagues feel but if the majority of speakers here for item 3 Perhaps it would be appropriate To do that
** I do have several comments for item 2. And we did agendize this with the schedule, so any
thoughts? ** It's just a consideration since we already had one public comment. Okay. It just feels like we should... What do you think? Yeah, because it's like hard I think for people to listen to all of this when this is on their mind. I don't know that's just my thought. I would like to address it.
Yeah, I do think though that since we agendized it in this order and we do have people here to speak on item two, I think we could probably get through that relatively quickly any thoughts Council?
Well, it may take. It's going to you know every item is going to take time and I'm planning to pull Item E that's gonna take time
If I could jump in it may be wise for the council to take item two because we do Have an individual resident applicant who sought an appeal on his decision as opposed to the broader issue Maybe wise to take out him too ahead of item three. I realize there's people to speak on both items But that would be SAS recommendation
** Okay. Thank you. All right, we will move on to the consent calendar. We do have one public comment on item F, Larry Steingold?
** And I'd like to pull item E, the adoption of an ordinance, a rent disclosure ordinance.
** Larry did you want to speak on F? No? Okay, is there a motion to approve the consent calendar.
Yeah also I would like to pull item F. F
okay and you're pulling E? E
and
F.
Are you
sure? Yes.
Mayor
Pro
Tem. I just need clarification as a second reading for item...
It's E! It's e no no
I'm pulling a different I'm pulling six four nine
Okay, and you're pulling F? Councilmember or Mayor Pro Tem?
I'm pulling the rent. This is the second. I'm pulling the second reading
of the rent disclosure. So we're gonna pull E and F. Is there a motion to approve everything else?
Yes, I'll move to approve everything else.
Second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay all right
we will move on to item E Mayor Pro Tem.
Well, at the last meeting just to keep it simple I did vote for this rent disclosure ordinance which at the time I understood it was simple just disclosing the projected rent to the residents and then I began to look at it more closely and it feels problematic to me I just didn't, I began to think why can't we keep it simple? Why do we need an ordinance? Why don't we just have a process where the developers disclose the rent amount. There's language in there that I now question and I want to change my vote to no.
Would anyone like to make you know, I know that's
I also have
comments
on
the
councilmember rule. Yeah so I always go back to what is the goal of this particular ordinance. And the goal is stated in the ordinance and in the first reading, is that there's recurring problems in public discussion around commonly misunderstood terms of affordable housing and we were meant to clarify that. And well, I see there could be problems in that. Well, we're over-regulating essentially. And I think that there is an underlying current that is seeping through this is that developers are trying to make us believe that affordable housing isn't affordable when it comes really from the state and it is complex and it is confusing so my point at the last Council meeting was that we should be looking to clarify for people what is affordable housing for them.
So in my mind, it was more like a worksheet that someone could have to clarify it wasn't to say hey look affordable housing isn't really affordable you know So vote against it. To me, it's like what is affordable housing? Who in Ojai is, you know, who does this, who is this applicable to? That's really what we want people to know about affordable housing and then I started thinking even more because when you think about it, You go by the average mean income, right? What is an average mean income? You have an average and you have a mean. But what does an average mean income? That's both of those terms. Does anyone know? That's confusing. I actually had to look it up. So I do know what an average mean income is.
And we're actually... It's better off for us that our incomes are lower because more of our people are going to qualify for low-income housing. That's amazing, because when you think about it, if you make $60,000 here a year as a teacher You would qualify as low income, which means that you could get affordable housing. Which means that they could only by law charge you 30% of your annual income. That's a huge protection as a consumer. If on the other hand you make $90,000 in Oxnard as a teacher you are not low income and your market rate and you can be charged up to 50 or 60% of your income. So when you actually think about that And it's a little complex, but not really.
It's a silver lining is essentially what it is and it's those kinds of things that I think are really important for our constituents to know like do you actually Qualify for low-income housing a worksheet would be very simple, you know And and whether or not you have a disclaimer that says You know People in Moore Park and those places down there in the county. They make way more money than we do therefore our average mean income is Not reflective of Ohai and that's essentially all you need to say It's countywide, different parts of the county make way more money than Ojai residents do. Therefore we fall under this average mean income that isn't reflective of us.
That's fine. You can say that the developer has nothing to do with an average mean income, the developer has nothing to do with what qualifies as low income. That's all state mandated. And so for me, and I said this last time and I thought that I had said it clearly but apparently I didn't. That this ordinance in my mind finds value when it shows Ojai residents if and when they qualify for low income housing. Because low income housing in Ojai is really workforce housing, so that's really important to know yet this doesn't address that at all as I had hoped and I thought that I had indicated at the last meeting.
This, to me is of little value other than a PSA or something. So I also on this second reading would not support this ordinance because I think we can do so much better. We can actually help our constituents understand what is affordable housing and how it might work for them because we have a lot of working people in Ojai that would qualify for low income housing and that's what we should be communicating Not that there is a semantic problem between what the state considers low-income housing and what the developer calls low income housing, and what we do. The developer is just following what the state says. The developer has no ability to change a state definition of low income housing.
So, and I think in doing what I suggest you get both the ability to help constituents understand. And through that certainly they would understand you know that low income is a term based on things that are a little bit complex but not anything Not anything that is going to change the way things work. So I would like to see something in this ordinance that was more like a worksheet, that allowed people to understand both at the same time what affordable housing is and if they might qualify And where that affordable housing is, where is that? Is it Habitat for Humanity that they're building? Is it Cabrillo? What project is it that they might be able to apply for? That's truly helpful. This I don't think is truly helpful. So for that reason because it wasn't amended or revised to my expectations I would also take a no vote on this or ask it to go back for something that's a little bit more helpful to our residents so they understand what is affordable housing.
Councilmember Lange.
0:28 – 0:3710 turns
Yeah, so first of all I agree with you that we need to do a better job of communicating what qualifies as for the people for anyone here who's in A situation where they are looking for housing or where they're having a difficult time Or having housing insecurity or difficult time affording it I think a communications plan is something that we would be wise to consider.
One thing that, I think what this ordinance does in my mind is that it puts the term affordable or low income or moderate with a number So that anyone who might not consider themselves low income or moderate, like anyone who might not know what the, because like you said it's complicated if you're just trying to pay your bills and find a place to live. It can be difficult to know what category you would fall in with your income.
And this puts a number value on it so that if someone is I mean, I'm looking at a friend who lost her—if someone is looking for a house they can say, I can afford this amount of money and might not have the concept of—it just adds transparency. So it puts concepts that are vague and a little unclear into really tangible practical terms that someone can budget for.
The other thing too, and so I'm staying with my yes vote but I'm gonna do a yes and. I would love for us to see at a future time coming back with the communications plan or some other way. We talked about a housing workshop forever ago. I think we do need something like that So the other thing that I like about this version of the ordinance is that we did make it a little easier for developers when we changed the language and City Attorney, thank you so much for including that. I was specifically looking for that. That we changed the language to make it easier for developers so that it's not all communications but it's more public communications So that gives the developer It gives the developer more leeway in terms of how they communicate or advertise the properties so I want to just point that out because that is a question that I received and I appreciate I appreciate that amendment, so I'm gonna stick with my I'm gonna stick with my yes vote on this one Yes
councilmember Whitman
yeah I agree with Councilmember Lange that this ordinance does add clarity to what affordable means and it will add clarity when we have projects before us as to what affordability we're achieving. I wanted to ask the city attorney quickly, I know when I first looked at the concept of doing this I was concerned about the First Amendment But I understand you, your firm and you have reviewed what could be presented in an ordinance without treading on somebody's First Amendment rights.
Yeah, our recommendation of the council is that the ordinance is lawful because it is regulating certain aspects of commercial speech which is not subject to the same protections as pure personal speech and it comes under the central Hudson standard. And here we're requiring truthful accurate factional information about a proposed project in a limited fashion and tailored to the governmental goal of ensuring public clarity regarding what affordable means for their particular project Converting it from affordable or the state very low income $2 per month and dollars per year figures is defensible against the First Amendment.
And I'd like to thank you, Matt and your firm because like I said, I had some questions when it was just a concept that we were gonna adopt an ordinance. And I am extremely impressed with what you were able to come up with in terms of pretty straightforward approach. I think that council member Rules, concerns are legitimate but I don't think that prevents us from adopting this. I think that is the subject for a future meeting where we can address how do we better advise the public as to their accessibility to affordable housing opportunities in our community?
And so I would support this ordinance.
Okay, I would also continue to support this. I agree with Council Member Lang and Council Member Whitman and I would also like to thank Matt profusely because this really is a cutting edge ordinance and first in the state as far as we know. Yes. And I think it's providing a level of transparency to our residents that is really beneficial. It's actually quite a simple ordinance Yes, we can always add more or do something later I think though that it really is very helpful and it confronts Sacramento's dysfunction in some way because There's the speculative real estate Industry has a lot of power there. So I think that in terms of really communicating and once again, being transparent with people who live in Ojai. I think it's a very useful ordinance and it can be a model for the entire state.
So if we still have three yeses and do we have to vote? Just one second. Do we have to vote again?
Yeah, the council needs to vote on second reading. We can't change the history of the votes as to first reading. The vote was what it was but an ordinance requires a first reading and second reading unless it's an urgency ordinance so we would need a vote on the second reading which could any council member can vote as anyway as desired. I would note that the council could choose to make a motion to approve the ordinance and direct staff to return with a further affordable housing opportunities communications plan and we'd come back with an appropriate plan if that was the council's desire
Okay, any final comments before the vote? Mayor Pro Tem.
You know at the last meeting I did ask on page one attachment a page two of five The proposed where it talks about A developer of any proposed rental housing development project must include in every written communication to the public regarding the project and in a developer's first written communication to the city regarding the project, and in subsequent written communications to the city if the project description changes, the following information.
I don't have any problem with disclosing figures and all that. Here, I don't want to read everything it's kind of tedious to read it all over again but here is my question Mr. Summers because we did receive emails from members of the public with concerns And one, here's a statement I'd like for you to comment on on a statement. This ordinance goes beyond in quote commercial speech to include any speech to advocate for the project it includes advertising public comment letters to the newspaper social media it seeks to compel speech all under the guise of tenant protection what is
So my recommendation of the council is that, that is incorrect because any speech by the developer here defined to be the applicant of record, the property owner of the project if not the same as the applicant and any agent or person or entity acting on their behalf. All of the people who would be speaking under this ordinance are folks with a financial stake in the development project and thus their speech about the project is commercial speech This does not apply to commentary from a member of the public supporting or opposing a project. It does not apply to commentary from anyone who doesn't have a financial interest in the project, and so it therefore is regulating commercial speech. But of course it's an ordinance up to the Council's desire if the Council wants to change it.
0:37 – 0:5147 turns
What would happen to the rest of the ordinance? If we remove
the part about- When you say this, what do you mean by this?
About
everything. All of what you read?
Yeah, well okay. Let me see if I can gather my thoughts. My follow up question is the same as last time and I want to have it on record. You assured me or the council that nothing in this ordinance would change or prohibit a development. It would not affect a developer's ability to develop a project?
Yes, that's correct. That is covered in page four in proposed section 68-8.04 enforcement, subsection E. It's short, I'll read it. Let
me find it.
Sorry. Let me
find it. It on page four?
Page four of the ordinance.
Attachment a
yeah attachment a at the top. Okay, the second paragraph down begins sub e Violations of this chapter shall not affect the validity or invalidity of any land use entitlement Or development permit approved by the city of Ojai Revocation of any land use entitlement or development permit must proceed separately under other applicable provisions of this code in state law So it absolutely separates any Compliance, lack of compliance, allegations over lack of compliance of this ordinance are entirely separate from development permit approvals. And that absolutely we cannot, state law prohibits tying the two together.
So a developer can And then to answer your other question, if you wanted to avoid the concern raised by the commenter regarding speech outside of an application, then you would delete the phrase every written communication to the public regarding the project, and simply have it require that the developer must include in the developer's first written communication city and subsequent communications the information. So you could cut it to a requirement for what information is to be conveyed to the city and not limit the communications of the public whether to do that or not as a policy choice.
Okay, would you consider that as a friendly amendment? Whoever made
well we don't we need to get emotion on the table Do you want to make a motion
actually I just to follow up to that. Um, I Believe that One of the attorneys for Cabrillo actually Made a public comment about that Barbara Ortiz made a comment about That particular part that And I believe she said that it would be okay for public communications, but that it was the opposite. That it would be better for public communications but not for every little step in the permitting process. Basically anything that would hinder the developer's ability to move through the permitting process They were against that. And I'm taking her comment with extra weight just because she, you know, I value her expertise.
And on note we did implement the heart of that comment from Ms. McCrory-Ortiz which is that's in the revision first written communication to the city so requiring the first communication to the city and not every letter because there's a lot of letters back and forth between the city and an applicant.
Only when do they
change?
I'm going to make a motion that we approve the second reading of the ordinance and that we direct staff
to come back with a communications plan for educating the public on the meaning of affordable housing.
Okay, is there a second for that motion?
I'll second that.
Okay, any final comments before roll call?
Council Member? Yeah I'm not sure these are final comments but they certainly are comments. Is there any way would you accept a friendly amendment to integrate this into the ordinance? My problem is that we have a long list of things and we've always promised to come back to things and it's ten months later and we haven't So something as simple as a worksheet, you know could be included in this For communication and you know, it's just a fill-in How much income do you make how much income does your spouse make? Well guess what you qualify for this and This affordable housing is available at this point in time You know this this development or this whatever so just to put some practicality To it. I mean, I actually read this and anyone who wasn't into this isn't going to this isn't going to clarify any.
I mean, you know, it's an ordinance and it's complicated. And so if you would accept that friendly amendment a one sheet worksheet that shows people and, you know, to this point At the very beginning, we talked about having a housing commission. And I think that it would behoove us to revisit that for these kinds of things. Who's keeping track of all of this? Nobody! Right. I mean we're keeping track of historic buildings We're keeping track of parks and recs, but nobody's keeping track of who our housing who what are they? Who are they? You know, we don't know we have no information so that having been said I would I Would appreciate it if you would accept a friendly amendment for a one sheet And I'd be happy to work with staff on what that would look like You know a one-page worksheet basically that says this is what you qualify for if you're interested in knowing and
I'm thinking about how that would work logistically. And also to clarify, the Planning Commission does have the Housing Committee so we do have that as a part of the Planning Commission but you're right, we haven't brought that back up as a conversation topic. So I'm thinking about the Friendly Amendment. And one challenge I could see with it being in a part of the ordinance is that those, and this is one of the reasons why we adopted this in the first place, is that those numbers change every year.
And so having a one sheet as a part of an ordinance would have to come back year after year when the median income changes. And I think you know it kind of speaks to the purpose of the ordinance in the first place which is it's a lot to keep up with
Won't these numbers change anyway?
Let's make sure, everybody let's make sure to take turns. So Council Member Whitman and then Mayor Pro Tem.
So Matt, the legislature often will adopt an ordinance and then direct a department to come forward with a regulation to implement. So if we adopt this and then include in it a direction Lucas have you been following this to where you envision what council member rule is talking about and as would I be ruining your life if I asked for us to adopt. To direct that you develop such a worksheet
As long as it's a one-page worksheet, I think it's completely within the possible. You can do a one-page
worksheet, believe
me. If I could suggest... This already exists. Your regional housing authority does this. Well all of this obviously exists but yeah. To Council Member Ruhl's earlier point, on the education side we could definitely make those resources available. But that's who sets the numbers if you're qualifying for
assistance. Oh yeah it's just how do people access that and how do they make it relevant to themselves? Like how do they understand what those numbers mean like what does it mean everyone says I mean we had people come in and say well I don't make $96,000 well of course you don't that's not the point of any of this You know, we had 10 people come and say I don't make $95,000. I don't make $60,000 dollars. I don't make 110 thousand dollars. What are these numbers even mean? So it's really about people understanding what these numbers mean and if they qualify.
You know, so yes it's certainly you know I assume that somebody in housing somewhere in the state has a worksheet we could probably pull.
The Regional Housing Authority that
provides
assistance from the government so if it's just low-income section 8 program Those are published every year, number and household income level. It's pretty clear cut so I think if we can provide that as a
resource,
maybe test with housing on our website and get information out there of where to access it because a lot of people don't know about those.
Right, and they don't know that it's as I mentioned and have mentioned continually. They don't realize that it's everybody's income in a household so it could be the SSI that your kids get. I mean people don't realize you know that it's all income. It's not just the breadwinner it's also the money that everybody makes and that's also important for people to understand because when you look at this you don't necessarily has You know, it says number of people in your home. Right? And that's very clear but it doesn't...it's not clear that you know its dual income or three incomes you know I mean if people understood two single mothers understood if they came together You know, they would have enough income to qualify for low. So it's also opening up creative solutions for ways that people can figure out housing and homes.
That's really what the benefit of providing low-income housing is, is that our constituents know how they could possibly do that. If I was a single mom and I had a best friend and she was a single mom You know, if it occurred to me and it very well might not that we could have a dual household and together we'd be low income. And we could apply together. Doesn't have to be the whole, the nuclear family. It's these options and these creative solutions that I think are really, really important for people at a ground level. And once again, and I appreciate your comment about the Planning Commission but that is now one person and their job is not to understand what our housing looks like. Who lives where? How many single families, how many ADUs?
Who's living in them? What are their incomes? Are they really as Bill Miley is so happily pointing out 60% or rent burdened? Is that true? I mean, how can we move forward and really provide for our constituents and our residents if we don't know who they are and what they live in? And so that was my point about the Housing Commission. That is information that's vital for us to know especially as 50 housing laws were signed two weeks ago. 50 new ones, hello.
Anyway I've taken enough time of everybody's time but this is my priority around affordable housing and communication to the public. How does it work for me? That's the question.
So I've got suggestion language to that effect which would be an add a new section 7 of the ordinance implementation the city manager or designee Shall develop and distribute a one-page worksheet for developers To provide two potential affordable housing applicants regarding eligibility requirements for particular projects as proposed mindful that the eligibility is going to vary by project and For other affordable housing programs to be distributed by the city
That's great, and I would be willing to make a draft of that to hand to Lucas because I have a vision of what that might look like. It's actually if I could get somebody to program it and be really simple. But I would be willing to take that on for sure and discuss with you what that might look like.
That'd be great.
Lucas did you want to make comment?
And the other thing you should notice that we have a fair amount of information on existing housing stuff But creating Housing Commission is not tonight's agenda.
No, I get that I just had to put a plug in
at a 20,000 foot level What everybody's talking about here is completely relevant? I would just like to point out that I mean the top-down approach piece Boiling it down into one sheet For the city of Ojai is completely relevant and completely possible
Thank You
Thank you.
0:51 – 1:0116 turns
Think each one of us here is deeply committed and invest deeply committed to and invested in Understanding housing law in particular citywide housing law understanding the concerns not just here but all across California and across the country And so for anyone who's listening thinking that we're up here not knowing what we what we're doing because we don't have a commission That's wrong Mean I know we spend hours and hours each week looking at everything that's going on to make the best decisions for this community So I just want to say that yeah, it's not on our agenda have a commission but we're doing we're doing the job
Well, we have a motion and I have a second. Could we get the roll call? We should
confirm The seconder is okay with that amendment. Yes. Thank you.
