City Council — 2024-03-26

Call to

order,

we have a quorum. Could we have the roll call please Mr. Management Analyst?

Madam Mayor, members of Council, thank you. Trina Newman with the Ojai Police Department and I'm here to present you the crime statistics for the City of Ojai. The crime statistics we capture are in accordance with the National Incident Based Reporting System also known as NIBRS and it is reported to the Department of Justice on an annual basis. This review contains information compiled from our Sheriff's Crime Analysis Unit as well as records from the Ojia Police Department And these statistics are compared to the previous year from 2022 and before.

The Sheriff's Office uses these statistics to ensure appropriate coverage and delivery of services, as well as to gauge and determine whether or not our programs and policies have an impact on the reduction of crime. I also want to say for those that are watching or listening, you can also look at our crime statistics online at our website VenturaSheriff.org.

The statistics I'm presenting tonight are a little bit more in depth so they may not be the same. With that if you could go to the next slide please? The first slide, this is an extremely basic overview of our patrol functions here in Ojai. So on 2023 we responded to over 3,000 calls for service. Those calls for service range from anywhere between low level report calls, barking dog nuisance calls all the way up to investigations of criminal behavior including weapons and serious injury and everything in between.

Our average response time listed here at 5.29 minutes, that is our response time for what we refer to as priority one calls which are truly emergency calls where we respond with lights and sirens. So within the city if someone calls for an emergency we have an average response time of just over five minutes. In 2023, we made 243 arrests between both felony and misdemeanor arrests. And we also handled 42 non-injury and 22 injury traffic accidents in 2023.

Next slide please. Now generally when we look at statistics, we look at them in two categories. One being property crime and one being violent crime. This slide depicts our property crime numbers. So in 2023, we had an overall 8% reduction in property crimes. This category represents crimes of burglary, residential and commercial burglaries as well as petty theft, grand theft, vehicle theft and arson.

And as you can see the 2023 numbers are listed in the light green if you can see that on the slide there which is the column farthest to the left so with exception of residential burglaries all of our property crime numbers went down. We had eight incidents of residential burglary in 2023. We made arrests in half of those, the other half those cases we were unable to establish any evidence and there was a lack of any suspect information in those cases.

Next slide please. This particular slide shows the number of violent crimes by incident in the city of Ojai. And this category consists of homicides, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. In 2023 as you can see aggravated assault numbers were increased by a total of seven incidents in 2023. In this, I'm sorry. Yes that's correct seven incidents. This is actually consistent countywide we not only saw this in Ojai but we saw this in every jurisdiction within the County of Ventura.

We believe that we're kind of getting back to pre-pandemic numbers when it comes to looking at person crimes In all seven of those incidents, we made arrests. So 100% clearance in terms of arrest for those cases. The degree of assaults and what we're looking at in terms of those incidents were neighbor disputes, domestic related and then of course we also had a couple of incidents occur in our encampment but again all those were cleared by arrest.

Next slide please. This slide shows just the comparison of property crimes compared to violent crime. So as you can see, majority of our crimes in Ojai are property crimes. In 2023 again we had a decrease in property crimes versus the previous two years. I can say that I would rather see majority of property crimes versus violent crimes not that any crime is great but I would rather see it in terms of property versus person-to-person violent crimes.

Next slide, please. This is a count of arrests we had in the City of Ojai last year. So we did have a decrease in arrests. We had 33 felony arrests and 210 misdemeanor arrests. There was a significant decrease in misdemeanor arrests in 2023 which could be attributed to the fact that we did have a decrease in calls for service in 2023 although they're not always related there are a lot of factors that could determine Next slide, please.

I know that traffic is of a major concern here in Ojai so I did want to give some perspective on traffic citations that were issued in 2023. They range again from no registration to moving violations, illegal turning movements, speeding We issued 288 traffic citations in 2023. And we do have plans to, and talking with City Manager Ben Harvey, we have plans to look at some options for increasing our traffic enforcement. So more to come on that.

