City Council — 2024-08-27

Could we have the roll call please, Mr. Chief Deputy City Clerk?

Yes. Thank you Mayor. Welcome community.

Thank you very much. And Mr. City Attorney, anything to report out from our closed session?

Yes, thank you Madam Mayor. The City Council met in closed session regarding two items. One anticipated litigation related to a written communication threatening litigation from Sarah Jorgensen on behalf of the California Restaurant Association and Congress labor negotiators regarding all underrepresented employees. No reportable action taken on either. Stay tuned for the next council meeting for an item on the reach codes issue. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And Mr. City Manager, anything to comment upon?

Yes, thank you Mayor. Under the absences section of your agenda I want to point out that Council Member Lange is not with us physically this evening she's going to be with us via Zoom albeit not participating as a voting member that is not the council members fault staff neglected to get her address from her when she was traveling so we were unable to post the agenda properly to allow her to participate so she is going to be here but just not able to vote and again that's on staff not on the council member

And she will be able to make comments though. She

will just

commission reports. We have a report from Arts Commissioner David Leeds and I would just like to thank David for providing this beautiful art for us you know it's just stunning so thank you so much makes such a difference

You're very welcome. And on behalf of the Arts Commission and Chairman West, I do want to thank Mayor Sticks for a vision that art really is an essential part of community wellness. Our goal here was not just to make Kent Hall a warmer and more friendly environment but really to show how interacting with art can open your eyes, not just your eyes but your mind in your heart in a way it leads to deeper kind of thinking and a deeper state of emotional awareness And we hope that both the council and the community at large can take part in that, and it will provide some positive things for everyone.

I just want to thank briefly your incredible staff. This city has just the best working staff I've ever seen. They were so responsive, helpful, and efficient. Weston Montgomery, James Renger, James Hahn, and especially Will Petner Without Will's constant perseverance and good cheer, this would never have happened. So thank you all and thank you for this opportunity to help move the city forward on the arts front.

Thank you David. And please everybody take a moment to look around and enjoy the beautiful art. We're lucky. Okay, all right we will move on to presentation. We have a certificate of appreciation to the city's Homeless Services Coordinator Rick Rain for his outstanding achievements and service to the City of Ojai. So I'm going to go ahead and read the certificate.

Certificate of Appreciation. Whereas Rick Rain has served the City of Ojai as a leader in the effort to support the unhoused community, first in an emergency capacity as an administrative analyst and later as the city's Homeless Services Coordinator And, whereas Rick led the city's successful effort to bring campers out of the oak woodland and creek areas of the City Hall campus and into the greater Kent Hall parking lot area.

And, whereas Rick's efforts to bring the campers into the greater Kent Hall parking lot area and put a boundary around the encampment led to the establishment of a safer more sanitary and community oriented Encanto And, whereas Rick successfully led the effort to mobilize volunteer efforts and construct 18 temporary tent shelters and storage spaces for the unhoused living in the greater Kent Hall parking lot area.

And, whereas Rick played an integral part in supporting day-to-day operations and community affairs while the city continues on its path to a long term solution for the unhoused community through its cabin village project. And, whereas Rick has been a reliable and valued team member with the city engaging with community groups and government agencies to advocate and provide for the unhoused and communicate the good work the city is engaging in.

And now therefore be it resolved that I Betsy Sticks mayor of the City of Ojai on behalf of the Ojai City Council I do hereby thank Rick Rayne for his outstanding achievements and service to the city of Ojai. And I just want to tell, just say from the bottom of my heart we have been so lucky to have Rick help us and you've done so much and your expertise and your just unbounding dedication to service and helping people is really incredible and so admirable. So thank you so much.

And we have a special gift for you. Can you turn around so we can see it too?

That's nice.

Thank you staff. When I started this way back in October Weston when he finished swearing me in my first comment to him was that it was an honor and a privilege to be able to serve the city of Ojai. And through all these months, despite all of the ups and downs that we might have had, the successes, the failures. I still felt that way. Honored to have been part of working with so many people who are so dedicated to helping the least fortunate friends of mine, people who have lived up the street from me and find themselves in a very difficult situation.

And many of them in their senior years. So where we are today, I still feel very much the same way but a little bit more where it was been an honor and a privilege to be part of this. But also for me personally, a very, very wonderful blessing. And thank you very much for having given me the opportunity.

