Ojai City Council Regular Meeting

Mr. Summers, would you like to report out from our closed session?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. The Council met in closed session to consider item number one regarding public employee performance evaluation of the City Manager, provided direction to Staff, Council and the City Manager but took no reportable action. And the second item regarding public employee performance evaluation for the City Attorney and a continued discussion of performance evaluation of the City Manager will be set for a future meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Summers. So that will be the closing of our closed session And now we will convene in our open session for the evening. So, formulaic. Mr. Montgomery

One piece of it is,

yes. It's 100% affordable. A portion of it is being allocated to farmworker housing. That's a part of their package for the grants that they're going for.

Is that part of the county program that you're describing?

So this is the study to help inform future projects countywide, including projects within our city. But we already have a housing element that dictates and provides programs for the future within our six cycle.

Other than the Cabrillo project? Are there any other farmworker projects

that are proposed within the City of Ojai? That would be the first that I'm aware of. Yes.

Just to offer, the museum had three wonderful talks not too long ago from labor suppliers, farmers all over the map like organic all the way to our commercial ones and it'd be interesting. I'm going to look at those links and see how much does Ojai map to the larger county but I think we're all very interested in this demographic and what we can do about that. Yeah, thanks. Absolutely. Anything else Mr. Whitman? No.

Okay. Thank you so much! Do we have any commissioners here for Commission Reports? Okay, then I will move on to Public Communications and I'm going to start with Chief Barry Parker.

Good evening, Council. It's a pleasure to be here in front of you this evening and it's an honor. This will be one of my last meetings due to a promotion which is a happy thing but I just want to take a moment to reflect on the past three years here public service and the importance of it in our roles that we play obviously Ojai is a very tight-knit community There's people behind me that I know them by their first names, and I think that is so important that we stay connected to the community. It is so important that we make good decisions whatever they are, we take our time there's not a rush on a lot of these things but more importantly is that we are a safety community and that we are preparing ourselves We all lived through the Thomas fire, and for some that weren't here it was tremendous.

And just last month in Los Angeles we saw the devastation so preparedness that's one thing one high note that I want to pass on to my counterpart his name is a division chief Nick Cleary I'm gonna have him step up and say a few words

Hey, good evening. Thank you guys for having me. I'm really looking forward to this. So Nick Clary, I've been with the fire district since 2002. I'll be stepping into this role effective on Sunday the 2nd. So right now battalion chief will be a division chief filling in between behind Chief Parker and I'm excited. I lived in Ohio at one time. I have family that lived in Ohio. I worked in Ohio as a fire captain so I'm looking forward to representing the fire chief in the city of Ojai and building new relationships with you guys. So thank you guys for having me.

Welcome!

Yeah, water down the wrong pipe. No big deal. Okay so Nancy Fritz, Renee Roth and Jeffrey Starkweather. Yes come up here thank you.

Hello so I'm here about Pedestrian crosswalk right here, it's very dangerous. I came up a couple of months and talked about it but now I need action because I worry about all the kids. I worry about me crossing it so when we start at Creekside Village there's cars coming this is all that's happening like all at once 315 330 on weekdays, and then during other times. But mainly when school gets out it's just a danger zone. So Creekside Village the cars are coming out there's vans plumbers people have a lot of maintenance here doctors office nurses are taking breaks walking around Shell Station has two driveways cars coming in and out both ways Motorcycles come out. Sometimes, there's 20 motorcycles at a time. The trolley car is stopping and pulling over.

People are getting on and off. Attitude Adjustment has the FedEx and UPS trucks coming in and stopping on the street side. Vaughan's has two entrances, cars coming both entrances. Vaughan's huge 18-wheelers pulling up at least four times a day to unload products. The neighborhood behind Vons, lots of kids, lots of e-bikes. In high school the kids are walking, e-bikes riding. Hospital emergencies, ambulance driving to the hospital and bright afternoon sun.

So put those all together it's just very dangerous. So, there's a school zone flashing light 20 feet in front of the crosswalk right here. But nobody seems to slow down for that and the kids on the e-bikes push the pedestrian button and just go they don't wait the 30 seconds to look both ways. And there's just too much activity going on at once and it's just too distracting people don't know what to do I don't know if you can put another light in.

You know, going to Ojai Avenue is so close to it. And so if not could we get the pedestrian lights like in Santa Barbara where you push a light and it's red and people are supposed to stop because the yellow one is not working? And then with the yellow school light coming up 20 yards ahead they're going which way do I stop or when do I stop? Let's see, and then the two pedestrians were killed on the farthest crosswalk.

That one? And I think they're spending right now like over $2 million to fix that and make the sidewalks bigger and stuff so... I came before you a couple of months ago but now we really have to take charge of this problem. And I know we can all complain about the kids in the e-market

We'll take this very seriously. Thank you, ma'am we have to have you end so we can get to the next comment but no would you are you willing to leave that oh thanks okay thanks thank you miss Fritz Renee Roth and then Jeffrey Starkweather

Good evening, Council. My name is Renee Roth and I remember being up at this podium here talking about this same intersection after one of my neighbors, Edith, was hidden at the second intersection on that sign in front of the Chase Bank She was in a walker, she was crossing the crosswalk. She got hit by a car who didn't see her coming because of the sunlight.

I've experienced the same glare and not seen people at those intersections as well. I live off that street. I'm on that street every day. I know exactly what she's talking about. It's very difficult. In fact there was a lawsuit that had to be settled as a result of that. I will say no more. I just want you to know this is really serious, and I know you all know this is important. And that's not why I came here.

Chief Parker, thank you very much for your service to our community. I want to acknowledge what you have done, and I appreciate your service. And I was here for the Thomas Fire, and will never forget it. And fortunately we did survive and we've learned a lot of lessons, and I'll talk about that later. The next thing I want to talk about is e-bikes. I wasn't here for the meeting where you passed the motorcycle comp.

And Trina, I would like to know and I would like the members of the council to know what is happening in Santa Barbara tonight. Santa Barbara is having a conversation. Oh great! Okay and Kim has printed it out. I sent it to Kim and Rachel because I know they voted no for the motorcycle cop. If I were here, I would have voted no for it because I think we need to do both motorcycle cop and education and definitions of what is reckless use of an e-bike. And that's what Santa Barbara is doing right now today. They had their meeting. I didn't attend but They are defining what is reckless use, what are motor vehicles, motorized e-bikes and all the motorized things you can use.

And they have an impoundment section where they can impound it but there's one concerning comment in their report which is, it says motorcycle or officers are not allowed to talk to minors one on one. I did not know that that was a limitation on what officers are able to do one-on-one with minors. There has to be somebody else there, how is that going to work? I think we're going to have some issues and I think it needs to be addressed. We need to do both motorcycle safety and education and look at what others say.

Thank you Ms. Roth. Jeffrey Starkweather

Good evening City Council, staff, Chief of Police, citizens. First of all I want to congratulate our mayor for a wonderful I went to town hall last night. And I've been recovering from an operation, so sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night. Last night I woke up at 4 o'clock in the morning and it took me about 45 minutes to go back to sleep, a couple of melatonins, but I started thinking about all the questions that grew out of that.

So I want to follow-up on that, but I learned something last night that the community should have known a year and two months ago, why we have permanent supportive housing rather than the model that Dignity Moves came here originally with which was transition housing. And I met them, went down and visited their transaction net, looked at it, and I was totally sold on that model. So I was frustrated.

They made it clear why because we have no permanent supportive housing in Ojai. And we are like the only place that got such a large amount of money, because we have to do permanent supportive housing. I think they confirmed everything I know about housing problems and the homeless. This is only gonna hit a portion of our housing homeless problem? We're not even addressing kids I asked Atticus sitting next to him, Atticus Reyes and he goes oh yeah we got a ton of kids that are living in cars and so forth. So I think this is a big issue we have to address.

So, I won't go into it because I've made spiels about affordable housing so many times before you're probably tired of them but I do have a couple of takeaways from this thing. We need a housing committee, task force, something that's gonna work on not just the homeless which it does need to but the larger issue and come up with strategies. One of the things that group could do or someone else needs to do is something we've committed on in our housing element which is to review and revise and reform our housing regulations, our suing court because we have plenty of bearers when I was on the Planning Commission I kept talking about this The third that Jane Walter said is besides additional housing, the only other thing we can really do to treat this problem in the long run is rent subsidy.

We have committed in our housing element to support Help for Ojai with rent subsidy and we've never done it. And the final thing which I'm got about six seconds to say is that I have a lot of questions. I'm going to send them to the whole panel. I would like the city, through the manager, to put some kind of portal on the website that would answer people's questions because I think when you start thinking about all you heard, these questions start arising.

So thank you.

Thank you very much Mr. Starkweather Do I have one more card over there? One more card, Mayor from Starchild. Mr. Starchild.

Thank you. If there's a theme for today's council meeting it's focus, focusing on our agenda and what's most important to the people of Ojai. One thing that I think is not important is strife, is conflict, lawfare It can detract from our city's ability to address the needs of the city and its residents. When is it that we will reschedule the closed session meeting to talk about the city entering the Byrne v. Rule lawsuit?

When is it that we'll talk about waiving privilege on some of those closed session meetings so that people can know the truth of what happened Also, I think that's very important is we need to reconsider the policy that's in effect now that two council members can call a special session. I think the effect of this policy is that many distracting items that don't have the council majority's support can be agendized and can distract our city further.

Thank

you. Mr. Montgomery, anybody online?

Mayor, we have no raised hands on Zoom, but let's do take a moment and speaking to our Zoom participants now is the time to raise your hand for general public comment on our agenda tonight. We'll give you a last call. Still no raised hands and mayor will move on.

Thank you, Mr. Montgomery. Moving on to the consent calendar. Is there anyone on the council that wants to remove anything from the consent calendar before we approve

I'll make a motion to approve the consent calendar. Thank

you. Second. Any discussion?

I'm going to approve the consent calendar, I would pull the warrants and discuss once again the legal fees but I do want to move forward with the agenda so I will not do that but I will point out to anyone who wants to look at it that it's worth looking at

Thank you, Ms. Rule.

Motion passes.

Thank you and we'll move on to discussion item two City Council goals Great Mr. Harvey and I want to ask you Mr. Harvey what when's the right time in your presentation to accept public comments for this

Well, I would ask-I mean you are the presiding officer in your college. No, I understand but what for your flow? Let us know what you need here. Oh okay. So please as a council, I would like to make my presentation. I would like to take council questions about the agenda report and or the presentation, go to public comment and then come back for a council discussion if that's okay. Thank you.

Wonderful.

Okay, great so great. So thank you very much I'm impressed that we're already here at this item. That's awesome And the presentation is up soon Next slide please. We know why we're here for the City Council goals Okay gonna cover some items and a lot of this may seem obvious But I just want to make sure we're all understanding what we're doing and why we're doing and how we're going to do this tonight So the goals, what the heck are they? Well this is how we as a council and a municipal organization focus our efforts, our attention and our resources.

The goals that you establish are going to be in place so long as you sit together as a city council. So that means until November of 2026 okay and that's important keep that in mind these are not goals for Here forward eternal, these are your goals for while you are a council together. And that's important because this is how you set the direction which then translates or trickles down rather into your budget and into the things that we do. That's why they're important. With goals were able to facilitate results. That's how we do it. Everybody knows what we're doing and why and how we're going to get there.

These are your priorities, and I bring that up because You're going to only want to have a small number of priorities. This doesn't mean that we're not doing other day-to-day work, just because let's just play pretend. Let's say if you don't come up with a goal for recreation and I'm not saying that you're not going to but if you don't, it doesn't mean that we're not doing recreation or that we're getting rid of that department or that we don't care about that. No, it does not mean that at all. It just means that for this time period that we are working on these goals Maybe it's not in and amongst our highest priority, okay? It also doesn't mean that the day-to-day and the state mandates or the federal mandates are not being accomplished either.

So you're deciding what your top priorities are for that time period. With that in mind, it's really important that we develop what I'm calling SMART goals—goals that are strategic Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Some terms I'm going to use tonight. So, again, goals are going to be an area of focus and with the goals there are tactics that then roll up to the goal. So the goal is what we're doing and the tactics are how we're going to achieve that. How are you going to implement this goal of fire hardening or emergency preparedness or housing? Whatever it is.

OK. Moving on. Next slide. How is this going to work? So we're going to start the process tonight. We are not going to finish tonight, okay? Uh, we are going to- well, we... I'm asking you to indulge me. What I would like to do is I would like to go through each council member individually and have each member list what they would like to be, you know, the goals if they were king or queen And once we have that and the Chief Deputy City Clerk will be helping me here, we will then see where there are some concentric circles. And I fully anticipate that there will be overlap in your list. Why do I anticipate this?

I meet with you on a regular basis. I talk to you. I know the areas that are important to you and so it's no surprise—and we're going to get to the survey and the results—that some of the items that I put in the survey are things that I've heard you talk about Okay, so I'm expecting to come up with some overlap. Assuming we have that overlap and let's say it's four or five goals, that's okay. We don't need to have 10, you know, or some huge number. Let's say there's four or five.

What I would like to then do is to, you know, agree that okay this is our starting list. It doesn't mean it's our final list. Let's identify some tactics that go with each goal. Okay? Let's get those in place. Once we have that, I'm going to ask that you kick it back to staff. We take a look at the tactics and the goals. We offer some suggestions. Maybe we add some tactics. Maybe we remove some tactics because there's a problem or concern. And we bring it back to you to continue the discussion. That discussion would be at a near-term meeting probably sometime in March or April And at that meeting, I would want to finalize the list. Come up with a specific number of goals with tactics. I'm going to recommend somewhere between five and ten.

I've worked with cities that have had far more numbers and it's just not achievable. Once we have an adopted set of goals and tactics, from that we will develop a work plan. And this will be just exactly kind of what you think. It's going to have the goal, the tactic, some granularity as to what the status is. You know, what the estimated timeline is and who the department is that is in charge of realizing that goal. And we're going to bring this work plan and overall status to you back quarterly so that the Council and the community knows how we're doing. It's our scorecard. And no surprise at the end of our time together as a council and staff I want to get an A on the report card. Okay? I want us to move through and achieve the goals because that's how we deliver results Okay, next slide.

We put out a community survey. Admittedly, this was a non-scientific survey. Some people may have submitted entries more than once. All the survey was meant to do is to provide you with a snapshot of potential public input on this topic. It's not the be all end all. There could've been categories that we left out. There could've been things we missed but at least you have some type of idea as to how the community feels about Some of the goals that you might be considering tonight. And again, I base this list upon what I've heard you all individually talk about and also past council goals and things that I know are important to the community. Next slide.

So, and you're going to see this in the agenda report. The results of the survey show emergency preparedness number one, fire hardening number two, city infrastructure maintenance three, affordable workforce housing four, fiscal sustainability five, public safety six. Next slide. Climate and Environment 7, Homelessness 8, Economic Development 9, Recreation Classes and Programs 10, and rounding out the list, Technology and Innovation at 11. This is not exhaustive. If there's something that we didn't cover that you would like to have, great!

If this is too long, great! But this at least is a starting point so you know maybe this is where we can begin. Next slide? So again, going back to tonight. Thank you Mr. Montgomery he is going to be displaying his screen as we go through so that we see what your respective lists are I've asked him to highlight those that are across the board so that we can see where the concentric circles lie in the end goals and tactics work like everything else with the council it'd be great if things were unanimous But it may just be that three people think that's what we should be doing. That's how everything is that we do, so maybe we have some goals that are five people feel that way. Maybe there's some goals that are three people that feel that way.

I'm going to ask the Chief Deputy City Clerk to highlight those even if there's only three people that have agreed upon it because that's what we do as a council. And so again, once we get past what are the concentric circles and we move into the tactics. If three people want a tactic, we're going to move forward with it. If only two people want it, we're not going to move forward with it because just like everything else we do requires a vote of the majority.

Again, so I'm hoping that we come up tonight when we're finished with the preliminary list with the corresponding tactics and you direct me to bring it back to staff. We work on it and then we bring it back to you for further revision and adoption. And I think... Next slide please. Okay, I think let's go. Yeah, I think I've kind of covered this next slide please Now we're at the point when you can ask me some questions And if you don't want to do that, we can go to comment and then come back and get to work Thank you.

Yes. Well, I have a question is is that chief peak? A new graphic for us or have I just been missing it all this time

Okay, so yes and this kind of feeds into my evaluation a little bit. I'm trying out a new style guide and at a meeting in March I'm going to be bringing forward to you this proposed style guide. So this is our beta test of potentially what an informal logo may look like. This doesn't take the place of the seal But we're looking at some new branding and style. And I will also be meeting with you individually to discuss this, just since you brought it up. This also features colors from your seal. That's why we have teal and yellow and white.

Okay, cool. It's not a question, it's a hope for vision in the future and that would be that Our agenda is going forward once we have some things nailed down that we see sort of, oh what's the strategy? That's almost the first part and then here's the item that we're discussing that day. So I guess I imagine at some point we're not discussing anything that's not one of those big items unless there's a really good reason to. So,

one thing I've done in other cities and we could certainly do it here is within the agenda report template you have a goal alignment section and the agenda report correlates to one of the goals. However, I will point out that you end up with many that are just NA because some things are just operational or they're a requirement or sometimes something comes up and that's also a good thing because your goals and your tactics are living So sometimes you get halfway through your term and you're like, wow. How did we not have a goal of whatever it is? We need to adopt it. And that might mean dropping a goal or it might just mean tightening your belt and trying to get more accomplished. Those are both things that happen.

