Ojai City Council Regular Meeting

Check one, two. We are back from the closed session. Ms. Anderson?

So no reportable action was taken. Council considered the item and will be potentially acting on it in open session.

Thank you very much. That will conclude the closed session. And we start the open session. Welcome! How silly is that? Okay, here we go. All righty. Roll call please.

Thank you

commission reports. And we have Mr. West here, correct?

Hello. Thank you And welcome. This is my first meeting this year to Councilmember Mang and Mayor Gilman, so nice to see you guys and you guys. You too. Remember me? Absolutely. Tonight it's very exciting to be able to present to you our recommendations for this year's arts grants. We spent between the ad hoc committee, the Arts Commission and staff we We spent over 150 hours on the process this year, and I want to do a special thanks to Manager Ben and to James Ringer for all the time they put in and the guidance that they gave us this year too. It was a much smoother process. So please consider our recommendations with the sincerity that we present them.

On the bad news, I may have mentioned that we had applied for an arts grant from the state which we did not get and that was going to be for doing an assessment of the state-of-the-arts economy, the creative economy in the Ojai Valley. The county is currently doing one broadly and I really would encourage us to consider that might be something we want to do ourselves.

When we talk about the biggest employers in the valley, you always hear them mention the inn and the schools or the hospital. But my guess is that if you did an assessment far surpassing those even together would be the artists and the creatives in our community. And they make an economic impact not only in our community but throughout the world. Think about how the people live here make an impact Thank you very much.

are going to be present, Commissioner Steiner and Commissioner Wright who was the chair of the ad hoc committee that did this selection our recommendations to you guys. So thank you and we look forward to a

hearty

year.

Thank you so much for being here and for the other commissioners being here as well any other commissioner reports that are here? Okay great we'll move on to public communications Ron Solorzano, William Wyrick and Larry Stengold. Hi Ron.

Alrighty thank you so much members of council my name is Ron Solorzano and I am the regional librarian for the Ojai Valley here today to just give you a quick update on some of what we have going on at the Ojai Library So I want to start first for kids and families. We're going to be hosting a Pokémon Day at the library on Sunday, February 23rd. This is actually the second Pokémon Day we've hosted. The last one was a little while ago and it was a great success. So stop by from 1230 to 2 p.m. to take part in fun activities including button making, perler bead crafting, and a scavenger hunt. So we hope to see you all there!

The following week on Saturday, March 1st, playwright and theater director Bob Mayberry who is a professor emeritus from CSU Channel Islands is going to come to the library to expand on the Shakespeare authorship question examining the case for and against a half dozen alternate writers who have been thought to have written Shakespeare's famous plays over the last few hundred years.

Then on Monday, March 3rd our next Monday Matinee film screening is going to take place featuring Jon Chu's adaptation of Wicked starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. Showtime is gonna be at noon and you'll also have a chance there to learn about some of the other award-winning movies we're gonna be showing in the coming months for our Monday Matinee series.

Later on Saturday, March 8th the library is going to welcome career homicide prosecutor Richard Simon to speak about his two critically acclaimed fiction books in the courtroom drama and crime thriller genre and how his vast experience in holding the worst criminals accountable has contributed to his storytelling and his writing. And then lastly, on Saturday March 15th we have Certified Master Gardener Danny Brucius joining us at the Ojai Library to deliver a timely talk on Firewise Living from Structure to Landscape.

This is a practical workshop that's going to equip homeowners With essential skills to reduce wildfire risks, participants are going to learn strategies for creating defensible space around structures including vegetation management, landscaping techniques and home modification approaches to protect homes in wildfire-prone regions. So we have so much more also happening at the Ojai Library, including one-on-one career coaching, adult literacy support, ukulele, poetry and Shakespeare clubs, book club kits, electric leaf blowers, weekly story times, Lego play sessions and more. And for more details on any of these programs drop by our library or visit us online at www.vencolibrary.org Thank you and have a wonderful evening!

Thank you, Mr. Slonsdon. I appreciate your work very much. William Wyrick, Larry Stangold and then Barry Cohen.

Good evening, Council.

