Ojai City Council Regular Meeting

Actually,

entertain us after, if you hang out that

late.

Okay, so welcome back. Can we please have a report out of the closed session? Mr. Summers.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. The Council met in closed session to consider two items regarding labor negotiations, one for the trolley drivers and second for all unrepresented employees, and took no reportable action On either as final action in open session, it must be taken in open session rather on employee compensation. There will be a report regarding the trolley from the city manager.

At City Manager

moment in the agenda. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Okay, with that, we will end the closed session and start the regular Council meeting of Tuesday, August 26. Thank you very much. Mr. Montgomery, roll call, please.

Yay! Wonderful. Hey guys, I wrote it down. Make it quick so we can get on. Welcome. Hi everybody. Good evening. Mayor Andy, Mayor Pro Tem Rachel, Council Members Kim and Leslie, And Andy. Nice to see you, Ben and Matt. Weston. Thank you for your time tonight. I'm pleased to report that the arts, the creative economy, we're calling it here, are flourishing in Ojai. That's thanks in no small part to your leadership and your belief in the power of Ojai's creative community to shape a resilient and connected Vibrant Future.

On September 1st, applications open for this year's Arts Grant Cycle. Thanks to your approval, we're proud to offer a six-figure funding pool, an unprecedented investment in local creativity. Your Arts Commission is reaffirming our commitment to integrity, fiscal responsibility, and transparent oversight to ensure that every dollar is stewarded wisely. Okay, this is public money and we treat it as such, but it's, I want to mention it's been a delight to work with our new liaison, veteran OI City staffer Bridget Mara, in putting this together to make it work. She's also been instrumental this week. We had six artists doing maintenance on the sound arch by Trimkin, the entry to Libby Bowl. It was beautifully to see that was been a Several years in the making to ensure that our public art is stewarded wisely and maintained.

On September, okay, these funds will be, on the grants, will be reinvested directly into our community, supporting artists, educators, and cultural organizations that make Ojai a place of inspiration and belonging. The creative economy is clean, inclusive, It brings people together across generations and backgrounds. And it gives our young people something to aspire to. Looking ahead, we're excited for our first joint meeting between the City Council and the Arts Commission on September 9th. Mayor Andy and I have been crafting an agenda that's both visionary but actionable as well. We'll be discussing things like a five-year strategic plan for the arts that's due this year, our stewardship and maintenance of our public art in town here too, an economic impact study of Ojai's creative economy, Expanded access to arts education for professionals and youth to make those jobs better jobs.

Continued development of our grants program and a transparent communication strategy for public accountability. And if you're good, we'll paint that wall behind you there too, okay? We're working closely with the Ventura County Arts and Culture Office in studying best practices for model cities to ensure our plan aligns with regional opportunities and national standards for creative investment. On behalf of myself and your experts, volunteer commissioners, Christine Steiner, Pamela Grau, Karina Wright, and David Leeds, thank you for your continued support. We're honored to serve, and we look forward to shaping something extraordinary together. Thank you. Thank you so much. Any questions?

Thank you. Appreciate you being here so much. Okay, great. So we'll go to the City Manager's Report.

Thank you, Mayor. I've got several announcements tonight, so I'll start with what I believe is the most exciting, and I would encourage the Council to please correct me if I forget any part of this exciting announcement, but beginning this Sunday, August 31st, we are proud to announce that we are able to restore Sunday trolley service, starting this Sunday.

We have been working with existing and new city drivers in order to try to fill those Sunday slots. We have been able to do so thus far, and so on a temporary and interim basis, we are contracting with a local regional transport company, Fillmore Area Transportation, in order to provide contract drivers for the Sunday service. So that is this Sunday, again, the 31st of August.

In other exciting trolley news, we are going to be following City Council direction and returning in an open session with a pilot proposal to benefit our trolley drivers commensurate with the number of hours that they work with a 20-hour minimum for that option. So again, that's going to come back in open session. It's going to be a pilot discussion. Starting with the trolley drivers because that is where the City has the greatest need for benefiting part-time positions. However, also following Council direction, we will go back in closed session to do an analysis of what that concept would cost if we were to look at it globally for all City part-time employees, and we will follow Council's direction after they have the chance to review that analysis.

I do have a visual which I wanted to share. Again, just trying to demonstrate our ongoing commitment to the trolley. We have trolley T-shirts that we're going to be distributing for free. Anyone interested who rides a trolley, you're going to have to ride the trolley in order to get a shirt, starting this week. But we're very excited, and again, we just really want to build that. Yeah, there we go. We want to build that morale. We want to demonstrate our ongoing commitment to the trolley. It's been a very long road, and we thank everybody for their patience. But we're starting to get there.

That's the announcement. You

did leave out that you were going to be riding the trolley to hand out those shirts.

Yeah, don't forget that. I will be. And I'm very excited. Thank you. I'm very excited to do that because I want to hear directly from the drivers and the riders. I'm certain that there are things that I don't know based upon my limited experience on the trolley. So this will give me a real feel because I am going to be riding every shift to make sure I get to everybody. So that's the goal. It'll take me a while, but I will do it. Thank you, Council Member.

Um, that's one announcement. Secondly, uh, I hope most of you, um, who have an Ojai mailing address receive the Ojai Outlook this week. Uh, that's our, uh, quarterly newsletter. It shows up in print. We hope you enjoy it. Uh, we're already working on, uh, the winter edition. Spoiler alert, we're going to be doing a summary of all the great things that we, as a team, are accomplishing in this calendar year. That will be part of one of the articles in the winter edition coming later. But enjoy the summer edition for now. Also in your mailbox, I hope you also receive the recreation guide, very comprehensive.

As has been pointed out, we punch above our weight. for us being a small city with what we offer. Both the newsletter and the guide are in the back of the room in case you did not pick them up. There are additional copies there. We can also get you more if you like. The last thing I'd like to report out on is I was out of the office last week at a class and a conference at Harvard. It was a public sector executive summit on generative AI in the future city.

I went into this knowing a little bit about AI and being somewhat skeptical, and I emerged with a host of ideas how we can make ourselves in Ojai more efficient. Spending more time on the more important challenges and less time on the more mundane. We will be coming back to the council and the public with ways that we think we can implement this to everyone's benefit. We're not replacing people, but we're simply adding skills that people can better use in their jobs. So it's going to be very exciting, and I thank you for letting me learn that information. That's all I have, Mayor.

Do you want to mention what Mr. Hahn generated on this table and so on?

Sure. Thanks to James Hahn and Juan Morales who came together to reconfigure temporarily the dais so that we don't have any whiplash and neck craning in our meeting. We are going to purchase a permanent solution that is more of the traditional horseshoe that is contiguous that you see in most city halls. So stay tuned for that. I hope this works tonight. Let us know.

Yeah, I just wanted to thank everyone who put this together. It saves my neck. It's always really hard, so I much appreciate that. Also, I just wanted to say that we might want to, at some point, maybe it's a conversation offline, But talk about the ways in which we've thought about how AI could help the city in some of the processes. I would love that. Okay, thank you.

I would love hearing from all of you and the public on that matter, too. I'm sure there's a whole bunch of ways. It's all about the prompts you enter and knowing what data you have that is searchable. And I think anybody who claims that they know everything is totally wrong.

But I think we also want to talk about the environmental impact of AI as well, along with that, to make sure that we're not using it in a way that's not sensitive to the real impact that it's having. Totally

agree. Thank you very much. We will move to the public comments. These would be comments not on an item on the agenda. I currently have two right now, and the first I have is Sudeep Matupali Rao, and I just want to make sure this is for the general public comment, correct? Thank you very much. And then Gabe Turan, please.

Thank you, Mayor Andy. And I want to basically, I'm here basically just to spend a few minutes to thank the councilmembers, Councilmember Whitman, Councilmember Mang, Councilmember Leslie, Rachel Lang, and also Leslie Rule. I'm advocating for our city of Ojai. You guys do a lot of work, and it's the kind of deliberations you have to do, you have to learn all the technical stuff.

And you spend a lot of time, and I know that the mayor has said that there's a small stipend for you every month, but I believe, you know, I've seen different cities and Board of Supervisors, they actually get, it's a fully paid job, and it's a lot of work, it's a lot of effort. And there's no reason why the City of Ojai, for an organization that actually governs, that reviews everything and you set the direction, you work with Ben and Matthew and Weston and others, there's no reason why we can't, as a city, set aside, allocate significant funds to take care of the time you spend. And this is not an easy job.

And so I want to just I'm sharing this to the mayor. I know you guys can't advocate for yourself. It might look self-serving. But as a citizen, I feel that we have the resources and we will benefit a lot. I know it's a two year term and things like that. But I want us to start a conversation about how can we as a city have the city council be a paid position with adequate funding?

So that's all.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Gabe Turon, please.

Thank you. I have some helpers. We don't have a table to display these items. Good evening, Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem, Council, staff, members of the public. My name is Gabe Turan, and I am currently serving as Mayor Pro Tem for the City of Oxnard. I'm here to visit you this evening for an important item. The City of Oxnard, at our July 15th meeting before our legislative recess, we voted to prohibit the sale of these items here. These are nitrous oxide canisters, and my helpers here have Different sizes as well. I'm going to set this down because it's heavy.

But these items actually, for folks who may remember previously known as whippets, they used to come in small stainless steel canisters, usually used for confectionary purposes or for airsoft weapons. But in this case, these are strictly for recreational. And all three of these examples we have here are flavored. Strawberry cheesecake, watermelon, fruity pebbles.

There's only one sole purpose for these particular devices, and that is for recreational use. And there's long-standing research to show the long-term neurological and physiological effects of nitrous oxide use. And as I'm sure you can appreciate, with them being flavored and these bright colors and fun-looking, they tend to be attractive to a younger crowd. And so we took the move to prohibit the sale of these items within the City of Oxnard. I've gone to our neighboring jurisdictions to just give them this information for consideration, because my concern is that with the prohibition in the City of Oxnard, the market may migrate to neighboring jurisdictions with less or no regulation. I've emailed the City Clerk and the City Manager the information, our staff report, for your consideration, if it's something you'd like to look at.

These are typically sold through tobacco outlets, and we have a number of them within the City of Oxnard. We've done a number of moves for better tobacco regulations as well. But unfortunately, that industry keeps trying to find all these new ways to, unfortunately, make profits off of the health and wellness of our residents, especially residents who tend to come from disadvantaged communities. So I wanted to just bring this to your attention and your consideration of any questions at all. Please feel free to reach out. And our city attorney's office and our city manager certainly have all the details on this as well. Mr. Whitman, yeah.

Yeah, I do have a question. I think I know the answer to this, but you said for recreational use, is it correct that that use is to get high or however

you want to put it? Yes, that is correct, Councilmember. Yes, and I should leave that. Professionally, I have two addictions credentials in the state of California. I've spent my career in health promotion and substance use prevention. So this is something that is important to me, both professionally and personally. And so that's why it's something I thought we should take on as a city, and I'm glad that our council decided to make that move. And again, open door, if you have any questions as a council or your staff, I'm happy to connect you with our staff or answer any questions I may have, or give you any answers I may have.

Thanks

for bringing it to our attention. Absolutely. We're still in a space where we can be proactive about this, so I wanted to let folks know. And for the previous speaker, in my 17 seconds, you can come talk to Oxnard, too, if you'd like to talk about a living wage for our elected officials.

Thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it very much. I expect that we'll bring this up under a future agenda item tonight.

And thanks to your helpers,

too. Yes, thank you to them as well. Thank you so much. Wow, what a gift. Thanks. That is the last card I have. Anything online?

Mayor, no raised hands.

We start running up here with

a public comment. And speaking to our Zoom participants, we are taking comments on general public comment.

Go ahead. Thank you.

I'm Dr. Starchild Vyvoda, President of the Ojai Valley Democratic Club, the longest serving democratic club in the Ojai Valley. Our club fights for the dignity of marginalized and underserved communities in the Ojai Valley. And today I rise on behalf of the Ojai Valley Democratic Club to advocate for the rights and dignity of families in the Ojai Valley living in terror of immigration enforcement.

Sheltering in place, not to be rolled up in the street, Parents planning for who will care for their U.S. citizen children if they're taken away, living up to their promises to pay utilities and rent by risking exposure to roving immigration patrols that do not live up to the promises of our Constitution's Fourth Amendment. By our count, eight families in the Ojai Valley have suffered the incarceration of a family member.

due to immigration enforcement. There's one organization in Ojai ready to support families affected by immigration enforcement. Through the Emergency Assistance Program, help of Ojai provides case management, assistance with essentials, assistance planning to cope with the terror the immigration policy has brought. The Rental Assistance Program helps families who have lost a breadwinner to keep their home.

On behalf of the Ojai Valley Democratic Club, I urge this Council to act on the resolution before you in written public comment which we submitted. We ask that you grant $25,000 restricted to the Help of Ojai Emergency Assistance Program and $25,000 restricted to the Help of Ojai Rental Assistance Program. These funds would allow both programs to operate for six months.

The funds are needed urgently. Please act as soon as possible.

Thank you, Starchild. It is on our September 9th agenda item, by the way, the rental assistance to Joppa-Wahoi. Anything online? No

raised hands, Mayor.

All right, then we will proceed to the consent calendar. Any of my colleagues want to remove anything from the consent calendar?

I just have issues with warrants. A couple of questions. That's all.

Yeah, please. Do you want do you want to you want to ask questions of the warrants so we can we can pull that?

OK.

And is there anything else? OK, perfect. So then I have one public comment, though, that I will read now and is on 1G from Larry Steingold, and then we could vote on all the items except 1B.

Good evening. Hello. Hey, look at all your smiling faces. I hope everyone's had a great week. 1G is a continuation of, in almost everybody's opinion, is a performative electrical efficiency ordinance. It does nothing except show that people are, that the City Council is actually doing something, okay? In fact, if you don't want to do something and make certain things required upon renewal or upon sale, That's okay, but at least how about in a friendly amendment that we tell tenants and buyers that their homes are not up to fire standards and they're not energy efficient.

Maybe that would be a way to do it. So I would suggest, if you could, make it a requirement that all tenants And homeowners who are selling or renting, for that matter, have to tell their prospective tenants that they're not fire-hardened and they're not energy-efficient. If that doesn't get things moving, nothing will, because government's not prepared to say, hey, do it upon sale, do it upon renewal.

That'll force the landlords to do it, because otherwise tenants will go, hey, my apartment's not fire-hardened. You think we can add some ember screens? You think you can cut the trees that are hanging over the building? How about removing the battery stall that's outside the building? Do something, because this is just, hey, we're doing something. Thank you, but not enough.

Thank you, Mr. Steingold. Any public comments online? No raised hands for consent

calendar, Mayor.

So then I would like to have a roll call for consent items except for 1B.

I'll move to approve

all those

items.

Thank you. Second that.

I'll second.

Great. We have two seconds. Oh, I'm sorry. No, we got a

third.

And let's talk about the warrants of 1B.

Okay, first of all, I want to start by saying that Norma is very kind and she always sends me the warrants because she knows that I'm a little over the top with my questions. So she responded and then I had more questions. So if you can't answer, I'm willing, you know, to wait and discuss with her, but I just wanted to bring them up. The first, the ticket, it's not much, but it's Data Ticket, Inc. for $472, and she replied that it's a monthly administrative fee we pay Data Ticket to manage and collect citations issued by the city.

So I was just curious, how much money do we collect with those citations?

We can come back and bring you that, absolutely.

Would

you like, I'm guessing, like an annual amount?

Just curiosity, you know what I mean? To see, weigh it out.

Is it worth the while, is

what you're

asking? Yeah,

exactly. Yes,

absolutely. Let me see, Tripepe Smith & Associates, $15,500. I asked what was out, so the monthly retainer's $8,800. A recruitment support of $6,718. So is that, are they recruiting for us? Is it they're

recruiting more? So separate from their public information component, they also have a recruitment side of the house that they do as well. So they did the recreation manager So that included the flyer, the national outreach, the screening of candidates, you know, putting the process together for us.

Okay. And then we're using a different company, though, recruiting for a finance director.

We are. As a best practice, we like to shift around, and we only use recruiting firms for the higher profile positions, generally upper management and department head only.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right, thank you. I appreciate that. Sure. Number three was Pacific Western Bank, $25,599 or $90.88. And she said this payment covers transactions and late charges on a credit card accounting dating back to 2019. We're in the process of closing the account and are bringing it current. So how much was the transaction? How much are late charges? That's a big amount of money. And I remember Maybe about first part of the year when the accounting firm said that there was some questions with credit card statements and all that. So I'm just curious why, if we were notified of that in the beginning of the year, why is it now almost September when this is being addressed?

Sure, we can follow up on that as

well. Okay, thank you, appreciate that. And then William Engineering for $48,298.50.

Will

Dan. Will, is that, oh, I put, wait, I'm sorry, my typo. It's June code enforcement, building inspector, and plan checking services. So me being me, I just did, you know, a little bit of my math. So if we took the 48,000, divided it by 21 days that they were billed for, it's like $2,299 a day. If they worked eight hours a day, you're talking $287.49 an hour.

So, what is that? It would be cheaper to have a full-time employee?

It's multiple individuals. It's a building inspector. It's a code enforcement officer. It's a plan check engineer. It's a civil engineer. So, it's multiple. It's a contract that we, in a lot of cities, use so that we don't have to have our own building and code enforcement department. If Council wants, we could certainly come back with an agenda item where we explore what it would look like if we brought that in-house.

I would like to look at that because how many buildings have we had in the last, you know, and I look at all of the citations down, you know, that are not being addressed down in the Arcade.

We have had some large projects, and I would point out, notably, the El Roblar has been a very large project that's just now coming to completion. We have other Major stakeholders in town, the Ojai Valley Inn that has done a fair amount of renovations and construction as well. But you're right, in the single family shop, you know, five houses maybe are built a year, if that.

But that there are other code requirements for us to inspect, clearly, if you're making renovations, especially structural.

Okay, I appreciate that. Yeah, and then we can discuss things because I know code enforcement is coming up.

We could certainly bring that. If this council looks like there's not, we can have a discussion about making that in-house.

Yeah, the comparison between the contractor and what it would look like, us doing it in-house, would we save money, or would we, yeah.

We might need a little bit of time for that. If we could bring that in the fall, if that's okay with you guys, we'd be happy to do that. Great suggestion. Okay. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Thanks for asking.

That's great. Yes, please. Actually, I just wanted to say, really thankful that Councilmember Mang takes the time to come in and figure I'm appreciative that you're finding things that I think, oh, I wish I would have noticed that. Thank

you.

I was going to say the same thing. Thank you for doing your due diligence and representing the Budget Committee and all that you do to be fiscally responsible.

Very much appreciated. So can I have a motion for 1B, please?

I'll move to approve 1B.

Mr.

Montgomery,

Yes, Mayor, this Council has talked about this now a number of times. This is coming back before you at Council direction. The City staff and administrative staff and some board leadership from the Ojai Valley Fire Safety Council have been meeting over the last couple of weeks in an effort to Provide some granularity and detail into a revised proposal that reflects the Council's direction to grab item 1 and 2 from the initial proposal. Those are items that relate to outreach and education. And structural hardening, parcel and community level mitigation.

What you see attached to this agenda report is that revised proposal. If you page through it, notably if you page through at the back, starting at page 95, you will see that there is some detail explaining the costs and the efforts involved with the various components. So, thank you to the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council for digging in and providing that. So, again, we're just fulfilling direction. There was a request for a revised proposal. Here it is. We believe that it provides the detail that we need in order to be able to explain this to auditors or the public or anybody, and I'd be happy to answer any questions. I know that there are also representatives here from the Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council as well, and thank you very much.

Thank you.

I would just like to say I would like to table this on a future agenda. I think if we're funding something like this, you know, a large amount of money, that I feel that we should have a wildfire preparedness policy in place as a council for something to us to use, implement when creating this.

So what I'm hearing right now is we have gotten this revised proposal, and then it seems to me what we're hearing from the city manager is any questions for his report. So my suggestion would be that you vote no when it comes up, because I think this would be the third time now that we're discussing it. So I think it's been table two today. But you can certainly...

So you don't feel it's important then to have a policy?

Well, Kim, you're right. So the item is what's in front of us at

the moment. I think what he's saying is that you're raising a discussion issue. Okay. So it's appropriate to raise that after the public comments. Okay. And we're all doing our discussion. Okay. I'm sorry. Thank you. I don't think there was any intent to criticize. No, no,

no. No criticism at all. No, I didn't

think that.

Okay. It's more like saying, let's go through the process, right, so we can hear the public comment and then dig in. Any more questions for staff? Okay, I'll move to the public comments. And let me start with Randy Coggin, please, Valerie Freeman, and then Renee Roth. Thank you.

Well, we're back. Hopefully there is some truth in the old adage, the third time is a charm. In all seriousness, I appreciate the Council having our proposal back on the agenda this evening for your consideration and hopefully your approval. I particularly want to thank Ben and Taylor for their spirit of teamwork in providing guidance concerning the recommended revisions and or additions to the proposal in front of you this evening. And Matthew, if you would tell Taylor that for me, please.

I'd also be remiss if I did not recognize our staff, Chris, Callie, and Steve, who are here, for their dedication and hard work in implementing into this proposal those recommendations received from Ben and Taylor. I also want to recognize the guidance that is provided by our Board Chair, Wilk Tania, who is here also, and Board Member Dwayne Maynard. These staff members, Chris, Callie, and Sadiq, are indeed the grease that makes our Council operate like a well-oiled machine.

I also want to thank all those who have made or submitted comments supporting our proposals over the last several months, including, among others, Bill Miley for the written comment he submitted for tonight. And particularly for the written comment of support for this meeting that was submitted by Bob Roper, who is in D.C., and the previous oral comments of support made at several previous meetings by Division Chief Nick Cleary, who is on a federal overhead command team on the Beer Gulch fire in Washington State. Both of whom are recognized for their wildfire prevention knowledge and expertise, and both of whom, I believe, both of whom are out of town and unable to be here tonight, but I believe you respect and know both of them quite well.

The proposal before you tonight paves the way for the beginning to make your city the wildfire-ready and resistant community that both you and your residents want and deserve. It also sets the path for the ongoing and long-term lasting partnership between the City and the Fire Safe Council that I believe we have both desired. We look forward to your approval this evening so that we can execute the necessary professional services agreement and finally commence the important work that is encompassed by the deliverables contained within this proposal.

Thank you again for your time and for your consideration. Thank

you, Mr. Coggin. Valerie Freeman, and then Renee Roth, and then Anna Leis.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, staff. I want to applaud you for your last meeting when you All together in unison approved the Measure C $1 million for fire mitigation. That was a huge blessing for Ojai. And I greatly appreciate you both all working together to fight fire first. It's awesome. And on that note, I hope you have the same enthusiasm to support the Fire Safe Council proposal so we could just start moving forward and protect Ojai. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Freeman. Renee Roth, Anna Elise, and then Bill Miley.

Good evening, members of the Council. Let's say, I'm going to stick to my script here. I do support the FireSafe Council proposal. I supported the first FireSafe Council proposal. I supported the second FireSafe proposal. And now I support this whittled down version of the FireSafe Council proposal. I support education and outreach on FHIR home hardening assessments. They have that in the program.

I had my eyes opened when I had a home hardening assessment done in a condominium for gosh sake. I don't even own Half an acre of land, it's just trees in front of my house. And once they came and they said, you've got to cut that back by five feet, you've got to cut that back by five feet, you've got to cut that shrub back by five feet. I went, oh my gosh, are you kidding me? I didn't know that was a hazard. My eyes were opened.

Once people's eyes are opened, what happens is they go, how do I get the help to remove this? They will want to have the trees, the shrubs, the vegetation cut back, and they're going to need it done quickly. That's what the original proposal included. The original proposal included writing grants to get the work done in the high fire hazard areas. That's what I think should have been done.

So, down to one minute and 16 seconds here, Ojai is a local responsibility area. That means fire safety here is not Cal Fire's, Ventura County Fire's job, Cal Fire's job. It's the city's job. It is your job. And right now, you're way behind. Yes, we've seen grants go to non-profits through fuel reduction works, but education and workshops are mandatory. You've got to start educating residents on what is needed, and we're in very high fire hazard severity zones.

So look up Fire Safe Malibu. They already require fire inspections when homes are sold. They already require it. And they've invested in full-time fire hardening specialists and staff positions dedicated to defensible space, education, and enforcement. They have it in their code. It's part of their full-time responsibilities. You have done nothing. You have done absolutely nothing. So please move forward and start the at least education process. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Roth. Annalise, Bill Miley, and Gary Gartrell, please.

Hi. I'm a teacher at Nordoff High School. I'm an ag science teacher, and I'm here also because I support the Fire Safe Council, and I really want to get my students involved. I'm here because I'm an opportunist, and I take action, and I like to create those meaningful experiences that create learning and growth. What we have in common with the Fire Safe Council is we were both at the Ventura County Fair. We both had exhibits with information for our public, and I took all of their brochures because I want my students to learn that.

We both share the same industry partners. For example, the Upper Ojai Land and Livestock Shepherdess with prescribed grazing is something that I want to teach my students and I want to certify and give that knowledge to my students so that they're creating that career readiness. I have about 100 students and 40% of those students represent low income in our community. So we would be reaching students. We'd have access to families that don't normally pay attention or don't have access to pay attention.

What I would like is to get involved, to get my students involved in these workshops. I would like my students to be part of the data collection, my students to be part of this awareness campaign, teaching them to teach our community. I want to drive them places and help our community get prepared and help this effort. So what I'm doing is making leaders for tomorrow, and what we want to do together is create that safety for Ojai. So thank you.

for fire hardening and being part of the process. So as soon as that actually comes to fruition, thank you for writing that and thank you for sharing it. And it's a wonderful proposal and I look forward to sharing it with the rest of the council. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay, Bill Miley, Gary Gertrall, and then Larry Stengel.

Hello.

Hello.

Residents of our city certainly need assistance in reducing their risk level of wildfire exposure, both to their homes and to their community. I believe we are really fortunate to have fortified miles of mostly citrus orchards east of our city to provide a barrier against fire infiltration and ember catchment. I certainly value the Fire Safe Council's program.