Okay roll call police Western
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0 Motion Lange, second Whitman to approve and to direct staff to return with an affordable housing awareness slash communication and education
Show transcript
Motion passes 5-0. Okay,
wonderful! All right
we will move on to item F. Council Member Ruhl you pulled it?
I pulled this because I love it, which is no reason to pull anything except for I just would like City Attorney Summers to just briefly go over it for the public sake. So really, it's just once again for information and education and what this allows for our city residents now.
The ordinance creates a local preference, not requirement. Preference for certain lower income de-restricted affordable housing of the kind we were just discussing and it provides that for those projects in the city First tier preference would go to applicants who reside at the time of their application, in at least three months before, in the City of Ojai or the Ojai Sphere of Influence or the Ojai Area of Interest which is roughly the Ojia Valley plus Miner's Oaks, Casitas Springs and that area.
Our income eligible for the given household type and otherwise meet the requirements for renting a unit in that project, and are facing or at risk of or were subjected to displacement from their residents. And then second tier preference is persons who are previously resided in the Ojai area of interest, So I'm going to go ahead and open it up for questions.
will be required to develop a plan for how they're going to implement those first-tier and second-tier preferences, and that that plan would be approved by the staff with an allowance for alternative plans if a particular project comes forward that has, say through its financing, a slightly different requirement. It has to give first-tier preference to the county and second tier elsewhere.
That's also a possibility as a project comes online. Thank you.
That satisfies me perfectly, thank you so much. I appreciate it and the more you can say it the better it is.
So all in favor we need to approve it. Yeah, we need a motion to approve it. Motion to approve? Aye. All in favor? All right, thank you. We will move on to the public hearing item number two Appeal of the Planning Commission decision to uphold an exemption request of the Ojai Municipal Code To the requirement of all electric new construction so we have Staff report or a report from the appellant also yes
start with the staff report Okay Let's start with the staff report and then we'll have the appellant and then the applicant or the property owner that as well
Also mayor we received some new comments While we were in closed session. I would like one minute at some point to find those comments
You should receive those and they should be at your on your dais Towards the end there's I think they're in the air. They're an order in which they came in
Yeah. Well, are they in the order of the? So where is I want to see the one from
I think it's towards the back, the last two pages. So thank you Mayor, Council Members. I'll just give you a brief overview and then we have the appellant as well as the property owner here to speak on the item. This is an appeal of a Planning Commission decision to uphold an exemption request granted by the Commission to the REACH Code, formerly the REACH Code now the Clean Energy Ordinance of the Ojai Municipal Code regarding a single family residence as well as an ADU on a currently vacant lot at 401 East Topatopa Street.
What this boils down to is I denied the exemption request on October 6th of 2022, that was then appealed six days later by Mr. Scott Chessey. The director's decision appeal was heard before the Planning Commission at three separate meetings and continued at two of those meetings. The reason for the continuances was to provide the property owner an opportunity to further refine his argument. The argument presented for hardship as defined by section 9-1.1009B of the Ojai Municipal Code states, if an applicant believes the circumstances exist that make it a hardship or infeasible to meet the requirements of the article they can request an exemption which is what Mr. Scott Chesse had done and in applying for an exemption the burden lies with the applicant to provide proof of hardship or infeaibility Mr.
Chasse provided evidence of this hardship presented in the form of a solar exemption or evaluation through California Solar Electric, this was his first piece that provided illustrative evidence that the effective annual solar access for this property would be less than what's referred to as 70% or greater of the output of an unshaded photovoltaic array. That's annually. What this means is Mr. Chasse was not required to install solar or solar panels as the effective solar access would be less than 80 continuous square foot on the roof, which according to state law is grounds for an exemption for solar panels.
Now, staff myself denied this exemption request based on this evidence because though the state is no longer requiring Mr. Chassé or Scott Chassé to install solar that does not mean the applicant is prohibited from installing solar thus Mr. Chassé would still be more than capable to gain valuable cost savings in the long run and utilizing a solar installation for their property Overall, PC came to the conclusion or Planning Commission came to the conclusion to continue this matter with the first initial appeal. To allow the appellant, or the applicant in this case now, property owner, to provide more evidence to further support his claim for an exemption.
Let's call it another bite at the apple. Mr. Chasse brought forward appliance comparisons between electric and gas that equated to about $160 a month With that, the Planning Commission's decision to uphold Mr. Chassé's appeal were on three points by the Planning Commission. The first is, as I'd mentioned, there was an approximately $161 increase in utility costs that Mr. Chassé had identified within his information.
The second was the need for housing and new units coming online, and how expensive the Commission recognized this as a cognizant need in order to reduce that cost. And then the third was protecting the existing trees on-site. Now, Mr. Comey then appealed the Planning Commission's decision which was made on September 20th. His appeal came in on October 3rd. He has prepared a PowerPoint presentation with this and And in doing so, staff as a part of this report has prepared two resolutions. The first resolution is denying the appeal upholding staff's denial for the exemption request. The second is granting the request which would then be siding with planning commission determination.
1:01 – 1:0620 turns
Okay any questions from council?
I have a question. So in speaking with Chair Quillacy about this topic, he mentioned that the applicants first, I guess his permit submissions that they came in before the original reach codes were established in 2020? Is that correct? That's not correct. Because I wanted to clarify that because I was looking and it didn't look like that
No, they didn't. It did go to Planning Commission I believe at the end of 2020. I want to say it was probably December and then building permits came in probably maybe four months after that. Three or four months after that in the spring.
Great, thank you. And one other question. I attended one of the Planning Commission meetings where this applicant was there and it seemed to me that there was a conflation between the California hardship exemptions and our own Reach Code hardship exemptions Meaning the solar panels are not part of our reach code exemptions, but they're part of California's solar all-electric codes. Is that
correct? It is kind of a confusing piece and it's part of the original appeal that came forward which was because of the vegetation that's already on site there's several mature elms that are on site Because of the number of mature trees that are on site, it becomes a shading issue, which means there's not as much square footage on the roof for which you could put solar on.
The 80-square foot technical piece that I was just talking about is really getting to the crux of that. Apparently within state law, which is different than what we've got here. There's a requirement for any new construction to have solar on the roof. You're required to have that but there's exemptions to that and this is one of those pieces you've got to show justification. That's typically done through a third party and he's done that here
Thank you very much.
Can you just clarify what, I had similar questions of Councilwoman Lange. Did you say that Mr. Chassie?
Scott Chassie
yes. That he applied the appeal was under the new reach code. The
appeal is under the old reach code Not the Clean Energy Code or the Clean Energy Ordinance. When this appeal came in, came forward we were still under Reach Code. That's how long this appeal has been going on for since 2022.
And he can only apply. The only way he can get an exemption is to show hardship. He can't get an exemption because he's worried that the electric you know grid will fail and he wants to have a gas option. He can't. The only exemption exists is for financial hardship. That's correct right?
Hardship.
Yeah hardship.
Or infeasibility, correct?
Right. Two reasons. Hardship and feasibility exemption, correct?
Yeah. I did have a question it seemed to me like there was also conflation I like that term That there are rules that apply through the California Energy Commission that require a program to be shown to be cost effective. But that is not a standard that applies to our reach code even even the last iteration. Is that correct?
That's the city's position, yes. The REACH Code can exist independent of California Energy Commission review and in fact the California Energy Commission so stated the first time when the REACH code was adopted, that they did not need to review and approve it. And the city's position is the same as true for the current second Clean Energy Code which is not an issue in this appeal but it's worth noting for the record.
Right so there is no requirement to show that the use of electricity in this application would be as cost-effective as the use of natural gas
Correct not for the ordinance. Yeah, and then the council can consider the hardship request as to under the exemption But there's no requirement for cost-effectiveness to be part of the ordinance Okay,
okay all right well we will move on to the appellants presentation dr. Steve colony
1:06 – 1:238 turns
James if I could have you pull up the PowerPoint yes Thank You
And before you start my timer, I'd like to ask for some additional time to the 10 minutes that was scheduled for this. I'm responding to three separate meetings of the Planning Commission and some very detailed almost wonkish issues And the presentation I have, I'm gonna have to just race through it and not get to the end in 10 minutes. So I don't know if I can have additional time. I can skip over some items.
I appreciate the setup here.
Council? How much time? How much more time would you like?
Another five minutes will allow me not
to... Another five minutes is fine with me.
Staff would recommend that we give the same amount to the property owner.
Of course, okay
So Thanks for the for the introduction and some of the questions What we're about today I want to say what we're not about and this is something of a surprise We're not about trees This issue is not about trees This issue is not about solar panels and this issue is also not about re-litigating our reach code, either the original one which Mr. Chazet is operating under or our more stringent revised version of a reach code. So the only question before you tonight it's a dichotomous question did the property owner at 401 East Topatopa show tangible evidence For either infeasibility or hardship in complying with the code I'm going to assert that the answer to that is no so that the builders request for exemption should be denied and the community development director Clear evident clear written denial should be upheld So next slide please And again, I will go through this quickly In terms of the two issues, hardship and infeasibility, this is feasible because it's a brand new construction.
And we'll see that that's cleared off ground and he can certainly build it. It's all electric. This is an important point. Mr. Chauvet does not have a personal hardship In fact, he's navigated the regulatory loopholes to increase his profit on the project by tens of thousands of dollars. Absolutely the opposite of a builder hardship. An attempt was made then because he didn't have a hardship and he wasn't going to claim a personal builder's hardship. He then attempted to construct what I'll call a very crude utility cost model And argue that future tenants of his would suffer hardships due to utility costs.
That model is entirely erroneous and how it was that it slipped through the Planning Commission all the way to the end, I have no idea. Therefore there is neither a hardship nor an infeasibility and the builder's request for an exemption should in fact be denied. Next picture please. This is a picture from Google of the property as of this April. I don't think that's when he did his solar analysis, I don't know for sure, I'm not sure when that occurred but that looks to me like he cleared off and trimmed enough trees I'm And I have to tell you that I spent a career building and criticizing complex mathematical, physical and statistical models. And I can't call this a model. So he based it on appliance efficiency and utility costs. That's fair enough.
His entire case rests on this model that he built applying to what he called a hardship for his tenants. Now it's not even clear that he has standing to represent his tenants in this case and claim hardship for them, but then he takes his own house, a 2,500 square foot home, he applies utility costs that he incurred to homes that are 1,650 and 900 square feet? That's a first question. He then uses his own personal electric charges for January of 2023. The months matter here. And he used his gas bill for March of 2023.
I don't know. I think we have short memories because I recall there was a lot of groaning about the gas cost last winter to heat homes, doubling in price. Why did he pick March? Because it was lower and his whole model is based upon that shifting sand. And one month of utility data does not a model make. If you're talking about utility costs, you should be talking about at least a year worth of data. I mean there's no energy analyst that would accept that.
So other things like utility provider rate options, time of use and stuff so forth. They all matter and the way in which you construct that in your model will determine whether or not gas or electric is more expensive. The thing I will say about Mr. Chazet's model is that he did everything he could to exaggerate the cost of electricity and to diminish the cost of gas. and to put appliances in that were not going to be most meaningful to his tenants. So the model then also grossly overestimated appliance use, it looks like his kitchen is used as a commercial kitchen And it's not based on any standard assumptions that either the California Energy Commission, the Department of Energy or any other standard references. It's absolutely meaningless.
So if the builder was actually concerned about the utility costs of his clients he could have and should have chosen more efficient electric appliances. There's something I may or may not get time to get to this with heat pumps, but there's a certain magic in a heat pump that we ought to know about. So then what does he end up concluding? And it went all the way through the last session of the planning commission was that he calculated that there would be $161 a month surcharge to each of his tenants for having electric appliances What we have on our committee, we've got actually two professional engineers who all work in the energy arena.
Took a look at all of Mr. Chazet's assumptions, rolled back what the Department of Energy says is normal utilization of these appliances and came up again using Mr. Chazet's inputs that this $161 was actually $25 a month. That $25 dollars a month, by selecting more efficient appliances would itself disappear and could be reversed. So there is no there-there. There is no cost surcharge to the tenants.
I'll also mention too Yeah, higher efficiency appliances would have totally canceled out any gas cost advantage. And there's a rate change that the legislature has enacted. It's going to change the amount of fixed charge that's put on to bills. One thing that will do is it will actually make it slightly more expensive for the mixed use model that Mr. Chazet is proposing That law has passed.
It will be implemented sometime this summer, so there really is no there-there. Mr. Chazet does not have a hardship. His tenants do not have discernible hardships and the point is that he actually has control over that. He could put on solar And one thing that I consider a point of dishonesty is the way in which Mr. Shisei navigated the system. So he's not putting solar on, but he's not telling you that he saved tens of thousands of dollars by not doing that.
He's not telling you that he saves thousands of dollars by not having to put gas plumbing inside of his house. He suggested that he wouldn't have to pay anything for his service line and his meter because the gas company was going to put that in for him. That's not true, they charge for that. And the planning commission was focused on was it going to be an excess charge of $2,000 or $8,000 capital cost to build an all-electric facility?
That just all disappears. It's hogwash, it's nonsense and I'm sorry to be so direct and blunt but that's what I've been paid to do my entire life and I think that we have to come to the truth. I don't, I'm not sure where I am on time. You're at 10 minutes right now. Okay, so next slide please. Let's talk about appliances and appliance choices. So Mr. Chazet tells us He can't, it's gonna be tough for him to put a heat pump water heater in the ADU because he has to spend $5,000 to encase that in an adequate space.
Not true, simply not true. There are shed enclosures because the one thing you have to do with a heat pump is you have to have air circulation and if you've got a closet And he could work with the heat pump manufacturer and identify an appropriately sized closet that would, this is galvanized steel. Completely appropriate for the application. You can also vent a heat pump water heater so he could be drawing his incoming air from a hot attic and he could be spilling the cold air outside into the ambient And so there really is no reason why a heat pump can't be used. Now, the magic of a heat pump is that it actually is more than 100% efficient.
It's 200, 300, 400, 500, it's the magic of physics because what you're doing is extracting Heat from the environment and putting that in. So for every one dollar of electricity in an efficient heat pump, you can get five dollars worth of hot water if you choose to put in highly efficient appliances. Mr. Shazay did not. He chose minimum standards. He also was concerned about outdoor applications. There is another heat pump made by a Canadian manufacturer available here. The condenser is outside, it's in the upper right-hand corner. It's essentially a mini split so that makes the noise, it does the compression, it does the cooling and it pushes it into tanks that are stainless steel tanks they have a longer lifetime than your normal hot water heater It's a little bit more expensive, but again incredibly efficient.
Mr. Shize was also concerned about the minimum temperatures for efficiency. That particular unit is rated down to minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Next slide, so we'll talk about the standard heat pump and Ojai. This is a chart of our temperature profile over the course of a year. The type of heat pump water heater that he was looking at and complaining would have to use the rod, resistance rod in order to do the heating is one that starts to become inefficient at about 40 degrees Fahrenheit minimum daily temperature. So if you look at that blue curve, it's the minimum daily temperature. There are a number of us who have heat pump water heaters. We've got them programmed on heat pump year round and we've never ever turned on the electric resistance heat.
It's not needed in Ojai. All right next slide. I'll go through these quickly. In each case, there were better appliances that he could have selected. He did not pick a heat pump dryer. There's a heat pump dryer. There are washer-dryer combinations which are really appropriate for small Properties like ADUs, those and you notice what the total annual expected energy consumption is. The combined washer dryer it's 136 kilowatt hours per year. I think he was estimating that he would be using that much energy every week as part of his overestimation of the impacts. And then, so the next slide at the risk of entering a culture war issue I just want to point out that one of the discoveries in the last year was a group of engineers at Stanford were going around measuring residences on the east and west coast And they ended up finding, and it's actually not surprising when you think about it that the valves on our residential stoves are not like industrial valves.
They are leaking continuously. There's gas pressure on the other side. That gas pressure is constantly pushing out small amounts of pipeline gas which is contaminated with benzene. The Stanford engineers calculated that In an average house, that's probably Scott's 2,500 square foot house. People are exposed to concentrations of benzene that would be equivalent to living with a smoker. Secondhand exposure to a carcinogen.
When you reduce the size to a 900 square foot house it's like living with three smokers in the house. So I think that bell was 15 minutes right? So I will stop it there. There's actually more to say including some really interesting information on affordable housing
1:23 – 1:337 turns
Thank you very much, Steve Thanks Steve all right now we will hear from the property owner mr. Chasse
Good evening Where was he at the Planning Commission meetings?
Yes, that was my question.
Hello? Where was he at the Planning Commission meetings? He wasn't there if you watched him and stuff he had a chance to voice his opinions there none of this stuff Was vetted by staff which all my stuff was vetted by staff everything he's talking about as far as Which appliances I chose is there. There, I was asked by the Planning Commission to choose like for like wasn't to get the most expensive stuff he's talking about is very expensive.
These are two small rentals in Ojai. They're not some expensive thing. They're 900 square feet and 1,600 square feet. Semi-affordable housing right downtown Ojai. And anyway, I don't know what that was all about but good evening Mayor Sticks and city council members. My name is Scott Chassez. I've lived in Ojai for approximately 40 years. I love Ojai and do advocate for a cleaner planet I'm here to address Mr. Colame's allegations of me being misleading to the Planning Commission.
I've explored the incentives that Mr. Colame suggested in his letter to the Planning Commission and in his appeal. These incentives are mostly tailored towards existing homes, not new construction. I've been to the Planning Commission three separate times to address my case for a gas meter at 401 East Topatopa. My engagement with the Planning Commission has been extensive.
They kept sending me back to do more research and clarification. We all worked really hard on this for over a year now, with our collective efforts involving myself, Planning Commission and staff In the end, the Planning Commission was unanimous 4-0 in granting me the appeal. My case falls under the City of Ohio's original Reach Code Ordinance 911. It is important to note that my situation pertains to this version and not the current reach code.
The ordinance Includes provisions for exceptions, exemptions and a hardship consideration. Just a reminder reach codes by law must be cost effective. Now when Mr Summers explained his what he said? He wasn't explaining it right because he was referring to ordinance 918 which stuck. Out the sentence that says that the reach code was invalid until Approved by the commission whoever needs to approve them Which is questionable?
So So I'm seeking an exemption for hardship my hardship is There are many mature beautiful trees that prevent me from having enough solar exposure To make it cost-effective. I have submitted a letter to the city of Ojai and from California Solar Electric stating that there is less than the mandatory amount of sun exposure to offset the cost of all electric.
So by state law, I'm exempt from mandatory solar and I have all of the evidence here if anybody wants to see it. This will result in higher electricity costs which everybody was just talking about $161 a month which vetted by staff This is what all the back and forth was about. They wanted to make sure the appliances were like-to-like, not some fancy $5,000 heat pump that's gonna increase the cost of the building.