Next slide please. Before closing, and I do want to give time if anybody has any questions. But before closing, I just wanted to give kind of a quick recap in 2023 of some things we did in the community last year. We partnered with schools and participated in Read Across America Red Ribbon Week. We held a bike rodeo in Oak View. We hosted Coffee With The Cop events last year. We had our Ojai Youth Explorer group attend a national event in Chandler, Arizona for the first time We will and we'll continue to have services brought to our vulnerable population in terms of our backpack medicine and one stop group.

And in 2024, this is kind of exciting for us and I think this may bring a lot of help to us here in terms of our encampment but in 2024 the Board of Supervisors approved a full-time eight person excuse me homeless liaison unit Which means we will be able to use those services from that unit every contract city will be able to use services from that unit Then they will be able to assist us in issues with our encampment in terms of cleanup enforcement assistance with studying laws and regulations in regard to homeless camps In 2024, we also created a full-time organized retail theft unit which we don't have a lot of in Ojai. I think the couple incidents that we did have in 2023 were at Rite Aid but again this is a full time unit that may be able to provide some assistance to us should we need assistance with investigations in terms of retail theft.

For 2024, we'll continue to utilize grants from our Office of Traffic Safety to bolster our traffic enforcement. We will continue to use our COPS grants to also do our bike patrols and our foot patrols in the city. I know those are really popular so we want to continue to do that. And in 2024, we also hope to continue with our community events. Last week we were able to put on our pizza with the police which the mayor attended and it was a great turnout so we hope to continue to do those as well.

And with that I will close and if anyone has any questions I'm available.

Thank you so much, Chief Newman. We are so grateful for you and all their diligence and data and your calm demeanor and being the first female chief of police in Ojai. That's a big deal. So thank you. Any questions or comments from from the council? Council Member Francina.

Thank you. So I have two or three questions. Is this on online, the slideshow?

It is not online. That was exclusively for today's presentation.

Okay, but now it is because it's part of

the...

It will

be part of this presentation.

Yeah and it might be well it's at the beginning so people can find it easily that was one question and then I heard you say Ojai City arrests but the other statistics were Ojai Valley wide correct?

Yes so are you talking about our statistics that are listed on our website?

No just from the presentation.

That is all relating to the city specifically

All of those

statistics are only within city limits.

Okay, but I heard you say that there was something at a robbery or shoplifting at Rite

Aid? Yes, that was not included in any of these statistics. I made reference to that because of our organized theft retail unit that would be able to assist us in that type of incident. But again, I realize that has no effect on the City.

I guess if you divide it all up by 365 days, and it's not. But it was I was surprised at the statistics. So thank you for that. And that's all for now. Thank you. Thank you. Any other

questions or comments? All right. Thank you, Chief Newman. Much appreciated. All right, we will go ahead and move on to public communications first.

Actually mayor if I could

I'm so sorry mister

on Presentations which would be more appropriately an introduction? I would like to introduce To the community in the council our new recreation manager Matt Davis who's with us tonight joined us from the city of San Clemente down in Orange County. So Matt if you'd like to let the council know about your background and what you'll be doing with us

Hi, so thank you guys for welcoming me near the city new to the area So originally from Seattle Washington and was most recently with the city of San Clemente Very grateful to be here my background I have a recreation background Management degree from Central Washington University. I have a master's degree in public administration, and got 15 years of recreation management experience managing facilities and programs and staff.

And so I'm really excited to be here. I feel like I have the best job in the city, and really excited for the future of what we can do for the facilities and the programs for the community. So glad to be here.

Well thank you so much for being here Matt.

Thank you.

We're excited

to work with you, thank

you. I have a quick, just a quick comment. I assume you've been on the job a couple weeks?

This is my second week.

This is your second week. Sarzotti looks beautiful. They came in with new mulch. It just looks fabulous so thank you very much for that. You know they worked three or four days and it's just a beautiful park and the mulch and the clearing up of it was lovely so thank you very much for that. Welcome to town Matt.

Good. Please Chair Smitty, it's past time but we will make an excuse for you.

Just a quickie hi everybody we're celebrating a couple things this month over the Arts Commission first of all I want to acknowledge and recognize Leslie Rule she has been our liaison for the last three months and she has had I complimented her to her face this week that she has shown her face more than anyone else has been since I've been chair and I want to just thank her for the meetings that you've had with us. She's the one council person who has sat down and gone over the actual in detail, the five-year plan with me so you all continue to have an open invitation to do that.

