Ojai City Council Regular Meeting

Hello everyone. We are returning from the closed session and anything to report out Mr. Summers or Mr. Harvey?

Yes, I'll start so the council met in close sessions consider three items Mr. Harvey will report off the first item all report off the second and third which are both related to a potential code enforcement case at 1117 Sunset Place regarding potential initiation of litigation and potential anticipated litigation On that matter, the Council provided direction to staff and council particularly directing renewed efforts pursuing a solution to the code enforcement problems at that property in consultation with the Code Enforcement Team, the Human Development Team, City Attorney's Office and the Ventura County Sheriff's Office. More to follow as it is reportable. Thank you. Mr. Harvey?

Thank you, Mr. Summers for the first closed session. I'm happy to report out the City Council directed staff to post an RFQ by the end of this week. The city's current city attorney firm is invited and encouraged to participate in this process. There will be a city social media post to follow that documents what we are doing. The RFQ will be a 45-day submittal period. Results will be reviewed by the City Council at the end of the process. All qualified firms and or candidates will be reviewed by the City Council with a selected number asked to interview with the full city council. Thank you very much.

Thank You Mr. Harvey, Mr. Summers. With that we will adjourn the closed session and begin the open session Welcome here everyone Roll call, please. Mr. Montgomery?

Yes.

Okay great any commission reports? None that I know of Mayor. Alright so we will move on to public communications Ron Talarzano, Winnie Major, and Mariah Mack.

Hello everybody, members of council. I am Ron Solorzano, the regional librarian for the Ojai Valley and I just wanted to give a couple of updates on what we have going on at the library. I want to start with an ongoing film series that we have at the library. We've been experimenting a lot more with screening movies at the library on Mondays and Thursdays and we're gonna continue that between May 19th and June 16th with screenings at noon on Mondays and then 5 p.m. on Thursdays, we're going to be showing a selection of films in the meeting room behind the library.

Because of the way our license works, we're not able to publicize the titles directly but if you're curious, you can come by the library or give us a call and we can tell you what's showing in a given week. So we're calling this program Showtime at the Ojai Library so feel free to stop by. We're also gonna probably put some information on our website. So yeah hopefully you can stop by for that I also want to mention that we're going to be getting into, not quite yet but soon, our summer reading season. The summer reading program this year is going to start on June 9th and will continue through August 3rd. There's going to be a program both for adults and for children. The adult program for readers over 18 more or less consists of readers logging each book that they read through our online platform Beanstack.

You'll be able to access it through our website You will log the books that you read. Every book that you read gives you a chance to win a prize with the library. We're also going to be doing some accompanying activities, like Book Bingo. You'll get a bingo-style card that you can read certain books and check off boxes and then all of that. So there will be some fun engagement. And then the youth program, you're logging minutes read typically.

For the children who are doing reading and logging their minutes, their grand prize is going to be a set of season passes to Universal Studios. So again feel free to get in touch with us at the library or go online for more information And then the last thing I wanted to mention, this has been in the paper recently but the Ojai Library is partnering with the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy and a few other local landscape architects and other volunteers on a project to rewild the Ojai Library's courtyard out in front of the library. So we're still in the early planning stages, I think we're about to be entering into some of the fundraising stages for that but keep your ears open for more details if you're curious at all again you can stop by the library give me a call whatever you'd like And yeah, that's all we've got for now.

Even a rough time frame on the

rewilding? Yeah sure so the rewilding is gonna happen after another renovation that's going to happen inside the library That first renovation is at earliest gonna start in August of this year So the rewilding project is probably gonna start early 2026. Okay. All right.

Thank you so much Thanks wonderful Winnie Major And then Mariah Mack, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. And then Joseph Puglia.

Thank you. Hello Mr. Mayor, council members and staff. I'm Winnie Major, and I've lived in Ojai all my life. And I am a big trolley rider. Due to complications with hip surgery the doctors had to amputate my right driving leg leaving me unable to drive. I mention this for two reasons. One, the trolley which is On Sundays to get to church, and I've done that for many years but not now because there is no trolley service on Sundays.

