Ojai City Council Special Meeting

All right. Oh, I'm like, wait, Larry whom? All

right.

I have something to say about it. But anyway, welcome to the special council meeting Tuesday, September 16th, 5 p.m. Roll call, please. Mr. Montgomery.

Mayor, we've received no in-house, and we have no participants on Zoom. What about that good-looking guy over there just sitting over

there? Oh, wait. Oh, it's Lucas, man. Hey, man. How's it going, man? All right. Hello. Wonderful. Okay, thank you. And with that, we will go into the closed session. Check, check, thank you. We are back from the closed session. Ms. Anderson, would you like to report out?

Yes, staff has been given direction.

Thank you very much. And with that, we will conclude the closed session and begin the open session. That sounds so funny to do that, but let's go with the roll call, please. Well,

Mayor, we only have one noticed agenda today. Okay. So we can head right into our hearing, our notice 6 p.m. hearing.

Great. Okay, thanks. Super. So I have something to read first, and I will do so. This is on item number two, the appeal hearing to uphold or overturn the tax collector determination dated April 8th, 2025. Enforcing Assessed Transient Occupancy Tax and Penalties from Audit Findings, June 30, 2020, March 31, 2023, against Cameron Larner, business owner of Casa Ojai Inn, managed by B&W Inns, LLC.

So here's what I will read. The Council now turns to item number two, which is the hearing requested by Appellate Cam Larner. As the owner of Casa Ojai Inn, at issue is an assessment of unpaid transient occupancy taxes and related penalties against the inn based on an audit covering the period from June 2020 through March 2023. Mr. Larner appealed this assessment to the Assistant City Manager who ruled against him, and so Mr. Larner has appealed to the Assistant City Manager's decision as tax collector to the Council under Ojai Municipal Code Section 8-1.429.

The City's Attorney's Office is here to advise the Council on the procedures for this hearing. So the Council has contracted with Olivares Madruga, sorry if I'm saying that wrong, law organization as a third party to argue on behalf of the City's tax official. Mr. Larner is welcome to argue on his own behalf or through an attorney of his choice. The purpose of this hearing is to allow each side to present evidence and argument regarding the taxes and penalties at issue. The formal rules of evidence do not apply. So, for example, the Council will not require testimonial evidence to be provided under oath. If either side objects to evidence presented by the other, you may note it for the record during your allotted time. But the Council will not rule on any evidentiary objection, and we direct you not to interrupt each other's presentations to make such objections.

Each side will also be limited. Because the City has the burden to show the assessment of taxes and penalties against the Inn is valid, it will go first and it will have 30 minutes to present its primary case. Mr. Larner will have 30 minutes to present his case, followed by the City again with 10 minutes for any rebuttal argument it wishes to make. Each side may make closing arguments.

The council's job is to impartially consider each side's evidence and argument, and then decide whether the taxes and penalties at issue should be assessed against the end. We may have questions for you, but if we, sorry, but if so, we will ask them after your presentation, and your time to answer will not be counted against you. The evidence the Council will consider includes any briefing and other materials the party submitted ahead of tonight, along with any additional testimonial and written evidence submitted this evening.

If you submit additional written evidence this evening, please label it with a designation that follows the last exhibit you presented to the Assistant City Manager. So, for example, if the last document you submitted at the previous hearing was Exhibit F, in quotes, the first document you submitted this evening will be Exhibit G, in quotes. Once the hearing concludes, the Council will take the matter under submission and issue a written decision.

That decision will be the City's final and conclusive decision in the matter, which means that if Mr. Larner wants to appeal it, he must appeal it to the Ventura County Superior Court. However, Mr. Larner, if the Council's decision goes against you and you choose to appeal it, please note that the law requires you to pay any taxes and penalties that the Council orders you to pay before you file that appeal.

This is what lawyers call the pay first, litigate later rule, and it does not prevent you from asking the court to order a refund. But again, that is only relevant if the Council's decision goes against you. So with that, before Council invites the City to make its presentation, we will take any public comments.

Mayor, I've received no public comments in-house, but we do have a few attendees on Zoom. So, Zoom attendees, I am now allowing public comment on items two and three.

That was two that I just read,

so I'll

have something else on

three. Thank you for clarifying, Mayor. On item two only right now. We still have no raised hands, but thank you for the time, Mayor.

Okay. And we can move on. All right. So, now it suggests that I would go to the City's main argument, but any questions from our Council first?

I think it'd probably be a good idea to explain the relationship of our tax reform. Just for whoever's listening.