And the other thing I just want to thank you in advance for tonight, to do our plan we need commissioners and I saw on the consent items that we may just get one tonight. And I just want to thank you for moving on that all of you council. And that's it. The only watch for education seminars this month and we'll also be starting a mentor program where we're going to have 10 different artists from the valley paired with young people teenagers From the Valley for a job shadow program. That's part of this as well

Thank

you, thank you chair Smitty

I Appreciate your recognition of councilwoman Leslie rule I think that's very important because it's that we I'm a big fan of attending in person when possible and But I also want to say that there were no meetings when I was the liaison, so you can't fault me

for

that.

All right, well I have good coffee at my house too.

Thank you very much Chair Smitty. Yes Council Member? I just wanted to say that the upcoming as I understand the upcoming educational offering is the elevator speech is that correct? Yes and I wanted to say I think that's excellent even though I don't consider myself an artist in that way I would like an elevator speech so I think I'm going to come.

I think everyone

should have an elevator speech.

Elevator speech pretty much is when do you stop talking?

All of us should be attending yes, thank you very much

That is the less is more. Thank You chair Smitty Okay, we will go ahead and move on to public communication So let's begin with Leonard Cleif then Andy Gilman and then Starchild

Leonard Claife, I live in the city of Ojai. I had two things I wanted to talk about. I'm going to add a third. 17 moving violations which include speeding turns and et cetera are grossly insufficient considering the problem we have with vehicles that speed through Ojai and I hope that number like triples or quadruples and if you do that for year you probably won't have to do it again so please.

In a related matter, when I was here two weeks ago, I called your attention and asked for your assistance with respect to Caltrans leaving holes at our intersections. Mayor Sticks told me that there was something on the council website. I went to it and it was a PR piece from Caltrans which said that they were working on the curbs February 8th and 9th And which is kind of silly, that may have been the last time they worked on them. It may have been the last time they intend to work on them.

So I sent off another note saying nobody's been here. We have holes in the ground at intersections, at major intersections. In addition if you're standing in front of the Ojai Pharmacy getting ready to cross Ojai Avenue to the post office. The ramp that they just built is to the left of the intersection, so if a car comes up stops before it gets to the crosswalk and somebody comes down the ramp in a wheelchair they will crash into the front fender of the car You would think that Caltrans knows how to build a curb ramp, but they don't.

So again, they're not paying any attention to me. I don't know if they'll pay any attention to you, but I think there's a better chance that they'll pay attention to you than they will to me. So I would ask the council again to please attempt to do something to get the holes in the ground filled before somebody really gets badly hurt. That's second thing. Third thing, we have 43 seconds.

Councilmember Rule is starting a petition drive to get the pickleball courts reopened that will result in a cost to the city of several thousands of dollars to administer an election and perhaps several thousand dollars more if there is a lawsuit, if the initiative passes It is not the first time council member rule has taken steps that have resulted in grossly excessive costs to the city.

And you're supposed to be representing the city, not costing the city money. Thank you.

Right, saying that I started that initiative. You have no right to say that you have no evidence if that's true and once again- You

were out collecting

signatures. Just a reminder that this does not mean that I started the initiative. Thank you. Thank you for correcting yourself and your information, I appreciate it Mr. Claife. Okay thank you Lenny, thank you

all right we're gonna end now excuse me could we please have silence please? And just a Lenny I will be circling back to you about the traffic next week we'll have a meeting okay thank you all right next we have Andy Gilman then Starchild and then David Chapman

Andy Gilman, live in Ojai. Greetings Council and staff before I start to say what I'm going to say we did a really wonderful interview with Ben Harvey that I'm going to be sending him the link to tonight and I hope it comes out this week but it was I felt much more confident, not that I wasn't confident but so excited to hear him speak and I think it's great for Ojai. So good job on the hire, want to say that?

