City Council — 2024-10-08

commission reports and commission reports.

We have Christine Steiner

from the Arts Commission. Thank you, Commissioner Steiner.

Thank you. I'm delighted to be here. So Mayor, City Council members, Arts Commission liaison Whitman and city staff it's lovely to see you. We are continuing to carry out our five-year plan as Chair Smitty West has so enthusiastically described to you in the past. And he sends his apologies for not being here. And I'm going to speak with you about three matters.

The first is grants, the second is music and the third is public art. So on grants, the application period closed September 30th. I think you were advised of that last session.

Can we

have

quiet please? Thank you.

There were 21 grants that were received, which is terrific. The Ad Hoc Committee has been convened and we look forward to its recommendations and for the Arts Commission to make an independent review of all grants and then to make our recommendation to you. The criteria for assessment was discussed in our September Arts Commission meeting. These are artistic merit, project feasibility, impact, qualifications, alignment with grant goals, organizational capacity that is the ability to execute the project based on past performance Sustainability and diversity and inclusion. And I should note that the scoring rubric, which was also discussed at the meeting weights more heavily artistic merit than other categories within the criteria.

At our October meeting, which is next Thursday, October 18th at 6 o'clock in City Hall chambers. Our grantees will present and while this presentation is not obligatory it is highly encouraged and also encouraged is for the applicants to bring their supporters, uh, to the meeting in order to show interest. And last year was quite a buzz as our then arts liaison Lang knows from-from that meeting and we look forward to the same.

Next, I have no questions. Next, I'd like to talk about music. So one aspect that the Arts Commission has introduced is community presentations. So we've instituted a practice at the beginning of our meetings to invite art community arts groups to present their programs who they are what they do.

I'm sorry there's this huge light shining in my eye

Well, it's probably the divine.

But I can't see anything and I'm going to have to turn around. If you don't believe me sit here.

You could see it on your face.

Oh it's the sun. It's the sun?

It's a sunsetting? Oh I thought it was some light!

That's very mystical, I'm sorry. That's very exciting. I don't want that to be coming out of my time, by the way. Okay. So I'm going to take it from the top if I may. We now include community presentations as a part of the Arts Commission. It's at the top of the hour for us and community arts groups or organizations present their programs. Who they are, what they do.

It gives an opportunity to meet the creators for them to meet the Arts Commission and understand who we are in who the city is. And it gives the public the opportunity to see the good work they do. It's quite successful and quite rewarding. So last meeting, the September meeting we were blindsided and bewildered by a last-minute instruction that the presenter which was the Dance Ojai group would not have its original music which was a part of its video muted.

That is it could not be included as a part of the video presentation This was not a copyright issue. This was, this was not subject to written instruction or anything we could understand as I said we were bewildered and blindsided so for the creative community it chills participation it stifles creativity and we look forward to understanding what this policy is about so it can be explained to the public And so that we will not be embarrassed in our community presentations and the community can fully express their creativity.

And then for the 3rd matter, finally it is a public art assessment as you know from your budget discussions. The Arts Commission undertook the first ever professional conservation assessment of the city's public art collections. And that assessment was completed, and we look forward to presenting it to you at our joint meeting with you whenever that is scheduled.

And that's it for my presentation.

Thank you very much Christine.

There's a policy about muting music. Does that impact you this Thursday night?

Well, it will likely impact us at our next meeting yes and it impacted us certainly at the September meeting we were told at the last minute by our staff liaison in an email to the Dance Ojai group that they were not allowed to have their music presented. The person immediately responded to say, this is my creative music so there's no copyright issue here and I know a bit about copyright and it was clear to me that there wasn't a copyright issue. Equally our chair Smitty West is a music Creator and he knew that for this group, it was not an issue. And so it caused a degree of consternation and distress we simply stopped with the video and said we would seek guidance and that guidance hasn't been forthcoming and we would like to understand.

A, is it a policy? And B, what the basis of the policy is. C, are there any exceptions and if so how are those applied? And D, we'd like to be able to alert the community so they will understand and we will understand as well.

Just really briefly, I had the same issue when I did a presentation. The music was not played and it really is from what I understood, I can say that it was copyright free music but until there's something official, it still puts the city at risk. That's what I understood and I had the same experience like why can't you play the music? It's copyright free, I can show you that so I think it's just a matter of reviewing and making sure that any copyright issues are dealt with beforehand.

I mean, that's really what it was. It was that it comes at the very last minute to the people who were projecting it and they don't know that is copyright free or protected or they don't have a way to validate copyright. So that's what we have to work on is making sure that there's a lead time to actually confirm, you know. I mean they didn't take my word for it, you know?

I

think

your... Well, I mean, I don't know what

your... It was fine! I mean, I understood. Yeah, I don't

know what your music is and whether there would be sub-licenses like master license or synchronization licenses or whatever it might be but I agree with you there ought to be more lead time to let the city understand But I would back up and say we should really have a policy so we understand. So lead time, I agree. And then it may be appropriate to have some sort of indemnification or some such whatever. Agreed. But lack of understanding and lack of writing only causes confusion and distress.

Yeah,

if I could jump in. Thank you Commissioner Steiner and Mayor and Council and to the community and our commission liaisons and commissioners present. We have a long-standing policy that requires 24 or 48 hours notice in advance and is designed to protect the city from a very real consequence we've experienced which is videos that YouTube thinks is copyrighted or are copyrighted pulling down so they have pulled down our meeting videos from YouTube which is our present online meeting video storage site We are putting in place several things to solve this. One is a written policy, it's forthcoming that will be very clear on these issues. That's forthcoming we'll circulate it once it's issued by the city manager under his authority and second we are in the process of looking at some software solutions to have something other than YouTube host our videos which would solve that concern of YouTube deciding on their own with not much appeal process to pull things down so two steps both in process stay tuned thank you

Marvelous that's that's news to all of us and it's and it's music to our ears literally

Thank you. Thank you Good one

Councilmember Lang, yeah, thank you. Well first of all, I just want to thank you for all that you and the other commissioners are doing I'm really looking forward to the next meeting and Because last year and I encourage everybody to go and watch it. If you want to fall even more in love with this community, go and watch the arts grant presentations. And on that note, I just really also wanted to apologize for for past miscommunications and past misunderstandings that surrounded the granting process. And I look forward to writing some of those things this time, and working in collaboration with the commission.

Thank you. We expect a much smoother grants process this year, and we look forward to it.

Thank you, Commissioner Steiner. Much appreciated.

Thank you. All

right. With that, we will move on to public communications and just a reminder these are items not on the agenda so we cannot discuss them. We can agendize them for the future. So let's begin with Christy Rivera. Then we have Starchild and then Andy Gilman.

So good evening, Mayor, Council, staff and community. I'm here tonight, Christy Rivera. I am the Public Information Officer and Events Coordinator for the City of Ojai. And I'm here to present our 2024 Ojai Day poster winner and the original artwork. So this is the artist winner, Dominic Breaux and his painting which is Soule Park Rockets.

Oh,

I love it! And there's the poster on the...

Oh yes Well, I've always been in love with this structure. And when I moved to Ojai, I'd been schlepping this canvas around and wasn't sure what to paint on it. And the vertical format really lent itself. So they came about. And I always thought this would be a great poster for Ojai Day, this refreshing change from the arches and the topotopos and the matilahapapi And it's sort of an unsung hero.

Everyone's nostalgic that sees it, and it just reels them back. And I think it might be one of the last ones standing, so Soule Park Rocket deserves to be immortalized. And I'm totally honored to have been chosen to represent, so super grateful, thank you.

Thank you so much, Dominique. It's beautiful. And

we'll also have posters in the back for anybody attending that would like an OHEDI poster.

Oh fantastic. Got it nice. It's official! I spent a lot of time playing Power Rangers in that thing with my kids. Really fun. So thank you. Immortalized forever. Okay, next we have Star Child then Andy Gilman and then Ron Solarsano.

Good afternoon. Several times before I've come to you during public comments to talk about affordable housing and I realized that I haven't had a chance to talk about the environment. And so I want to talk to you about how affordable housing could help the environment here in Ojai and throughout the world. There are a couple reasons that I can think of One is that in California, we have stringent environmental regulations for building housing that reduce the carbon footprint.

And if also we have mild weather, I can think back to when I grew up in Minnesota how much carbon we must've used just to try and keep the temperature in a reasonable range. And so when we build more housing here in Ojai, and we allow people to stay here. I think about Nora Harold who's somebody who came to speak and said that she had to move to Chicago because she couldn't afford housing in the region.

I think about how much more carbon it's going to take to keep her warm than if she would have been able to stay here. in our valley. The other thing that can happen is when we allow more density, we can allow some of the old housing that doesn't have insulation to be demolished and the new housing that replaces it can reduce our carbon footprint even more. Another reason, entirely different is that if we could ever have people who live in Ojai or sorry people who work in Ojai be able to live in Ojai they wouldn't have to drive so far. Wouldn't have to use so much gas to be able to get here to work every day. If we had more density and people could live maybe closer to downtown they wouldn't have to drive downtown try and fight for parking they could live and play in the same place And the third reason that I think we should have more density in housing here in Ojai is that per household, it would use there would be less landscaping and there would be less demand on our water resources as a result.

And for all those reasons, I'd like you to think about more or think about less housing regulation and building more housing, especially affordable housing, as a way to positively impact our environment. Thank you.

Thank you, Starchild. Next we have Andy Gilman then Ron Solarsano and then Payman Rapeljmay.

Good evening Council and staff. I just want to register again what I said last time at the meeting which is that I hope at some point you will adopt a process where if you have items on the agenda that continue to postpone or that there is a pressing need for example And ethics guidelines and a budget review committee. That other items that come in that do not have a pressing need like a timeline such as the animal ordinances that we're seeing on the agenda tonight. Those get moved after the pressing things. I that's continues to be an issue that you have interests that get in the way of the things that most of the community thinks are not the central business of the government where these other things are so I hope that you will adopt that going forward thank you.

Thank you, Andy. And just a note to the public, we are having a special meeting on Monday to talk about code of ethics in the budget. Next, we have Ron Solarsano and then Payment.

All righty, thank you members of council. My name is Ron Solorzano I am the regional librarian for the Ojai Valley Uh, I come here often talking about some of the things we have going on at the library and actually one of our groups That meets there the ukulele club Asked that I share with uh you all some information about that group The volunteer who leads it her name is Debbie gave me the following to read to you all so here we go The Ojai Library's ukulele group started in 2018 and has between 15 and 20 consistent members who currently meet from 10 a.m to noon on Mondays at the Ojai Library.

Each member brings tunes to the group and plays music from the 1920s to the present. Most are retired from all walks of life, but some younger members have joined and love the camaraderie. The youngest member is a college student who brings refreshing jokes to the group every Monday morning The group has become very popular in Ojai and has marched and played in the Ojai's July 4th parade. They've played for crowds at Ojai Day, for the Holiday Home Tour at the Continuing Care Center at the Ojai Hospital, for the Artists-in-Residence Bravo Program in Ojia Elementary Schools, and they've opened for the Ojia Film Society Summer Film Series at Libby Bowl recently during the screening of Back to the Future.

The group loves playing music together and sharing their voices and harmonies. Look forward to a great time when you hear this talented, fun-loving music group." So to me personally when the volunteer who runs this group came to me initially all those years ago it just it sounded like such a great thing such a community driven thing and I'm so glad that we were able to say yes and that they've been successful for so long. So just wanted to share a nice little success story for some of what we have going on there at the library I also really quickly wanted to once again plug something that I believe I mentioned last time which is the upcoming Ventura County Celebration of Books, which is going to be happening at the California State University Channel Islands campus on Saturday October 12th.

So this Saturday. It's going to be from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and it's going to include exhibitors from the literary community in the county, it's going to include food trucks, the first 150 servings of which will be free. It's gonna have children's activities including our mobile library and story time And then at 11 a.m., there's going to be a panel on the state of homelessness in Ventura County, moderated by KCAL News anchor Amy Johnson.

Then at 2 p.m. is gonna be our featured keynote with Dr. Jim O'Connell who is the subject of the book Rough Sleepers which is this year's community read. So we hope you're able to join us on Saturday October 12th and if you have any questions or need more information come see us at the library thank you so much

Thank you, Ron. We much appreciate it. Yep.

Question? Could you repeat the title of this year's book?

Yes. The title for this year's book is Rough Sleepers. Rough Sleeper. Yeah. Sorry we got a little mic issue and the author is Tracy Kidder. And yet to clarify that the gentleman who's speaking as Dr. Jim O'Connell he is the subject of the book. And yeah hopefully we'll see you there. Thank

you. Thank you Ron. Much appreciated. Next we have Payment. Will you tell me how to pronounce your last name?

My name is Peyman and my last name is Rokhpeymai.

Thank you. No, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Actually, I received one citation for $70,000. I have one property in Ojai for three units and I got 70,000 citations and my request is to have an administrative hearing because I passed that 30 days. I calculated 30 days after Because originally it was $100,000 and they changed it to $70,000. And I calculate that one after I received the second one or waived that citation because I haven't received any warning or anything until I got one letter from collection company because the letter which was sent to me was certified and I wasn't in place to sign and get that one and all those letters Retained to the city, but I received $100,000 from like a collection company. And I find out the problem which because I rent the property in an Airbnb because I didn't know the rules of 30 days.

The minutes I find out I stop all of them. I send all this information to the city and talk with the Lucas back and forth many times But right now, I don't have that option to do the administrative hearing to explain all the detail what exactly happened. I upload all the document even back and forth with the city to their City Council website and I try to come talk in person to see how can I solve this issue?

I already stopped everything, but I cannot pay like a $70,000. And I really didn't know. I understand I have to know as a person who wants to live here all the rules. But I was thinking Airbnb is a website. They they know how to do that like any kind of the website because each city has their own rule and regulation. And i just got that property. I got that property with Loan, and after that I did the construction with like a hard money. And it's really hard for me to even pay or think about that.

And I really wants to have administrative hearing or waive this amount because I didn't receive any letter and I didn't know. And the minutes I find out I went to the city many times until today.

All right, thank you Payment. We can't comment on this because it's not on the agenda? Mr. City Attorney?

Yes that's correct the Council can't comment on the matter it's not on their agenda tonight I believe staff has been in contact with you and certainly will reach out again regarding the options to pay the fines as imposed as part of the city's enforcement of our short-term rental violation ordinance Can

I just talk in nine seconds?

Sure.

And I just got my certificate of occupancy and a lot of people here they knew my phone number and email, and I didn't get any e-mail or...

Okay. All right. Thank you, Payment. Thank you very much. Any comments online, Bridgette?

Yes, Mayor. Karina W. and Katrina Reich-Schmidt. Karina, if you're ready?

Hi good evening thank you can you hear me yes okay great a couple of things one completely random I just want to put a plug in to the City Council to the city staff Please somehow can we get a splash pad for the Libbey Park playground? I don't know why we don't have one, but we sure could use one. The kids could use one and just want to put that in somebody's ear so that might happen down the line.

Secondly, I want to draw everyone's attention to the Ojai Studio Artist Tours that are happening this weekend. It's three days and there are 60 open art studios Of members of the Ojai studio artists, and it is a high point of the Southern California arts calendar. And this tour attracts lots of collectors and designers and. Other curious creatives, and I just want to make sure everybody knows about it and to go to their website. Ojai studio artist dot org and buy their tickets and participate in this incredible art.

event in our community. Thank you.

Thank you Karina.

Katrina if you're ready.

Hi there. My name's Katrina Schmidt, and I'm with the Ojai Valley Tennis Club. And we are running a tournament on October 19th and 20th. And that just happens to be Ojai Day. We know that, and we've warned all our applicants that the road will be closed. They have to take the back way. But today we learned that the pickleball community, I think it's Tim Crouch is putting up a fuss because he planned to put an exhibition during Ojai Day on the tennis courts.

Well, that's very upsetting because we are running this tournament. It's a United States Tennis Association sanctioned event. We secured the courts properly in the proper channels way back in August and actually before that And we have our schedule of matches set for Libbey Park, OVAC and Weill, and Nordoff High School. And we just learned today that Tim Kraut is taking two of our courts for pickleball.

The staff there may not know that the Ojai Valley Tennis Club has a city council resolution that says that the tennis club has priority for its events And specifically, there's signs on the tennis courts that say there shall be no pickleball on the tennis court. So why are we in the last hour of our registration closes next week being told that we can't have two of our eight Tennis courts for tennis. We're a tennis organization running a tennis tournament for tennis players, and we are being told at the last hour that we cannot have two of our courts. It's really, really unacceptable. And I hope to get some City Council support for the tennis community who is going through the proper channels To get our courts and to run our tournament, and just use our tennis courts for tennis.