As we contemplate the first significant rainstorm of the year, I remembered that years ago we had an almost $900,000 planning grant that was completed and is in the archives listing innumerable Street improvement programs for stormwater capture, which of course is now the focus of yet another executive order well-timed from the governor. Of course, Ojai being Ojai, we were years ahead of that at least in terms of planning.

However I have to say I was disappointed that no elements of that planning grant were incorporated into our last round of street improvement program The stormwater capture designs were laid out in great detail, including particular measures for curb extensions and traffic calming as well as particular ways of maybe handling stormwater infiltration in our flood control channels.

We have one of the densest, well we have in the City of Ojai the densest braiding of natural watercourses in the whole Ojai Valley. I always contended that's why the City of Ojai is located where it is. And yet, here we have a planning grant that was accepted. We had—I thought we had adopted a maximum stormwater recharge program especially for the Perched Aquifer which is the main contributor to streamflow in San Antonio Creek which is important in terms of our negotiations with the settlement on the Channel Keeper Suite and yet I did not see—I'm not aware that staff has provided you information about This planning grant and its completion, and it's a extensive long document.

And I would ask you to please maybe make some inquiries as the staff as why that was not included in the latest round of street improvement program and hope that is included in the future. Thank you.

Thank you all certainly follow up on that.

Larry Steingold, Barry Cohen, and Fran Anachar, is it Galick? Or I can't read the last name but it's Fran. So Larry Steingold.

Good evening, and hopefully we see rain tonight before we go home. The California Environment Quality Act, CEQA, was established in 1970 by Ronald Reagan for the growing concern of environmental protection. That's why we have it, that's why all states have it, that's why we have EPA, that's why we have limits. We have limits on residential land, we have limits on industrial, we have limits on everything. Why? To keep us safe.

Why do we have inspections of homes? To ensure there isn't asbestos or friable asbestos, or lead paint, or exceedingly high levels of pesticides. We have inspections. We have physical inspections. We don't have a hypothesis. We don't have an educated guess. We don't surmise, we don't suggest, we don't have similar assumptions. You want to ensure something, test for it. There are no guarantees. But if you make a test at least that part of the issue goes away and makes us sleep better at night.

We cannot hang our hat on laws that were promulgated by other legislatures to game the system and allow for workarounds to make things happen. I understand people don't want affordable housing. I understand we don't want this or that. But to revise science or to take away science, to make things happen is obscene. I mean, I know we just had the big thing with the virus and the science and this and that. But if you have standards that have been established nationally for residential land and industrial land and commercial—for everything, why not just look at those standards and say, hey, does that land meet those—exceed those standards?

And quite honestly, without testing in 120 years of usage, of unknown usage is absurd. They want to test for one pile of dirt, right? I think that's wonderful. Hopefully it's clean. But did anybody look at the dirt last year, five years ago, 20 years ago, 50 years ago 75 years ago or 120 years ago? These are their things, not mine. All right? I just think we need to do something to at least make us morally feel good or actually do the right thing.

Okay? Because ignoring it and letting – look, the city government has tools to let them do these things. That's fine. But we shouldn't do them just because we can't. It's not right to the people who live there Okay? Or who are living anywhere, for that matter. If you're going to move on a piece of dirt, you should have it be clean or at least approved. So thank you.

Thank you Mr. Steingold. Barry Cohen, Fran and Anita Cram.

My name is Barry Cohen, and I'm the founder of Miners Oaks Community Garden. And I wanted to come and tell you guys a little bit about our project. With spring coming up it's the perfect time to amp up in the garden. The garden is a quarter of an acre and started out as an empty piece of land that were built into a budding community garden. So there's 38 raised beds that people can rent out.

Eight are higher off the ground for people with mobility issues, and six are reserved for scholarship opportunities that members of the community have already offered to support. We're going to have lots of workshops and events especially in March and April we're planning on having a workshop every Sunday from one to three on things including Seed swapping and intro to gardening, and also arts and crafts that are nature-related. Fun for kids and adults and everyone is welcome not just members. Membership is $120 for a six month lease and that includes bed soil water tools And we still have lots of beds available so we'd love to get those filled for March and get people in the garden this spring If you want to inquire more, our website is MinersOaksCommunityGarden.com or you can see us on Instagram at Miner's Oaks Community Garden.

Thank you.

Thank You Ms. Cohen, appreciate it. Fran, Anita Cram and Dale Hanson Sorry, I wasn't getting your last name correctly. Tell me your last name?

Geeler.

Say that one more time?

Geeler.

Geeler, thank

you. I know my writing is horrible.

No no no, I just didn't see that was an L. Geeler. Thank you very much.

Okay here we go. Um...I had to write it down because I knew I would forget. I just want to remind the city of the construction happening on the pathway between the Mallory Way cabins and the cottages where the creek used to be. It's not there anymore as of Every day is different, but there usually are a few violations happening at the site including construction around unprotected oaks and there always is exposed rebar.

I would like to express how incredibly sad that an invasive and outdated plan from 2007 was allowed to be put into action in regards to the waterway between the Mallory Cabins and Aliso Street. It's so environmentally disrespectful to the land and to the people living alongside it. I ask that you continue to turn your attention to what is happening there in hopes of preventing it from happening elsewhere, and please keep your eyes on whatever the plans are for the Mallory cabins because what he's doing down there, who knows what he would do to the cabins?

Change is inevitable, as we know. But it doesn't have to be as it is happening at the cottages right now. When you walk through there, it's like unrecognizable. A friend of mine who grew up there around the corner played there like years ago. She just looked at it today and was just She could not believe it. It's like mass destruction, so please don't forget us. Please don't forget the colleges and please just keep an eye on what is going on. Thank you.

Good evening, and thank you everyone. And of course I'm piggybacking on what Fran just spoke about. This is having a tremendous impact on the local neighborhood. It's really loud—I mean really, really loud when they bring in these shovels that are digging in the creek bed and they're sifting rocks and people's tempers are short and nervous systems are shot.

Start times are being blown. There was one day they started before dawn And end times, they ended a little bit late tonight even though it wasn't much. I'm currently the Wicked Witch of the West which I hold that proudly. I was born in Kansas so with them I'm proud to be the Wicked Witch of the West. Okay so CEQA, Larry gave a nice intro to it. Negative mitigated declaration from 2000-2008, which was so strongly fought to bring forward by the developers. They're not following it.

Trees, they just got tree protection today. It's gone 30 days without protecting the trees and they only did that because they were sensing so much anger within the community that they got really nervous, that they were becoming vulnerable. Are there any consequences for those 30 days? It's been documented, people have seen it, we all have pictures. Cultural resources, same CEQA documented. Recommended too much monitor for any excavation, any tree removal, any trenching has not been done.

Hammerhead turnaround that all of this creek work was done for. We are being told by the workers, by the foreman of the project that they're going to concrete all of that. Again, CEQAs says that they fought so hard for it. The CEQMA mitigation says Low-impact materials. Granite, or no it says gravel or crushed granite you know and that isn't this phase that part of it but you know they're just going to do it and then it's too late which is sort of like there is this it's better to get forgiveness than permission seems to be the modus operandi for the project So I also would like the city to really see if they can't, because they're going to be doing many more projects. And if they get in a pattern of just breaking ordinances, breaking CEQA agreements, it's gonna occur much more and we're gonna be losing a lot more trees as well.

Okay thank you.

Thank you so much Ms. Graham. Dale Hanson, Lori Sigmund and Star Child

Hello, I'm Dale Hanson. I live in the city of Ojai. I always start with that. I just want to add one thing to what she was just saying is that they're putting a concrete channel there not allowing the water stream to go into the ground which is what we need. That's not what I came here to talk about. I came here to talk about, which I may be out of line and if I am forgive me, but the closed sessions that's going on with indemnification. It's been almost two years, I think, and no decision has been reached. Isn't it time that it comes out here?

So we can all hear what's going on. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong for requesting that but I think that it's something that we might all be ready for and I appreciate your considering that. Thank you.

Thank You Ms. Hampton. Lori Sigmund, Starchild and John Drucker

Good evening Last week when we were in this room, a topic of discussion was the cost plan and operating expenses for one year for the cabin village at the public worksite. And I want to remind the City Council or suggest to you that when the city manager mentioned in discussion that I believe he said eight to nine million dollars in project development has already been committed to Dignity Moves, or that's the plan.

And I realize about a week from now we're going to have the Planning Commission meeting and really I'm looking forward too and I hope you are too Seeing a very detailed breakdown of that 8 to 9 million because something our city manager said at, I think it was probably six or eight months ago. He said with being quite assured about it That he said, I will guarantee you it will not cost more than $1.7 million to develop the public works yard compared to one of the most expensive properties that was also being considered.

So, I think we need to really take a look at that and be mindful of that. So another issue I'd like to bring up, because I've been to a couple city council meetings already. I watch them sometimes afterwards if I can't attend and I don't know if it's required or if it is required, if we can start enforcing it that when people get up here and speak that they identify themselves by their first name, their last name, and if they're not comfortable mentioning what their address is, maybe mention what street they live on or what district within the city of Ojai that they live in. Or simply if they live outside the city limits then state that because I'm just saying so I don't know if you can answer me that question right now if that's a requirement or if we can start to require that?

I'm happy to answer. So, the First Amendment actually prevents us from asking those questions. Folks if they want to come up and identify themselves as Mickey Mouse from Toontown they could do that so yeah the Brown Act and the First Amendment prevent us doing that people have to provide that information voluntarily okay

All right. It would be helpful for me and I'm sure maybe for all of you sitting up here too, but if that's the law, I guess that's the law. So thank you.

Thank you very much. Starchild and then John Drucker.

Good evening. Hello. I agree with what Dale said. I'm Starchild. I live in Leslie Rule's district. Did you read the paper this week? I usually tease Kimberly a little bit about the titles that she uses. Sometimes they're a bit bombastic. Today, this last week though, she said Civil War and I think that's an accurate description. Over $300,000 in legal expenses that somebody is going to pay for Does it have to be Leslie Rule?

If it does, I can only imagine how much of a burden that would be. Or is it going to be the city? Is it going to be more than $300,000? Or else, is it going to be the three neighbors who have liens in their houses? These are big important issues, I think. And it's time to end this strife. I read in the paper what Leslie's lawyer said and I don't think that Andy Whitman should have to accuse himself.

I read what Andy Whitman wrote in the paper and I've got questions. I don' know what the whole truth is but I do know some things that I want to say I do know that if my council member, Leslie Rule, is not in the room then I'm not fully represented. I do know that I want transparency. I do know I am proud of my council member, Leslie Rule, for seeing something she thought was wrong and for doing what she thought was right.

I read some other things I want to tell you more. I don't think that cussing is respectful, I don't think it's civil and I don't think it's very Ojai. And I want to know what happened. I want to read the two legal opinions that are supposedly baseless according to Councilmember Whitman. I don't want to take his word for it. I want to see him. I think it's time to end this war. I think it's time to start recording closed session meetings so that they can become public at an appropriate time.

I want this council to waive privilege on whatever closed session meetings it can, so that the truth can come to light and so that we can come to reconciliation. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. I'm John Drucker, Council to Leslie Rule and a local resident. First, I want to give a belated congratulations to you Kim and you Andy for being here. But the events of the last few weeks have both angered and saddened me. That is because the City Council is accepting grossly incompetent legal advice, both from outside the council and from your city attorney.

And the city is paying without any review whatsoever outrageously high fees for this incompetent and at best minimal legal work. I understand that the city has already paid the Myers Neve Law Firm $117,000 for a 10-page PowerPoint presentation. Ten pages. A presentation addressed only one of two sentences of a statute they incorrectly thought was relevant, and last Wednesday through me Leslie Rule wrote to you telling you not to bother sending her a settlement offer along the lines that had been discussed.

Nonetheless Meyers Neve then took a week to do precisely what we had told them not to do What are they going to charge the city for that? $20,000? $40,000 after all it was longer than the PowerPoint presentation. Maybe it'll charge another hundred and seventeen thousand dollars and you'll write the check. At the same time it pays these outrageous sums for minimal and incompetent legal work without raising an eyebrow, the city seems to object to Leslie Rule's lawyers' bill for $400,000 for litigating an entire case even through most of the appeal.

Just wait until you have to pay not only that $400,000 but also pay for the city's defense of new litigation for indemnification as well as her attorney's fees in that new case. And God help you if someone wants to sue ex-Mayor Betsy Sticks and her friend Sabrina Venskis, and others on this council for their fraud on the city and efforts to deny Leslie Rule her legal rights.

Because that is exactly where your unquestioning acceptance of an overpayment for bad legal advice leads. I would love to stop this madness But every reasoned and reasonable statement to this council seems to fall on deaf ears, and the solution is not another closed session to discuss it.

That's all the cards I have. Mr. Montgomery, anybody online?

Mayor, we have one raised hand and speaking to our Zoom participants now, we are taking general public comment. First raised hand we have is Teal. Teal, you... Pardon me, mayor. Speaking to James in the back, could you please give me permissions here on Zoom to unmute our participants? Standby. One moment. All right, Teal you have the ability to unmute and you have the floor.

Thank you and thank you for giving me the time I appreciate it. With this public comment I'm calling for the public of Ojai which you all represent and I ask the public that you stand can you hear me?

Yes please continue

I ask that the council stand for the public that you represent in your districts. I'm in Ventura County, and as for transparency please remember the May 22nd 2023 Ojai City Council Special Meeting With the Adjunct Professor of Ethics, Responsibility and Campaign Finance at UC Berkeley Law School, Anne Revell. And I also ask that the public please, if you want to know what this is about rather than the spin, please watch the January 24th 2023 Ojai City Council regular meeting. It's on video on YouTube And there's a lot of other things as well, like February 4th the last meeting in public comments on the Zoom session with the attorneys and the spin.

I ask that the people and the people representing the people who are you to please stand in your truth and stand up to this. Please don't waste the taxpayer money of Ojai which I am not one But it really is an interesting spin, and it's been for two years. And I echo Dale Hanson. Please stand in your truth. And thank you for so much of your time.

Thank you. I have one more card. Alan Greenberg. I know you just came right on time. No waiting.

And I'll say, Mayor, we have no more raised hands on Zoom.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Montgomery. Hello. I'm here because I'm concerned about two issues which are mentioned because it is more timely first Is the item on this evening's consent calendar regarding- We're

going to talk about that in just a minute. Hang out just for one second, but is this something you want to talk about? Something that's not on the consent calendar also? Yes. Do that one now and then we'll have you come. I'll have you handy for the consent which we will get to in a moment.

Oh thank

you. No problem but bring up the other issue. The

other issue is About the ordinance that was brought up last meeting and was rejected on a vote of three to two, as you know. I went to the city website as I wanted to see the video of the meeting because I recalled that after A vote was taken, there was another vote taken about having various town hall meetings or perhaps you might call it A forum, an open forum to discuss the ordinance so that everybody would have a chance to sort of interact, ask questions, give your opinions, get some answers. But there was no video and I don't know why.

There was not, so I'm thinking my recollection is correct that there is going to be some sort of a public forum maybe one or two or even more meetings and I haven't heard of any such meetings being announced but I hope I'm correct and I assume that there will be some more information about this soon enough. So I hope that's the case and thank you for that.

There will be more coming, certainly. I'm looking...I am seeing the one video right now on the website.

Mayor? Yes please! From the clerk's seat here.

Yep.

We have a couple options for video archives. One of them right now we're having a little trouble uploading our giant data file but if any of the public wishes to reach out to the clerk's office we can guide you to our YouTube archive where that meeting, the January 28th meeting is available

Because it was so darn long, is that the problem? We need them to be shorter so they can upload better. Every once in a while there's- Yes! Okay, point taken. Thank you Mr Greenberg. All right we are ready to move on. We're going to go onto the consent calendar but Mr Alameda you had something you wanted to announce first. Am I correct?

Correct thank you Mayor. So on the consent calendar tonight I just wanted to note that item 1D which is a professional services agreement with Eli Bailey for the implementation of our new finance software system. There is simply a formatting error that the last page, the top margin got a little large and cut off the end of the agreement. The only portion that's missing are the signatures on the agreement but the City Clerk Mr. Montgomery has updated this on our city website so the agreement in its entirety is available on the city's website. So just wanted to note that in your packet if you're wondering where signature page went Also, I did want to note a recent transition in staff. We had someone that left us that did HR and we were more than fortunate to bring on a very seasoned HR and risk management professional who's here with us tonight.

I'd like to take a moment if she could introduce herself. Kathy Holman who has over a decade of experience with the nearby city of Camarillo has joined us as a CalPERS extra help annuitant, and I mention that because recently when the council redid their compensation it allowed for us to bring in PERS retired annuance and extra help annuitants so we get people with a whole lot of experience come help us out in these areas.

I can't see her she's too far away she's way back in the

room. I'm Kathy Holman so I'm happy to be here I'm sorry, I kind of tuned out a little bit Carl when you were introducing me. I was

just saying how fortunate we are to have you. So Kathy comes from the city of Camarillo?

Yep, I was there for 29 years and I spent 25 of those years in HR and risk management and the first five years were in finance so I have a broad spectrum of experience and I'm really looking forward to getting to know the team here. It's been a lot of fun so far but thank you.

Thank you so much Yay. Welcome. Yes, now wonderful to great to have you here Now I do have one procedural question being new So if I start off by saying on the consent calendar asking if anyone on the council would like to remove items But we also have public comments on specific items so what I do that first and then take the public comment on the specific Items,

oh, it's just taking the public comment and if the council wants to pull okay or more items We could do that happy. Yep

I'll happily do that. So we're on to the consent calendar and I will start off, and I'm going to go by their numbers in order in that way alphabetically so first on Consent B, I have Starchild

I'd like to talk about two items in the warrants. One is the legal bill from our City Attorney's Office, Colantuono, Highsmith & Watley for $118,340.35. When I look at this bill, I also see another bill from Myers-Nave for $45,286.20. That one says that it's for special counsel indemnification analysis, part of the legal strife and civil war that we were just talking about in public comments.

I'd like to know if the item for Coelan, Tuono, Highsmith and Whatley could also parse out how much of that spending was for special counsel indemnification analysis. I'd like to know when we reach the amount of money we've spent on counsel trying to defend against this lawsuit or defend against indemnification once that money is more than actual price of indemnification itself?

Thank you, Star Child. It says E and it says no name. So is there somebody who wrote no name for consent item E, which is general plan update climate action plan but no name? Literally they wrote no name, the words no name? Mayor I wrote no name

oh we did receive a card for consent item 1E.

Did someone omit writing their name but means to speak if you remember come up Okay, I have also on consent item E or letter E Bill Miley.

It's the general plan update

yep

continuing process slow but sure with a focus on the Climate Action Plan and economic tourism diversification factors, which I'm really interested in. I certainly support the creation and involvement of community folks into advisory groups to add values, information, observation, historical remembrances, and opinion to city general plan development. I think this is a very positive step towards better general plan relevancy. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miley and also on eStarchild.

Thank you. I was really happy to be selected for the Climate Action Committee. It's not something that I asked for, I saw the email in my inbox and actually thought it was either sent out to everybody or maybe even a mistake. I put it in the spam folder or at least the red folder. Then I got another, well then I saw my name here on the agenda and I thought well gosh maybe they're serious. And I got to thinking about it and it's true that you know I do know some stuff about the climate But I think some of my neighbors know a lot of stuff, too. And I think perhaps a better way of forming these committees would be to advertise that we're having the committees and have people apply and then maybe the best and the brightest could be on those committees instead of just whoever got an email.

But if you decide to do it the way that it's done, I'm quite happy to serve the city. Thank you.

Thank you, Starchild. Moving on to Consent F. Bill Miley, Starchild, stay close. Mr. Miley for F. Perfect. OK. OK,

Mr. Mayor, I may be confused. What's the subject of Consent F?

It's essentially what we talked about in the closed session that we will then approve and consent.

Habitat for Humanity?

Correct. Are

you going to discuss that today, too?

Well, we discussed the agreement in the closed session of which this is basically a reflection of what you see in F. And if the council approves the consent, then we will approve that.

I have... Mr.

Whitman?

Okay, Mr. Stengel.