I have been concerned for a long time and have deliberated for a long time there should be no surprise that I've announced that I'm going to run for mayor in 2024. And I'm not gonna focus on policy here it's all on my website Andy Gilman for Ojiai but I will say if I had to say it in one or two words it would be compromise and goodwill That would be my main focus here. And what I hope to do today is to set a stage and a tone to say we have tolerated campaigns that reflect our national spirit, which I want to say in Ojai, we are small enough and mighty enough to not have to do that. So what I'd like to propose is the following buck from the national trend on campaigns with the following things.

Number one, whoever runs for office I suggest that we agree on a campaign spending limit and that anything raised in support of our campaigns we diverted to Ojai's non-profits. Number two anybody who has lived here for awhile knows we had this very strange phenomena of lawn signs up and down Ojai Avenue let's just avoid that whole thing and all agree not to have lawn signs and use the money for Ojai's nonprofits. I would love us to agree on that Number three, and this is the most important one.

When our supporters go on to social media and want to trash the other candidate for some particular personality or anecdote or historical reference or something like that we candidates go onto that platform and say thank you supporter This campaign won't run this way. We're going to focus on the issues, we're going to speak with each other, we're going to say what we intend to do coming up in the campaign. I hope that we can set a new tone for how campaigns go and then lastly number four, I hope that whoever does run and whoever is finally elected reaches out to those other candidates for advice Because I think that's an issue that I'm hoping that I can help address, which is we're not speaking to each other well and not trusting each other.

Well, there's a lack of goodwill in this room generally speaking. So I hope that we can achieve what's been missing, which is a trust within this group and a trust from outside for the group. Thank you.

Thank you, Andy. Next, we have Starchild then David Chapman and then Jill Dolan

Good evening. I want to talk a little bit about the reach ordinance and some of the litigation you're gonna talk about It was too mumbly, okay good evening. I want to talk a little bit about the reach ordinance tonight and Some of the litigation you're going to talk about in closed session I wanted to start out by saying that I very much am in favor of the environment.

I personally try and use as little gas as possible. I have an induction stovetop that I put on top of my gas stove at my rental, and I never use the gas stove. I have an electric oven that I bake bread in, and it works just fine. But I do want to say that I think some people for whatever reason, want gas stoves or gas dryers or gas whatever. And I think that the City Council can achieve the goal of having less carbon emissions and still allow those people their choice too.

One thing we might consider is incentivizing electric appliances Maybe giving some money to reduce the cost so that our neighbors can afford electric appliances. Right now, the reach ordinance only reaches those people who are building new houses, the handful of people who are building new ADUs. The over 90% of people who aren't building a new house aren't reached by the reach ordinance but they could be reached by subsidy on electric appliances Also, it might avoid some very costly litigation.

Perhaps Council thinks that they'll win this lawsuit? I don't think that's a certainty but I think that there is a certainty that Council could reach an agreement on perhaps an extra fee to hook up gas that could be used to pay for somebody else to put in electric dryer and then you still have the same amount of emissions So I want to try and support an idea of compromise tonight. And I think there is a compromise that can reach the goal of less emissions, and also allow the property owner in this case to have their preference and for the city to have less emissions as well. Thank you.

Thank You Starchild next we have David Chapman then Jill Dolan

Hello, David Chapman. I live on South Blanche just around the corner. First of all, I'd like to express my thanks to Mayor Sticks, the council and the city administrators for all your efforts in cleaning up the homeless encampment and providing the wilderness tents for the homeless population. Our group of concerned neighbours that are surrounding the encampment have organised and formed the Better Solutions for Ohai Group.

Our mission is to ensure that the City of Ohai designates a permanent housing site able to serve the needs of the growing homeless population. We look forward to having the green areas and creek restored to their original condition prior to the inception of the Encanto. Despite these efforts, however, the neighbourhoods surrounding the City Hall campus continue to experience negative disruptions.

At a recent neighbourhood meeting, we learned that one of the camp's occupants was hitting golf balls across the creek into the residents' yards living on Crestview Drive, endangering pets and children enjoying their outside areas. The resident brought a bag of 21 golf balls that she had collected during the last month or so. I'm not quite sure of the actual time frame, but there was a collection of 21 golf balls she bought to show us.