But many riders use the trolleys on Sundays to go to church, farmers market, Ojai functions. Get together with families and what, and on and on. But now you have stopped the Sunday Trolley altogether as well as at random times throughout the week when there is no driver available. I don't understand why you don't hire more drivers? Many people have applied even my niece applied but we're hopeful Especially after you hired Anthony as the trolley supervisor, it seemed promising. He would often ride the trolley with us and ask for our input. He's a very kind and helpful man and we thought things were looking up but now Anthony has disappeared.

We just want to know what's going on. Please hire some drivers. I mean, it's... People don't realize what an important resource it is unless You're in our shoes, or in my case, my shoe. So I ask you to put yourself in my shoes and put some time and effort into getting drivers' pleas. It's just a valuable resource to the community, and we're blessed to have it.

Thank you for hearing me out. Appreciate that.

And this is a little out of turn, but Mr. Alameda would you mind? I've heard you give kind of an update about the trolley. Would you mind doing that now because I imagine there might be a couple of other comments related to the trolley. I know I'm putting you on the spot and you're unprepared.

More than happy to do so. Thanks. That is correct. Unfortunately we have paused the Sunday service Due to not having drivers to cover Sunday, but we are actively recruiting to place drivers.

The

service has been paused for a while, but we're looking to restart it. Once we have the drivers available. Yeah, so overall we are looking to hire additional drivers. We've been actively doing that. We do have an interim supervisor who just joined us this week and is looking at the applications as well. Fortunately this last weekend we took delivery of two new trolleys which will allow us to return the B route when we get the drivers to do that. And those trolleys are road ready, so they're going through inspection now and will be painted. So we've made some investments in trolley to restate, instate the service where we have both the A routes and the B routes fully functional.

Thank you. Thank you.

Mariah Mack, Joseph Puglia and then Larry Moser. Thank you Miss Alveda.

I'm sorry M-A-L-L? No it's M-H-L. Sorry about that. Yes, I MRI them all. I rate the trolley three to four times a day. I depend on it for doctor's appointments and I was told that there someone said there was five trolley drivers. That's not correct. There's only three. Um, I live in Miners Oaks and I depend on it yeah for mainly for doctors appointments and For lately there hasn't been no trolley on Sunday which has been a big disappointment for like church and I guess the main thing why I came tonight is because we really need more trolley drivers.

Another trolley would be great because there's only one so And then also I have friends that live in Whispering Oaks and like when he said it doesn't go inside there anymore It goes across the street, which I just think is kind of insane when you're 80 years old. They can't really cross the street But anyways, yeah, so I think my main thing is just I think that more trolley drivers would be beneficial and another trolley and Yeah, I mean, I really depend on it. I use it almost daily and I guess I'm done sharing.

Thank you so much. This is good. No, appreciate it. Joseph Puglia, Larry Moser and Karleen Sikorsky, probably mispronouncing that.

Good evening. My name is Dr. Joe Puglia. I'm speaking on behalf of Mr. Palacios I have an undergraduate degree in philosophy and literature, a master's in counseling psychology, and a Ph.D. in education with an emphasis in sports psychology. I was a college professor of counseled veterans with PTSD and a columnist for the Los Angeles Times syndicated newspapers. I am a published author, a national lecturer, and former Marine officer. Thus my comments merit considerable validity.

I served in Vietnam commanding a marine platoon, was the company executive officer and operations officer of a Marine Expeditionary Unit and had command and staff responsibilities at Marine Headquarters. Thus, I consider myself an excellent judge of character. I have known Mr. Palacios for 10 months. He embodies the Corps' ethos—honor, courage, and commitment. He is affable He's engaging, he's helpful and I've even seen him open the door for customers entering OVII coffee roasters.

Here is a young man who by his service would give his life for you and this is how you treat a veteran? How dare you! Memorial Day is two weeks away. Must I remind you of its significance? Carl, when you were at La Cunada, you supported every Memorial Day commemoration which I was the chair of. What happened? A leader must be worthy of leadership. Mr. Harvey, how you've treated this veteran tells me you are not worthy of leadership.

Management speculates, since Mr. Palacios is a disabled veteran with PTSD diagnosis he's capable of errant behaviors subjecting others to danger. Are any of you clinical psychologists capable of making such assumptions? I've had PTSD since 1970 and never spent a minute in a straitjacket. Mr. Harvey, how dare you paint veterans suffering from PTSD in such a light!

Research contends PTSD symptoms result when one assimilates into a society that is not nurturing. Such is the environment of Mr. Harvey has created. Mr. Palacios received counseling or mentorship? I don't think so, sir there's no passing the buck on this one Management's hidden agenda is so blatantly obvious, I'm embarrassed for you. Have some intellectual honesty and just say you want to get rid of him.

Don't use his disability against him. Gentlemen, write this down. It's on the final. Managers do things right. Leaders do the right thing. If you want to save yourself from yourself, do the right thing. Mr. Palacios is a credit to this town. Larry

Moser, Carlene Sykorski and then Nick Ottaway. Larry Moser? Oh yes, thank you. Ah they shouldn't have paved it.

So it didn't show that there was a big indentation there, and I ended up riding off the trail onto that. And then I tried to get back on the bike path and I slammed down on the pavement but I'm on the mend. Sorry to hear that. And I just came to speak on behalf of Anthony... I can't... Palacio? Is that how you pronounce his last name? Anyhow, um, I was in the Navy during Vietnam And some of that, and he's been really kind to me trying to help me get some benefits out of him.

But anyhow this guy is... He just has a lot of character. I've seen him working around City Hall. I've done some signs for him and he'll light up the place when you're walking down the hallway people come out and start laughing in talking. He's just, he's got a lot on the ball and he's a very successful driven guy in a compassionate way so I hope you can get reinstated because it's the kind of energy that the city needs to have that is uplifting, it's positive yeah he thinks things through he's open to hearing other people's opinions Just a really neat, neat guy and I think he's going to be successful his whole life in the city would be much better for having him around. And he's already proven that if you talk to people he's worked with and he's around.

I think pretty much everybody has good things to say about him so I just came to speak on his behalf. Thanks very much. Thank you sir.

Good evening. I would like to thank the Council, the Mayor for having us here today. I know you guys have a lot to do and it's an honor to speak before you. When I considered Ojai as a place to live 25 years ago, I made sure to ask my friend if there was public transportation available. As I have an eye impairment it doesn't allow me to drive and he wouldn't want me to drive.

She said, Carlene you'd love the Ojai Trolley. And I did and it was great and it served me well until it didn't, about six to nine months ago. Too many times to count I have stared at my stop and wondered, is it probably late? Is it coming at all? And then well, I guess I have to walk again. The heat is coming and walking will not be a viable option. When the driver goes to lunch there is no service When the driver has a pre-approved doctor's appointment, there is no service.

I hate to think if the driver gets sick, there will be no service. And as people have said on Sundays for us churchgoing people, there is no service. Backup drivers, communication between the Trolley Office and the riders I think would be the key to keep us riders happily on our way. I ride the trolley twice a day, or try to. And I would like to see trolley discounts come back. These are these little tokens that we get that used to be on the trolley for 20 years and we would pay as we go on, get like 30 or $25 or something like that They haven't been available for six months.

And so in closing, I'd like to thank you for your kindness. Thank you for what you're doing for our city and thank you for keeping the trolley running consistently.

Thank you very much. Nick Ottaway, Patrick Holmes and then Nancy Ottoway. I'm a local

architect. I've sat in the coffee roaster counting the people passing the pedestrian walkway in front

of the coffee house, and I've been doing that for probably 20 years.

And the numbers are the same. It's nine to one. One car will have more than one person in it. Nine will have none, and I think that says a lot about how we respond socially to the problems of our community We need to think socially, not singularly. And I use the public transportation, the trolley at least a couple times a week. My son lives over in Miners Oaks and I actually have a residence which is outside the city so I would urge you as City Council and City Manager, to think about working with the county in expanding the trolley going to the East End.

I've begun a list of people who live at the East End who would gladly have the trolley go to the corner of McNeil or McAndrew and Grand. And I've talked to people up at Thatcher who already bring their people here, people living there and the students, to the town on the weekends particularly now in the spring and summer and fall So I would urge you to keep that in your head. It is public transportation which is one of the potential glues to pulling this valley together, not only as a governmental reality but as a social reality.

I'm not a socialist but I am a social person and I would urge you think the same way. Thank you.

Patrick Holmes, Nancy Oatway and Alicia Marinas.

Good evening, Council. I'm Patrick Holmes and I was hired last December to drive the trolley which I do presently and I was given the opportunity to be trained actually by the City. I went over to Gold Coast and studied very hard. I did classroom on-the-road training and got my license and passenger endorsement And in driving the last months, we've had problems obviously with a lack of drivers.

And I know that our riders do really depend on reliable transportation. I think somebody else mentioned this, that if you're going to a doctor's appointment and you're waiting out there and waiting an hour or two hours nothing has come it's very harrowing, it's very disappointing to have that happen. That compiled with let's say students going to school, people trying to get to work. If they can't rely on this mode of transportation that we're supposedly offering the public it's going to start to deteriorate the ridership. I actually volunteered my Sundays for about two months to drive because I was told that we were going to get more drivers Thank you all for being here.

And hire somebody. There's been a lot of applicants. I also know people who are already have their CDL, they drive for Gold Coast, no response. So I hope that we can get it going in a solid fashion and also expand it to the way it was before COVID which we had two trolleys on the route instead of one so that's been five years I'd like it to return to that situation for my town. I live here, a lot of my friends are elders.

I'll be an elder very quickly. We need this for our community so that's all I have to say. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank You Mr. Holmes Nancy Oatway, Alicia Marinas and then Bill Miley

Nancy Oatway. And I was excited, I wasn't going to say anything and then I signed up because ever since the Utah Mount Zion they have a wonderful system and everybody abandons their cars And because of the pollution and the damage that would happen to the site. I thought that would be great, but you can't... they demand it, but with Caltrans you can't do that. But I think there could be encouragement that people would want to if we had a really terrific trolley system You know, I'm excited about seeing it expanded. You know and not just three but to five to have you know in Zion it's every 15 minutes and there's lots of things in the valley besides eating and drinking that people could enjoy and we would want them to if they didn't clog our roads.

I've been a member of the community on and off, and since my family bought the ranch in 58, so you see a lot of change, but it hasn't been unfortunate change. And so I would encourage the trolley to be supported And I was in Vietnam and the Red Cross, and I felt a kinship with anybody that had PTSD from that because of myself. It's unfair to characterize it as something negative. In fact, I think it's quite positive.

So thank you all for listening.

Thank you. Alicia Marinus, Bill Miley and Helen Pascarella.

Hello I am Alicia Marinus and I'm going to try to speak clearly but this will be fast I'm Alicia Marinus, the post-secondary mod severe educational specialist at Nordoff. I hold a mobility trainer pass with Gold Coast Transit and transportation training is a key element to my program. I ride the trolley 44 weeks out of the year three to four days a week. I train for independence and successfully trained my students to be lifelong trolley drivers or riders.

It bridges the gap between those who have mobility issues, those who can no longer drive but also those who can choose to use public transportation to be better stewards of our environment. For those kids coming and going to school and for those who need to travel to work. Public transportation accessibility is the great equalizer. All walks of life come together and become a community. I ride the trolley enough to know that reliability has been an issue. Sundays have been suspended and the community has been stating that kids have been waiting at the trolley stops for over an hour when the trolley wasn't stated to be having an outage. A key component of public transportation is reliability. I believe that this reliability issue is solely due to lack of drivers, five drivers, three that drive regularly, one that's been out for – has been out due to medical reasons for months, and then the fifth one is like one day a week.

As for the hiring of drivers, the city is offering a part-time job I believe with no benefits. In 2023 City of Ojai reported that there were 10 drivers and an incentive program was looked at and included the raise that was given. These ten employees were then reported to be 7 FTE according to the Transportation Development Act Triennial Report of 2022 The incentives and raises have not worked, and we are now down to five total drivers. The hope several years ago was to get back to the original 15 so we could have two routes.

If the issue is there is no one willing to apply maybe the offer needs to be more enticing. The Transportation Development Act regulations require transit operators to meet a fare box recovery ratio to be eligible for the full local transportation fund. This ratio is generally 20% for urban operators. In 2017, according to the City's Resolution 1738, the trolley raised its rates and to try to meet that 20% of its ratio of expenses to the fare box income. It was able to bolster a fare box revenue of 14%. The Ojai Trolley in 2017 received 45% of its annual operating funds from the Transportation Development Act.

This was before COVID, before the trolley service would cut in half and California suspended this requirement until 2026 due to COVID pandemic's impact on ridership. We need our two routes to sustain the trolley by meeting the Transportation Development Act's requirements of 20 percent. We are a little, little over six months away from that deadline. I want to urge the city council to keep the trolley on your radar.

I would like to keep the 36 year community staple at the front.

Thank you very much. Bill Miley, Ellen Pasquarella and then Casey Abbott.

Hello. A bunch of months ago, I spoke with others to your council about the lack of drivers for the trolley. Then folks who applied to drive were told it would cost several hundred dollars for training to get the proper license. The city then did a really good thing. They contracted with Gold Coast to train drivers Driver applicants at no cost. Success! Now I understand that the free training for all my applicants has been stopped, even though there are currently local folks with current driver training qualifications waiting to apply.

Rumor says the city is not accepting new applicants. Actually what I heard from a reliable source. The city is not accepting applicants for trolley driver positions now and for some time in the near past, so why is the city refusing to accept applications from city folks hoping to become a trolley driver? Statement. Our city is not accepting driver applicants Applications.

And that's not right.

Thank you, Mr. Miley. Helen Pascarella and then Casey Abbott.

Good afternoon City Council. Good to see you again and thank you for having this meeting here and giving us a chance to speak about things that are happening in our community. When I spoke to you on March 1st of last year, when the ceasefire resolution was passed by the City Council, 30,000 Palestinians had been killed in the Israeli genocide against them. Now officials say that it's 55,000 but some estimate that it may be as high as 109,000 still under the rubble and dying from malnutrition and other diseases due to the ongoing war and blockade.

But I'm not here to speak about the injustice in Palestine, but rather the oppressive acts that are occurring right here in Ojai by the U.S. government. What we have been witness to with the ICE raids in the past months is fascism in action. The fact that people are being taken without due process and sent to El Salvador prison is criminal. The Supreme Court has ordered to send the people back, but Trump has refused.

We have heard of people being detained in Oxnard and Santa Maria, and now it's happened here in Ojai. Are you aware of this? Yes. Well, this young man was my friend's son and it happened right across the street from my home across the way. On Saturday morning, this 33-year-old man was kidnapped in front of his home in Miners Oaks. He had lived here in the U.S. for 21 years and was going to check-in meetings with immigration for years.

So he was here legally. He had no criminal record and he was in the process of applying for legal status. During the arrest, he was injured from being thrown into the mailboxes in front of his home and he was taken to the Ojai Valley Hospital. And the only reason that the mother found out where he was is because somebody who worked there called her and told her.

She did not know what happened to him all day Saturday and Sunday until Sunday night, she was called by her son from Tijuana. Are you okay Mr. Whitman? And she was found that he is sent to Tijuana and dropped off with 30 other immigrants. And I, why am I telling you this? Why should we care? Because people are being targeted right here in our community. They are not criminals and murderers as Trump describes them. These are people who care for your children, clean your homes, harvest the food on your dinner table, and serve you at restaurants.

So I'm asking you, and I'm here to speak because people in the community can't speak for themselves because they're afraid of losing their parents, of losing their children, and of themselves being deported. I'm asking the City of Ojai to consider a resolution and declare itself a sanctuary city. Why? Sanctuary cities' policies are aimed to protect the safety and well-being of all the residents including undocumented immigrants by limiting cooperation with the federal immigration.

I would like us to support our community, and I mean everybody in our community. And by passing such or considering such a resolution, it would show the people of our community that we care

about... Thank you. Casey Abbott please.

I wanted to put in a supportive word for the trolley. I work way across town, four miles, 4 1⁄2 miles away and it's a serious convenience for me to be able to jump on the trolley and get down there. Is it off? I'm speaking right into it. Is it going? Okay. Well, I'm within a block of work. Work's really been helping me. I've been without it for awhile with several injuries and one of the concerns of mine is competent drivers rarely really appreciate what I see. It's been very very good ones. I see things that disturb me when I take the intercity bus down to Ventura. There's a girl that rides on the bus and talks to the driver the whole time and goes back and forth in the 16 all day long distracting drivers. That's almost as bad as him having a cell phone I wish somebody could do something about it.

But as far as other general issues, thank you for that consideration. It sure helps to be able to take the trolley down there and put a bicycle on it and go somewhere else if I need to, hop onto the city bus as well. But also about turning this into a sanctuary city, I strongly oppose it all my life. I've been backstabbed in my jobs as a machinist from people from other countries that did not want A competent person who belongs here, or with Native American roots or with two years of college education. They want to keep it stupid people that don't speak the same language.

They really resent somebody who tries to be competent. I've had other issues. I've had most of my upper teeth broken out by a drunken illegal who punched me in the face for no reason, smiled at me and did it again. I took the peaceful route and his friends jumped on him and pulled him away and other people came and asked why didn't you just belt him? You're way bigger than him. And I said yeah, I'm quite confident that's true. Mr.

Abbott, I want to caution you to say we don't want anecdotes to become anything like policy so I'm asking you to temper your speech a little.

I'm just telling the truth. I had no insurance at the time, no recourse and it's very hard to get a job without teeth. You can't get front office appearance written on your application. But yeah, there is a very, very negative side to the issue. You can have a bleeding heart and want to help everybody in the world but they're going to come here and take all our resources. They're going to take our jobs, and they're going to act like hey you can't work here. You're not Mexican or whatever race they prefer to put into it.

I'm a native. I'm Cherokee Indian from this country. I am a visitor in California. The Chumash here are very, very special tribe to the rest of the nations of the United States. Now that we're in the United States what used to be Turtle Island. They are the keepers of the Western Gate there where we go to the next world. That's from Point Conception here and that was the Chumash that guarded it. We walk very, very carefully here and very, very respectfully of them.

But anyways, I strongly oppose Sanctuary City and thank you for the time. Have a good one. Thank you.

Mr. Montgomery anything on mine? Mayor we have one more in-house that may have misplaced them. Go ahead Larry.

All these people are here for the trolley or a lot of them why is it this is self inflicted it's one of the few things that should be working well I mean, we don't have to spend $100,000 a year to get a bus driver like they do at the school department because they can't find qualified drivers. If we have drivers, if we have trolleys, if we're flush with money – that's what we were told months ago and now we have a deficit? I don't know but there is no reason.

I mean, this is one of the few things that should actually be working well. We own the trolleys. We have drivers. You can get them trained. I don't know much about the other gentleman who – former supervisor or the present supervisor. I've heard stories but I don't know. But this is absurd. I mean, there's no reason for it. So please solve it, move on. We're trying to get people out of cars. That's why they have buses.

So let's use the buses we have. I know we're getting two more. But Sundays? Cancel it for during a week. Have some of the schools pick up the tab if they want their kids picked up. Have some of the businesses pick up the tab. They want to get their people shuttled here and there. But there's no reason for this We have other issues. This shouldn't be one of them.

Thank you, Mr.

Steingold. Mayor, next card submitted is from Jeffrey Starkweather. Okay.

That's okay. Good evening to the council members, mayor, citizen. Mine is just a request actually. Maybe it's more of a staff thing but Someone who reads the New York Times and Washington Post and all these papers every single day, I'm constantly reading about threatened programs that could affect us. Housing, certainly climate change, so forth. I think it would be useful for someone on our staff to kind of keep you all and the public up-to-date when things could impact us. It could affect our cabin village long term funding We're talking about housing. It could affect that, clearly. Section 8 could be threatened. Doesn't mean that we should be lobbying for or against it as a city. I mean, we can, but I just think it's important that we have that information and when we talk about things, we don't come up with something that is not practical because the funding has been cut off or we're going to have to seek funding.

And actually, the lobbying part Maybe some things that we need, like our cabin valleys. We need to be thinking about lobbying our legislators, maybe even inviting our two legislators to come here and tell us how they are helping us with housing, climate change, social services because we're going to need that backstop from our state. I have a feeling the way things are going. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Starkweather. Anything online?

Yes, Mayor. We do have one raised hand from our Zoom participant named Zoom User. Zoom User, you have the ability to unmute if you'd like to state your name and your comment.

Okay. My name is Anita Hendricks. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes!

Okay. Well thank you all. I love the trolley. It takes students to school, us older people, the carless, the tourists, people who just want to enjoy a tour of our town It supports our sustainability goals. It helps decrease congestion and pollution, and helps to in whatever extent reduce global warming because of the less petroleum used. And it adds a tremendous charm to our city. It is unique service. The Gold Coast Transit does not take us all through our valley, and it takes us to good portion. It could be expanded that's true.

We have great dedicated drivers and I hold only good things about the supervisor who is now apparently in a Vance. Um, I would like to know does the Council value the trolley service? Uh we have pre-COVID we had every half hour we had it Saturdays and Sundays. In the budget there were supposed to be 12 to 14 part-time drivers. Now there are only three acting drivers A few Saturdays, we have no Sunday service. And a few Saturdays there was no service at all on a Saturday because they had nobody to substitute for somebody who couldn't work or forget the reason and there was no notice so when you went over there to catch a ride on Saturday there was nothing to explain what was going on.

In Austria There, people get service every 15 minutes. The bus comes every 15 minutes and it's free. What are the obstacles to full service? Please let us know that. What can the public and the Council do to actualize full service not just as it was pre-COVID but let's expand it. Let's make it so that people who want to go out at night can go out at night And that some of the other areas that aren't serviced can be serviced.

Perhaps the businesses who benefit from the trolley could add some money, as well as someone like Thatcher which has lots of money could give some extra money to help us take it all the way out there. The schools, many students rely on the trolley to get to and from school. I have been trying to find out what's been going on with this trolley service and have not come up with a really coherent, deep understanding of what's going on. I would like to invite the Council to sponsor a Trolley Town Hall meeting where we can really get an in-depth explanation and you know together work on solving this problem.

I also would like to make comments about the Sanctuary City. Can I do that in an additional time allotment?

No, we have to end now. Thank you though.

Okay please support Sanctuary City. Thank you very much.

Thank you and I can say confidently for myself and every council person I've heard from that the trolley is a huge priority And we will continue to work on that, and I hope to see with our new trolleys increase. Mr. Harvey?

Sure, just let me expound upon that. So- Please. Staff is following council's direction which is to embellish the trolley service. To that end, we have recently purchased as stated several times two used trolleys. We have another all electric trolley that is on order. We are actively trying to hire new drivers. We're also looking at using a contract service to backfill those vacancies that we have. So, we hope in short order to have the Sunday service restored and to have an ample pool. It is something that we are working on. We want to thank the Council for Council's direction in July to increase the pay for all the trolley drivers which has been helpful. So we will continue to look at other ways that we can expand the driver pool and if it requires council action, we will come back to you.

Thank you very much.

Yes, and I just wanted to add one more thing along those lines. And that is that I am the council liaison for the Gold Coast Transit District and their training and it's a program that is excellent. And so I am confident that any training that we have for our new bus or trolley drivers will be excellent as well

Thank you. Yes,

yeah I'm just curious so is there like an ad place for drivers?

Yeah, so currently we are in fact hiring for drivers. If anyone went to the City's website, ohi.ca.gov, look at departments, city manager, human resources jobs. The job posting for trolley driver is posted and we also are continuing the partnership with Gold Coast Transit that if we onboard someone that does not have their passenger endorsement We have paid to put them through the training, to get them the passenger endorsement and also got them their road out.

Mr. Miley please you know what to do thank you

So it is open, we are accepting applications and looking to hire drivers. And as Mr. Harvey stated, we've also looked at the potential contract out which we were successfully doing for Sundays and we had understood

that- Just let me jump in, not contracting out the service using a contract service so that we can have additional drivers want to be clear on that case.

So how long has the trolley not been available on Sundays?

So the trolley service we had contracted out earlier this year, we had stopped the contract. We were told that we could fill it in-house.

Again I want to be clear. Contracted with a service for contract drivers not contracted at the trolley?

At Lemuria State, we contracted for a single driver to fill the Sunday service which worked well. And then we had covered that service in-house with our drivers for a couple of months and their schedule no longer allowed them to do that.

So

has it been

three months? Four months? How long have we not had this?

Since this spring so my understanding is potentially around mid-March.

This mid-March? Two months.

And Mayor and Council, we're going beyond brief response to public comment. Mindful of the Brown Act. Clearly the matter needs more review. Anyone with questions can contact Mr. Alameda, the overseer of the transit operations. Thank you.

And we're hearing you

well.

We've got