Very upsetting so anyway if any of the city council members can help us out with getting the courts that we reserved way back in August and even before that talking to the city rec department. That would be really helpful because we need those courts. Thank you. We reserve them and they're already spoken for, so please help.

Thank you. Thank you Katrina. Mr. City Manager?

So we're aware of the situation. Mr. Crout for the last four years has had a pickleball demonstration at the courts and signed up to do it again this year he signed up some time ago. We transitioned over to a new reservation system, a new electronic reservation system and unfortunately it didn't catch that two of the courts were occupied for Ojai Day So we're in a situation where we have to compromise. I don't really see a whole lot of options. Both parties you know have gone through the appropriate channels and it's it's you know it's the way it is this year unless one wants to move somewhere else and both want to remain where they are.

And so again it won't happen going forward will be able to modify the software so that we don't have that gap but that's a casualty of that this year and we do apologize.

Thank you, Mr. City Manager. All right we have one more public comment. Leah Heshey is that? Sorry, hi.

Okay. So I read your smooshy dog face reading.

No, no. This is general public comment.

But I wanted to suggest something instead of that and so

I was

told that might be.

Could you wait until item number three? Sure. Thank you very much. Yeah, we'll get you in there. Thank you. All right. That's it Bridget

Yes, mayor. There's no more.

Okay. Thank you very much Alright,

On favor

Aye. Okay, all right wonderful we will now

Briefly Madam Mayor, so on this one we had the agenda still lists four vacancies of course as the commission to the council is aware at the prior meeting we the council appointed new Planning Commissioner Robert Graham so that seat is solved There are three remaining open seats or seats to be reappointed or appointed as applicable at the end of a term. The committees, we went through the new committee process as the council is familiar with and the outcome is to recommend reappointment of Commissioner Bennett and Jamie Bennett and Commissioner John Trent and then for Commissioner Steve Quillacy There the committee had recommended his reappointment as well. On that front, as was discussed somewhat last time and in detail now staff recommends not reappointing Mr.

Quillacy and instead going back through the process to consider alternative options Given two incompatible offices issues, one is the conflict between Mr. Quillacy's role as a planning commissioner and his elected role as this Ojai Valley Sanitation District board director. And second, the incompatible office issue regarding his expected swearing into the city clerk's office assuming the election goes the way we expect because he's the only one on the ballot and then takes the oath if offered the seat and planning commissioner that conflict as well given those two conflicts, one present, one expected to occur Staff recommends not reappointing Mr. Quillacy, it is of course the council's choice. The last closing the triangle as to Mr. Quillacy three offices the last leg is not a problem City Clerk and Sanitary Board Director our conclusion is summarized in the staff report is that that's not an incompatible office I'm happy to answer any questions on that quick report thank you

Any questions from Council? I

have several questions. I think this is going to be a very interesting discussion So, I'd like to start by looking at the ordinance that I think that this council adopted June 11 2024 and throughout the ordinance in at least four places there is Language that says, for example on page one and then you know go down to number one. It says. As determined by the city clerk, that text appears four or five times throughout the ordinance.

And then my question is why doesn't it's if you're going to keep that language? I'd like to see that language removed. But I also don't understand why it doesn't say deputy city clerk, because in truth and reality, it's the deputy city clerk Not that that is under the city manager and it's not the elected City Clerk. My experience in my 12 years on the council only time I really see the elected City Clerk is when she swears me in other than that, I rarely see her. So in order to have a discussion about whether or not there is a conflict of interest, we need to distinguish between Deputy City Clerk which would usually be Wesson and is it still Cynthia Burrell?

Presently yes.

Yes okay.

So having to clarify that, the code is written to reflect the elected position. The city clerk, Ms. Burrell, the present city clerk and several past clerks have chosen to delegate most of their roles to the employee deputy city clerk. There is no requirement that they choose to make that delegation. The next clerk could choose to run that nomination calculation, nomination order selection themselves and retain it at the elected level. The council could amend the ordinance to have instead of the city clerk it be the deputy city clerk or presently chief deputy city clerk Or another employee or city manager. The council could amend the ordinance to remove that conflict on that front if the council so chose, that's not on tonight's agenda. That would be a future agenda item.