Okay. All right, we will move on to general public communication and just a reminder to everyone these are items not on the agenda and because they're not on the agenda we cannot discuss them but we appreciate your viewpoints and we can agendize them for the future so we'll begin with Brian Akins then Dave Monson and then Renee Roth

Thank you Mayor. My name is Brian Akins, I am the chair of the Historic Preservation Commission and I appreciate being here just real quickly. I expected to be up here about 1 30 in the morning talking about discussion item number seven I'm happy that it, that did work out. Friday I learned some information which I hadn't, that involved discussion item number seven.

I want to thank our city manager Harvey who took the shoehorned me in on a very very busy schedule So I could share with him just my concerns. He listened to me attentively and asked some good questions for background, I shared those with them and made the suggestion that in the interest of fairness which I thought was very fair that this item be postponed until date certain so that I could go back to the HPC in the next meeting and discuss the item that was mentioned in the package. And again, I appreciate City Manager Harvey working with me. I know you're Friday afternoon.

So thank you for that. While I'm up here is I want to, at the request of our commissioners and this is in the agenda. I would like to invite our City Attorney Matt Summers, our City Manager Ben Harvey, our Community Development Director Lucas Seibert and our Mayor. I don't need to invite our mayor because she's our liaison coming up, but we always love having you there. And the reason why is we just like to have a clear understanding of working together with the staff and staff time being available. Here's an example, and I have this example Similar thing happened two years ago, September 2022. This is a document that we put together it's a one pager that talks about the structures of merit this would may have been included would have been included in your package.

It was something that was very carefully done by our commissioner who paid attention And at the very bottom of it, it has in bold red. You can see this document was not prepared, reviewed or approved by the city staff or the city attorney. That kind of is a bit of a big downer when you know that that is presented to a document that we've worked carefully on. So something that we'd like to discuss and understand better. Thank you all for your support.

Thank you, Brian. Next, we have Dave Monson, then Renee Roth and then Larry Steingold

Good evening council members and city staff. I'm Dave Munson, principal of Nordoff Junior High and High School on Maricopa Highway. I recently met with members of your staff and members of the construction crew regarding the ATP project. During our meeting it was revealed that our current parking on the south side of Maricopa Highway will be removed and placed on the north side of the highway.

I have concerns with this design. Currently, many parents and family members use the parking on the south side of Maricopa Highway to drop off and pick up their children. Even though students still have to cross the newly created bike path between the highway parking and the curb, it is still safer to drop off and pick up on the south side closest to our campus rather than on the north side of Maricopa Highway.

This project is marketed as a way to increase safety for pedestrians but this decision does not accomplish that for our students and families who use the south side highway parking. The decision to move the parking spots to the north side of Maricopa Highway will make it more dangerous for our students as more will have to cross the highway to get to classes each day, increasing the chances a student will be struck by a vehicle.

Since Maricopa Highway was reduced to one lane in each direction I and members of my administrative team have witnessed vehicles illegally passing stop vehicles waiting to turn left into our parking lot. I encourage you to review and reconsider the design that moves parking for students and families from the south side of Maricopa Highway to across the highway on the north side.

If your goal is to increase safety for pedestrians, please keep the parking spaces on the school side of the highway. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Dave. Thank you. And we appreciate your enthusiasm if you all think if you could hold your claps though and move on to Renee Roth.

Good evening, members of the council. And that was a great break. I hope you're all back and ready to go. It was nice to be able to have some time off. I hope you all had a great vacation. And Ben Harvey, you have been busy. There were so many things on that consent item. I can see why you needed them to be gone so you could get some stuff done. Way to go. There's a lot of things that you got done and it just went flying through so congratulations, way to go.

You also managed to get out a city newsletter and I know there were several people who were really happy to see an update and some information on progress And things the city is has in the works, and it would be nice if we could have something like that on a regular basis just a little kick back to the community from Mr. City Manager about what you're doing because I thought it was great and I know a lot of people really liked it.

One of my questions is, I know the Pickleball Project is moving along and it'd be nice to hear like what's happening and when that might be going online out at Soule Park. The other thing I wanted to mention is the letters or the comments that were in sent into the City Council regarding the planning for item number two that's coming up I want to congratulate Liana McNeely.

Are you are you in the audience? No, she's home. She's home. OK.

All

right. Well, there was a great article. She's

watching. What? She's watching.

Oh, she's watching. Yeah. Liana, I hope that's the way you say it. That was a great article and an update about what is happening with the project on City Hall. I have to say, it has a totally different feel about it as I walked onto the campus tonight. It felt like a city street and a neighborhood where people were out and about and walking And engaging and having a good time. So anyway, that was really great to see I have high hopes for item number two that's coming up on the agenda. The other thing I'd like to see since we're not going to be talking about it is the tourism and climate action plan that you are expected to be taking action on.

I would like to see you talk about economic development and economic development options that might help us not be so reliant on tourism.

Thank you, Renee. And Mr. City Manager just to clarify we do plan to put those newsletters out periodically

Yes, not just periodically quarterly. But we can also explore and we've heard this from a few folks more frequent types of communication outside of our social media posts which go out weekly.

Thank you very much. Great work. Appreciate it. Next, we have Larry Steingold then Ryan Blatz and then Starchild Welwode.

Good evening, Larry Steingold. Welcome back Mr. Harvey. Welcome to Ojai again and again. The one thing that ties the city together right now is fire. I have spent $1,600 to cut down some branches that were approved, licensed, certified and permitted. There's nothing in this agenda tonight that talks about fire. We're all tied together. Fire is going to make this city more unaffordable for people.

Insurances will be passed through to rents. They will increase the cost of homes Whether it's change the gates, or cut the trees, or turn our neighborhoods into Arizona where there's nothing around the homes. I would hope that the city would lean into us and help us. No one is asking you for money though maybe it would help if you funded Firewise or all these things because it affects everybody.

Or take some budget from the emergency climate action budget and help people trim trees so there's no fires, so there's no more greenhouse gases. So we can justify helping people who cannot afford because there's a lot of dead trees hanging on people's homes here and these people cannot afford to trim and pay the $395 the bill and $225 to the city in 900 change for it to Oscar that's great okay? And I'm still guaranteed that my insurance will not necessarily go down So I can spend all the money in the world and I'm still going to pay $6,000-$7,000 a year in insurance. It was $1,500. And all I've got is, you know, we're fine.

But this is going to be very painful and it would just help if the city helped whether it's get rid of the fees for one year for cutting down tree trimmings for fire. Just waive the fees for one year Take a change, some things to make it easier for people to get this stuff done. We're all tied together here. It's just making it more unaffordable. Just try to make it a little less unaffordable.

So please try to help us with the trees. Just make it easier, less aggravation and the city quite honestly was very good about getting me my permit. It took two days once I got everything done and that's great Okay, but again the costs have got to be helped here. So thank you.

Thank you Larry. Next we have Ryan Blatz then Starchild and then Debbie Rubinstein

Thank you, Council. Ryan Blatz, citizen of the City of Ojai. It's great to see some of my colleagues up here tonight and it's just good to see you guys. It has been a while. I've been working and I had a great meeting this morning with Sousa Francina and Ben Harvey regarding the Libby Bowl contract and the negotiations that had broken down with Sterling Ventures. Once I heard about this last week, I'd been working really hard talking everybody in figuring out what the situation was and what was going on And I've been able to talk to almost all of the committee members who were originally involved in negotiating the original contract, which my father was also a member of that committee. As well as a number of experts in the field and they were all unanimous in saying they really believe that the contract we have and our partner has been a great partner for us at The Bull.

In our conversations this morning, Mr. Harvey indicated that if Sterling wanted to continue negotiation and discussion that it would be worthwhile to have a counteroffer so I've been able to procure that from them. I'm not representing anyone in this I'm just a concerned citizen but a lot of the people in the public have been very concerned about They're interested in our Libby Bowl and knowing how difficult and all the time and different gyrations that went into getting an agreement in the first place, thought it was important that we just made sure everybody understood what the history was. And all the different things that went into that original agreement so luckily they've been willing to make a counter offer I think is very You know, is not significantly different than the current contract.

And I'm hopeful that the City Council can review it and if they can get into negotiations and discussions regarding it. I'm very hopeful that maybe the RFP process isn't necessary so that we don't risk losing what has been a really good partner And a entity that, according to everyone I've spoken to is really the best situated and maybe the only option that can really do the job that has brought all of the wonderfulness to the bowl. It was a difficult time after the original when the bull was originally redone as many people know it wasn't just tax dollars it was a lot of effort and money from our citizens that donated to it And it took a while to get things started. So people are concerned about there being a, you know they don't want the bull dark.

They wanna continue enjoying it and this is a step that I hope is in the right direction to get the city and Sterling to continue communications. I have been in contact with them. I'm happy to answer any questions if anyone has obviously can't tonight but I hope that soon as possible the city can agendize an item and open discussions on this and hopefully get something approved I'm going to go ahead and provide this to Weston, and you're all welcome to review it. And if there's any follow-up, you all know how to get ahold of me. Thank you very much.

Thank you Ryan. Next we have Star Child then Debbie Rubenstein and then Michelle Pinero.

Hello, good evening. I want to say ditto to what the principal of Nordoff said about the importance of having parking that students can use that doesn't force them to cross a busy highway and allows them to avoid potentially being hit. Today, I wanted to come to talk about housing. I got the Ojai in sight just like many of my neighbors and there was one article there that talked about how the city of Ojai has achieved its RHNA numbers which is a great accomplishment that I think we should all celebrate but I also don't think we should stop there.

We know that we need more housing in this city. One of the ways that we can figure that out is by asking well can our children afford to live here? Could our staff, our city staff afford to live here? Can the trolley drivers afford to live here? Can our teachers, our baristas. If our house were to catch fire could we afford to buy a new one here in Ojai? And I think if the answer is no to those questions, then you yourself know that there's not enough housing available. The city can do a lot to make more housing possible and support any developers who want to bring projects especially if they're bringing some low income or subsidized housing into the mix.

It could support people who want to add at us, which it does pretty well but also support people who want to have SB nine split. Maybe instead of a million dollar house there could be two $500,000 houses and a lot. And so, I just came here to say that I think that there's a lot the city can still do and I hope we don't stop trying to get more affordable housing here. So all our residents who want to live here can live here and all the people who work here can live here and work here too. Thanks.

Thank you Starchild. Next we have Debbie Rubenstein then Michelle Pinero and then Karina Wright. Oh, okay. Great. Okay next we have Michelle Panero and then Karina Wright and then Lila Francesca.

Good evening Mayor Sticks, Mayor Pro Tem Francina and Council Members Whitman and Rule. My name is Michelle Pinheiro and I am so excited and honored to be here tonight to announce my candidacy for mayor of Ojai. Now I don't want to bore anyone with my resume. I'll post my professional experience on the website. What I want to share with you all tonight is who I am and what I stand for.

Ojai is my forever home. It is where my husband and I are raising our young daughter and sending her to school. It is where I have made many dear friends. I love our small town, and I'm running because I want to help make the lives of the people who live and work here the best that they can be. There are some people who stand to make a lot of money off of our town, but Ojai isn't a business venture.

It is a community with soul and a vote for me is a vote to protect that soul. to keep our neighborhoods from turning into a ghost town of second homes and to ensure our local businesses thrive. It's a vote to get things done that will improve our daily lives, like fixing our roads in a timely way and managing our tourism so that the people who visit and enjoy our town enjoy it the way we do with respect.

A vote for me will be a vote to ensure that your leadership is prioritizing housing for low-income earners and retirees. Supporting me means supporting measured and effective solutions when it comes to addressing the unhoused, and making sure we look through the lens of climate change when we make any decision to ensure our long term health, safety, and quality of life.

I am qualified for this job. I have the skills and the heart, and I promise to be a leader who listens, who is pragmatic, who is accountable to the community, and who brings transparency, empathy, and humility to every decision I hope that anyone that is inspired tonight will join me. My website is michelleforohai.com and it will be fully launching next week, and if you can please join me for a meet-and-greet this Thursday August 29th from 9 to 11 am. Grab a coffee at Java & Joe and meet me in the grassy courtyard behind the arcade. I look forward to meeting with you thank you Thank you, Michelle.

This is the mayor pro tem now. Oh, it's a rotating position.

Yes. My mistake. Thank you for that. Thank you Michelle. Next we have Karina Wright and then Lila.