We would like the City Council to acknowledge that the current site is completely inappropriate for the permanent location of this project. We also would also like the city council members to acknowledge the profound impact the encampment has had on surrounding neighborhoods We urge the council and mayor to continue to work and support city administrators to find an alternative site for the encampment. One that would accommodate the population needing housing, one that would minimize disruption to family neighborhoods, and one that would better serve the needs of the growing homeless population. Thank you.

Thank You David. Next we have Jill Dolan

You haven't seen me for a while. Well, I'm back. I'm back and So I not even gonna make you guess what? I'm here to talk about The Arts Center's upcoming production of deer who has their tickets. I want to know raise the hands Did you guys know that it's our 85th anniversary? You knew that right and you knew that I mean people out there in TV land The Art Center is owned by the community It's not owned by the city we are We're proudly independent and we're celebrating our 85th anniversary, and we want everybody to come to all of our events. Every branch is planning something but I'm here for the theater branch and we're doing this show called Dear.

And though it may look really cutesy, that's definitely for an adult audience. Okay? It's very funny but it's edgy. But you guys are all grown-ups here and I think that if I don't see you over there, I'm going to be really disappointed and I'll be back! I'll be back and I'll tell you again. So it opens this Friday night. It's got an amazing cast of two people. It's dark, it's dark, it's kind of grisly but it's very funny and I encourage you to come. And then after that we'll be doing Spamalot, who could not like that right? A little classic action, The Crucible is coming up and then a Christmas show so please join us in our 85th anniversary every branch has got something going on that's exciting. We're gonna do history things I don't know.

I really think seeing you there makes our community stronger, and I appreciate it when I do see you at our events. So thank you very much. Look, I've got a minute spare. I'll hand out some postcards. Anybody? Postcard? Postcard? Thank you.

Thank you, Jill. Much appreciated. Will, any comments online?

Yes, we do have two comments online currently.

John, I see that you have for items two and three for closed session so we'll wait and take comments before that.

So the first hand on line is for Peter Laramendi. Peter you can unmute yourself.

Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, Peter Laramindi and I'm a registered voter on Mercer Avenue. I just wanted to talk about the curbs as well that Leonard was talking about particularly on North Montgomery at the corner there of Chevron. That sidewalk entrance has been closed for almost three months and then in various stages of disarray as well The sidewalk or the light entrance there at the Chaparral Auditorium has also been in a stage of disarray for over two months.

It's kind of ridiculous at this point, and I've emailed Assemblyman Bennett and have gotten no response. So I would hope the City can put some sort of pressure on Caltrans, especially now that you know, I know Ojai is continually a tourist town but it's going to ramp up here pretty soon. And so having safe sidewalks for people to walk on is ideal. So thank you.

Thank you, Peter.

Next we have Renee. Renee, you can unmute your mic.

Good evening members of the council. Can you hear me?

Yes.

OK. Just three quick comments. One, I noticed that Bill Miley sent in an email to the Council about benches and places for elderly and all of us actually to be able to sit down and congregate in our community. I think it's a great, great idea I was fortunate enough to spend some time in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico last year. And they had a Parks Commission that worked together with an Arts Commission project and they created the most beautiful mosaic benches I've ever seen in my life.

And they made these mosaic benches available around their park in various areas. And they allowed the work for the mosaics to be done and paid for by local artists. It was a beautiful, beautiful project. Actually down there it was actually funded by somebody who paid to have it done But I could see that being done through an Arts Commission project and the City Council and the Park and Rec. So anyway, that's one comment. I would love to see more sitting areas downtown. The other one, I agree wholeheartedly about the REACH code And making the Reach Code more user-friendly and something that you invite people to participate in.

The comments that were just mentioned I totally, heartily agree with his comments that we need to be encouraging energy conservation and everybody can be stepping forward and doing something today. And those are the kinds of steps our city should be taking action on rather than punishing people like Mr. Chasse who's coming up in your hearing. I think that's just atrocious and I'm violently opposed to that I think we need to do more. Let's talk about it, let's figure out good ways to do it.