Thank you. Larry Stiles, I also appreciate getting an email. A community champion, one of the best and the brightest, thank you Star Child. But I do want to help this city and use whatever talents I have or experience that because I do live here and care enough to maintain the way I live and where I live but I do think it should be open to the public and interviews because there are a lot of smart people out there who care And whether it's for the environment, whatever side, whether it's intense climate action or more rational—or different climate action.

Whatever you want to do we have to do something but—or general climate action, sorry, but economic development. But open it to the public. I'm sure there are more of the best than the brightest. I can't imagine how many. But I'll wear a T-shirt. But thank you and—but put it out to the public please

Thank you very much. John Trent, and then we'll come back to Bill Miley. Hello Mr. Trent?

Welcome Andy, welcome Kim. Good to see you guys. First I just wanted to say thank you to Leslie Rule our council member on her suggestion on May 4th regarding this item to have a public meeting or a community meeting so I sincerely appreciate that. So I just wanted to represent one of my neighbors she wasn't able to make it so she wrote up a letter and she just didn't get it here in time so I'm gonna read it for her She says, my name is Robin Schwartzberg.

I'll try to do the best I can to sound like Robin. I was born and raised in Ojai. I bought my home on Franklin Drive in 1997. My concern and reason for opposing five units at 408-410 North Montgomery Street is the already complete lack of parking, and the dangers of visibility while pulling off a narrow street and impeding access on Franklin Drive, the cross street to North Montgomery. She says, I'm fully supportive of low-income housing. However, if you want to maintain support for it, it needs to be done in a way that shows respect and the needs for the neighbors or you'll quickly lose that support. It's also disrespectful to the people living there especially if they're setting a separate standard to someone who lives there as though they're somehow less.

One thing that has been very concerning is how impossible it is to see, pulling out with all the cars from all the housing in the area, those who don't have adequate parking and are parked at the end of the street. And all the people speeding on their e-bikes and the likelihood of someone being killed are seriously high. She says if you just creep out, you have to say a prayer.

The high-density condos replaced a single family home across the street. There's a church, there are several businesses, overcrowded duplexes and all of Franklin which doesn't allow parking because it's too narrow. There isn't a day where we're not already have vehicles parked on Franklin illegally There have been phases where she's had to knock on neighbors' doors daily just to get out of the driveway. There has been construction of one kind or another going on for years, it's ongoing, there are always gardeners, big trucks, deliveries.

If there ever was an emergency, an ambulance wouldn't be able to get to the house. The fact that I couldn't get a permit to add to my house when it was affordable without building a garage but the City wants to build one without for each of these dwellings is hypocritical and unacceptable. At the very least, there needs to be two off-street parking spots for each dwelling or change the laws so it's equal across the board.

The proposed ideas of making rules that inhabitants can't have more than one car is not realistic nor can it be enforced. Five dwellings is simply too much for this already very congested area. She said my daughter is learning how to drive and it's literally terrifying just to see her get out on the street. I think anyone who wants to support this needs to come take a ride with us, try to leave for work, come home and park. Have a friend come over and then you might have a more informed opinion.

Thank You Mr. Chen. I appreciate it. I omitted one thing. Mr. Greenberg will you please come up and talk about item E? The second the first thing you were going to mention. Thank you.

I heard about this when I read the agenda the other day, it was the first time I knew about it. I'm assuming to some extent but I understand that the members of this Climate Action Plan Advisory Committee were selected by staff without making these positions available to anyone other than the four people that they apparently I'm concerned about the fact that this committee is about to be approved.

The new council was going to be operating in an atmosphere of transparency and fairness. And I don't think, if my, I could be incorrect about the procedure but if I'm not it wasn't done in a spirit of transparency and fairness which I think is paramount in this esteemed council. Therefore, I'm urging you to remove this committee from the consent calendar and that steps be taken to provide for a completely new committee to be formed.

It would consist of only City of Ojai residents which it does not at this time. I believe two of the four are not residents on the one hand and also the opportunity for people on both sides of the issues to be appointed to this committee. I don't have a specific recommendation as to how this process would be taken, but I'm happy to add my opinion on that if I am asked.

I hope that the selections, if they in fact are going to be made, are made in a transparent and equitable manner. Thank you for your support.