Good evening City Council. Thank you so much for your service. You probably received my written comment but that motorcycle officer agenda item has been moved, but I would just like to say that I'm very disappointed and concerned that my Council member Rachel Lang is not able to participate tonight and I'm quite astounded that We would go forward with such important agenda items, especially these very large budget items cabin village items etc without representation from my district and I would like to know how something like this would happen if I know that Rachel is extremely responsible. She would never have put herself in the position where she would not be able to weigh in on these very important decisions and I think the city should take a look at that and they should give us an explanation as to why there are going to be votes tonight where my district is not represented.

Additionally I would like to ditto what Larry Steingold said, I'm all for for the city trying to do something about fire mitigation and helping the citizens of Ojai to maybe perhaps keep their insurance. I know a lot of people are losing their insurance over this, and this is going to soon become a citywide community problem. Thank you.

Thank you, Karina. Next we have Lila Francesi. Is that how you say it? Franchesi. OK. Thank you, Lila.

My name is Lila Francese. I'm a resident of Fairway Lane, right next to one of the proposed sites for a permanent homeless community. I am here tonight alongside many of my neighbors who believe there is yet another...

So that is agenda item number two. Do you want to speak

on

that item?

Can I speak on

it? Yeah when we come to that

item

this is general...

No, that's all right. I probably didn't check it off right. Well

now it

is. Okay thank

you. Thank You Lila. Okay we have some comments online

Yes, Mayor. We currently have three raised hands for general public comment on Zoom. First we have Councilmember Lange followed by Bill Miley and then Greg. Councilmember Lange you have the floor.

Hi, thank you everyone. Thank you for Weston. I just wanted to apologize to the members of my district. I'm very frustrated, disappointed. I can't even put it into words that I'm not able to join you and Karina, I heard you just now and I just wanted to let you know I'm here I don't really fault our staff. I think this is one of the consequences of the Brown Act, one of the unintended consequences of the Brown Act and I spent a lot of time researching and trying to figure out how You know, how to if there was any way that I could participate tonight. So but I am here. I'm listening and I really want to thank my colleagues for postponing some of those agenda items you know I'm very passionate about everything on tonight's agenda and so I've weighed in and I've talked to And I've talked to the city manager, so they know my feelings and they know my perspective.

And I will be weighing in as often as I can here in tonight's meeting. Thank you.

Thank you, Rachel.

Next we have Bill Miley followed by Greg. Mr. Miley, you have the floor?

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

This has to do with the Libby Bowl music contract I read the Ojai Valley News article today on the Sterling music negotiation. I am usually unable to attend those concerts, but keep aware of the offerings by Sterling over the last four years. Wow! 25 plus concerts a year. The withdrawal of Sterling And I'm aware of what Brian just said. It seems to be was very troubling.

What did I miss? I don't recall the council discussion having an agenda item about this. Sterling was good, I gather. Who crafted the one-year extension proposal and the new idea for a different age concert It kind of looks like a non-cooperative planning process, which I thought the council was supposed to be in charge. Thank you.

Thank you Bill.

Next we have Greg. Greg do you have the floor?

Hello. I didn't realize we'd be able to speak during the item two cabin village Discussion so that is allowed. I'll hold my comments until then

Yes, great. Please re-raise your hand during item two. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank You Greg

That's all mayor

Okay We will move on to the consent calendar I would like to pull item G as there are several public comments on that item. So we're gonna handle it separately Anybody else like to? Yeah.

Yep. I'd like to pull H, I, J, N and O.

H,I,J,N and O?

Yes.

OK. All right. Let's go ahead and take public comment. Go ahead and we have a public comment on H and J, which you both pulled. So I guess we'll go ahead and take those right now.

Can we state what they are for the public?

Yes. How about, is there a motion to approve everything else first?

I'll move to approve everything else.

All

in favor? Aye.

Okay all right so let's go in alphabetical order G would be first well actually let's do G last okay so let's go with H. Mayor Pro Tem do you want H is adoption of an ordinance amending Ojai Municipal Code section 2.2-6.107 termination of residency for council districts and we do have one public comment on that item so let's go ahead and take that Larry Steingold

Good evening, Larry Steingold. I was going to come up and support the ordinance. The only question I have is why is it retroactive? Is there a reason why this law ordinance is being made retroactive to 2000, whatever it is? 1719, whatever. If there is no problem and there is no law broken and there are no ramifications, why go to the trouble of making the law retroactive? The ordinance. Why not just pass the ordinance and call it a day? And you'd be my Mr. Summers, go right ahead please if it's up to you or chair.