That's good. So I have a question in that. Are we only presenting like programmatic goals that we have or if If we'd just like some data on a topic, can that be – is that part of the table? Mayor

Stanton So tonight I'm going to ask you – okay. So I think I can answer the question. Tonight I'm just asking you for the big picture areas that you really want to focus on for your priorities. This does not prevent you as council members, as individual members from coming to me with questions where you need some information or some data. And it doesn't have to align with a goal when you make this request, because sometimes you're trying to understand an issue and you don't know if that should be a goal or not. You just need some more information. I try to – I don't think we have a policy on this, but I just want you all to know. I have kind of an informal thing which I call like the hour rule. So if you come to me – pardon the use of your last name.

If you come to me – it's true. If you come to me and you say, I need some information on this topic so I can make an informed decision. That's also part of my job and staff's job. So I think it doesn't prevent you from doing that. If something becomes kind of a woolly or bigger thing then I might say, you know what Councilmember? You might want to find a buddy and this should be a future agenda topic and we can see if there is a desire amongst the council to move forward.

So, does that answer the question? Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Yes. I have a question. This is sort of a tactic and my question is this tactic could roll into any number of goals so let's just say broadband which might be a tactic. Well it certainly would help with emergency preparedness. It's certainly city infrastructure. You know, it could be fiscal sustainability

I'm

gonna

argue if I could

just step in because you and I have a

meeting at Simi Valley on Thursday this

week.

One of the topic areas of focus was technology and innovation, but to your point it is up to the council where you want that to live. I would certainly hope that we walk away either this meeting or the next meeting with something related to that because I see broadband as being hugely important and I see it as something that we can realize In the time period that you're together, it could be hugely beneficial to our community.

Yeah and so I guess my point is that while it would fit most reasonably under technology and innovation if that doesn't make it in the top five, I'm just pointing out that there are other ways to not necessarily squeeze it in but find an appropriate place for it to live due to its value and importance.

So if I could follow up with that, I know that I've had at least four of you probably five of you also talked to me about fireworks and drone shows. And it's a very similar thing right? You could put that under fire hardening. Right? I think I would hope for a tactic where we were that we leave this meeting or the next where we're pursuing you know whether we want to allow fireworks or not and a drone show And so I think that's a similar thing. That's because we're going to be, I suspect just from having discussions with you, that will be something that we'll be working on.

If I can follow up with what you brought up, Ms. Rule, I would suggest something like broadband would fit into many categories as you say and that to me is a great tactic because it checks many boxes so that would be high priority. Yeah? Okay. Super. Any other questions? Yes.

Yeah one other question is... So we know that some general plan and specific elements of it are coming up That shouldn't prevent us from saying this is on our priorities list, correct?

The general plan update is underway. You've already given direction on that, we're well into it and we are going to have elements coming back for your review. If you like, you could certainly make that a priority area but that kind of to me is a good example of stuff that we're already definitely immersed in and working on and following council direction currently. I don't feel that I need council prioritizing it to make it move forward because we have that pre-existing direction however this is okay this is a great example of what you're here for. You're a policy board, you're identifying what your main priorities are and if there are things about the general plan update that you would like to see or then it's entirely appropriate. This is very subjective based upon your role as a governing body member.

Thank you.

Anything else? Okay we'll move to public comments then I have Renee Roth, Bill Miley and then Chris Stanch

Thank you, sir. I don't like being first. I like being last.

Noted for next time!

Okay, I sent a letter to many of you and in that letter I talked about the use of Measure C funds and I realized that many of you may not have even been in office or paying attention to what Measure C was So I want to read what Measure C says. And it has to do with a 5% increase on the TOT tax, the transit occupancy tax and it allows that 5% of funds to be used for And I'm going to read specifically, to fund capital city improvement and maintenance projects including street paving and fire mitigation, code enforcement, and climate change mitigation.

Now, those can be big words and mean a lot of different things. As I've heard even Mr. Harvey say, mean different things to different people. So, I really think it's important when we're moving forward with spending Measure C funds that we try to identify What do those terms mean? My letter was focused on basically home-hardening and preparing our community to reduce our risk of a fire spreading in one area of town that will, unknownst to their neighbors, cause a fire in another and another and another.