To reamend the planning commission ordinance further and then the 2nd thing I would note as was discussed in the staff report. We identify a second potential conflict that I want the council to be aware of. One is the city clerk's role in the planning commission appointment process, which that amendment would erase. Second is a significant potential for a clash of duties and loyalties because the city clerk has a significant role in the City Council's election process and that is this the elected city clerk position as long as there is an elected city clerk.

Mindful of course the delegation often occurs to the deputy city clerk

So my memory might be fuzzy, but I know that I approved this ordinance and at the time that language looked innocent. It didn't think it would be an issue. But I don't remember any of us, was there a discussion? Or why was that language, that text inserted?

As I recall, it wasn't a lengthy discussion. But the council's focus on having the clerk determine the order of rotation was to take it out of the council so it's not the council deciding among themselves and not have it be someone who reports to the council. So have it be not the manager but of course that's a choice. It could be the manager, it could be take it from the elected clerk and shift it to the chief deputy clerk or shift it to the manager or put it back to the council.

Any of those are valid options as the ordinance may be amended as the council may choose.

Well, I can wait. We can do a round and then I may have other questions or somebody else might ask the question.

That was just it was just a clarifying question to summarize that basically if we were to change this ordinance from city clerk to deputy chief city clerk, it would eliminate both of those conflicts. Is that correct?

No, only one of the two as I see it wouldn't eliminate the second conflict that we identified, which is the elected city clerks role in the City Council's election process And there are duties that the elected city clerk has in the election process that are not, the council doesn't have the power to delegate those in full. The clerk has the power to delegate them if the clerk so chooses but the council can't force the clerk to delegate them.

And what would those be?

Those duties include processing application processing candidates statements processing applications interfacing with the candidates as they seek reelection or appointment is applicable. Swearing them in and other associate and campaign finance statement filings.

Okay, so I would just mention that all of those are done by the Deputy Chief City Clerk and was done by his predecessor before that. The city clerk, I think as Council Member Francina indicated, I remember doing all of that and it was never done with the city clerk. It was always done with... She wasn't the deputy city clerk but none of those have been done by the city clerk to date So you're saying that those could be, the city council could not delegate that to the chief deputy city clerk. Only the city clerk could delegate that?

Right. The clerk has often chosen to delegate their elections duties to the staff, to the deputy or chief deputy city clerk but that's the clerks choice to delegate it's not a choice as I see it the council can make for the clerk.

Okay thank you

Yeah,

I mean just for clarification I Don't think it's correct that Weston has done Excuse me. Our deputy city clerk has done everything independently Because I've had personal experience with him telling me that he needs to review with the city clerk before He signs off or makes a final determination something

right and we often see that in the more For want of a better word, complicated aspects of the clerk's elections role. We are mindful of a number of past experiences where the clerk had a choice to process or not process an initiative or referendum as elected clerk. The staff deputy city clerk or clerk or chief deputy would take in the paperwork but then consult with the elected clerk as the elected clerk made the decision to process or not process something which impacted in some past cases The city council's policy goals, one way or the other by processing or not processing depending on the city elected city clerk choices as to how they saw.

The elections laws regarding initiatives and referenda being complied with or not which actually is a further. So the elections process isn't just the city council elections process, it's also the city elections process where we've seen in the past policy conflict between the elected city clerk and majority of the elected City Council on initiative and referenda which creates that possibility of a conflict of offices or conflict of duties and clash of loyalties because an elected city clerk would have Potentially competing roles do they do what their voters as elected clerk want and very strictly enforce? Initiatives in the referendum and elections law or do they do what their overlords is the further appointing authority. Sorry retract appointing authority as Council but in the end it's a council is appointing the Planning Commission Do they do what their appointing authority wants as planning commissioner are they unduly influenced in the role of City Clerk by their thought or concern for their role as planning commissioner underneath the city council.

That's the concern that we identify, thank you.

All right questions Council?

Yeah so you've explained uh the reason you put this text in here so what when it comes down in another hour or so when it comes time to make motions what is the result of removing removing that oh did I say something really crazy? I foresee this is a complex and very interesting situation. So what are the consequences if that text was removed?