But seriously, I mean why is it retroactive? If there's no reason to make it retroactive. Why bother? Is there a legal reason? Mr. City Attorney? I'll wait

till the end of public comment then respond.

Okay that's the end. That was my end of public comment.

Are there other commenters on this one? Okay, great. Mayor and Council so staff recommends in the council introduce the ordinance retroactive to the beginning of the COVID shutdowns March 19th 2020 to reflect that was the beginning of the present acute housing crisis in Ojai. So that's a tie back to the objective when our housing crisis we've always had a housing challenge but it really became an acute crisis that created the issues that resulted in this ordinance at that time

Okay, but that doesn't tell me why you're making it retroactive. You're either protecting somebody or something? I'd be happy to

speak to that during the... I mean, I'd be happy to speak to that. It was my recommendation and it really had to do with consistency sort of across many different localities around The pre-COVID, you know it really was about the change that happened at COVID. It had nothing to do with trying to protect anybody or anything. It just simply was that it was a point in time where the world changed and so you may disagree with that being a reason but that was the reason. To make the law retroactive. Okay

thank you Larry. Mayor Pro Tem?

Yeah, the reason I pulled it was also to raise that we should not make it retroactive. But I'll ask the question of the city attorney. I'm trying to imagine a circumstance now that there's you know in our current situation that would

I

just can't envision a circumstance where someone would be going back to the

past at

this point.

I wouldn't expect it, but it doesn't hurt to have the

protection. And then my second comment and I made this comment when that came up the first time is that I think Preferable to put a finite date by which a person can cure. I understand concerns that 30 days would be too short in our market, but I think we should put a date otherwise we Set ourselves up for a situation where somebody can run for office be evicted for you know whatever.

Whatever means and then not not serve in their district for the rest of their term. So I would recommend that we put you know 90 100 days might even go further if I gained any support for it but that's that was my reason for polling.

Yes, when you say you'd even go further. Are you thinking of additional days?

Yeah if a hundred days wasn't enough then but put some bookend on it so we don't have like infinite indefinite not living in my district that I've been

allowed there is a bookend and that is first of all I cannot run for reelection because I do not in District 4, because I do not have housing to this day real housing in my district. So that's the bookend for sure it could not go on indefinitely am I correct City Attorney?

I don't know your present housing status and that's not on tonight's agenda, but if anybody were to attempt to run for a seat That they did not have could not make the necessary findings to run for that would be the max. The

max

of their term.

Yes That's the reason that I am NOT running root for reelection is because I cannot after three years of looking, find housing in my district with two dogs that is affordable. That is a fact. My district is now the south side of Ojai Avenue. All the apartments are with the exception of Whispering Oaks and I'm on the waiting list which is about 100 years. You know there is no affordable housing that will take two dogs by affordable I mean into 2000 Range not the 5000 6000 range.

That is a fact it's a fact.

So the my my concern is that the Voters Rights Act. You know, basically has said that we need to honor these district provisions. The state passed. Or, you know, pass their own laws about how those districts work and so if we effectively Avoid the district revisions. I think we're putting ourselves at risk for being in violation of the Voters Rights Act.

And I would love to hear from the city attorney on that first or

after. That's a sure answer the question, are we putting ourselves at legal risk?

And the answer to that would be no, because we are still having four districts and the one elected at-large mayor. Any questions regarding any particular council members' eligibility for a given district doesn't raise an issue with the Voting Rights Act because we still have the districts in place.

And if I could, so it is not a legal question. And and I will point out that it was this body unbeknownst to the council at that time, the ramifications of the decision that they made. And that's one of the reasons why I suggested that we Make it retroactive is that when that decision was made, we did not foresee the future. We made that decision for the time and for the requirements, not foreseeing unintended consequences of that. It is very normal to revisit ordinances once you have seen how they play out in the flaws or the unintended consequences however whatever you want to call them. I will also point out that there was a initiative on the ballot saying that we would like to get rid of districts as soon as possible.