I also read the comment about the 90-day ADU limit that was submitted. The very thoughtful comment about ADU limits and please avoid further lawsuits against the city by imposing that kind of Restriction it's really onerous. It's not well founded and it's not well thought out and I hope you reconsider that Looking forward to seeing options. Thank you Thank You Renee

One remaining comment,

okay, let's take one more

I want to make a quick comment to Renee's comment, which I'm allowed to do. And I just want to assure Renee and anyone else who's listening about the benches that we've brought this up many times and at the parking committee, I reminded the people that participated that this was not just about car parking. It was also people parking, bike parking, you know, and the more we have people parking, the less car parking we're going to need. Because people can, if they want to carry their groceries home and they know they can't walk two miles without sitting down. If they know there's a bench in a beautiful spot, they're more apt to walk. So we should take that request very seriously that Bill Miley who I don't think he's here tonight. I know that if he was able to be here, he would be speaking about the benches at the podium.

Did I go over a minute? Sorry.

We do have one more comment in the house. Vanna Doresian, is that how you pronounce it? Vanna? Say it one more time. Dakeshian. Okay thank you.

I'm a little too short for this mic. Good evening, Mayor Sticks and City Council members. My name is Vanna DeCassian and I'm freshman at Villanova Preparatory School. The issue I'd like to present to you today is the overpopulation of non-native plants in Ojai. Looking at the mountains from a distance, you can easily overlook the amount of non native plants there really are and how many of them are harming our environment.

Native plants provide several animals with resources such as homes and food, etc. while a non-native plant takes up space and doesn't really provide as many resources. Allowing more native plants to have their turf back is important but who's going to do this job? 19.4% of Ojai's population are people under the age of 18 Being a part of that population, I know most high schoolers have a service hour requirement at their school in order to

Thank you, Vonna. And next Youth Council we will definitely make a plan to get that going. Thank

you. Can I make a? Yes, sure. To the mayor? I just wanted to let you know that I read in the paper today, I think, that PAX Environmental and also CRU which is, the age is up to 23 but it starts at, in high school are going to be restoring San Antonio Creek at Soule Park from Boardman, so I think that it'd be a great opportunity. Their idea is to pull out all of the invasives and to promote the local fauna, flora, I'm sorry. So that might be something to hook into because they're gonna start work and they're gonna have a real plan.

And I was very glad to see that and thank you for bringing it up. It's really, really important.

Thank you.

Yes,

Council

Member Francina.

First of all, you're like an incredible speaker when I was your age there's just no way I would have had the nerve to speak so wonderfully. Thank

you.

But I do want to say that be careful saying that non-native plants they're the animals love non-native plants also And when the, unfortunately when the eucalyptus trees were cut at the meadows were cut down many, many little animals lost their life. I know this firsthand from a wildlife rehabilitator because many times people don't realize that little you know what's what's you know newborns they're burying under the ground so i hope that any removal is done thoughtfully and especially during nesting season you have to be really really careful Of course,

yes.

And the whole issue of non-native plants if you want to really dig deep is controversial also because remember we're all non-natives with very few exceptions. We're all non-natives. Okay.

Thank you, Vonna. And Council Member Francina, the Youth Council is working with the Land Conservancy so we're getting some great advice.

Yeah but the Land Conservancy's not always correct

because they have to- This is not on the agenda so we're not gonna discuss it. Thank you so much, Vonna. Thank you. Lovely to see you. Will, any other comments online?

We have one last comment online from Larry Steingold. Larry, you can unmute your mic.

Thank you very much. Good evening, Larry Steingle resident and voter. Um I may have missed this with the chief but regarding electric bicycles on the in the arcade and Libbey Park and in areas where they should not be. I'd like to know what the city and the police are doing about that? Are they installing cameras or are they doing anything about Uh, electric bikes and being where they aren't going to be.

Um, two regarding park benches. We have the money. It's just in the Maricopa. And walking with groceries two miles we're gonna need a lot of park benches. But we have the money. You just need to have the will to do it And so I think that the big thing is actually doing something, getting back to the electric vehicles. What is going to be happening or is there nothing going on?

I'll look for an answer from somebody. Thank you.

Thank you, Larry. That's it will.

That's all

OK. Wonderful. All right. We will move on to the consent calendar. Is there a motion to approve

I'll make

a motion to approve.