And just for clarification, Council Member, are you speaking of the City's ability to collect a tax, or are you speaking of the- No, no, I

mean the organization- Inderleider Delamas- The firm that is doing work on the City's behalf to determine what is taxable.

Council Member, I'm sorry, I've not been on this side, so I'm, Council Member Whitman, our relationship is it's a consultant that the city hires, and they are skilled in knowing our tax code and the parameters under which we operate, and they operate for many cities throughout the state of California, and is there anything else that you have there that I did not

Their operation is to assess these types of tax matters where there is a question about what's collectible or not.

If I could jump in, I think what might be a good thing to speak to is there is an audit process and a determination each year as to, randomly, as to which institutions are audited and then findings are presented. Did you want to elaborate on that a little bit?

Yes, and was going to say that so they have a process by which they, it's in our municipal code as to what the tax, the hotel operator is required to provide, and they audit in accordance with what our municipal code states is taxable, so they're auditing under the parameters of our municipal code. They will select the information, the operator provides that information, they review it, and then tally what has been held as non-taxable, or what tax has not been collected, if anything.

I have a general question, and this will be for Ms. Anderson or whoever is appropriate to answer. So, we received many documents in the last 24 hours from Mr. Lerner, and so it's not something that we could reasonably digest, especially ones that we received today. So, I'm asking for some clarification or direction. Since we do not have the reasonable time to review these documents, also, so I can't make a judgment as to their relevance to this case.

So, I guess the question is, is proceeding fine or is waiting more appropriate? What, I'm asking for a little guidance here.

It would be within your discretion. If you don't feel comfortable because you haven't had the time to review the documents, you can definitely review, or I'm sorry, you can continue the hearing to a later date to allow yourself time to do so. Since Mr. Larner presented the materials so close to the hearing, you can also ask him to explain what the documents are, and hopefully he brought copies of them to make available to you.

I'm not quite sure if he did that. If he did, you could consider the documents as they are handed to you. That was generally how the last hearing went, where the exhibits were provided as the hearing was ongoing. So it would be within Council's discretion of what you feel comfortable considering as you move.

So following up on that, my understanding from what the Mayor read would be that when All sides have presented their cases. We're still gonna issue something in writing, right?

So what we'll do is Council will deliberate after both sides have rested, and then whatever opinion that you come to, my office will assist with formalizing that in writing and sending it to Mr. Lerner with the procedures of appeal and what's necessary to do that.

So we are voting tonight unless we move to continue it.

Correct.

Ms. Bank, did you have a question?

Well, I was just curious. So all of the information that we received, I don't think your mic's

on.

All of the information that we've received up to today, would that be sufficient to just go on that? Would there be any stipulations or rules if we went on what we've had to study over the weekend without the additional information? Would it change anything from our perspective if we just used what we have instead of including the additional?

Let me offer a thought, a concern or a question, which is I can't judge whether or not this is highly relevant to the case because I haven't had a chance to read it all, especially from today. So then the question would be something like, at least for me, if this is important to the case, is it worth postponing so that we can read it? However, I would request and almost insist to say we have a deadline of some reasonable amount of time, like 10 days prior to whenever that moves forward, and that nothing is submitted after that 10 days.

Something like that, that's a proposal, but I have the same concern that if there's something important, I might offer one slight other modification, which is, I need this to be more succinct, or I would highly, deeply request it, so to receive dozens and dozens of documents that overlap in content, I need some summary work here from Mr. Larner or somebody to say, here's a package that we can make some reasonable sense out of.

Did you have something that you wanted to add?

I'm aligning with you on a lot of these different points. I mean, I was able to look at all of the information that came in yesterday, but today the ones that came in at 4.30, for example, just haven't had time to look at. But I think that's the question I have, too. If this is going to really change the So, I think that's all I have to say.

No, and we tried to set parameters for Mr. Larner to submit documents to you in advance, to be shared not only with the City's Council, but with you when the agenda went out, and he protested. So we allowed him to submit the documents. We assumed what would be at the hearing, not in the fashion that it was presented today. In the request for, in the notice for the hearing, we did ask for one brief.

For your benefit, to synthesize what his arguments were. In your discretion, as the Council, you know, over this hearing, you can choose not to consider that evidence because it came in late. That's another option, too. He does have the ability to provide the information to you if he has copies today and explain what the value is. It's not unreasonable to put the limitation that the document sent an hour and a half before the hearing for your consideration. It doesn't allow you ample time to review them.

And that leaves us the option of either considering them, or we also have the discretion not to consider those.

Correct.

Or the option of postponing this hearing so that we can consider it with the stipulations I would suggest that were offered here.

And I would say that if you're going to allow the hearing to be continued, that the city should be able to submit new briefs, just because the information in the documents that were provided today may be different and appear to be some new arguments that Mr. Larner is stating in his appeal. So allowing the city the same right to respond That Mr. Larner is being afforded if you're going to continue the hearing. So everybody should be allowed to resubmit.

And is 10 days prior to our hearing a reasonable time frame? I

would say so. That would give us plenty of time to notice the meeting and post the agenda well in advance of the meeting as council has requested. And allow you more time to review and Weston and I can commit to getting the agenda out as quickly as possible once we receive everything.

Is it appropriate to ask our consultant Thank you.

The other piece of this is that Council Member Rule reached out to us to say that if there was a tied vote that she would want us to continue the hearing and not to move forward with it. And so that's another consideration that I just wanted to toss into the mix while we're talking about that is that, you know, that's a potential outcome.

I want to ask Mr. Larner to come to the podium, please. And I want to ask you if, in good faith, you'd be willing to meet those criteria. In other words, I'll say more explicitly, 10 days before the hearing, everything is here, nothing after 10 days before the hearing? I would. And that it could be more succinct? I

would.

An explanation of the documents you're providing. I

understand. This isn't my normal business role, so I'm new to this, and although I had requested guidelines Thank you. Thank you all for being here. Additional parties to this hearing, that it's the council and the operator. So I don't understand why in this hearing and in the prior hearing, I'm having to take an adversarial stance against the city.

I understand you posted something to that effect. And so that's something that I think we could hear when we come back. So that's something that we will Consider when we do postpone this hearing, which sounds like we may do.

What do you think? It sounds like both of you would lean towards continuing the hearing. Postponing

it to another time.

And I'm and I'm I'm fine with that. OK, I guess the one thing that, you know, we may want to look at. I know we can't do future agenda items from, you know, from this format of a meeting, but I think this is, you know, related to what we're doing here today. We should probably take a look at Our procedures and given what's happened and have some definite guidelines, you know, spelling out the rules that you need to comply with in order to present your Well, I guess we're presenting the case, but whatever. There should be-

Well, your honor. In this situation, the city staff is presenting the case with their legal counsel, and you are acting as judge here. Right. Right. And then Mr. Larner is the appellant. So this is a bit of a different situation from what we normally See, and we don't have a lot of hearings that come before Council, but your feedback has been heard, and it's something that we can work on before noticing the next hearing.

Yeah, so I'm not saying that our procedures are inadequate. I'm just saying we should look at them. We should look at them and make sure that anybody who gets involved in this is...

Sure.

That's a good caveat.

Yeah. I will add that my hesitation in continuing this hearing and bringing it back at another time, my hesitation would be just the mental exhaustion of having this hang over your head and also just having this lingering issue going on and on. And so that would be just one, one, I mean, I feel like I have a good background just looking at what we looked at this weekend. The only thing I haven't been able to review was what came in today.

So, yeah, so I just wanted to bring that up.

You know, we could leave it to the, I don't think applicant's the right name, but it could be the appellant. It could be his decision as to whether we proceed tonight or whether he wants to give us a further explanation of the documents and have a clear record of everything that we received and considered.

That's an invitation to speak? Yes, please go. So I wasn't expecting this. I haven't given it a lot of thought, but certainly I did feel a lot of pressure from the time that I received notice of the hearing to compile everything. This controversy has been going on for over a year and a half, and as a consequence, there are a lot of moving parts, and it's not just one thing, as you probably came to understand.

I tried to evaluate everything and I did my best to do that, but I wasn't able to sort through it and prioritize. I tried to prioritize in my first email, and to a large extent, that does stand well on itself. Subsequent emails with additional content These are largely exhibits that provide more detail or background or evidence to support my assertions, including basically an ad hoc kind of summary, which I labeled as the simple facts, which I just sent, and then I saw a mistake, so I revised it to simple facts version two.

I am happy to take a step back and be able to have a little more time, although at the same time, to Councilmember Lange's point, it's been very stressful for me to put this together, and so part of me says it would be nice to relieve that stress and get it over. I did happen to print out the submissions that I sent this afternoon. Unfortunately, when I arrived at the printer, having given them directions, they only printed out one set. So, I have that set, but I can share that set.

And I don't necessarily, it's up to you, really. I wasn't expecting to call every exhibit. It's more of, if you had questions, then I would say, oh, well, maybe we can examine these exhibits. It might help you understand. My role for tonight, my anticipation for tonight, was largely to tell my story. Because I know from past experience with my tax collector meeting that trying to wade through detailed legal analysis and all that stuff doesn't work in that type of environment, unless maybe you're a lawyer, and I'm not.

We could also offer to take a brief recess and photocopy the documents that Mr. Lerner has provided if you would like to continue today.

And I would just say for myself, I do have them electronically, and secondly, I can't read them, so in a way, it's not that useful for me to have the photocopy here and not having read them, but that's for me personally. But I'm happy. I want to hear from my colleagues. I'm happy to proceed or postpone. Either way is fine with me. I'm hearing good arguments either way.

And I'm hearing from you some ambivalence. Either way is fine with you.

If I may sort of address freely, I feel that... Try not to make the presentation for your case if you can, but... No, no, it's more administrative, right? So the idea is that, one, I feel that I was arbitrarily constrained in terms of when I needed to submit documents. Like I got an email that said, submit them by this time. I said, where is that written procedurally or otherwise?

Technically, I only have five days, according to the code, upon servicing of the hearing, or notice of the hearing, to present a case, which in and of itself is documented, but not a whole lot of time. But then, on top of that, to suggest that from the moment that I received this email that provided some procedural guidelines, It offered me, I think it was 10 minutes to speak when I've got a year and a half worth of analysis and experience to share, which is hard to condense, and two days to prepare everything to submit it electronically. It just seemed wholly unreasonable.

Well, if I might offer, then that seems like an argument to say there's a date that will be known well in advance, and you will know that 10 days before that is when things are in. And I would suggest, I hear you saying you have a year and a half of a case to make, but with more thought, 40, you know, 30 minutes, or maybe with a slight extension, it could do it.

Oh,

no, I totally agree. I'm exaggerating. Well, I'm not exaggerating anything, but I didn't think 10 minutes was adequate, right? Especially given the time that it took during the tax collector hearing and knowing that the way I'm going to present is going to be different. But that said, my goal is, my approach to this, is to provide you with everything I can provide that will give you The best opportunity to make the right choice, right? And I've got a lot, you know, what I mean to say, I've got a year and a half of experience really digging into Todd. I don't know anybody else that probably has spent this much time. I mean, I know when I talk to my fellow operators, they're like, we don't know. We're not sure. But obviously it was important to me, and I invested heavily in it.

So that said, I do have a story to tell. I was prepared to tell that story for, you know, 30 minutes. Because I knew of the format, I was prepared to address the plaintiff, although I protest at that part of the format. And it would be nice to call it finished tonight because it's been stressful and it's taken a lot of work for me. So I don't know to the extent to which extra time is really going to – I've presented my case. Okay. Then I'm

hearing you say let's proceed.

As long as you're open – I mean, I know you're not going to make a decision tonight, as long as you – I feel – we are going to make a decision tonight. So then if you haven't had a chance – I'm not saying that my story is going to be able to prevent you all the evidence and the data. It won't. I'm expecting that you will have reviewed

it all. And that's why I'm asking for clarity. We are going to make it, if we proceed tonight, we will make a decision tonight. Then I would object. Okay.

Because then I know you haven't had a chance to read through it all. Okay. And you'd be taking my story, which may or may not satisfy, some people might be satisfied by a story, other people

might not. Just for clarification, so we wouldn't have a part one and a part two later where we want to go for it or postpone? Do you understand? In other words, we—I'm hearing you say more time would help you make your clear case so that we have a chance to read everything that you feel is important.

I think a Part 1 and a Part 2, I would agree with that.

That's not what we're saying.

Okay.

Okay.

So if I was—if we were to proceed tonight, and I was to tell my story, and you were to make a decision after that story, after everybody— I hear you. Then I would say that you haven't thoroughly had a chance to review everything, and thus your decision might not be informed. Understood.

So, with all that being said, and I am an attorney, I think the idea that you have the opportunity Not only to make sure that we read the documents, but that you explain why we're reading the documents, and you'll have a chance to give us a brief ten days ahead of the hearing, and then we'll have the ability to focus in on the things that you're telling us to focus in on.

I

would move that we postpone. I would suggest that that's the way we need to go. I would agree with that.

And it will be less stressful because you've created a packet that we've read and then if you can take what came in today that we weren't allowed or didn't have the time to read to make one package that just says it all and we're good to go. I

agree. And I would ask you to do one other thing if you're willing, which is Give us something that you say, this is really, really important, but it can't be 300 pages. And then you give us something else, say, and if you want more, it's here. Right. So that's the kind of

information. I did try to do that, but I'm not, you know, well versed in these types of. So now you have more time

to get

versed. And I appreciate that.

OK.

I mean,

thank you.

And can I also make a request to staff that we don't need to print off that if that and like anything new coming in we would print off but we that if in the next back packet there's a lot of paper a lot of trees. If it's possible

to do that and if the city doesn't change and resubmit its arguments. Right. There may be changes here. I think it will be difficult to do that. Never mind, okay. Yeah, but to the extent it's possible we will definitely try. Thank you.

I'm fine with only receiving Exhibits. Exhibits in electronic form. I'd like to see, you know, whatever briefs or reports in

written

form. Yes,

sir. Mr. Clerk, so what we'll do, Mr. Clerk, is provide the exhibits electronically to the Council, and in their agenda packet, we'll only print the brief slash staff report.

The single document is very nice too, by the way. The single

document. In one document with exhibits labeled.

So will he be able to add more documents or we'll take what we have in today's agenda and the stuff that was emailed today and he'll just tidy it up?

I'm suggesting that he go back and look at his information again and figure out a way to make it more clear and succinct and then put it into more categories of, you know, must read and then auxiliary, something like that, so that we're clear.

What I hear from you, Mayor, is that you're asking for context in a brief of what each of the documents mean. So, like, here is the audit in question attached as Exhibit A.

That would be very useful.

Right? And here is my analysis on, you know, XYZ attached as

Exhibit B.

Yes, sir. Well, to respond to that, I did attempt to do that to some extent. So I believe that you'll find that that is generally, especially if you read through my, the first email I sent, which contained an overview document. I saw that. And that overview document is very much ordered and sequenced. That was useful. And so that sort of aligns with what you're looking for. But if you haven't had a chance to read it.

No, I did read that. I just had a hard time reading the other 18 documents that were also attached to that. Right. Well, those are the supporting. I understand.

They should be labeled for everybody's benefit so that when you are when you present your case, you can say I'm referencing Exhibit A and then everybody knows what you're talking about.

Right. Oh, I see. I mean, they're labeled, but you're saying in terms of like a symbol. Yeah, but not by title. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. I get you.

But I saw the document you're talking about. That's exactly what I'm hoping for. Thank

you. My hesitation, a little hesitation. In the city attorney's comment regarding reexamining their case based on my submissions, this is where I might find procedural objections, again, because there's no Procedure that says I have to provide my whole case so that they can evaluate it and make a case against me. As it stands, they've done what they thought was right, right? Long ago. They did an assessment. They sent me an audit letter.

argued or I didn't believe that they had done it correctly, so I disputed it. There was conversation back and forth. But anyway, the idea is that, according to the article of Transient Occupancy Tax, There is nothing in the hearing release section that indicates that it's anybody else besides the operator and the hearing. I'm

hearing you. So that is part of your case, I believe, and that's a difference in the reading of that ordinance. Yes. So that's part of what I'm sure you will present. Well, there's an irony there, right? There is an irony there. Yeah. But it seems to me that's part of your case of which we will hear two sides of it. Okay. So I heard us say that we have agreed to postpone.

Yes.

Okay. Yeah. All right. So I hope that we can get that listed as soon as possible. So we know when that 10 days is. Okay.

We will work to...

I mean, that we know of the date as soon as we can, not that the date has to be

as soon as we need. We will work on the Council's availability when there is time. Thanks. Considering there are two hearings, and you only opened the hearing for one, I think we would just need confirmation from you that you're providing the same direction for the second hearing.

Does anybody not feel that way? I'm presuming we mean for both. Yes.

Okay. I just want to be clear. No, no. Thank you. Clarity is wonderful. For both matters, we are going to continue the hearing to a later date, and we will re-notice it with the terms that the Council has provided and provide clear direction in What the hearing procedures are for this applicant and for appellants moving forward.

And then I think we also probably need to set it for a special night because we're looking at two potentially hour plus hearings.

It's unlikely this will be at a regular council meeting. We'll likely have to schedule a special meeting as we did

today. That's what I'm suggesting.

I think that's correct. Thank you

for being here.

Will my submission directly to the Council be available to the City? And why?

Yes, they're a party to this hearing and they have an opportunity to respond. This is not a one-way communication. The City's obligation is to prove that the tax levied against you is appropriate penalties and interest. They have a right to respond to the documents that you're presenting.

I understand that, but that's not what I said. I said, do you have a right to review the documents I pre-sent to the Council?

They've already received copies of them. The fact that you didn't submit the documents to the clerk as we requested so that the city could have access to it was quite unfair. So, yeah,

they've

been provided

all of the documents. