Ojai City Council, Regular Meeting

Welcome to our Tuesday, June 24th regular meeting of the Ojai City Council. Glad you're all here. Mr. Montgomery, please roll call.

Thank you, Mayor. I do have a few items I'd like to share. And this will be old news to the City Council, but maybe not old news to the community. One is you may have noticed we now have a motorcycle deputy who is operating in town. He was out this weekend. I saw him many different locations, primarily doing what appeared to be educational interventions, a lot of e-bike related stops that I witnessed. But, you know, not writing citations really looked like a lot of talking to folks and being very visible. And so I just want to make you all aware of that. It's been a process to get there. And thank you, Chief, for bringing us there.

Secondly, and this is also not news to people, maybe not news to anybody here, but the El Roblar Hotel has been granted temporary occupancy, and this is for the front part of the property, the main building, two of the three restaurants, the pool, the bungalows by the pool, but not the back building that still remains under construction. It is open to the public and so I would encourage any of you to go pay to visit. The design aesthetic is amazing and it's a nice addition to our downtown. Very excited about that.

Trolley update. We are on track, and I hope I don't jinx us by saying this, but I think that we are on track to bring back Sunday service possibly as early as July, maybe early to mid-July. We've been conducting interviews. We have been getting the two trolleys that the Council authorized us to purchase outfitted, and we are moving in that direction where I think we could have trolley service in early July, and we will continue to keep you posted and the public so that the public and you are aware of when it actually starts.

And lastly, I'd like to kick this last part to the Chief if he could maybe briefly talk about what I'm calling the cop pop-up.

This Thursday, 4 to 6, we're going to be at the corner of Foothill Road at Foothill Lane. I'm going to take, it'll be myself and two detectives. We're going to be there just not only kind of door knocking and being present in the neighborhood, but we're also going to just, if anyone wants to pass by, ask us any questions. We've had some criminal activity in that area that we're concerned about, that we think residents can

United

States, United States, United States, United

States

And that's it, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you very much. I like this. We'll move on to public communications. These are for items not on the agenda. And I have three cards here. Larry Steingold, Eric Ryder, and Alicia Marinas.

Hello. Hello. How are you? Good evening. Thank you for doing what you do. In regarding to Chief Jenkins, I think with e-bikes in some cases, but more about activities, that maybe it's possible that we might approve cameras that are movable for certain areas because of certain criminal activity, if that helps sometimes. Also, again, just thank you, keeping it simple.

Mr. Steingal, you're

going to bring a tear to our

eye.

Thank you, sir. Eric Reiter and Alicia Marinas.

Hello. Hi. With the City Manager's update, some of this might be a moot point. I'm Ojai City resident Eric Ryder, and I'm here as an advocate for one of the most beautiful representations of our community I know of, our Ojai Trolley. There's an incredible breadth of Ojai residents who ride our trolley every day. It's not at all unusual to find passengers on board whose birth years are 70 or more years apart.

To a fault, they're polite, patient, and helpful to each other during their travels together. But unfortunately, by one manner or another, this vital system has been hindered and stricken through no fault of its own. And now its very survival seems to be hanging by a thread. Yet there is what seems to be a clear path and opportunity to save our trolley, our Ojai Trolley, to save our Ojai Trolley.

The Ojai City Council has consistently made clear to the public its interest and commitment in supporting our Ojai Trolley system going forward for the health and wellness of our community. I propose the immediate hiring of two drivers for our Ojai Trolley. Two new drivers would allow any of the three full-time drivers to take a weekday shift off for personal reasons, like going to the doctor, without shutting down the entire trolley system during those hours. Thereby pre-empting the current deleterious knock-on effects of willing passengers waiting for no-show trolleys for the last time.

Two new drivers hired immediately for our Ojai Trolley would mean more photos of our Ojai Trolley posted to social media, further bolstering the bread and butter of our Ojai Valley economy, tourism. As many of you know, the Chumash lived here for thousands of years before we came along. They cherished Ojai as sacred, a source of food and a place for spiritual grounding.

Nowadays, we refer to this as health and wellness. Two new drivers would allow Sunday's Ojai Trolley, after years of being shut down, to resume service again. Two new drivers would allow Ojai community members to have transportation to observe their faith on Sundays again. Two new drivers would allow the Ojai community members to have transportation to support their local farmers market on Sundays again. Two new drivers would allow Ojai community members to have transportation to purchase, at reasonable prices, from local farmers, fresh, non-processed, organic food again.

Two new drivers would help our Ojai Trolley mitigate the valley's traffic and poor air quality. Again, I propose the immediate hiring of two new drivers.

Thank you, Mr. Redder. Well, I hope your desires come true very soon. Alicia Marinas.

Good evening. I do recognize that we did just get a great report back about the potential of the two new drivers, but my name is Milt Alicia Marinas, and I first off would like to say that since the last time I was here in early May, when I was here I had mentioned the fare box ratios. And since then, the city had posted an audit that had been done for 23-24 for the GCTD, and it was for the TDA. And it did show that we had made the 20%, which is amazing news, where I was really concerned. So congratulations to the city for doing that.

I'm here respectfully to request the city to take the necessary steps for the hire of the two new drivers. I'm going to go ahead and read the rest of this because I worked so hard on it. So, for many of our neighbors, including seniors, working families, students, and residents with disabilities, the trolley is not just a convenience, it's a vital service. And without Sunday transportation, access to jobs, churches, medical service, and even simple errands become a major challenge. A prime example is the Ojai Farmer's Market, a beloved tradition and an important local economy driver. Without the trolley service on Sundays, residents who depend on the trolley are effectively shut out from participating. That limits access to fresh food, hurts local vendors, and weakens the sense of community connection that this events, or events like this, the market provide.

We also know that public transportation is a crucial environmental tool. Every trolley rider represents one fewer car on the road, helping us cut emissions, reduce traffic, and support Ojai's longstanding commitment to sustainability. Importantly, this is not just a wish list item. It's something that we can act on right now. And it sounds like it's even closer than we thought.

To my knowledge, the city has already interviewed the two potential drivers, and the opportunity to move forward is right in front of us. With their hiring, we could realistically restore Sunday service and provide seven day mobility for those who need it most. Hiring of these drivers is a small investment with a big impact on equity, on climate, on local business and on the daily lives of Ojai residents.

And let's show that Ojai leads with compassion, action and common sense. Let's bring Sunday service back. Thank you for your time, guys.

Thank you very much. Mr. Montgomery, anything on mine?

Yes, Mayor. We have one raised hand for our general public comment period right now, and that is from Starchild. Thank you. Starchild, you have the floor.

Justice delayed is justice denied. This council correctly decided at your last special meeting to fit fire hardening on the agenda. You failed to prioritize making Ojai a sanctuary city for Immigration Enforcement, a priority today. When will you act? Hundreds of my neighbors and I lined Ojai Avenue 10 days ago, demanding the rule of law and due process, demanding an end to immigration enforcement raids.

Have you seen the videos of workers seized at their place of employment? Abandoned taco trucks? Parents torn from their children? Have you wondered what can we do? The answer is to refuse to cooperate, for this city to stand in solidarity with our neighbors in fear, to declare Ojai a sanctuary city for immigration enforcement. We've had a lot of special sessions, one today to discuss long-term planning, one before that to discuss for the nth time Council goals.

Before that, according to Kathy from HR, you met to hear how City Manager Ben Harvey needed a raise. Some of these special sessions were not time sensitive. The one to discuss giving the city manager a raise wasn't even legal. You can read more about it in the Ojai Valley News. The bar for calling a special session is low. I heard the mayor say if two members desired a special session, he would call one.

The human cost of inaction is high. It's time to take action. It's time to call a special meeting to make Ojai a sanctuary city from immigration enforcement. There's no time to waste.

Anything else?

Actually, can I just make one response to Starchild? So thank you for your comment. And there will be a it's not technically a sanctuary city policy, but it is the Ojai Values Act, and that will be coming in the next meeting. So very it has a lot of the same goals that you've outlined in your public comment.

Thank you.

Next we have Allison. Allison, you may unmute and you have the floor.

Thank you so much. I'm not sure if this is the appropriate time to bring this up. I wanted to just speak to the letter to address the Vandenberg rocket increases. Is this the right time to do that? Is this

the last public comment that you have there? We were just about to get to that. So go ahead and then we'll launch into that section or no.

Sorry, before we do that, I've got the human resources manager with me. I just know we've talked a lot about Trolley, but we just want to make this abundantly clear to everybody where we are.

Pause the timing really fast. Would you mind holding for one second?

Not at all.

Thank you. Yes.

So in regards to trolley drivers, we have two drivers that are actively going through the background process as we speak. Thanks. We also have scheduled additional interviews with two additional ones being conducted today and more being scheduled for next week. So we are actively trying to get people through the process. Yay.