It's very expensive to build a house as I'm finding out. This will result in higher energy costs for both the renters and myself following extensive research It is expected that there will be an additional $161 per month, per unit. These figures are conservative and have been vetted by staff. I believe this as a heightened cost is substantial especially with the current housing crisis and Ojai needs for affordable housing.
The California Public Communities Commission also approved a 13% customer rate hike, which will increase electricity bills by an estimated 30 to $35 per household for energy bills, for electricity bills. For all of California this increase will take effect January 1st 2024. This is easy to look up and anybody can do it. This would impose an additional financial burden and would increase the electric bill to approximately $190 per month more, per unit.
And even more for the larger unit. In addition, construction tasks will be more expensive. Approximately $2,500 for electric appliances, $5,500 for a water heater enclosure, not building a 10 water heater enclosure. required by manufacturer which brings a total to $8,000 more construction costs. In summary I urge the City Council consider three crucial points to holding up the Planning Commission's decision option B.
First acceptance of acceptance to the legal requirements that reach codes must be cost-effective state law The broader goal of enhancing affordability in Ojai, there's a lot of emphasis put on builders to make more affordable housing and bring rates down. The city can prevent this financial burden if an extra $190 per month per unit and keep Ojai more affordable. These numbers have been vetted by staff, we went through it that's why we worked on so hard that's what they were stuck on.
Third the understanding is that the decision will not set a precedent for any future cases under new reach code ordinance, the new clean reach code you guys passed. For two reasonably affordable homes $190 extra per month, per unit is a significant increase. When it comes down to it, it's really about the trees and I think Ojai takes great value in their trees and so do I.
I don't know why they would put an exemption in the ordinance if you don't intend to use them. It is really about the trees. In the beginning, it was always about the trees I wasn't willing to cut the trees down so I could have better solar. So, I'm asking the city for a little help. Mr. Colmay's remarks about me cherry picking is not accurate. I have gas bills and electric bills for the last two months and I have the gas bill that I submitted to the Planning Commission.
The gas is cheaper now and electric is more It's all marked on my gas bills are right here. Anybody can look at it? And that's the trend supply and demand. I don't mean this in a bad way, but when people say we all have to do something about climate emergency, I agree. But I take slight issue with that statement because in this room today that is being asked to take action.
I'm not contesting the Reach Code, I'm following it. At some point we need to make a decision What is more environmentally, what is a more environmental impact? Cutting the trees down or allowing me to have a few gas appliances. With that I'll take any questions.
Thank you Mr. Chastang. Thank you we now the appellant will have three minutes to reply and then you'll have three more minutes after that
okay
thank you
1:33 – 1:4226 turns
Can we ask Appellant a question as
well? Go ahead, Steve. Why don't
we re-cue up my presentation because that'll actually end up being helpful if we can do that.
James.
And move forward to pass the last slide that I gave. Cueing it now. Is he able to pull that up?
It looks like he's on it,
if I just take a moment. Okay. So actually, I'll go ahead and start my time here. There are a couple of interesting things that I did want to point out in terms of a recent article in Consumer Reports. James, can
you pull up the presentation?
Keep moving ahead, I'll let you know when to stop. Another go keep going yeah stop right there for a moment okay consumer reports this is the November-December issue of Consumer Reports they evaluated over 135 gas slide in gas ranges that's an oven range top combination Look at their number one choice, 94 points on Consumer Reports scale is an induction range. They said this isn't just the best induction range we've seen it's the single best range in our ratings period.
The single best now it's $2,700 there is an $800 unit that is also highly rated that's at lows right now that could be bought and sort of fits in with the price scale that he's looked at. So move forward again a couple of slides? I do want to say on methane, one of the key issues is methane tends to leak. It's the smallest organic molecule we have. It leaks at the wellhead and it leaks all the way to the consumer use. And it has a global warming potential of 86 times that of CO2. So the fact that we're producing fossil fuels and continuing to do so, we've got to wind that down. We've got to wean ourselves off of gas. I know in the last couple of presentations Scott said he loved gas! Who doesn't love gas? Well you know what? We can't as a society if we care about our children and our grandchildren's future We cannot love gas.
We've really got to get ourselves off of gas. So next slide, Mr. Chazet. This is the affordable housing slide and I will back up again after that. There's a group called Redwood Energy And I have actually been in communication with Sean Armstrong, who is their CEO. They have built 20,000 units of zero net energy all electric affordable housing and then only 1% market rate 200 market rate houses they are reported to have produced half of the zero net energy residences in California. And one of the projects is this Yarrow Village in Montana, 25-unit affordable housing project for low income seniors about $16, $17 a month for one bedroom. Thank you Steve, I'm going to have to
cut you off there
but thank
you. We'll hear from Mr. Chausse now and
we'll have time
for questions.
I'll just emphasize that this is a very detailed issue. I think you can see it's complicated I still have not gotten into all of the misstatements that Mr. Chazet made with the plan. Thank you, thank you Steve, thank you.
But I didn't get to ask him a question. Let's have the... But I want to ask you... Mayor and
Council if I can make
a
suggestion. I want to ask a question. Mayor Pro
Tempore can
we hear from the City Attorney
please? My suggestion would be to also give Mr. Chazet the same four minutes to rebut, then take questions and then take of either Mr. Chassé or Mr. Colomay and then hear from any other members of the public who wish to speak.
Okay thank you Matt all right Mr. Chassé
Say I'm just trying to say something that you know the stoves he's picking out and stuff. I mean we're not in the you know, I mean what? We don't think anybody should be picking out which appliances we use it's not mandated by law which appliances we use. I would use the one that was most Cost-effective for both, for the renters and for me. This isn't something that I'm always going to rent out. I plan on living in it myself. He went from a $2,700 stove to an $800 stove but he didn't explain that that $800 stove was going to be more expensive to run than the $2700 stove.
Everything he says is his own opinion and opinion of someone else. It's not proven. That's what we worked on for a year and a half. They wanted to see evidence, they wanted me to do apples-to-apples comparison-to comparison not some fantasy thing about you know what we could do if we started from the beginning I came in really late all my plans were Almost just missed the reach code by a couple months, Lucas just said.
But there is an exemption in there for hardship and I think it's for sure no matter what anybody says or what's put in there, it's still gonna increase the rents by $190 a month. It was $161 a month that they had vetted It was more than that, but I had to come down. And now it's going to go up because the Energy Commission is going to raise the electricity rate by 13% January 1st.
So when you say it's not a hardship for me, I mean, is it a hardship? Is it a hardship for the renters and we're gonna try to keep the rents down a little bit? It will be a hardship someday if I move into it But no matter what comes out of this, whether I grant the people extra money per month because they have to pay a little more money because it's all electric.
It comes out of my pocket as Mr. Colame suggests. That's not real life. Real life is people are going to forget in a year. And the renters are going to pay what they pay. They're going to pay that electricity bill every single month, and it's going to go up. I guarantee you electricity is going to go up as soon as the gas—I know there's a big push for the gas, and I'm not against it.
It's just in my situation not being able to have the solar And saving the trees, it's gonna put an extra cost burden. There's nobody in this room that can tell me that electricity is cheaper than gas. We all grew up with it. We all know electricity is more and you think that these housing units that they're gonna build are gonna put $2,700 induction ovens at them?
No way! Renters will take cast iron pans and scrape those tops the very first day they're in there They're not gonna do that. This is reality. Sorry.
Thank you, Mr. Chaucey. All right, any questions from council? Yes. For either person? Mayor Pro Tem.
I have a question of the appellant. Where are you? I can't see him. Dr. Colomay, so Dr. Steve Colomay as you know I respect your vast knowledge on this topic and I also watched or attended the Planning Commission hearings and I think everyone is wondering why didn't you speak up at the Planning Commission because in a way it's another one of these unfortunate situations where it's like we're trying to make an example out of someone I mean, there's an aspect of this that I'm very uncomfortable with. This is someone who has lived in Ojai Valley almost 50 years. He's a very reputable, known as an ethical, conscientious builder.
And you're accusing him of cherry picking and screwing up the data. And I don't have the background to vet all that at this moment, but I do wish that you had brought up these questions in fairness at the Planning Commission. I
1:42 – 1:5714 turns
did. I sent written notices in several times and I think that from what I could see going on at the dais, I believe that Trent was actually looking at reading it that material. I think one of the problems with this whole process is Very often the detailed written material does not get read and adjusted. So it's the people who come up here and spew, you know, the groupies that you have here who speak for three minutes that get the audience and that's not what I did.
two, maybe three times in substantive information indicating the things that I'm claiming. And I think one of the things that happened is that Mr. Chauvet is a very charming person, you know appears to be a nice person. I don't know him. I would like to say in the third meeting he did not present any new evidence. He continued twice in order to come up with a rationale for either hardship or infeasibility. He re-presented the same evidence that he had presented in the last two, the previous two meetings and I think there was a groupthink process by Planning Commission at the end of that. Everybody expressed doubts about moving forward but decided let's just give it to him and there was no real strong rationale for doing so. And yes, I'm accusing him Exaggerating of giving misinformation and being wrong.
I'm You know, that's what I do as a scientist. I try to speak the truth Thank you.
Thank you Steve. All right any other questions before we move on a public comment? comes from relying
so I actually have a question for For Lucas. Yeah So I just first of all, I want to appreciate ≫ Thank you. I appreciate all that you have been through, but I wanted to hear just a little bit from your perspective about in your denial of the hardship exemption because really this is about the planning commission's opinion and your opinion. And so I thought maybe you could explain
Yeah, so there's two pieces to this. The first piece is talking about the solar and the solar was really what was discussed in the very first meeting. Towards the end of that meeting, there began this shift to something else. Go out and find something else that's more of a hardship than what we're looking at right now. So it's pretty straightforward that the first piece, which is a part of the denial. It's the reason why I denied it.
This code section gives me authority to do it. I don't like it. But in doing that, I have an obligation and a duty. That then goes directly to Planning Commission. It is expressly identified within the code. That was pretty straightforward. I don't think the commission at that time saw any issues with that, which is the reason why there was a pivot to the piece that we've really been spending a lot of time on, which is the reason for the two-three meeting discussion that the Planning Commission had. And just to be fair with appeals, I've done appeals over the years in my 20 plus years This is the first appeal where I've ever had, where we continue an appeal at nausea to a certain degree in order to find a solution.
Which was a little confusing to me because my rationale from the very beginning has been Where is that hardship that exists? Scott's correct. Did we vet this out? Yes, because when he came in with the information at the very beginning, he was not comparing appliances that were apples to apples. They were apples to oranges. So we got to a space where there was apples to apples in terms of appliances. We have staff that have worked in the retail industry, that understand the comparison there but that's as far as it went. In terms of doing the deeper dive which is what Steve has identified Staff didn't go that far.
Staff wasn't identified that we were going to go that far when we were directed to a certain degree by Planning Commission, it was make sure that we're looking at something that is comparable in terms of the electric versus the gas. So when we looked at that I still don't, even to this very moment hearing both are, I still don't see the hardship. There are examples of projects right now that are doing all electric single family as well as multifamily So in terms of this example, I mean these are taken on a case by case scenario. So there could be an example in the future where someone comes forward and we evaluate it and we say this is a hardship for the following reasons. I don't see that here.
Okay. All right, well we will go ahead and open the public hearing.
Excuse me I have a quick question for the city attorney. So we're talking about the first reach code. We're not talking about the second and I don't know and could use an update on the status of the lawsuit against or the status of the lawsuit that is pending on the Reach Code, the second one. In other words does it have any applicability? So what we're deciding here for instance if something were to you know we know that there's a problem with unless it's been resolved and that's my question to you where what is the status of the lawsuit that I think Berkeley is involved in with the Reach Code that is very similar to ours although we never really did a deep dive into what the difference was Has that been resolved and does it have any, would it have any applicability in this particular instance?
So my question then becomes as we know there is a liability issue with that if it hasn't been resolved. Is there any issue here that we need to talk about in that manner?
The Berkeley case is still pending. As a recap for folks, in earlier this year in April of May of 23rd filed April April of 23 the Ninth Circuit ruled in California Restaurant Association versus City of Berkeley that Berkeley's reach code ordinance similar to the city's that prohibited natural gas piping violated federal law protecting energy from local preemption as part of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act That was a decision by a panel of the Ninth Circuit, a three-judge panel.
The City of Berkeley has filed a petition for rehearing on Bonk that was filed in May of 23 and is still pending. Meek and Spruce were filed as late as August and it's still pending at the Ninth Circuit so there is a ruling in place against Berkeley but it does not Directly apply to the city because we are not a part of that case and there's been no No 9th Circuit wide injunction issued or something like that. That case is California Restaurant Association in Berkeley Berkeley's petition for rehearing on bonk is still pending not yet decided We're monitoring the cases see where that goes so we're not directly under Any court order to not enforce either the old or the new reach codes?
We have this we have similar vulnerability If the Ninth Circuit panel's decision survives the Ninth Circuit process, but we're still waiting on the en banc decision whether the court does or does not grant en banc review and does or does not. If they do grant en banc review then what does that mean in terms of the final outcome there? Plus there is a petition chance for a petition to the Federal Supreme Court and resolution at that level.
OK, so then my question becomes it was the Restaurant Association. But it wasn't just strictly with commercial restaurants or was it? That was that was really what I was trying
to get to. The Restaurant Association brought the case but they are the decision by the Ninth Circuit was in full. It wasn't just about restaurants.
Okay and because we know that, because we've talked about that. Is there any problem with us moving forward knowing that this particular ordinance is in abeyance in the Ninth Circuit which we are under? Right I mean so if there is a ruling for instance where the Ninth Circuit upholds or validates the Restaurant Association's claim And we as a body here know that, and yet we are still enforcing a reach code or a greenhouse gas reduction act that is currently in the courts.
It hasn't been dismissed. In fact it's gonna have to go on appeal in order to be dismissed unless I'm correct. My question is, we know that. We know that there's problems in the courts with this yet if we move forward is that fair? Is that and does it put us in any liability? What happens if it's upheld? And somebody comes back to us and says, well you know, you knew that that was in court. You knew that that was being discussed.
You knew it the whole time yet you required a citizen to do this. Does that put us in any legal liability? Is it something that we need to consider? I mean, I know that ethical is ethical but I also know that legally, you know, we know that It's we can, there's no plausible deniability that we didn't know. So that's my real question is moving forward with a reach code or a greenhouse gas ordinance that is being litigated presently and has been found pending appeal.
They found for the plaintiff, they found for the Restaurant Association that indeed this sort of regulation does stand and sit with the feds not the state. So that's my question to you and that's a big concern of mine because it's in the courts, it's being questioned there's been a decision yet we as a body may decide that well We're not gonna abide by that. You know, that's not relevant to us although it's ninth circuit so it is relevant to us to the extent that it is.
Anyway, that's my question to you. That's my concern and it really has to do with fairness and justice for the citizens since it is being litigated and has been found to be a Fed decision, not a state decision. So that's my question really to you, sorry. I went on and on. I do apologize. If it were me, if it were me... If it were me, I would not be happy about it. I'd say look, it's in the courts and that's where I am.
As I noted, the city is not bound by any court order yet There is no final non-appealable decision that ruled that a reach code is not valid under the federal preemption. A Ninth Circuit panel decision did rule that an ordinance similar to the city's fails against federal law. The question is whether the en banc petition for rehearing is likely to result in a change in that ordinance, which is a matter of predicting the outcome of a Ninth Circuit case.
And if that doesn't happen, does the Federal Supreme Court decide mindful of the changes in the Federal Supreme Court's makeup of recent? Does the Federal Supreme Court decide to overturn the Ninth Circuit and find that a breach code is or is not preempted? One can make predictions based on membership there. So at the moment, we're not bound by any court order because the order from the Ninth Circuit that's pending en banc review only binds Berkeley. It doesn't bind Ojai. We have similar vulnerability however so if the council wanted to take a risk-free choice it would be to suspend enforcement of the Reach Codes either the old or the new pending the outcome of the en banc petition in any federal Supreme Court review. That's the risk free choice.
I'll note some cities around the state have done that I don't have a comprehensive survey of every city that has reach code. Some have done that and suspended it pending or converted it to a preference, not a requirement for all electric. Pending the outcome of the case other cities have decided to see well, let's see what happens with the ninth circuit review and make a decision thereafter So it's not risk-free to move forward with imposing the order than you reach codes It's also a function of if it comes out. The decision comes out positively from the Berkeley petition for rehearing then it would be viable Then this says that we'll be able to benefit from the same arguments.
And as to liability, if the council were to affirm the denial of the exemption request and Mr. Shassea were to litigate I'd expect that he'll use that argument and then we'll be in our own court case and see how that comes out. I'm not sure if he plans to litigate or not. He hasn't threatened that yet but he's thinking about it clearly he's thinking about it.
And the council could always negotiate a settlement there or negotiate a solution I'm not sure that deferring this decision until we hear from the Ninth Circuit is viable because I think the project is under construction and at some point an answer needs to be made there. Yeah,
agreed.
Agreed, I don't think deferring... The council could rely on the Savings Clause in both the old and the new REACH codes that provide that the council does not intend to violate federal law accept the Ninth Circuit's opinion forget the en banc review and find that it would be not a hardship but consistent with federal law not to impose the REACH code That's a choice at the moment as well As the council may choose.
Thank you. I appreciate the clarification Okay, Councilmember
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Whitman
just a quick question. I understand that There's been quite a few entities that have joined in Berkeley's Request for rehearing and including the state of California
I believe that's right. I've got a copy of the docket. I believe this, the Attorney General has joined the request for rehearing along with a number of entities. I don't have the complete list here but I believe the AG has joined along with a whole flurry of amici in the process.
And under the factual circumstances there is no It's not a situation where you just take the Berkeley decision in and say this, your use of the Reach Code is invalidated. It would
require a whole... I mean if it were to be applied to the city we'd have to be litigated.
Right.
Certainly a trial court is going to consider the 9th Circuit's decision but so too will they consider whether they however that comes out of the en banc process. Okay thanks
Okay, we will go ahead and open the public hearing. First we have Larry Steingold then Michelle Ellison and then Allison
Stillmore. Larry Steingold, resident. I was at the planning meeting and occasionally I do spew and occasionally I am a groupie and I present it for everybody here because we're all groupies at one point or another so thank you. I'm more concerned that the state in its wisdom gave mandated solar power And they said, great everybody's going to have solar. And he said I'll do solar but then it turns out that he really can't do solar because there are trees and the trees are there because the city and the county in the state of California view them as wonderful items.
And I think to me that's the basic of it if we can't have solar they're all gonna have electric and everybody wants us to have solar so our bills will be less and we'll have more secure power Well, have them cut down the trees. I don't know the claimant. I also don't know the appellate. But agree with him to cut their trees down or tell him to cut the trees down and then he can have solar and then he can do all electric. It makes it so simple.
Otherwise, it's a hardship. They're all going to be electric and they won't have solar. They're going to have to pay retail and it is affordable housing and that's what you want right? You want affordable housing. Well, to make it affordable, you have to have lower utility bills and that's why they're mandating on electric and solar but he can't have solar. So cut him some slack.
Thank you Larry. Next we have Michelle Ellison then Allison Stillmar and then Bill Miley.
Good evening, I'm Michelle Ellison a resident of Ojai and on the Climate Committee. So this should be a very straightforward decision and that is to uphold the Community Development Director's determination that the builder be subject to an all-electric ordinance and denied an exemption. To do otherwise compromises the integrity of our city's code which took many years of council time volunteer time staff time to develop that ordinance so we should really be upholding that code and sets precedent that anyone that doesn't like the law can just choose not to follow it So to summarize, the builder has failed to demonstrate evidence meriting an exemption. He cannot reasonably claim infeasibility or hardship either for himself or his future tenants.
All electric new construction avoids thousands of dollars in gas infrastructure costs. The builder could pass along those cost savings to his tenants. If the builder isn't required to comply with the state's solar requirements because of tree shading, then he is also avoiding tens of thousands of dollars in solar costs. Savings which he could also pass along to his tenants. If he ends up installing solar, which we don't know for sure whether or not he actually has total shade coverage or a percentage that he could still use the solar for, that would lower the electric utility cost for his tenants.
And I'm hearing a lot of tree discussion. I've not heard anyone that I'm aware of suggesting that he cut down trees for solar, so let's just make that clear. I'm not certainly advocating for that. Ojai's all-electric requirement for new buildings applies regardless of whether or not solar is installed. The builder has conflated the state's solar requirements with the city's all electric ordinance when they're totally separate and distinct.
Utility rates are complex and fluctuate based on the data and various studies, these are economic rigorous studies available regarding electricity and gas rates. All electric buildings do not have significantly higher utility costs as a builder is claiming. And electricity costs are lowered when higher efficiency appliances are used. Gas prices have been increasing at higher rates than electricity prices.
Electric heat pump appliances are three to five times more efficient than their gas counterparts, which means they use significantly less energy. So even if electricity at some point costs a little bit more than gas per unit you're using fewer units so that increased efficiency leads to cost savings The builder's preference to use gas isn't grounds to merit an exemption, nor is his attempt to claim potential future financial hardship for his tenants which isn't based on any rigorous analysis of utility rates, energy efficiency of appliances, avoided infrastructure costs etc. His analysis is flawed and misleading.
There are various electrification rebates and tax credits available so I'd encourage the builder to look in to see what he might qualify for Gas use in buildings is a major source of emissions in Ojai. The all-electric new build requirement reduces emissions here. For California to meet its clean energy targets, we need to get off gas. It doesn't make sense to put a new gas infrastructure and appliances that will become obsolete creating stranded assets and adding more emissions.
Methane gas is a health hazard. The toxic pollutants put occupants at increased risk of developing asthma, other respiratory diseases and certain... Gas driving climate change and it's critical that we get off fossil fuels. The health and safety of our children is at stake. Disadvantaged communities and children and grandchildren are the ones who are going to be incurring exponentially greater
hardship
from unmitigated climate breakdown.
Thank you. Next we have Allison Stillmar, then Bill Miley and then William Wyrick.
2:03 – 2:104 turns
So I'm a resident of Ojai, just recently moved back. I lived in Ojai for 20 years and attended a future of water forum at the Ojai Valley Inn back in 2015. I don't know if anybody here attended that or not. It was one of the most frightening things I've ever heard. And learned a lot about water and how precious water is, and it inspired me to want to go on a quest to live in a place that had more water.
So I sold my house in Ojai moved to Santa Rosa in 2016 And in 2017, my neighborhood was gutted by fire and I left at two o'clock in the morning with my cat and my dog and nothing else. And was away from the neighborhood and came back to a war zone and 10,000 homes were lost in that fire. And I know the following year Ojai went through similar, didn't lose as many homes but said okay so now where do I go? Where do I find water? And I moved to Tennessee. I moved to Nashville, have friends in the music business and moved to Nashville. Thought okay great it rains a lot here. The first...I was there for four months and a massive tornado took out East Nashville.
And one month later there was a derecho, which is a once in a century storm. 250 mile wide storm of 85 to 100 mile an hour winds blew through Nashville and took out homes, rooftops, trees. I experienced three more tornadoes in the five years that I lived there. I also went through two rain bombs, one of which in Waverly killed 34 people and another in Nashville killed 8 people.
And I can tell you from personal experience, we are living in a time of climate crisis. What is driving that climate crisis is the use of fossil fuels. So we need to divest from fossil fuels. It is the number one thing all of us can do. I see both sides of the issue here what's happening and what these gentlemen have been talking about And I think that whatever we can do on an individual level to divest of fossil fuels, we all need to take a look at that. We all need to take a stand because our grandchildren will not grow up to be as old as I am if we don't and so that's what I wanted to share with you all tonight. So I'm also thinking maybe a good topic or subject that you all might want to consider is a solar farm for all of the Ojai Valley.
So thank you.
Thank you, Ali. Next we have Bill Miley then William Wyrick and then Nora Harold.
Good evening. For the record my name is Bill Miley. The owner, Scott Chasse, would not be here if there were no tall trees on the west property line on Topatopa. If there were no tall trees he would be building an all-electric home and an ADU. I support the Planning Commission's granting and please deny the appeal. Mr. Collimay wants you to overturn our Citizen-Based Planning Commission's decision 4-0.
The tall trees are the key element here, I repeat. The location is unique in our city It's a relatively narrow parcel east to west, squeezing the built location to a small footprint which allows the tree shadows to quickly cover the area. The appellant dismisses the environmental element exemption of tall trees, which I don't believe is correct. The state allows an exemption for required solar due to tree shadows, and that's what they got.
An established solar vendor concluded that there would be no more than 70% of the potential solar access for this area. Almost half of California's electricity is produced by fossil fuels now. Sources of electricity and their costs should be considered. Energy Information Administration says this. In 2022, renewable sources including hydroelectric power and small-scale customer-sided solar power accounted for 49% of California's in-state electricity.
Natural gas fueled another 42%. House and home rents are unfairly high in our city. Efforts to reduce the rental monthly charges are needed, based on the applicant's written testimony such approval will lower the cost of utility tenants. Fairness exemptions have occurred here in Ojai. In Ventura, South Ventura Street there was a swimming pool and a six-foot fence allowing the front of the property. I would suggest the overall theme here of fairness exemption Property owner fairness and uniqueness is a request of consideration. I urge your council in conclusion to uphold the action of our planning commission and deny the appeal. Fairness should be a factor in your decision. Please consider this unique property and grant it a fairness exemption.
Thank you, Bill. Next we have William Wyrick and then Nora Harold.
2:10 – 2:165 turns
William Warrick of Ojai. I just wanted to, I hope I can add some clarity. I feel like the city attorney's explanation of the Berkeley decision didn't get down to the real core nut issue. So I'm gonna read somebody's, read from somebody's expert discussion of it. The key issue was whether or not the US Energy Policy and Conservation Act preempts local authority.
That's it. The district court said it doesn't. The district court from the Northern District of California substantially only heard about the federal claims asserting preemption and said that the Berkeley Ordinance was not preempted by EBCA, the U.S. Environmental Policy and Conservation Act. The appeals court said you're wrong, yes it does. Specifically that it is preempted by section 6297A of EPCA, which sets conservation standards for many common building appliances such as furnaces etc.
And state and local governments are mostly preempted from setting energy standards for those same pieces of equipment. But it goes on further in this opinion of analysis of what happens if, in fact, the En Blanc Court and the Supreme Court hold that the appeals court decision that you cannot preempt by local building codes the entire EPCA provisions. It says to put it more simply In order to satisfy the building code exception to EPCA preemption, in other words the court said there is a building code exception that shields you under EPA, EPCA presumption. Building codes must offer options for builders to install appliances at pass-muster under EPCAI, for example can be fueled by natural gas and must base these options on a defensible one by one basis.
Here we have a one by one issue And one way to accomplish this is to effectively require builders to build either all electric or with fossil fuels, but to a more stringent efficiency standard. In other words, a global systems approach rather than a simple takeaway choice approach. Set standards that you can meet by different methods, by different circumstances kind of getting to the same end without doing it through the band process. So in order to inoculate or to protect ourselves and perhaps make more sense I would ask the council to consider the core finding of the difference of the district court and the federal court, and the idea of how you can protect yourself from being looked at as preempting EPCA and still pursue your energy efficiency standards as listed in this analysis.
So I just think that's unfortunate that the, I think the staff hasn't presented that key difference or that key focus on the issue to you. Couple other things, well I got two seconds left so goodbye, I'm done.
Okay thank you Bill. Next we have Nora Harold.
Hi everyone, Nora Harold. I live in Miner's Oaks. Ditto Ali Stillman and Michelle Ellison and Stephen Colombe. Ditto. Lucas thank you for your work on this. It seems like it was arduous. Thank you. Everyone here thank you for making the need to move off of fossil fuels a priority So we heard about risk tonight and a concern that there could be litigation, and a risk of litigation.
And I think that our climate emergency is the greatest risk we're facing. If our world is burning nobody's gonna be suing anyone over gas or electric. We like to think that we're forward thinking here in Ojai and I've seen things passed, ordinances passed that show that we are. And I think this is another one of them. And this is partly about accountability. It's about walking our talk.
It saying okay these are the standards that we're gonna set and then we're gonna ask our community to abide by them. This is also, or would at least be also an excellent opportunity for rental disclosure. Because I heard Mr. Chassis say a number of times and others that these are affordable or semi-affordable units yet I have no idea how much the rent is. I don't know what that means. So with rental disclosure passed that can be included in the conversation which informs the public and also helps you all make your decisions.
which I believe is again about accountability and greed, right? That's the other thing. Like we've got such a greed problem. And there are all things we can do to look at our own personal excesses and our own personal greed and make adjustments. And then we could do them on the macro level, and the Reach Code addresses that at least somewhat in asking us to get off of fossil fuels as far as affordable housing and the greed there in our housing.
Boy, that's just gonna take a crash isn't it? That's all it's going to take. And it's coming clearly because we live in a cyclical reality and we've reached our I think our breaking point but that's that's kind of off topic. I just want to get that in there thanks everyone.
Thank you Nora. Any comments online Weston?
Yes Mayor, We have three raised hands on Zoom first we'll have Renee followed by Andrew and then Justin Pennington. Renee you have the floor.
2:16 – 2:2813 turns
Good evening Council. Wow, I just have to say I'm really sorry to have to see Mr chassis go through something like this a year. It looks like punishment for wanting to build some housing in Ojai. I did look at the staff reports, I did go to a planning commission meeting and I went hours and hours and pages of time trying to implement this. It's really to me a sad state of affairs that we can waste so much time, money, and effort Trying to deal in a reasonable way with what everybody is acknowledging, we have a climate emergency. But strapping the backs of early adopters with this kind of process is egregious. It is just embarrassing for me to have to see this happening in our town.
It's really unbelievable that we have people saying you have to and you must for climate sake. And I went over there, how many of you have actually been over to the property? Because Mr. Colomay's first picture is totally misleading. That is not what the trees look like, Mr. Colomay. If that was in April and we had more rain than we've 30 years in this last year, those trees have grown substantially. I was over there and there were shade all day long everywhere. You started out by saying this is not about solar and it's not about trees. I'm sorry but it is about solar and it is about trees. And it's unaffordable to be strapped with all electric appliances when you can't install solar.
That is the financial burden that is not being talked about. I mentioned this when you guys were first passing this, it only makes sense to do all electric breach codes when you can install solar. That's what makes it affordable and if you can't install solar, why punish somebody for trying to build some housing in Ojai? This is a really sad state of affairs That we've come to this in trying to incentivize, you know climate change and climate adaptation. So I really hope that you allow this poor man to build his housing and get his gas lines in there and maybe he'll even add some solar in there as well and make us all happy and electric appliances too. Thank you very much.
Next we have Andrew followed by Justin Pennington and then Erica Helson. Andrew you have the floor? Andrew, are you there? Please unmute.
Sorry about that.
We can hear you please proceed.
Thank you. So this issue reminds me of a sort of foundational legal principle called standing and as the council's got to make a decision here, maybe this is an interesting way to help you guys think about this but basically if somebody wants to be heard in court they have to demonstrate a direct injury, an injury in fact that they will be impacted personally So if a person can't prove that they will be individually and personally harmed, they can't bring an action to hypothetically represent somebody else who may or may not agree with them. And I think that's relevant here because the developer seems to be arguing that his hypothetical tenant may theoretically pay a higher electric bill at some future date and definitely will not want to do so.
But he may be overlooking The fact that his future occupants will be excited to have one of the first all electric gas free residences in town. He's got a unique advantage and then his property will be, you know, one of the first all electric homes and I think there are a lot of people that would be happy to pay a small premium even if that were the case. Anecdotally, I live in a small house and we've changed our gas appliances over to electric and seen reduced bills for doing so.
Additionally as regards the Berkeley litigation when there's controversial issues, there's always going to be appeals. There's always gonna be legal action. And ultimately if everybody is gridlocked Fails or refuses to take action because somebody is suing somewhere and a court might have a change of opinion, we're gonna be stuck and nothing's ever gonna happen.
This reach code does have a savings clause so to the extent that the city is trying to do the right thing. The worst thing that could happen here is we have one more home off of fossil fuels So I'd encourage the Council to go ahead and get this place done all electric. Thanks.
Thank you, Andrew.
Next we have Justin Pennington followed by Erika Helson and then Michelle Pinheiro. Hi good evening council
can you hear me? Yes. Okay hi my name is Justin Pennington i'm an Ojai resident A little background, I'm a professional engineer. I currently work as an energy engineer in which I routinely evaluate and do calculations on the estimated energy usage for appliances and equipment and HVAC systems domestic hot water for homes and commercial spaces so I just want to focus on the hardship exemption And the idea that this all electric construction is going to cost $160 a month more to tenants, compared to a mixed gas electric home.
I reviewed the calculations and found the assumptions that were used to be grossly overstated, and not based on any reasonable usage patterns. So realistically they would be closer to $25 more per unit based on using federal minimum efficiency standards for Energy Star And the, this could even be reduced if we didn't, if we chose to use more efficient maybe playing a little bit more up front you would get more efficient systems and having even less of an impact on the tenants. So Energy Star is a program which you see the stickers on your appliances it shows you how much the appliances are estimated to use on an annual basis Homeowners can understand what their anticipated costs are and compare them to, you know, what they're looking to pay per year.
So realistically like I said the idea that all electric Construction is going to cost that much more to the tenant and result in a hardship. It's just not true. And like I said, I did kind of parallel calculations just to compare and found them to be unreasonable. So that's all I want to say. Thank you.
Thank you, Justin.
Next we have Erica Helson followed by Michelle Pinheiro. Erica, you have the floor?
All right thanks can you hear me?
Yes
Okay, my name is Erica Helson I'm a resident of Ojai. I actually live on the street where this project is to be constructed on East Topatopa Street. And I also live in an all electric home and I am a sustainability professional with a focus All electric buildings. So that's the perspective that I offer here there's a lot of, there's a lot of complexity to this case and there are a lot of points I'd like to make. And I don't know that I'll get through them all but I think I'll just share anecdotally when I was renovating my home.
I worked with my stepfather who's a local builder he grew up in Ojai and has built many homes in the valley, And he definitely tried to talk me out of going all electric with my home. And I think there's just a lot of discomfort with going all electric because it feels really new and different to builders, perhaps for this applicant as well as I know you know he's a kind of contemporary of my stepfather.
They build homes with gas. That's what they've always done, and I think that this shift while I can say living in this home actually feels no different to me than living in a home that has gas. I think it does feel really different for a builder and I just want to say that there are a lot of really helpful resources to aid in this change so for example There is an energy code coach service. It's basically a free hotline, all the questions about the encasement for the water heater. The code coach is a free service for the Tri-County region, Ventura County included that could answer all of the questions about what are the actual requirements for heat pump water heater? Mine is in the middle of my house it's not in any sort of special enclosure.
I know other residents have them in garages so there's lots of options there I'd be happy to share information on the code coach, if that would be a resource. And then I also want to mention there's been a lot of talk about the cost to tenants and their electric bills through the utilities and through Clean Power Alliance. There are special rates if you are low income and can't afford your electricity You can get on CARE, you can get on FERA.
So I think if we're going to argue that people can't afford their electric bills there are other resources that can help if someone is truly burdened and can't afford their electricity. And then with the Berkeley case there are different types of reach codes that you can have Our city is one that could potentially be affected by this Berkeley case, but there are other routes that we could take. We could pass a different sort of breach code if Ojai does believe and I personally believe that we do have to get rid of gas out of our buildings to effectively address climate change. So there are other ways that we could approach this breach code so you know there are ways. Thanks, thank you Erica.
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Last to raise hand we have Michelle Pinheiro. Michelle, you have the floor?
Hi can you hear me all right? Yes. Good evening Mayor and Council Members my name is Michelle Pinheiro and I'm a resident in District 1 and also a member of Ojai's Climate Committee. I'm calling to support the affirming original determination as a Community Development Director and deny the builder of any exemptions Doing the minimum is just no longer an option. And if we're going to meet our shared vision of an equitable and sustainable future, we need to structure our investments and our policies to ensure that resilience and greenhouse gas reduction are engineered into every investment, every building, every business, every project everywhere for everyone. And when I say shared vision, I do mean that because every one of you on that dais ran on a platform that included taking climate change seriously Miss Rule, during your campaign one of your aims was preparing for the future by addressing the realities of climate change now.
You also made mention of being halfway through electrifying your own home which I think is a real testament to your belief in the science that clearly states that we need to move away from fossil fuel dependency now. Miss Lang you said if elected you'll work with your council colleagues and Climate Committee and city staff to rapidly draw down our town's greenhouse gas emissions?
And Mr. Whitman, when you all unanimously passed the greenhouse gas reduction code in February of this year, you looked directly at Michelle Ellison's young daughter and said I don't want to make a vote that will negatively impact your daughter's future. Mayor Sticks and Council Member Francina, I think your records and years of service tackling environmental issues speaks volumes and I hope tonight will be a continuation of that commitment.
Fossil fuels seem cheap, and yes we all grew up with them but we know now that their market prices don't reflect their true cost. In reality they are remarkably expensive and we pick up those costs via climate damages as illustrated by Allison in her testimony earlier and other health effects. Emissions from residential and automobiles are the two biggest contributors to our valley's greenhouse gas emissions and this is our chance to divest now The time to act is now and I hope your decisions tonight reflect your responsibility to ensuring a sustainable and livable Ojai, not only for us now but for future generations at this valley. We are all counting on your leadership and this is why your constituents voted for you. I hope you don't let us down.
Thank you
Thank you, Michelle. That's all Mayor. Okay we will close the public hearing and move on to council discussion. Who would like to begin?
I'm going to start. I did vote for the Reach Code and I do believe in getting rid of gas but I also believe that in the end the law is what rules. I have found that to be the case For me, it is a matter of fairness and justice when the law is in dispute and is in the courts and is at the point where it has been decided against. And it is indeed does the Fed have the power to regulate over the state or the locality?
If it were me, I just think fairness says that that needs to be decided before something is forced upon me. I am in support of all electric. Thank you very much for the reminders. You know, I don't have an electric car because I can't afford one but I do have a 20 year old car so those of you who have electric cars thank you very much. Those of you who have brand new trucks that are the size Tanks, maybe you better look at yourself. So ultimately what I have to say is that this is in the courts.
It needs to be decided before we decide that we're gonna implement it. That is what is fair and it has nothing to do with whether or not there's an electric reach code on this or on that. It is in dispute, it is in the courts. The decision has been against it and for us to sit here and say that we're going to implement it regardless I think is unfair to our constituent and it has simply to do with that. It has nothing to do with you know it's a reach code yes.
I remember the reach code and I said I'm done with gas and I am done with gas but also my highest My highest value is truth and fairness. And I don't believe that in this case, to require a citizen to do something when that law is in debate and is in question and has not been decided is fair. And so for that reason, I am going to vote to uphold the Planning Commission, not because I believe in gas, not for any other reason That it is in the courts and it has yet to be decided, and it is unfair to require someone to do something that could go either way. And I never meant to imply that it's about litigation. It's not.
But it's not about litigation, it's about what's fair. What's fair? This is an undecided and so for that reason I'm gonna vote against it and you know I can thank people for implying that I might like gas whatever. I do have to put it in my 25 year old Toyota but there we go.
Councilmember
Lange.
Yeah, so I'm gonna use the same argument in voting against or voting in support of the of our community community development directors initial Finding And the reality is our code states, our code is very clear. And because we don't know about those laws, the Berkeley case, right now we have other projects in development that have been going through the permitting process, big projects in development who are adhering to these.
to our current reach code and ones that were started with the ordinance 9-11, and those are all following those codes. And so it feels like it's not fair to have one set of standards for this project and another set of standards for everything else that's in development. The other reality or the other piece of this is that there I've done a lot of the research myself on the cost differences between an all-electric home and a mixed energy home. We're in the process of turning our home into electric, and doing that study right now.
And I just have a really hard time with that $190 or $161 a month, given the research that I'm doing. And also, I do think that there are costs to Having gas that aren't financial costs and those are environmental costs. Those are health costs all of the things that were mentioned But ultimately I think this all narrows down to a permitting process Is is a very specific process and if our community development director is saying that the staff didn't find hardship, um I'm going to vote in support of our staff. And so that's my thoughts on
this. Council Member Whitman?
Yeah, I think we need to We need to support the idea that we're going to have a electric future, that we need to divorce ourselves from gas to the extent we can. And we have an ordinance in place that does that. I'll say that from my personal experience I wanted to have solar and I couldn't put it on my roof. So, I built a pergola and it was no easy thing to do but we can all you know do our own things to move this forward.
I really have a problem with the people who suggest that it was unfair to make the applicant go through multiple hearings. As I understood it, and I watched part of it, the planning commission, and I'll give them a lot of credit for their effort to help somebody who was not making their case, the planning commission bent over backwards Um, to assist the applicant in making his case. And that's why there were multiple hearings not because they were dragging him through the muck or punishing him but they were really you know making an effort I also think it's important to understand that you know once the decision was appealed we're back to a director's denial.
And I think the director of everybody who's looked at this issue over the course of time is actually the best person to say whether this qualifies As a hardship exemption or not he's the subject matter expert when it comes to what is a hardship and I watch the hearings and I kept hearing from Lucas. At least what I understood I was hearing is that we aren't in the range, in the realm of addressing the issue we're supposed to address which is this hardship.
For two and a half years and I Hardship is it topic that you comes up very frequently when you're on the Planning Commission because it's the source of Exemptions and or waivers and or You know, it's hardship though and I spent a lot of time looking at this When I was on planning Hardship does not mean harder. Hardship means, as I understood it and I'll take correction from city attorney and or our planning director but hardship means that because of the unique circumstances of your property As distinguished from everybody else's.
There is something about this ordinance that prevents you from making beneficial use of your property, and that doesn't mean it's more expensive. So I'm skeptical about the arguments that putting in gas or electric would be more expensive than gas, but that's really not the issue. The issue is this person being prevented from using the property in the way and manner it was intended to be used? And that is not what is occurring here.
And so I would, I will support the director. Thank you.
Mayor Pro Tem?
Yes. So my thinking about saving the planet and what's truly beneficial for the environment has evolved over the years Back in 1994, when I first ran for City Council—I lost the first time—I distributed literature on sustainable cities. The word sustainable, I don't think had entered the mainstream yet and over the years I've tried to set an example I live car-free for many years and I plan to live car free again as soon as I find proper housing where I can leave my dogs behind. As most of you know, I'm the only renter on this council and I can only afford to rent a room so I have to take my dogs with me.
So, this past year I read a book that I highly recommend and I hope that the Climate Committee reads it. It's called Bright Green Lies How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way And What We Can Do About It I mean if we are really, really serious about saving the planet and we're really serious about our children's future. We have to begin by recognizing there is absolutely no such thing as clean energy. Clean electricity is a myth that may be less polluting and less harmful but the real crux of the matter is that We need to reduce consumption of energy and goods. That's the real reality, and no one in this room is doing it. If we were serious, we wouldn't even have these meetings at night.
We wouldn't be talking about appliances, whether they're $2,000 dryers or 800 dryers. We wouldn't be buying a dryer. We'd be hanging our clothes on the line. You know we can do it in Holland where it rains all the time. We can do it in Ojai which has plenty of sunshine. I'm just going to read couple of points and then I am going to say something else. Because we're living in an atmosphere here in Ojai where we get vilified if we don't vote with the council majority.
The stuff I've read on Facebook by some of the speakers...
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Can we make sure to stay on the agenda topic? Yes, I'll stay on
topic. So that's why I want to make this point. This is from the preface and I agree with the author of the preface. I'm not saying that people shouldn't reduce their ecological footprint or that cities are more, you know, shouldn't be sustainable. I am kind of paraphrasing. I am saying we need to be honest with ourselves and recognize that you can't have an electrical system without a mining infrastructure because you need copper or other metals for wiring.
And I'm gonna jump down to another paragraph. We need to stop being guided by the story that we can have it all, that we can have an industrial culture and also have wild nature, that we can have an oil economy and still have polar bears. You are fooling yourself if you think you have two brand new electric cars in the garage and all of that, that you're helping the environment, you're not Because those cars are still destroying, they need roads which disrupt habitat. And if you just see how everything is connected, you will see that making an example out of our longtime Ojai resident is just a distraction from reality.
You know, I'm going to uphold the Planning Commission's decision not necessarily for the reasons given. I'm just doing it because tomorrow morning you're going to see thousands of cars coming and going and people buying all kinds of crap for Christmas. It's absurd that we're even having this conversation. It shows that we're not really serious. Now, if I had my druthers, Scott, you would voluntarily figure out a way to be all electric. I think that would be the better path. I voted for the reach codes but in truth we're not really serious and it's not It's not an example of how serious we are about saving the planet for our grandchildren and our children, our great-grandchildren by making an example out of Scott.
Also I'm concerned about the issue about the trees and solar and all of that. So yes, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I have about 100 books in my storage unit on the environment and when it comes down to it they all say the same thing. Our current way of life whether it's electric or gas is completely and wholly unsustainable.
I'm gonna go, I appreciate my council members Comments profusely and also all the members of the community have come out to speak and I support Lucas's denial Lucas has been in this business for a long long time, and I appreciate your expertise and I I think, and also Mr. Chessay, I appreciate all the time and attention you have put into this so thank you for being here.
And I also really feel that fairness is important and I think we all need to be fair to our children and our children's children and their children. As we have heard from many people the planet is burning up Allie Stillman, I'm so sorry for all those experiences. What a story Wow And I just think that the true cost is the climate and the in the climate heating up and so I think it's just we need to support the ordinance that we passed I also think the health issues that have come out recently, particularly there was an article in the New York Times recent study about the benzene and how it affects asthma especially in a small space that those two units are relatively small.
I also think that there are options to get help and Justin Pennington and Erica Helsin, I believe offered two areas ways to Reduce the cost for mr. Chess a that would hope that you will pursue I just I think most of us know that we need to get off gas now And I think that this council as Michelle Pinheiro noted We make promises And I think we really need to fulfill those promises to our constituents.
I also appreciate Andrew Ellison's point that there is always going to be litigation and this is a cutting edge ordinance, we all agree. We are a beacon, we want to be a beacon of sustainability so we've got to stand behind this ordinance Regardless of a potential threat of litigation, you know this is California. Come on everybody there's always a threat of litigation so we need to really do this for our kids and I think we heard a lot of really compelling evidence that how to bring the price down so that it is not a financial hardship And I also feel that those of us who are lucky enough to own property, we owe it to the future to make those properties sustainable. So that's why I think it's really important to have the vision. We all need that vision to support this denial.
I just,
yeah one more time. I'm just gonna say that I also do not find there to be a hardship exclusion here and I agree with Council Member Whitman that it's not a matter of if it's a little bit more expensive or it's you know I don't actually think there is a hardship exemption here And I do really appreciate, I have sat through many planning commission meetings and they do bend over backwards to try to help the applicant make it through the process. I mean that's actually it's kind of admirable that's their goal you know can we find a solution for this? And if it takes three times they're very patient and they do it so kudos to them on working with our Our applicants working with our citizens to find a solution for them with all of their knowledge.
I so appreciate that and so yes, I do believe that it's time to get off gas but I just have to say once again it's not about litigation It's about a law of ours that is being, that is in abeyance and yet we are still forcing a citizen to abide by it. And that is not something that sits with me okay. It just doesn't. If it were me I would feel that the city council would have an obligation to wait until that decision was made. And it's not a little decision, and it's not a little litigation. It's a big question about whether the federal government or the state government governs this. And that's a big question. And finally, Sousa, thank you very much. You are absolutely positively correct. This is... I'm
looking for the clotheslines in people's backyard.
Yeah, so you know and I am sorry that you were sort of interrupted when you were making your point. But until we change the way we live this is... You don't want to say it makes absolutely no difference but as far as climate goes it makes absolutely no difference. I think that there's reasonable health concerns to talk about with leaking gas in a small space But throughout this, I just wanted to say that I don't find a hardship. I appreciate Lucas. I appreciate the planning commission. I just can't move forward and impose an ordinance that is in the courts right now being decided and has been initially decided against. I just can't do it. It's just not to me a fair and equitable way to proceed. And so that remains the same for that.
I just wanted everyone to know where I stand.
Would someone like to put a motion on the
table? I think like to put this in context about the laws You know, I'm someone who's right whose right to marry was given and taken away and given again And so I know how It feels to have your future or aspects of your future hung up in court. But the law is the law, the code is the code and so I really appreciate what you're saying Council Member Ruhl and I still stand by my decision.
So I'm going to make a motion to support the Community Development Director's decision to, help me with the wording. Deny the hardship. Yes deny the exemption.
Okay, is there a second?
I
second. Can I ask something? Thank you. So I do have a lot of sympathy for what he went through. Is there a way that we could refund him the cost for appealing... Can we talk about, because it costs $250 to appeal, is there a way that we could credit him or
2:54 – 2:5622 turns
Council can absolutely refund the appeal
fee. I would like to add to my motion that we refund the cost of the appeal
Can we separate those two? Because I would certainly vote for
that. Yes, to Scott that we refund. Okay do
you want that to be part of your motion?
I'll make two separate motions. So let's... I'll make a motion to stand to support the community development directors denial of the appeal or the hardship exemption.
Roll call please Weston.
Roll-call vote 1–0 motion to stand to support the community development directors denial of the appeal or the hardship exemption. Roll call · 4 under review
Show transcript
What motion
are we voting on here? One or two? No.
Council Member Lange. Yes. Council Member Whitman. Yes, Mayor Pro Tem Francina.
Motion passes. All right, second motion.
I'd like to make a second motion
If I could jump in there one clarification The director reminded me that the appeal fee was paid by mr. Column a is the appellant There were there any fees paid by? Mr. Chassez as Well, he would have paid a full application suite of application fees
they each paid 250
Oh, they each pay 250. Oh because the original appeal theory Okay, right So yeah, the council could refund the 250 that Mr. Chassé paid to appeal the director's decision of the Planning Commission.
Yes.
That was in your power
I'd like to To make a motion that the city Refund mr. Chassis $250 to appeal them the decision.
I seconded Okay roll call please Weston
Yes mayor councilmember Whitman Thank you very much. Let's take a
brief
break and then we'll come back with item number three
3:12 – 3:2111 turns
Okay, we are back if you could please take your seats. Thank you very much. And we will move before item number three, we have the public communication remainder. We just have three public comments at this point. So first we have Dr. Sophia Davis then Wendy Larner and then Marissa Gonzalez. Can we come to quiet please? Is Dr. Davis... Oh! You're here hi.
Okay, this is a open comment. Great to hear everybody's comments from before and see how Ojai works and is so concerned about truth and justice. I'm fairly new to you of UI. Ojai. And I've been staying at a place that has no electricity, a port-a-potty one of the Marborgs. In fact you could take a walk and check it out there's like 30 of us living in cars and tents.
Even though I have a PhD at age 27 seven years ago I disassociated after being brutally assaulted and raped by a Marine and he was schizophrenic and on a lot of drugs And somehow, the divine intelligence put me into a position where I get to meet these people on a daily basis and also meet the people who are really good people but just like me came through hard times.
I wanted to make some recommendations for you to consider because I see that on the agenda which I missed was there an adoption for resolution for this salary schedule to add to the classifications of homeless services coordinator? We need to also be empowering the people to self-govern. There's a lot of drama going on there, including a fire that happened the night that I was here and there are people that are only doing drugs there that really shouldn't even be there. I think that they should be vetted.
There are beautiful women there. There's a deaf woman. There is a woman who laughed. So much, and I brought so much joy to her. And it brought me joy to bring that joy to her. I met about a dozen people including Rick who I have some concerns about. He didn't show up for a long time and there's no wrap...I come from the Rainbow Gathering okay? So back in the 80s now I'm not that old but the first Rainbow Gathering they say welcome home and they give you a rap sheet There's no rules there, and I put things there in the community room that I thought would be very helpful including art supplies because a lot of these people have mental illness and need to express their frustrations.
And he took my personal belongings and put them out and I said well maybe you need some art Rick? And he goes well I do photography it's in my office. I said how about putting it in the community room while we're doing a mural. I said great that's awesome I want to work with him But I really felt alienated and treated less than because of my current condition. And he didn't believe that I had a PhD, a lot of people don't. Didn't believe that I have a handicap and I have a placard but it doesn't have the date on it because my husband gave me one that didn't have... Anyway, it's happening but I lost my wallet there And that's all my IDs. And just pray that that'll come back. I think that if there's self-governing, I've been cleaning up litter for the last two days as I was there.
It's my joy to do it. My superpower is cleaning up bathrooms. I also made sure that they had the trash come early because it was overflowing and it smells like caca still, just saying. Somebody, oh, already time. More recycling. It just could be an incredible place of miracles and imagination, and there's no reason why women who can't speak who are deaf or that they shouldn't be going through things. And men as well. There were wonderful, incredibly intelligent people there. So that's all I have to say. Thank you so much. Can
you give us a way to contact
you? Yeah. Camp Rising Star 111. I could write it down there. Yeah, okay. I have a non-profit that works with empowerment this way and I want to do that here in California.
Okay, next we have Wendy Larner then Marissa Gonzalez. Okay. Marissa Gonzales?
So I am here this evening as a planetary citizen, a global citizen and speaking for the earth. There's so much conflict and we speak about gas, we speak about electricity but most important for all of us as a human race with no separation is oxygen And the trees are being cut down without air, which is our first food. What are we going to do? Capitalism is a priority.
Industrialism is how we live on the planet. Getting back to respecting the earth, living as a people, as a one race is just basically what I want to share. One of the biggest issues on the planet is animal husbandry. The fruits and vegetables provide what we need for a healthy body. We don't need to cut down the trees, we're making these solar panels, we're making these electric cars but what happens to these materials in 25, 30, 50 years?
The earth can't consume them they won't biodegrade So my speaking tonight is just in general again with a concern as a planetary citizen, as a sister to my brothers, my sisters. For us to work together, to unite, to come Just come into unity, and that's basically all I have to say. So to help eliminate the wars, to help eliminate the problems, let's get back to washing our clothes by hand if we need to.
Respecting Mother Earth because the earth was here before we were born. The earth will be here once we leave and we talk about destroying the planet, the planet is still going to be here. It may go through its changes but it'll revamp itself into what it needs to be. It's us as a human race that are going to be eliminated and annihilated so in order to not annihilate ourselves once again unity love and respect for the planet. Aho Namaste
Thank you, Marissa. Any comments online Weston?
No raised hands on Zoom Mayor.
Okay all right we will move on to discussion item number three resolution of the City Council calling for peace and an immediate ceasefire and end to violence around the world is there a staff report?
Very briefly, staff per the council's direction at the prior meeting has drafted a peace resolution that is structured to note that the city is an international city of peace. And that the city has taken several past actions supporting peace, including declaring the city a nuclear-free zone in 2018 and otherwise moving forward its peace activism, including the installation of a Peace Pole here at City Hall or Libbey Park and similar actions.
that there be an immediate ceasefire in all areas of armed conflict in the world, calling for the release of all hostages held around the world and vowing to combat racism and sectarianism in all forms. And advocating that the federal government including President Biden and his administration use what tools they have to advocate for and facilitate diplomacy and an immediate ceasefire in all areas of armed conflict around the world Obviously a hot-button issue the resolution is drafted to be Peace all in all places and we look forward to council direction. Thank you
Thank You Matt and just some note to the public Councilmember rule was not feeling well, so she went home sick So we sent her healing and health All right. So any questions from? Yes
3:21 – 3:288 turns
Microphone, please.
Okay. I'm asking for clarification about the process and how this draft Came to be as it stands because my understanding is that Councilwoman Rachel did meet with the speakers that initiated this resolution And I was told, I don't know if that's correct but by Vaughn that there were changes made without consulting the committee. So perhaps you could address
that? Yes, thank you for the question. So the mayor and I did meet with the committee and we looked at a draft of a ceasefire resolution that specifically addressed the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and the Gaza Strip. And after we had come up with that... Actually, we had just met with that, and then there was the ceasefire was called with the expectation that hostages would be released, and the mayor and I had a conversation with some of our Jewish elders in the community And we wanted to make sure, because there have been anti-Semitic attacks in the county and all over the world, we did not want to present anything that would make any members of our community feel like their lives would be threatened or their safety would be threatened.
Or that there would be anti-Semitic rhetoric in anything that was coming out of this dais And so we had some good conversations about that and decided that we would start with tonight as a discussion point, a resolution that would be more general. And that after hearing public comments, we could make adjustments but that our main priority was to make a stance about the fact that we are a city of peace And if you notice at the very first part of this, one of my personal goals in helping to initiate the policy and working on it with staff was that we would also make a stance that peace is a priority right here in the dais.
If you remember this whole conversation came up after we lost our city manager to discord And so while I was extremely moved by all the people who came to talk, to ask for this ceasefire and asked for the city to do something in support of a ceasefire. I also was coming with my own real desire that we could come together and make a statement about our commitment to peace.
That it starts here. It starts with ourselves, it starts with us and that would ripple out. So again I understand that this is not what the ceasefire group brought to us but I'm hoping that it's a starting point for us to work with and I was really hoping that we could all come together to draft something that we were all very happy with and that members of our community who asked for this And I really appreciate all of their courage in standing up, that they would also help us.
That this could be a community-wide effort.
Any other questions? Thank
you both.
Let's move on to public comment. First we have Barbara Aronson then Joel Aronson then Leora Leszek and then Abudu Nware.
Hi, my name's Barbara Aronson. Thank you very much for letting me speak. I've been a resident of the Ojai Valley since 1976 and a resident of Ashkelon Israel since 2006. For those of you who don't know, Ashkelon is approximately six miles north of Gaza from my rooftop we can see Gaza. In 2006, I was thrilled that there was a ceasefire. In 2007, I was happy that there was a ceasefire. In 2008, I was very thrilled because Joel my husband had been in the train accident and he couldn't move. He really had limited mobility and Getting downstairs into a shelter was problematic.
And we had to do that regularly. In 2011, I was delighted there was a ceasefire. Same in 2014, 2018, 2021. Life could return to normal. We could sleep through the night and everything else you can imagine. This time, I am totally against a ceasefire for the first time ever. Why? Because it's untenable. It's an untenable situation. I've been willing to do it. I love Ashkelon. I've been willing to run to shelters. I have been willing to tolerate rockets at all hours of the day and night.
But what happened on October 7th was intolerable. And I don't know any Israelis, frankly, who are in favor of a ceasefire at this moment. Since October 7th, I've been spending way too much time watching YouTube videos of Palestinians' point of view, of Hamas talking about their positions, of Israelis talking about what happened And I've come to the very, very sad belief that the only path to peace is either the elimination of Israel or the elimination of Hamas.
There was a ceasefire yesterday to get the prisoners, to get the hostages out. It didn't even hold. I mean for 24 hours there was a break in the ceasefire in northern Gaza. Hamas has said that they will break any ceasefire. One thing, I've never been to a city council meeting before. Oh, I'm so sorry. I want to say that you guys are very conscientious but this is way bigger. This isn't in our ballot. This isn't Ojai's expertise. Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you very much.
3:28 – 3:356 turns
If you want to come up and speak about very specific acts of violence, if you could before you speak say trigger warning. That way if anyone's listening on Zoom or anyone's listening here who could very easily be triggered because they've experienced or lived through a traumatic event we just want to be really sensitive to the different experiences that are represented in our community. So just say trigger warning if you're going to talk about anything, any active violence that's specific. Thank you.
Thanks. Thank you Councilmember Lange. Next we have Joel Aronson then Leora Leszek and then Abudu Nawari.
First I want to say that I'm for good parenting and apple pie, which is how this resolution sounds. Because it has not only no teeth but it has nowhere to go and nothing to say because this resolution doesn't deal with the unintended consequences of if you have a situation in which you cannot defend yourself, you cannot have any violence. Violence comes from self-defense.
Let's remember that this whole thing comes up before this council now Because the Israelis needed to defend themselves against the butchery and aggressive Hamas action taken on October 6th. You've had before you Russia and the Ukraine. Did you bring up there as a ceasefire for them? Probably not, because what you're really talking about is an anti-Jewish concept.
The Israelis have no right to do the same self defense as other countries which you would say are perfectly okay. Let's take the hypothetical that across the border from Mexico comes a violent drug organization gang and attacks El Paso. Should the United States not respond? If you want to have any kind of resolution, you have to include in it the idea of self-defense. You have to include in it that stakeholders have a right to decide how it should come out. After all, right now there is a truce. The truce is based upon the negotiation between the stakeholders and I would say It's absolutely absurd that Israel is willing to do that, except for the fact that they've taken hostages. Forget the fact that they butchered people on October 7th.
They took actually others and held them and are holding them for what? A ceasefire? Is that fair? Is that something that you're willing to consider as part of your resolution? I don't think so. I think you need to rethink this entire process. A vanilla ceasefire call does not deal with the problems of the world. Thank you.
Thank you, Joel. Next we have Leora Leszek and then Abudu Nware and then Cyrus Mayer.
Hello. My name is Leora Snow Lizak. I call upon this council to stand by the word peace, to speak in certain terms and to support a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine explicitly. I do not support the current referendum for its vague language. Please be brave. I speak today as an Ashkenazi Jew, in whose name this violence roots. There are many Jewish peoples and cultures in Ashkenazi heritage traces back to Eastern Europe.
In the name of the Ashkenazi Jewish people in the wake of the genocide of World War II, in the poison soil of dehumanization, the colonial project of Israel took hold. Israel. Yisrael in Hebrew, Yisra to struggle. Aiel God to struggle with God. Generations ago the Jewish people chose struggle. It loops back to Moses climbing Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God.
He says he'll be back in 40 days but he's late Rather than trusting, rather than waiting the people panicked. And in this panic the men melted down all their gold to build a giant golden calf. But Moses did return and met with a false deity forged of fear he was enraged and smashed the tablets of the covenants he had just received It is said that if the Jewish people had waited, they would have found peace.
But when they resorted to worship of gold over earth, of urgency over cycles and of panic over faith, God changed plans. And thus today we suffer. And yet again in 1948, in the face of uncertainty and weighed down by immense trauma some Ashkenazi Jewish people chose to melt down the treasure of humanity for a giant golden calf. The colonial state of Israel.
Our people's heartbreak was manipulated for territorial gain and in the name of our diaspora a new genocide began In the name of the predominantly white and Western Ashkenazi Jewish people, the identity of Mizrahi Jews, Arab Jews was attacked. In the name of struggling with God Israel, the culture lives and well-being of the Palestinian people was targeted.
This conflict did not begin in October. The land Israel sits on does not belong to the Ashkenazi Jewish people, and thieving a land will never heal our wounds. It is time we stop struggling, stop melting our gold. It is time we trust in peace. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Leora. Next, we have Abudu Nwareh and then Cyrus Mayer and then David Wagner.
3:36 – 3:449 turns
Good evening, Council and fellow citizens. I'd like to start by addressing why I'm called to speak here today. What have I or the ancestors I represent to do with the violence occurring between Israel and Palestine? Some of my own European ancestors in this country participated in the settler-colonial expansion of the East and West that contributed to the permanent displacement of indigenous peoples.
I have a responsibility to be here, and to say never should this happen again. My own West African Sisala ancestors successfully resisted becoming hostages, slaves and victims of human trafficking under British invasion. I have a responsibility to be here and to say never should this happen again. As someone who has experienced racial violence, as someone who has experienced the vulnerability and insecurity of being houseless for a short period of time.
As a child of an African father whose mental illness is partially result of systematic oppression and racism in this country. As the child of a black stepfather who grew up in the white supremacist segregated South As someone who has marched in the streets of New York calling for justice for Eric Garner and received nothing in response except more state violence courtesy of the NYPD.
I indeed identify with the people of Palestine. As a child of a mother who was able to provide a safe and loving and peaceful home, I indeed know and value peace. I value justice. I value equality. I believe that freedom and peace are everyone's birthright. Live free or die is the motto of the state of New Hampshire, a motto well known across this country. So I wonder why it is so hard for some people to understand that people around the world, including the people of Palestine will continue to resist subjugation, oppression, discrimination, settler colonial violence until they have achieved freedom again. Unfortunately, that is playing out in a violent way.
I am a citizen of a country whose leading politicians are currently holding the weapon vault doors open for the Israeli government. We are paying for those weapons. The U.S. government is aiding and abetting the Israeli government in the genocide of the Palestinian people as we speak. A demand for a ceasefire, a demand to the end to the horrific violence that our government is fully funding is the least we can do as it is the prerequisite to a process of diplomacy negotiations cooperation justice truth and reconciliation.
We cannot bomb our way to peace I do not support the current document with its most recent edits. I support the first document, which had its specificity to the situation that we are all funding. Barka, thank you.
Thank you, Abudu. Next we have Cyrus Mayer then David Wagner then Journey Wade-Hackett.
Hello again, good to see you all. My name is Cyrus Mayer and I spoke at the last meeting in support of the resolution specifically for the ceasefire in Palestine. As I stated in the last meeting, I am an Ashkenazi Jew In all respects, I'm actually pretty disgusted by the way some of my Jewish relatives have been using sensationalized violence to shock and politicize you as well as others in our community.
I'm saddened by the misuse of the word antisemitism as an excuse for a genocide that's occurring where over 20,000 people have now been murdered and killed in Palestine and Gaza. And over 1.2 million displaced. This is not antisemitism to support a ceasefire To support humanitarian aid is not antisemitism. Humanitarian aid to be distributed to families is not antisemitism.
Please do not allow people to bully you with these words, it's unacceptable. And there are millions of Israelis in support of a ceasefire, just to be clear. And millions of Jews, thousands of Jews across the country that are organizing in support of a ceasefire. After the last meeting I felt encouraged by Council Member Ling's support of our resolution and agreement to work with us on drafting a revised copy.
I must admit however that I am disappointed by the way this most critical resolution has been handled since we last met I've emailed and messaged your office multiple times and never received a message. Despite this, a few of our members were able to meet as you stated earlier last week. You showed us an edition of the resolution that had been edited which we had some minor disagreements with but overall agreed with the language that was in it.
And then last night we see this brand new resolution that completely changes the title and intention of the resolution diluting the main critical point that we were getting across without notifying us even that you had changed it, which was really hard. Kind of made me understand better why a lot of young people don't trust electoral politics, you know? Because we really wanted to trust that we had an exchange and we felt let down.
This current resolution omits any mention of Palestine or Israel, which is why we created this resolution from the first place. And so my question for you is why did you choose to omit that? And what are the major changes of the resolution? Why did you not inform us about those changes? I do not support the current resolution for peace around the world. And this, in all honesty, the resolution is an insult to 10,000 Palestinian people who have died.
Thank you Cyrus. We have to move on next we have David Wagner and then Jody Wade-Hack and then Jeff Schneider yes sure
I just wanted to Say, I apologize for not sending you the most revised to sending the whole girl apologize to the whole group For not sending the revised Resolution thank you. So I did not mean to disappoint anyone. In fact, it's quite the opposite I'm actually trying to To bring people together and trying to find something that'll work for the different groups involved
Thank you. I feel that from you and just to be clear, I feel like the current resolution that's been put out today is very vague as the gentleman has said before And the one that we put together is actually very much tied to a national and international movement that could actually invoke peace, could actually help thousands of people. And so that's the difference. I think
I'm going to have to ask you to stop. Thank you, Cyrus. Next, we have David.
OK. We have to move
on.
3:44 – 3:4913 turns
No, I just wondered if we could have a copy of the one that you
had. It was distributed at the last meeting.
I have this.
Okay.
I thought you worked together. But he's saying this is not what... This is different from what he's
talking about. So just... We
have... I'm sorry, Cyrus.
Yes So staff will be having answer the question, but I think we should let the speaker sit down and then we'll answer the question. Okay Thank You Cyrus
Yes, there's a third version. There are three different versions that have been discussed One was the one that was presented by members of the community at the last meeting drafted by them not by staff There's a second version that was drafted by staff in consultation with Councilmember Lange and the mayor based on the versions submitted by the members of the community to the council at the last meeting That version exists, but it's not in your packet. There's a third version which is the version proposed in your packet, proposed after the outcome of all of the discussions that I wrote in consultation with the mayor and Councillor Lange.
Staff can provide a copy of the middle one if you want, but it's not currently in the packet.
Okay, can I add one more thing to there were also other pub other people who had emailed me? Some people who are sitting in this room Who had expressed concern so I was factoring in The mayor and I both and and the city attorney we factored in a lot of different viewpoints for this and so And so, there were a lot of voices who wanted to be involved and a lot of people who care about this and who care about what's going on in the world from different sides.
So even though there was one group that was presenting this as an item it became a city issue. So I just wanted to clarify that.
Okay, thank you. Next we have David Wagner then Journey Wade-Hack and then Jeff Schneider.
Hello council members thank you so much for giving us time to present different arguments and different ideas I first just want to as you started the meeting off just invite everyone to just take a breath We're at this moment in the world right now where we're facing horror. I believe that we're in an inflection point as humanity not just as Americans or Israelis are people in the civilized world but as humanity.
I'm a father of two kids living here in Ojai and I think about the world that my kids are going to inherit And I realize that what's happening right now in the Middle East, it's not just about the Middle East. What's happening in the Middle East is we are witnessing an atrocity. War crimes in our lifetime broadcasts and our smartphones We spent three hours tonight talking about two homes here in Ojai. Meanwhile, in Gaza 1.7 million people good people beautiful people just like us displaced. 1. 7 million people 234 thousand homes Severely damaged and 64,000 homes destroyed.
And counting. Netanyahu has said as soon as this pause is over those bombs are going to start dropping again. Bombs by the way most of which are the value of like an Audi or Mercedes that somebody's getting paid to build and sell. Meanwhile Upwards of like 20,000 and counting innocent people have just been slaughtered by the ruthless racist and genocidal regime of Israel.
You can laugh you can scoff and I understand and the red herring of anti-Semitism in Hamas is going to be thrown around again and again to distract from the case that there have been 75 years of illegitimate occupation in a brutal, racist regime against the Palestinian people. And I urge the council in the strongest possible way to put some language in this resolution that actually means something.
This thing that has come up is just whitewashed.
Thank you, David. Next we have Journey Wade Hack then Jeff Schneider and then Alan Greenberg.
3:50 – 3:596 turns
Good evening. Hi, I'm Journey Wade Hack. I'm a 25-year resident of District 1. I am asking that we please return specific reference to ceasefire in Israel and Palestine to this document. We did not insist on language calling it a genocide even though many respected scholars and other expert voices including prominent Israelis have called it that. We didn't even insist on including references to the many Palestinians held without charges in Israeli prisons to go alongside the rightful call for a return of hostages We are asking for a bare minimum that is not currently met. This body has had years to draft and pass a generalized ceasefire document. I would support the passage of one soon, it's a nice idea but to do so now at the expense of one that would specifically address a crisis which we are directly exacerbating changes it from a resolution calling for ceasefire and negotiations to a resolution calling for empty platitudes It is easy to forget that we as Americans, through our government actually have a direct hand in some conflicts and therefore a greater responsibility to first address our part in those.
Put another way, it's as if I were the head of a family who chose to call for an end to substance abuse without actually addressing the fact that I myself am a raging alcoholic who regularly buys booze for my kids despite their repeated instances of drunk driving. Do you see the problem here? I wouldn't be wrong to call out substance abuse but it would be a hollow declaration on my part given the context. Our country is addicted to war.
Council, I know you are good people and I am lucky to know some of you personally. Unfortunately being good people is not enough when our silence as good people is what enables war. After 9-11, people who objected to our subsequent military actions were smeared as anti-American and pro terrorist. Racist attitudes about Arabs were normalized. How did that go for us?
The question then and the question now is not was there terrorism, where their atrocities? No doubt these occurred The question is, what is the response we should support as a city of peace? People will call me anti-Israel for taking this position now but I speak from a place of love for all my friends be they Israelis, Arabs or Americans. There is always intense pressure to acquiesce to the drums of war during a crisis, but bombing civilians does not bring an end to terrorism. If it did, this would have been resolved a long time ago. Please be specific and stand in solidarity with Jewish-Arab peace groups like Standing Together and with cities from Oakland to Rhode Island when they call for a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine.
A ceasefire, not weeks of bombing has led to the return of some hostages. Please be specific. If you want to call for peace in the abstract, you will have my support another time when it is not frankly a dodge away from responsibility in a time of crisis. Peace in the real world urgently demands specificity and critical self-reflection. Please pass this as quickly as possible with the specificity we are asking for even if it means calling a special meeting. Thank you and peace be with you all.
Thank you, Journey. Next, we have Jeff Schneider then Alan Greenberg and then Joy Wenzlaff.
Jeff Schneider, City of Ojai. My speech is a collaboration with Alan Greenberg. Two weeks ago seven or eight speakers stated they wanted to see a de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and Gaza. They also submitted a proposed resolution this apparently prompted the councilors bring it to action and write a revision We are opposed to the passage of the resolution. I don't feel that it's this council's place to make official pronouncement about issues like this, that do not involve our immediate surroundings.
The first two items in the preamble to it point out that Ojai has previously declared itself a city of international peace as well as a nuclear-free zone You should not and I dare say cannot use these declarations as a pretext to take a position on something totally outside our sphere of influence. This sets a bad, very bad and dangerous even precedent. Another group could come along in a month and demand that you issue another resolution This time, people demand that you write a resolution that states that there are to be no more mass shootings like the many ones that have taken place in the public schools across America.
It should call upon every individual who is ever thinking about bursting into a school and shooting students to immediately lay down their guns, stop from doing this now on and forevermore, and then another protest group will come in and demand that you issue another resolution There would be no end. Further, the proposed resolution reminds me of the famous response years ago when a newly crowned Miss America was asked what she would like to see in her lifetime and her answer was world peace.
People made fun of her mainly because it was naive and not really in touch with the reality Although world peace for all and permanent ceasefires are virtue signals purely, but in this case is completely and blaringly anti-Semitic. Why do I say that? Because two weeks ago these peaceful people never mentioned the civilians who were currently being killed and injured in other conflicts especially in the Ukraine by the Russians.
Therefore although there is no mention of Israel Gaza or Hamas in it The resolution was written in response to the demands for a ceasefire in Gaza, and therefore this is all about Israel. This resolution demands—no actually requires that Israel pack up and leave Gaza never to return to complete their mission.
Thank you, Jeff. Next we have Alan Greenberg then Joy Wenzlaff then Carol Wade.
Thank you council I'm going to continue Jeffrey's thoughts. We wrote this together. There was a resolution demands, actually requires that Israel pack up and leave Gaza never to return to complete their mission which is to disengage and destroy the elements of Hamas that have publicly and repetitively declared that their main principle in their charter is the total destruction of Israel and every Jewish person in it. This is, of course, the same position that the leaders of Iran, the financial backers of Hamas have declared.
Israel has made no such declaration in their constitution back to Hamas or the people of Gaza And it further declares that after they destroy Israel, then they will come after the Jews in Europe and then the Jews in the USA of which me and my family, my four children and seven grandchildren not to mention my Jewish colleagues. They will of course spare the two million Arabs that live in peace in Israel.
Some of these Arabs hold positions in the government high-placed judges members of parliament And they all can vote. Israel is very inclusive of the non-Jewish people who live in Israel. The bottom line is very simple, in effect your resolution implies a call for Israel to abide by a permanent ceasefire. Hamas will never observe a permanent ceasefire. You should certainly realize this now after you've been told what their charter says and know a little bit about that savage attack It's interesting that both the opponents of what we're proposing disagree with your resolution. Both they do and we do, and the reason is because from my standpoint The City of Ojai Council has no business issuing any resolutions that do not apply to the city of Ojai, maybe the county of Ventura, maybe California.
It's a huge mistake as my colleague just mentioned. Next week someone else is gonna come in. We can bring in eight or nine people and say we demand that you paint all the buildings gray or purple. I mean it's just ridiculous. You should not in any way issue any resolution. And if you're going to do it, you need to have some sign of an open forum or workshop type of event where everybody can put in their two cents worth and not be limited to three minutes and come to a conclusion that everyone can agree to.
So in closing I'll repeat what the iconic American-born Goldie Meir was quoted as saying when she was the Prime Minister of Israel. Peace will come when Arab terrorists begin to love their children more than they hate us. Thank
you. Next we have Joy Wenslough, then Carol Wade and then Larry Steingold.
3:59 – 4:128 turns
Hi, I'm Joy Wenzloff. I live just outside the city. I'm speaking here to comment on the proposed peace resolution. Everyone... Sorry is this better? Okay everyone is of course entitled to their own opinions but as a city there should not be such a resolution issued to endorse one policy or another in order to solve the Hamas-Israel situation, which has raged on for at least 100 years, or to try to solve any other such conflict.
Permit me to address just two of the phrases in your resolution. Number one, the City of Ojai further vows to combat racism and sectarianism in all their forms. This hazy call against group hate is far from complete. You should also include Islamophobia and anti-Semitism and say what it really means. For example, anti-Semitism includes demands for elimination of Israel and Jewish people in general as well as the labeling of Israel as a colonial apartheid genocidal country Number two, Ojai urges the Biden administration to immediately call for and facilitate de-escalation diplomacy and an immediate ceasefire in all areas of armed conflict in the world.
This call in the face of horrible and unprovoked attacks is the worst kind of appeasement which history proves only to encourage future aggression Do you see Ukraine agreeing to let Russia take over their country? This call would be granting the evil Hamas a victory, emboldening it to attack again and again as they have recently and proudly portrayed. This does nothing to further peace many if not most Jews would see such a resolution as condoning another Holocaust.
The honest truth can be found in an often repeated phrase If the Arabs lay down their weapons, there surely will be peace. If Israel lays down its weapons, there will surely be no Israel. Please cancel this attempt to insert our city into global affairs and problems. It is simply not appropriate." Thanks.
Thank you Joy. Next we have Carol Wade then Larry Steingold and then Chris Barton.
Hi everyone, thank you for being here and thank everyone else for being here as well. My name is Carol Wade I've lived and worked in Ojai for 25 years. I live in District 1. I'm 70 years old now and my entire life I've been an advocate of peace. I've been an activist This is not the only issue for which I have stood for peace People can change. We can move our lives closer to truth, and in that process reveal greater clarity of the path to wisdom to others just as their lives and actions can do that for us.
Some of the horrors and injustices of life have a tragic way of deepening and growing without much recognition outside those who are directly impacted. The reasons are myriad, and there really isn't time right now to list them. What I do want to illuminate right now are the many, many organizations, governments and individuals calling for a long-term ceasefire between Israel and Palestine.
For close and unbiased examination of what has led to the death of thousands of innocents The destruction of homes, schools, businesses, hospitals. The environmental degradation of whole swaths of land and the blocking of aid to those who need it the most. Here are some of those who are standing for justice and the municipalities that have passed ceasefire now resolutions in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
I can't list them all, there's not going to be enough time. One of them is the Jewish Voice for Peace. Cities include Richmond California, Oakland California, Detroit Michigan, Atlanta Georgia Akron, Ohio. Wilmington, Delaware. Providence, Rhode Island. Dearborn Heights, Michigan. The If Not Now movement. Those are just a few. This is democracy. This is what democracy is taking a stand.
I'm here to ask the City of Council to join this growing list of municipalities and to not adopt the revised proposal that you have now, but to rather go back to the resolution that specifically mentions the Israel-Palestine conflict. This is the same position that we had when we originally presented the resolution and that we had at the clarification meeting with some of the members of this council, where in a spirit of compromise, we changed some of the other language in the proposal.
Thank you. I would say one more thing, we don't destroy terror with terror. An eye for an eye truly does leave the whole world blind.
Thank you. Thank you Carol. Next we have Larry Steingold then Chris Barton and then Harmony Wade-Heck.
Larry Steingold resident. I am an Ashkenazi non self hating Jew okay? There was a truce there was a ceasefire It was intentionally broken and 1,400 people, children, men, women, babies butchered and killed. Okay? Now they want to cease fire. These same people who came here in all good intentions for whatever they believe in for a ceasefire, they mention Israel, they never mentioned Hamas because next week I'll have a proposal here condemning Hamas for butchery and all their accomplices And these same people weren't here for Somalia. There are millions being chased around Somalia Russia, Ukraine 750,000? Minamar or pronunciation whatever. Okay all these different countries but these people never show okay they never show for that they have silent vigils and state of themselves and that's nice and that's great and we're a non-nuclear city that's wonderful Okay?
But they were never here for anybody else. Okay, they're only here against Israel. They're only here to kill the Jews. Oh, take back Palestine! We're talking about Gaza. We're talking about the West Bank. We are actually talking about Gaza and a political party. Gaza is not a country. All right? So a political party that runs Gaza decides to attack another country and butcher them. They break a ceasefire. Now everybody says, oh we should have a ceasefire blame Israel.
Okay, blame Israel. Blame the United States. God forbid we should blame anybody else. Okay? These people broke the ceasefire but these people have never shown up for any other protests. Where are they? Okay? Crickets. Silence on the Ukraine and Russia for two years. You don't see them protesting out here every week at 4 o'clock, four to five. OK? Where are they?
So, call it what it is. OK? They want to be anti-Semitic? Then say it. They want to be anti-Israel? Say it. You want to be pro-Hamas? Come out and say it. We're all for the palace—we're all for peace. Okay, nobody in their right mind wants war. This is idiotic. I want my kids and grandchildren to grow old not to die on some hill someplace. And I'm the one that suggested you have one whole thing for peace And just call it a day. We're calling for, and where are the Jewish elders? But seriously, I mean, a very simple thing. We're a city for peace, we're calling for peace, call it a day. You wanna start breaking it down? We're gonna have 35 proposals every week. Guys are gonna be in the weeds doing this.
Thank you Larry. Next we have Chris Barton then Harmony Wade-Hack and then Munn. Is that, oh is that? It looks like M-U-N. I don't think so. Okay all right look let's hear from Chris and I'll, hi Chris no Aviva you're here yeah
I am Chris. I grew up here. I love Ojai, my whole family's here went to school here work in town. I'm here tonight because the number of Palestinians killed by the so-called Israeli Defense Force in the last seven weeks using my tax dollars and your tax dollars has risen to an estimated 20,000 that's from the Euro Med Human Rights Monitor That number is approximately 6,000 higher than it was when I spoke here two weeks ago.
There's already been a listing off of all the other statistics of homes raised and damaged and 1.7 million displaced. I'm here because I am trying to be optimistic that my town can play a part in stopping a genocide I was hoping to be speaking tonight in favor of a resolution calling on President Joe Biden to immediately call. For an facility, facilitate a deescalation diplomacy and an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
The West Bank and for Israel to urgently end the current violence. I'm disappointed to see the resolution has been edited to admit any specific. Call to action. Until this resolution is a call for a ceasefire in Gaza, an actionable call to Biden's administration who are facilitating this violence using our tax dollars. I cannot support this resolution. I am here for peace but a true peace that comes from justice and liberation for people under siege I just had a minute in response to some of the graphic claims made by members of the public who are against the call for a cease fire. I would like to say two things. I understand that people are grieving and hurting and I'm sorry I hear you and I invite you to keep in mind how easily manipulated feelings of grief and pain are.
And please be careful not to spread horrific claims that have been debunked even by the Anti-Defamation League, which is a pro-Israel organization These lies have real consequences for people like Hisham Al-Ratani, Kinan Abdalamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad. Three Palestinian college students who were shot in Vermont over the weekend. And the second thing that I would like to say is that there is never a justification for genocide.
Thank you.
Thank you Chris. Next we have Harmony Wade-Hack and then Munn and then Jodi Lewis.
4:13 – 4:184 turns
Good evening, thank you for My name is Harmony Whitehack and I have been a resident of Ojai for more than 20 years. Like others here, I am opposed to the resolution as it stands. I would be in favor of the resolution if it included a call for a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine specifically We can ask for world peace at any time. Peace around the world will never happen if we shrink from even identifying where and how that peace is ruptured right now.
The impetus for this resolution is what is happening in Israel and Palestine, I ask that the council please specify that the city of Ojai calls for a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine. I would also like to quickly read a message from Brian and Lisa Berman who founded the Ojai International City of Peace group, Wanted to say that they are in support of a ceasefire specifically in Gaza. The need for collective sharing of our grief is what is waiting below the hate and blame.
We are one humanity, and until we mourn and grieve the losses of life this war will continue for generations to come. Thank you for your support of the city taking a public stand for ceasefire in Gaza. Thank you.
Thank you, Harmony. Munn? Okay. Jody Lewis and then we have Aviva Bernat and then Carl Hindman.
Hi again, Jodi Lewis. Ojai resident for 12 years married to an Ashkenazi Jew for 23 years my three daughters identify as Jewish and grew up here And I'm here as a mom To read a letter from a fellow mom in In Ojai in our community who didn't feel safe to deliver this herself for reasons that are clear in the letter. Minor trigger warning, I use the letter names American victims of Islamophobia. Peace, good evening. I share these words before you today a 10-year resident of the Ojai Valley, a majestic community of heart centered people nestled in unceded territory of the Chumash people.
Of the many early visionaries who cultivated this land during these times, Annie Besant comes to mind. A woman who aimed to use these landscapes as the grounds on which to rehearse another human civilization. One which seeks understanding harmony and a deep value of diversity and difference. What we cultivate here in Ojai ripples out into the world as an example that truly another world is possible.
I urge you to understand that if we in Ojai do not disrupt and condemn hate and violence, both in our relationships and in the world, our silence normalizes and perpetuates it. I have personally endured and been witness to the wrath of Islamophobia and hate crimes in the wake of 9-11 The manufactured war on terror not only terrorized our relatives in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan but also created a culture of fear, hate and violence here in America. And we are once again experiencing, witnessing and enduring this today.
Wadah al-Fayoum, a six year old Palestinian boy was murdered for being Muslim by his landlord in Chicago, Illinois. Over the weekend three young Palestinian college students Tahseen, Kinam and Hasham were shot on their way to a family dinner in Burlington, Vermont. On Sunday, a South Asian father wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh playing basketball with his 18-month old toddler in New York City was accosted with Islamophobic racial slurs and hot coffee was thrown at him.
These horrifying acts of Islamophobia we are seeing happen here in America are the direct result of the Israeli oppression of Palestine and the rhetoric of dehumanization of Palestinian, Muslim, and Middle Eastern peoples that it carries with it. Your vote today holds the power to save lives both abroad and here at home. In our Islamic faith we are taught that if you harm one being it is as if you have harmed all humanity, and if you save one life it is it is as if you've saved all humanity.
Join us to save lives amend this resolution to include Palestine and Israel.
Thank you, Jody. Next we have Aviva Bernat and then Carl Heinemann and then William Wyrick.
4:18 – 4:244 turns
Does this work? So when I arrived I had planned to, I wrote a firm for the current form of the resolution. Not because it spoke for me and not, and I knew it didn't speak for most people but the challenge that you hold to bring the voices of Ojai is tremendous and almost impossible to do. That is what your charge is so something like this is what a compromise and this ceasefire is. Something that is unacceptable but not what any of us want.
That resolution, I could tell you what I want as a woman, a human and a Jew and many others all those voices so it didn't speak to any of those and I knew it didn't speak This resolution, but the original raising of the resolution didn't include if we're going to do this then we're gonna really have to do it. And I'm all in to be with people who probably have lots of opinions about me. If we're going to really continue this, then we have to continue the conversation because to pose something this significant, so important in the world with such strong feelings and with so much depth can't be done in one meeting and then a secret little... I know it wasn't secret but when I heard about it that that was met, I would've been there I want to listen to all of you and I also want voices heard.
So, you are representing our voices. I'm here to speak. Voices that aren't heard. Where were the voices after October 7th? Deafening silence! And you might say that those numbers aren't true. These are verified numbers. The atrocity—and I'm not trigger warning because it's all over the news—where was our voice then? Now here is a trigger warning. The atrocity of the sexual violence perpetrated against Israeli Jewish women, where was the voices there? These are people for peace. How about people for women? And we are seeing that deafening silence in the UN Women. Me too! Except if you're a Jew. It's really true and when I wrote to each of you and I did hear back from Andrew and Betsy and Rachel and I am Aviva Bernat, a member of your district.
Where are the voices? And if we're going to do this we have to do it. Sudan? We're talking about hundreds of thousands and where's our voice? And yes Somalia and Ethiopia and Yemen but in Israel this was not a war that they asked for October 7th, we've all heard about it. So I want to bring all the voices and I call If we're getting one resolution but bring a committee let us all come let's hear each other's voices Let's listen. I've been listening and There's a lot more to listen
Thank You Aviva Next we have Carl Heinemann No. OK. William Wyrick then Wendy Larner and then Austin Ringelstein.
William Wyrick oh hi. I watched on Zoom the last meeting when this was debated listening to it tonight. I asked a rhetorical question there's no answer to it. Do you think there is any way a resolution like this can be Uniting rather than divisive at our community. Is there any way anything like this could be handled in a way that's not divisive inside our community, which I thought was really the important mandate?
I appreciate the effort to find a way to be less divisive in this resolution by members of the council participated in that but again does it really accomplish that purpose For example, the city of Ojai advocates that all belligerents and all armed conflicts around the world must immediately lay down their arms. Their weapons in immediate cease fire stand violence. Does that include the Ukrainians right now?
According to language, that's what you're advocating for. I don't know if there's any way to deal with something like this other than perhaps what the previous speaker just mentioned, which I really listened carefully to. Need to hear these things out with each other. Anything like this that's passed without really providing the opportunity to hear each other out is I think potentially divisive.
So I would urge that maybe another pass rather than passing something tonight be thought through. And, you know we've all understand some of the deep contradictions in dealing with There are situations that our country is obviously partly complicit with as well. I don't deny that, I heard the comment about being addicted to war. Yeah since Vietnam through the present case could be made that a little bit too much of this is going on. I mean remember Dwight Eisenhower in his classic speech warning against the culture of war addiction that was pretty much ignored Our President John F. Kennedy who was going to withdraw the advisors until he was assassinated from Vietnam, these are historical facts.
So I urge you to think through this maybe not try to be divisive, try to avoid being divisive, try to promote healthy discussion and also realize that you cannot, I don't think if you're a student of history Confused pacifism with peace. Not the same, and I think the Ukrainian example is one good example. Thank you.
Thank you Bill. Next we have Wendy Larner then Austin Ringelstein and then Lisa Bernstein. Steve? Okay, Austin.
4:25 – 4:315 turns
Good evening, my name is Austin Ringelstein. I want to thank you all for your public service. I'm a veteran of the Iraq War. I was an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Officer who led a company of 20 sailors, marines and soldiers in southern Iraq. Collectively we disposed of 35,000 pounds of net explosive weight in ordnance. I am a Naval Academy graduate. I have two master's degrees. I'm not saying any of this as a matter of distinction.
Well, in fact I detest war and I have since joined Veterans for Peace. But rather I'm mentioning my credentials to reveal my credibility in discussing issues of armed conflict. The slaughter of close to 1,000 civilians on October 7th by Hamas by all means was devastating and allegedly consisted of war crimes. The response by Israel, the wanton killing over 20,000 Palestinians including over 8,000 children resulting in an environment that the UN has deemed a children's graveyard is not only disproportionate it is against the law of armed conflict principles Overall, the core principles of Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law prohibits attacks on those not engaged in hostilities.
Prohibits unnecessary suffering and it is guided by principles of necessity and proportionality. Key word, proportionality as well. Justifications for these grave actions based on notions of self-defense do not justify the disproportionate and targeted slaughter of noncombatants. Overall, one war crime does not justify four further war crimes ad infinitum. Collective punishment amounts to genocide. As a Naval Academy graduate, Iraq War veteran father and citizen of Ojai I stand in solidarity with other members here today explicitly calling for the Ojai City Council to pass a resolution for an immediate ceasefire in Israel and Palestine and a return of all hostages and Palestinian prisoners many of whom are women and children.
Ojai has a long-storied tradition of taking courageous action to advocate for peace. And to answer, for those who think it's not within our sphere of influence, it absolutely is. On July 31, 1931 the Ojai newspaper reported on their front page that disarmament petitions were in circulation among Ojai leaders—business people, intellects and spiritualists. Three months later, the Ojai Lions Club passed a resolution in favor of universal disarmament among the nations of the world.
We have a responsibility here folks and if we do want to be a beacon of light to the world it's time to take courageous action. This conflict is humanitarian issue transcendent of nations religions or sides. Martin Luther King was against anti-semitism he also denounced the triple evils of militaries and racism and poverty I just want to read one more thing This was in the Ojai newspaper in 1930.
Let us not forget that great day when slaughter ceased, and let us impress upon them that it is not might that makes right, that there are not differences between nations or men, and I would add women, that cannot be adjusted by a meeting of sane minds. Thank you.
Thank you, Austin. Next we have Leeson Bernstein, and then Nora Harold
Hi everybody, can you hear me okay? My name is Lason. I was born and raised here. This place is my home and I didn't prepare anything so I'm going to try to keep this brief. But I also stand in solidarity with the folks asking for a revision for specific language referencing Israel and Palestine. Mayor Betsy, earlier you spoke about Ojai being a beacon for sustainability and I would implore you to do the same for our commitment to peace. That's all, thanks.
Thank you, Leeson. Next we have Nora Harrell.
And I'm grateful to you all for doing what you're doing tonight, for doing what you did two weeks ago which is offering an opportunity for the community to come up and speak. And speak about real pain. This room right now feels filled with ancestral trauma to me We're talking about conflict that goes back thousands and thousands of years, if not beyond. That we can't wrap our minds around the origins and we can't solve it.
What we can do is have personal intention and integrity for peace For community. For conversation, for connection, for healing. Both the anti-Semitism and the Islamophobia are on the rise both. This wants to be an either or a two side situation and it's not And yet there is real brutalization occurring in Gaza right now. And that's real. So when I'm confronted by having to make difficult decisions, I go back to what's what's my personal intention?
So I guess I'll leave you with that. What's your personal intention here? Yeah, thanks. I really love you and appreciate you all and all of you This farm is healing.
4:31 – 4:389 turns
Thank you, Nora. Any comments online Weston?
Yes mayor we have one raised hand right now Jerry Schwenke. Jerry you have the floor. Sorry
Mr. Drucker I didn't get a card but do you want to speak?
Hi, John Drucker. I live here. I work as a lawyer here and before I was a lawyer, I was a legislative aide on Capitol Hill for a senator involving foreign policy. Before that, I got a Master's of International Affairs from Columbia University Middle East Institute In that role, I'd like to address some of the statements that have been made along the way this evening that I'd like to correct.
First, Barbara Aronson mentioned all the ceasefires and I agree with her wholeheartedly. I would just like to add that there was a ceasefire in effect on October 6th and Hamas chose to break that truce setting off this entire tragic train of events Next, I heard a bunch of people throwing around terms like colonialism, genocide, racism, occupation. Israel is not a colonial project.
Jews formerly known as Judeans are the indigenous people of that land going back to kingdoms more than 3,000 years ago It's probably the best case of decolonization, as the Arabs given their name came from Arabia and colonized the area with the imperial conquest of Islam throughout the Middle East. Genocide, these people throw around the term so casually either they don't know the definition or they're using it simply in an effort to avoid having to talk about Hamas atrocities because genocide is not what's going on here.
For your information, general information to everyone else is the population of Gaza in 1967 when Israel began to occupy Gaza after the Six-Day War was 357,000. Today it's about 2 million. Not much of a genocide I would say. Second we all hope for peace. But the practical implications of this resolution is that it calls on people who have been horrifically attacked, such as in Ukraine and Israel to do nothing in response. Such an action would not only fail to bring peace, it would actually encourage further attacks As a senior Hamas official recently declared in reference to the October 7 attacks, quote, we must teach Israel a lesson and we will do this again and again.
Those attacks were just the beginning and Hamas vows to launch, quote, a second, a third, a fourth attack until Israel is annihilated end quote. This is what you are asking for Israel to tolerate that isn't tolerable to put it mildly Please do not even consider this resolution, let alone pass it. Thank you.
Thank you, John. Next we have Jerry.
Mr. Schwenke, you have the floor?
Oh, thank you again, Jerry Schwenke live here in Ojai. You know, I'd like to thank Austin for stepping up. I'm a veteran too and I left the Army in 1975 highly politicized after Being trained to be a patriot for six years. And you know, I've protested wars that you've never even heard of and I protested both of the Iraq Wars. I spoke out against them in churches and schools here locally I've protested the war in Ukraine. I've protested the Russian aggression and you know, Mr. Putin just hadn't been listening to me.
He's not listening to much of anybody though. And you know, I've heard people in here in the council chambers tonight saying that Ojai needs to just mind its own business. We have nothing to do with what's going on over there, it's none of our business. And you know it's become really obvious to me at least that while the war, the actual brutality of the war is confined to Israel and Palestine, the conflict surely has spilled over to much of the rest of the world including this room I witnessed tonight one faction suing for peace and another faction saying no. The killing must go on, you know? And it just breaks my heart. It breaks my heart that Without calling for an immediate ceasefire in Israel and Palestine, Gaza the West Bank.
There's no point in having a resolution we already have one for world peace you know but this is where it's hot right now And I would support that resolution calling for that ceasefire and diplomacy and standing down. That's all I've got to say, thanks.
Thank you, Jerry.
Next we have Leah. Leah, you have the floor?
4:38 – 4:448 turns
Hi, can you hear me?
Yes, we can please proceed.
Okay, so I'm sorry. I'm a very bad public speaker and I usually try to avoid it at any cost. I would like to speak about what I saw tonight here in this chamber. You have a resolution calling for peace, for general peace. I saw a whole bunch of people saying yeah we're for peace but not that piece only this piece this very specific piece in this one place of land.
I saw people saying terrible things about Islamophobia which is These three students that were shot, it's unbelievable that this can happen in America. Just as it's unbelievable that a woman got punched in the face in New York for looking Jewish. That Jewish students get chased over their campuses for wearing a kippah. There are two sides to this obviously and there are people that feel strongly But you are being asked to take a side.
And I'm with the gentleman who said, how is this going to help Ojai? How is this gonna bring us together in Ojai?" I saw a young man said to a council member, how did you change this without showing us? And I saw her say, yes, yes of course, I am so sorry. I should have showed you Is this how it works? You come into the council and say, this is what we demand. And we demand you do it exactly like this.
Is this democracy? A young man just said they asked for universal disarmament. Yes, universal. But we don't care apparently about the 4.5 million people being displaced in Sudan. No, this is only about taking sides in Israel. Will it really help Ojai if you do that? Who is going to feel happy and who is going to feel scared? I am. I'm going to feel scared. Thank you.
Thank you, Leah.
No more raised hands, Mayor.
All right we'll move on to discussion. Oh I'm sorry Elena you want go ahead please. Anyone else?
Okay, hello. First I'd like to recognize that we are on Chumash Nation territory and we're holding this meeting here and I'd like to honor the indigenous people who have been living and working in the land from time immemorial. Before I speak about the ceasefire resolution, I'd like to take a few moments of silence to honor those who've passed and all the families who are mourning their loved ones lost in the Palestinian-Israel war.
Thank you. Today, I sat by the river to gather my thoughts about what I was going to say here tonight and I thought what a privilege we have here in Ojai just to be able to sit in peace by the river and the war in Gaza rages on. We really are so privileged and with this privilege comes responsibility And I'm guilty of not being responsible enough, of not speaking about our government's wars in the world.
As you were mentioning, in Sudan, in Yemen, in Afghanistan and the millions of people who we've murdered and who have been displaced and are refugees now because of the war machine. It took the genocide of the Palestinian people to motivate me to speak here tonight and ask you to go to Washington on our behalf. I'm disappointed with the revisions made in the final version and that we are trying to be politically correct, and we can't be politically correct when it comes to genocide when 20,000 people have died at the hands of the war machine of the United States.
And I've been an activist for 40 years, but I feel I haven't done enough to stop the military-industrial complex that supplies 800 bases. and 80 countries around the world with $858 billion a year in our taxes because there's a direct correlation between the funding of the war and the suffering of the Palestinians. I'm going to take my activism to Washington, and I'm going to run for Congress as a representative of the 24th District. I plan to use my platform to represent the people who are tired of our taxes going to fund the Palestinian genocide and destruction of Gaza.
I hope you will reconsider the wording of the resolution and make the humanitarian crisis in Gaza a priority and save the Palestinian people. Thank you.
Thank you, Helena. That's it, Weston? Okay, we'll move on to discussion. Who would like to begin?
4:44 – 4:5515 turns
Well, I think we should pause.
I
think we should have a cease fire and just pause and absorb what we've learned tonight. And then you have contact information and maybe gather more people and have maybe something even in the park where we talk on a Saturday or Sunday morning, well Saturday because people go to church. I would like that.
I was thinking the same thing. There's a quote I want to bring into this conversation, and that is from Deborah Falmouth. She says that peace is not the absence of conflict, it's the presence of oneness. And as I've been listening to you all tonight, I'm aware of the fact that we have—as a previous person said, we have polarized ourselves on peace resolution.
And that was not my intention at all. And I'm also aware of the fact that the resolution that we brought forward is a meeting in the middle of this polarization, and I've heard tonight loud and clear that it's not effective, that it's not good. And so watered-down version of both polar opposites is not the answer. But what is the answer, I think, is what Mayor Pro Tem Francina said.
Let's come together and let's have a meeting in the park. Let's brainstorm about what we could do. My initial desire as I talked to the city attorney and the mayor about this was in creating something that would be a legislative policy that if there is a genocide or if there is a future conflict that we hear from members of the community, it is abhorrent. How can we as a city use our stance as a city of peace and create a protocol for ways that we could get involved? Calling the Congress, calling our congressional representatives, et cetera.
And I'm still interested in something like that. I'm also still interested in looking at the possibility of creating a Peace Commission, that would be an advisory committee or commission that would talk about ethics and protocol that would address conflict, and how the city should take a stance that could do some research that would help us to understand what the core issues are.
I know that the ceasefire group really wants a resolution now. I know that time is of the essence. Anyone who has ever lost a loved one is watching what's happening. And day after day, our hearts are breaking with those, with the Israelis who have witnessed things that none of us should ever have to live through. The same is happening in Ukraine and Sudan and Somalia, all of these places where people are dying unnecessarily.
And so I really want to do something in a timely manner. And at the same time, it's really clear from what we've heard tonight that we're not ready, that we need more community coming together. We need more unity. That if we're going to do a peace policy, we really need to model peace and how we come together.
Councilmember Whitman?
Yeah So I kind of naively after our last meeting Went on the internet and started reading about what other cities were doing to see. Oh, maybe somebody did this the right way and And we could copy what they did and It doesn't exist. I've spent hours and hours reading what other cities have done, and anybody who has taken a position, any city that has taken a position, has received a lot of criticism from their citizens.
One of the things that occurs to me is that we're kind of structurally, the federal government is in charge of this issue. And although we speak to them as a city body, we don't really speak to the federal government as a city body typically. And what each of us can do that feel like they want to have their voices heard is speak to our legislative representatives because they are your connection.
That's Salud Carbajal, Alex Padilla and somebody's going to have to help me we have a new senator. Lafonza Butler. Those are the people that we should be writing to and talking to And what I don't think, I appreciate what Sousa and Rachel have said tonight because We're in this position where if we speak, we're speaking for the city. And I think what we've heard loud and clear tonight is that we don't have one voice on this issue. And so I welcome the opportunity to try to explore how we come up with one voice But I think it's a really difficult position, and I will say that I might be naive but I trust that our diplomats Are doing their best job of trying to end violence or to, you know, resolve whatever conflicts are going on in a way that saves the most human life.
And I think that's what we should all be. You know, but what I've heard tonight is passing a resolution Pursue that isn't really what was being asked for and so I'm left kind of.
I'm gonna speak Well, I just want to thank everyone for coming out and expressing your Opinions and Helena you are right. We are so blessed and lucky to be living here in a place where we can express our various viewpoints and Pete Tick not Han said that pieces of practice. So I think it's also this is an example of peace in practice and it's messy and I agree with my councilmembers that we don't have one voice at this point and we do need to get together. And I also want to thank Councilmember Lange for really taking the lead here and doing your best in a situation that's No, you did a great job.
Yes and thank you. And back
to Nora's question what is our
intention? You know, our intention is pure to support our community and to promote peace. It's challenging clearly. I found a quote by historian Howard Zinn, the future is an infinite succession of presence and to live now as we think human beings should live in defiance of all that is bad around us is itself a marvelous victory. So going back to getting together and meeting and discussing all the different viewpoints, I think that is in itself a marvelous victory that we need to do.
Anyone have any? Council Member
Lange? Go ahead, you were first. I also think that we should all do a reality check to see really what is happening, like the whole issue of who's providing. We are living in a military-industrial complex. That is the horrible, horrible reality. And we should just... We may not be able to change it but we should not be naive and really look at where our tax dollars are going.
Let's make that our homework. And that, I'm sorry we should also see you know we have to look at who's investing in what and just really understand the financial reality of the evil that actually drives the world. I mean I call it evil. It's evil. It is pure evil.
And that is one thing. Somebody's
making a lot of money off the wars.
Yes, and that is one thing that we could do if we were to come back with another peace policy is talk about divesting all of the cities.
Yeah, we've done that. Look at let's look at the Hawaii Valley in the crown family. Mm-hmm do some research So
yeah, and and also I am having I have quarterly get togethers at Daly Park And I'm having one on the 10th on December 10th Sunday so if anyone wants to come and share your ideas and share your suggestions, I would be happy to I'll be there, we'll be talking about city things. It's not a city event but it is something that I'm doing so I would open that up to anyone here who wants to talk and let's see what we can do. What time? It's at 10am, 10-1130 and it's at Daly Park over on White Oak Circle
4:55 – 5:0012 turns
So in terms of this evening, we are agreeing to... Consensus
to study further.
Okay. All right. Well so no vote. Thank you all for being here. We really are grateful for your participation and viewpoints. It's very good.
I learned so much. Yeah. It is really good to bring ... This is on everybody's mind. It is not normally part of city business but it is really important. On some level, we're all constantly traumatized. I picked the wrong day to get up at four in the morning. I'm reeling myself, because this is it. I want to hear what people say. They think we've
adjourned. Yeah, I know. We are not adjourned our meeting is continuing so if you could please leave quietly. We are going to move on thank you.
Five and ten minutes? We will move on to council members reports. If we could have quiet, please in the chambers that
would be wonderful. OK, any council member
reports? Can I start? Yeah. Some of you probably know I moderate the Ojai Valley Animal Kingdom and I'm the city liaison to Ventura County Animal Services And I've been the liaison for seven years, but I've never really given a report on what all I'm involved in. And it's too late to go into it tonight.
Excuse me if we could just have quiet? We're still having our meeting so thank you all for being here much appreciated
But I will say that I'm in touch with probably every rescue group of Ventura County, the volunteers. I've become kind of a point person because all the commissioners are elected officials but because I have the Ojai Valley Animal Kingdom You know, they identify me and so almost every single week we are involved with trying to keep the Ventura County shelter a no-kill shelter. And because it's an impossible situation there are way too many dogs and it's all connected to the homeless situation That lack of housing because if people don't have housing they often, I've seen it. I've sat in the lobby and it's a terrible thing when you see people who already almost have nothing forced to give up their pet because that's the only way they can get housing.
So anyway, I just want to assure you I'm doing what I can To keep the standards, what happens is that dogs that are adoptable become unadoptable due to the stressful situation in the shelter and it is heartbreaking. And these people are like the front lines. The answer is spay and neuter and do not buy from breeders. You know, that just keeps the cycle going. Okay, that's enough. That's my report! After seven years I should say something. Anybody
else? Go ahead. Council Member Lange. I just wanted to give a huge shout out to the chamber And for the tree lighting ceremony. And thanks, Jamie Fleming, for your leadership in making sure that the city has lights and the event was spectacular. We have so much musical talent in this valley. It's incredible. So thank you.
Well, the Mayor's Youth Council met for the first time and we had 21 students from five different schools. It was really wonderful, really bright, inquisitive, thoughtful, motivated kids and a big thank you to the co-chairs Kathy Hotchkiss, Peggy Grunert and Chris Engel for communicating with the schools and planning thanks to Terry Cara bought us for opening up air pizza and hosting us. It was really wonderful and Just in a nutshell the students all expressed interest in the in the climate change Many expressed interest in mental health social equity and peace so they worked in small groups And then next meeting we're going to have some couple speakers Michelle Ellison from Ohio's Emergency Climate Committee Abra Stewart from Seafrog and Ray Powers from International City of Peace So thank you all to them for sharing their expertise and it was really a sweet and exciting event And I'm really grateful for the council support really wonderful kids.
So That's it anybody else Nope, okay city manager's report
5:00 – 5:0817 turns
All right, thank you. Just wanna give a couple updates on the personnel front. We recently had a vacancy in our finance department and we advertised the position of accountant one. We received a number of applications. We received probably just over 40. Of those, we interviewed about 10 of the applicants and I'm happy to report that our own internal applicant Scott Avila who's been with the city for about three years and has really been the go-to in finance, was rewarded with being the go-to with having some really tangible experience that he separated himself from the rest of the applicant pool.
So I'm always happy to see when you have an internal applicant succeed in a competitive recruitment. Accepted the position and officially started in this new role yesterday on the 27th And then in the same recruitment we had a temp that's been with us for a number of months Tim Jeffress Who competed in their recruitment and we backfilled Scott's position with Tim. So to internal OI employees taking two full-time positions so And that's really going to help both the continuity of the finance department and it's a team that works well together from interpersonal standpoint as well.
Tonight, as the council may have seen, the salary resolution was before you. One of the key components of that was the addition of the classification of homeless services coordinator. As you know we have had Rick Raines operating in that capacity but Since it was a quick response the council wanted Mark was somewhat limited in how he could fill it. So Rick has been in a part-time position But now with this position being official and full time We can fill that classification in a more appropriate full time manner because it's an issue that needs full time focus so That will be in place now that the council has adopted that Also on the encampment issue Rick over the past couple weeks has done a pilot project on one of the tents that we intend to use it worked quite well So we're gonna be starting to purchase those.
The one difference is that they will be fire retardant per Requested the fire marshal, so we'll be getting those and plotting those out and starting to move the encampment out of the area that's currently in or start on the asphalt area over adjacent to the finance building, Oak Tree House. So that work is underway. We've made progress on the Encampment Resolution Funding Grant, Ruth Miller who I'm sure you all know of has done phenomenal work on it. Some surrounding cities both Oxnard and Thousand Oaks have been successful in securing funding so we'll have our grant application in shortly. The deadline's the 31st of January so hopefully have more news on that front Also, the issue of trash in the encampment.
One thing that we've recently noticed is a lot of folks are trying to do the right thing but our trash service here on the City Hall campus has always been intended for the use of City Hall and the surrounding buildings so we've increased the level of service that the dumpster is dumped because it's continually overflowing and I'm seeing stuff stacked around the trash enclosure and with the winds it's getting blown away So we've increased the service levels, so I think that in part will address the problem. And then we're also gonna be putting some collection points out there as well that trash can be disposed of.
And with that, I just wanted to also let the council know we're gonna have a need to do a few special meetings in December to handle a few issues. So either Matt or I, or both Matt and I will be polling you all on potential dates.
Are we doing the December 18th? Is that?
Yeah, that one is set. That's
for Monday night.
Yes,
Monday night, December 18th will be public meeting on the Becker projects. Correct. Two of them.
Thank you for that update, Carl. Much appreciated. We're grateful to you. Thank you for being here. Any future agenda items, I think
I had one so last week Susan Williamson brought up the the issue about the Tara Mina roof rooftops And how that relates to to the ability to build affordable housing. So So I just wanted to mention that as a request that came in
And Carl and I spoke about it, and we're talking to the... That's all I'm going to say because Matt is looking at me like don't say anything. So
I have some items possibly for January. Should I save them? Even yours is for next year right? We are already pretty full for the last meeting
We have a jam-packed December 12th.
So anything is for next year? Yes Okay, so I just want to do a reminder and it's appropriate I think at the beginning of the year this was on our list of priorities a cost of living increase For the City Council stipend. I think that speaks to equity and then Mr. Summers Are we going to ever see the amendment that the council majority agreed to? How do I pull this out of my brain at this late hour.
Back in May, when a renter on the City Council loses their housing as it stands now. I'm the first but I probably won't be the last until we get rid of districts If you lose your housing, you have 30 days to find new housing. And I think we agreed that we should extend it to some reasonable amount of time especially in today's rental market so that nobody ever has to go through what I went through and It's protection for any renter on City Council. I mean, even now as a renter, I could be told that she wants the room back for her son or something and then I only, under the present ordinance, I have 30 days to find another place in District 4 so you get my drift.
Yeah, that continues to be on the list. We'll bring it forward early in the new year.
Okay, thank you. I just want to make sure and then Some point we're gonna have to talk about e-bike regulations all cities are addressing that I don't like to add anything new to the list but it's becoming it's even part of what? Mr. Stigall brought about the arcade that that's about a 30 year problem though We'll get to that we have to and then You know, maybe this ties in with the encampment update but we still don't have a safe parking lot for people where they can safely park their car and sleep.
They should be, they're allowed. Are people legally? I keep, this is something people keep asking and I'm not clear. Can people legally sleep in their car in the parking lot? They can right?
We're not currently arresting people doing sleeping in their car on the parking lot of the City Hall parking lot.
Okay thank you. I'll tell them that yeah that's it
okay all right well thank you everyone for a productive meeting and we are adjourned