And I just need to point out, I know this is obviously the council, there's more to it than just simply finding somebody who's interested. There are requisite endorsements and license needed. We have to do a background check, as she's alluding to. We're also going to be putting advertising on the side of the trolleys. I think it could be up right now, just because we're, you know, obviously trying to continually build that pool. So we are very much actively working on this, and we are very focused on restoring Sunday service as soon as we can.

Thank you. I appreciate that. That's great to hear. Okay, please come back in and let's hear what you have to say.

Okay, great. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, awesome. So I spoke at the public forum in front of the Air Force a couple weeks ago, and I also picked up a copy of their environmental analysis in their EIS. One of the things that I personally spoke to is that as a result of over this last year, I bought my place two years ago here in Miners Oaks, and over the course of the last year, There has been a crack that has shown up in every single room in my home. And when I bought it, there was no cracks in the ceilings, but now the ceilings all have cracks. And if it were a geological experience, it would, you know, it would be the walls that would start to crack, but it's the ceilings. And so the other thing that They want to double the increase of the rocket launches and they want to have even bigger rockets, which will impact a lot of things beyond the noise of which we live at the effect of.

But one of the things, too, that they talked about In the proposed actions that they're looking at, they said that the below resources were dismissed from further analysis in the environmental impact statement. And this was a huge red flag for me. They said they're no longer going to look at the protection of children from environmental health risks and safety risks.

And I raised the statement of the armed services is here to protect us, not to disregard our children and our families and our elders. And I know for a fact that many of my friends have been terrified by these sonic booms that go off. And they're saying that they want to put these noise monitors out in the fields around Ojai. That doesn't really cut it for what we've experienced so far. So every single person that testified said no more rocket launches. Do not double it, just stay with the existing rocket launches. So I really want to encourage you to send the letter that I know is being composed into, for public comments. It's so important because we don't need, already we have, they told me, 40,000 Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

So we're on the consent calendar, and that was a good segue to that. I do have a couple of public comments on consent calendar items. Does anybody have a consent calendar

item they would like to remove from

consent? Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, for me, G&I.

G&I, okay. For you, J. Okay. Anything else? Okay, can I have a motion to approve the, those are the ones that I actually have consent or public comments on, so that's great. Can I have a motion to accept all the items except G, I, and J?

I'll move to accept

those. Thank you. Second. All those in favor? Opposed? Aye. Yes. Okay, wonderful. All right, so let's go to G. Yeah,

so my, I'm the one who called this I pulled this for a very simple reason. That being that we're proposing to appoint somebody who, if I understand the report correctly, is a Thousand Oaks resident. And, you know, I do, I'm not sure if any other housing project in OI qualifies, but certainly Whispering Oaks does, and I'm just wondering if we made any effort to see if there's a resident at Whispering Oaks who'd like to be a participant in this.

So we have not done direct outreach, but we certainly could. I'd be interested in getting an

OI resident. I was the staff who analyzed this report. I believe it's a reappointment of this individual, Angela Bradley, who I believe is a resident of Whispering Oaks. It's not a resident of Thousand Oaks. It's that they are subsidized by this authority, which is located in Thousand Oaks. That was my understanding. So they already have been approved to be this resident commissioner in that subsidized housing, and this is a continuance and a reappointment. I'm not 100% on Whispering Oaks, but I believe that is it, the location.

But are you 100% that she's an OI resident?

In Ojai area.

Yes. Ojai Valley resident.

Yes. Okay,

then I thank you. I'm good with that.

That sounds good. Thanks for the clarification. Let me do a couple of public comments. First, let's start on I, Bill Miley and then Larry Steingold, please. And actually, Mr. Miley, you are wanting to speak to INJ, correct? And Mr. Steingold, you also want to speak on INJ?

Mayor, it might be wise to take a vote on Item G before we get into the others, given there may be more controversy there.

Thank you. I love controversy. Approve Item G? Yeah, I'd

move

to approve Item G. Second that?

I'll second it.

Any objections? Great, thank you. Okay, Mr. Miley, please.

Hello. The Vandenberg Space Base Scheduled Launching Plan. I strongly like the drafted letter and this agenda item. It's very well done. And I sent my letter in a couple weeks ago. Consent J. Senate Bill 79, I again support the proposed opposition letter. It was very well done.

Thank you.

I agree with Bill on the letter. What I would like you all to consider adding is you've got the national defense issue and national rockets and U.S. government and military, and then you've got business. And these are tenants renting space at Vandenberg. They're no different than any other business up the street. They have to be responsible business operators. They are operating for a profit. They're sending up satellites, not just for the U.S. government.

Okay, they're sending up satellites for businesses who are generating a profit. They should be treated just like any other business. If a business up the street was causing a disturbance, we put a charge, something, noise, vibration, dirt, sound. Okay, vibration, you got 4,000 residences in the city. Every one of them shakes, there's a vibration, it's 4,000 tickets. I'm just saying there's a way to get to these people because it's a business. You know, you can fight the government, that's a cropper. Okay, it's not gonna happen, right? But we can certainly lean on these people as businesses if they were doing mining, explosives. Anyway, but that would be my tact, so I can...

Thank you, Mr. Stengel. So who wants to begin talking about I?

I can. Do you want to go ahead?

Yeah, my my comments are going to be quick. Great. First, I want to thank Taylor Anderson, our assistant city attorney, who drafted the letter. And I agree with the comment that it's very well written. And my only comment is that I'm wondering if procedurally we can do this. Steve Colame wrote a fairly detailed letter that expanded upon the comments of Taylor. Can we just append that to the letter we send or by, you know, by approval of the council?

Yeah, with council approval, it can either be appended or the direction can be to integrate his comments in and then produce it, finalize it for the mayor's signature. I might, if

maybe the latter suggestion is cleaner, but you have sufficient time to get that done. I

was going to say the same things and also just to let everyone know that the public comment period for submitting letters or written public comments to Vandenberg is open until July 7th. And you can go to Vandenberg's website and get that information. I will also be posting it on all my social media tomorrow with a longer post about how environmentally detrimental this is for our community. So it's a great time to get involved and I'm really glad our city is doing something and making a public comment at this time.

Thank you. Well, I move that we submit the letter and incorporate Mr. Colomay's letter in one single document. Second that. Okay. Any objections or comments? Let's vote on that. What should we call that one out, Mr. Gramme?

Motion passed. Great.

And then

Jay.

I pulled J and I had spoken a little bit about this. Two things specifically come to mind about J. One is that, I guess the most important to me is that it's not relevant to Ventura County. We have no rail, we have no Tier 1, 2, or 3. Transportation hubs. And so as I recall, we had an ordinance or a resolution that we would not be delving into issues that did not affect us or Ventura County. That having been said, I consider SB 79 to be a great overreach.

I also... By whom? By the state.

Oh, I see,

okay. Yeah, a great overreach by the state. So I... I understand the tension between local control and the state needing to do things on a statewide level. I don't generally, you know, it doesn't matter what my political thoughts around that are. It's just that I believe this to be an overreach. And I also wanted just to kind of point out in my own mind that I think Ojai has risen to the occasion with affordable housing. I have been gratified to the extent at which Ojai and the City Council has found its way to supporting affordable housing. I think we are doing our job.

So the overreach is a little bit... I'm not happy about it. I don't think we need it. That having been said, Thank you. The first issue, which was we decided we would not extend our reach beyond Ventura County. And there is a statement here that says, well, they could change the bill. But yes, they could, but they always can. So that, to me, is not an argument.

We can decide that this is strong enough that we want to make a statement, but keep in mind that we're making a statement about housing laws, statewide housing laws. And I also want to bring up the idea, and this is more preaching, but local control, states' rights, local control was also what kept slavery going. was the ability for people to say, it's our land, it's our decision, we want this, it's best for us, it is a tradition for us. So it cuts both ways, and I want us to understand that it cuts both ways. That having been said, I think what I need to do here is abstain, because while I think it's overreach, I don't agree with it, We have an ordinance, I mean, or a resolution that we all agreed to.

So, that having been said, it's great overreach. I'm very proud of Ojai for moving forward in affordable development, but I felt like this needed to be said.

No, fair enough, and if I can, I'd love to respond. I did think about that, and I also agree that the local municipalities resisting affordable housing has gotten us a little bit into this problem. I totally agree with all that. The research I had done a little bit, both locally and a little bit abroad, was that the dial can move so quickly on, as was pointed out by you, that the statement here, if we wanted to retain some control was worth it, so I didn't have the same objection, but I respect your objection 100%. Or your abstention.

But you do agree, we did agree, we would not, we would not enter into opinions outside of Ventura County. So we need to agree that we're either doing that or not. I just want to, I just want it on the record, one way or the other, that we would make the argument that this isn't limited to Ventura County or, you know, because I was against that. I didn't

see the part about it not applying to Ventura County, so I might have missed

that? Yeah, it's in there, and also we have no Tier 1, 2, or 3 transit stations. It doesn't apply to Ventura County. We do not have a 1, 2, or 3-tier transit hub, and we don't have one. Nowhere in Ventura County has one.

So I make just a couple of quick comments. I don't think that our general ban applies here because if adopted, the state is going to tell us what we can and cannot do. I think it's really important that we retain local control wherever we can. It doesn't prevent us from deciding we want to have seven-story buildings within a bus line. We can do that if that's what the community decides.

I have a big problem, and I think it's pervasive, especially in the new housing laws, that we have four counties in the state of California that are very urban counties, San Francisco, Oakland, Alameda, Los Angeles, and San Diego. And they control the legislature because they've got so many people and so many representatives that they design Housing laws that are potentially good for those communities and those environments, but they don't take into consideration the challenges of a much more rural community.

I don't think we're qualified as rural, but I aspire to be rural. And so I think it's good for us to join the idea that local communities should have more control over these types of

decisions.

I see

both points. But I appreciate you saying what you said, because I hadn't thought about it in the way that you proposed it, but I am thinking about it.

So I just wanted to add one more thing as a person who voted alongside of you for that policy or against that policy. But I remember that we worded it to give it a little bit of breathing room. So that we would prior, so instead of it being a ban, that we would prioritize things that affected our city.

You are absolutely correct on that and so I just wanted to bring up the points that I brought up and I'm willing to move it to vote at this point. Thank you very much.

No, I appreciate what you said. I'll move to approve sending the letter.

I'll second it. Okay.

Mayor Pro Tem Lange. Okay. Motion passes. All right.

Okay. On to the public hearing. We're on 2A, Recommended Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Budget and Annual Gant Appropriations Limit.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to turn things over to Ms. Billings. Thank you.

Honorable Mayor, members of the City Council, I'm waiting for my PowerPoint to appear. So tonight we will hold a public hearing to receive comments on the recommended fiscal year 2025-26 budget, complete the budget review, review the GAN appropriations limit computation and adopt a resolution establishing the limits for fiscal year 2025-26, and adopt the 2025-26 budget, which is required to continue operations in July.

The second part of the hearing will consider the adoption of the 25-26 Statement of Investment Policy. And finally, staff is asking the Council to consider the adoption of the 25-26 salary schedule. And the item before you currently is the 25-26 recommended budget and the GAN limit. The overall recommended budget across all funds considers $33.9 million in expenditures and $10.5 million in transfers between the funds.

Included within the expenditures are $14.2 million in capital improvements, and the City Council reviewed those capital improvements initially at the May 27th meeting and reviewed the budget in depth at the June 10th meeting. There was a Finance and Budget Committee meeting held in early June to review the budget, and tonight we are recommending adoption of the budget, which is a living document and prepares us for the new fiscal year.

So, the City budget can be amended by the City Council throughout the year. Some examples of when it probably will be amended include the goal alignment, items such as wildfire mitigation will be added. Also, as the City accepts grants, the budget will be amended. The transit and trolley grants will be added when those grants are reviewed. This document presented are the foundational numbers for our city budget. Staff is preparing the charts and explanations that will come with a full document by the end of August.

Included in the budget are several key initiatives and some staffing change recommendations. One and a half maintenance worker positions are recommended to be funded by Measure C. One of these positions is in Public Works and the halftime employees within Recreation. Also included are several key initiatives, including general plan updates, agenda management implementation, citywide fee study, and a comprehensive community engagement.

The City is divided into numerous funding sources, which are restricted by law. But the largest fund, the General Fund, has a budget of $16.8 million, $16.7 million in expenditures, and an additional $75,000 in transfers out. Within the General Fund are your expenditures for the Sheriff, your parks, recreation programs, administration, and facilities. Your largest revenue source for 2526 is your transient occupancy tax.

Revenues within the general fund are primarily your transient occupancy tax, which comes from hotel stays within the city, sales tax, and property taxes. And this revenue is budgeted conservatively based on actual to date received through April, which is an increase over budgeted revenues last year. So while our budget was prepared very conservatively last year, we can see what we've actually received to date and what we've proposed for the 25-26 budget aligns with where we are projected to end this year actually.

There is an additional new hotel, which has just opened in the city. And while a slight increase was projected for that opening, we did not take into consideration the full impact of the hotel, trying to keep the revenues flat, not knowing quite what's going on with the economy and the state of the United States. Since the workshop, there have been a few adjustments made.

One that was brought to our attention was the AB 939 fee revenue needed to be updated to match the franchise estimate, so that amendment was made. The Measure C TOT revenue was adjusted to reflect the percentage growth in TOT in the general fund, and some expenses were Re-categorized within a department to assist a department with tracking expenses. Finally, within the CIP plan, the title of the project, Public Works Lower Yard Project, was changed to better align with the project use, which is for the public works facility that the city owns.

It's actually on the city facility. Projected ending fund balance with the numbers that you currently have budgeted is 116% of the general fund. Reserves are projected to be at $19.5 million with a total amount left over your reserve policy of $2.7 million. And those are the monies, along with monies in some of your other funds, which can be used to incorporate the goals that are being reviewed once we have monetized those. That's something that you'll review and be able to bring into the budget.

It's I will say it's really a pleasure to have a city that has that consideration of those kind of reserves. And I think you've done an excellent job of managing your money in the past to bring it to that level. And I know that you're taking really great steps on deciding and your time in deciding exactly what you want to do with the money. And it's just a pleasure to see that.

And I'm going to turn it over now to Norma to discuss the GAN limit.

Great. Now on to the fun part, the GAN limit. It's a state imposed cap on how much the city's tax revenue and how we can use for general operating expenses each year. It's designed to prevent government overspending by tying our allowable budget growth on inflation and population changes. It doesn't apply to all revenues, though, only tax dollars like property tax, sales tax and general fund T.O.T.

It excludes funds like the capital projects like Measure C.T.O.T. or voter approved taxes like the library tax. And now the calculation. So the GAN limit amount isn't fixed forever. Each year, the state gives us a formula that adjusts our limit based on inflation and population. So each year we get a little room to grow. The calculation starts with the previous year's GAN limit, as you can see here.

For us, it's $16.1 million. Then the state gives us an official adjustment for factor of each year, and it's based on population growth, inflation factor, and so on. And we can either choose the city or the county growth, depending on what is more allowable adjustment for us. This year we chose the county's allowable And so the bottom line really is that this is a behind the scenes accountability tool that helps us ensure that we're good stewards of public funds. And as you can see, we're well below the limit. And so now we can turn it over to back to council for your questions.

So there was I know you received a lot of feedback over the past two weeks. And then I guess the question is, how did that how did the feedback get managed? So in some cases, I know you responded to the recipient, the person who wrote to you. And we we I doubt we're going to cover every single item here, nor need we. But did you basically respond to things that were obviously, let's say, errors and make those adjustments and what we have here and then the rest are to be discussed?

Yes, if and we really appreciate the feedback that everybody provided us. If we found something that needed to be adjusted, we adjusted it and the rest are left to be discussed. Thank you.

And then I have a procedural question for Mr. Harvey. So we know there's people here that want to speak about certain items, let's say. And let's use an easy one, one that we all know is coming. Let's say the museum says there's a number in the budget that's 60, they're going to ask for 75. Is that something that we can vote on today and have it be in the budget today and not have to bring it back in at a future meeting? Yes.

Now what kinds of items though require coming back?

Well, that's a great question. You have a fair amount of latitude to make adjustments tonight if you so choose to do so, assuming that they don't contradict existing policies, like your reserve policy. So, in other words, if you decided to raid the reserves for something and it contradicted that, we'd be obligated to tell you that you're Doing so, but you could do all types of things. You could opt to increase the allotment that you spend on law enforcement because you've decided that that's a policy change you'd like to make. You could decide to decrease the amount of money that you spend in a certain area because that's a policy decision you'd like to make. We're flexible. We can make these changes.

You can do this tonight, or you can do them really at any time. And what we'd suggest maybe, if these are changes that haven't really been talked through with your colleagues, put that on an agenda. Because as Ms. Billings points out in her presentation, we're going to be modifying the budget many times during the year. It's a living document. There is not a rush to get every single change in tonight. And we'd prefer it if you guys had a thoughtful discussion.

Before you make a change. However, with that said, we know there are some things you probably want to put in tonight and that is a hundred percent your choice.

It's a really interesting conversation because there's items, if it wasn't the budget and you brought it up, we would discuss it and there'd be public comment, that kind of stuff. So it's a very

weird area. Well, and so thank you, if I could just again, that's part of, right, under, and the City Attorney might want to jump in, you do have broad latitude because this is the budget, this pays for all the services. However, it's a slippery slope because Some folks might argue, probably credibly, that, hey, I didn't know that you were going to talk about this program that you decided to add or remove. I just thought you were going to adopt the budget. So that you've nailed kind of the balancing act that you need to undertake with minor modifications, increasing an allotment to like the museum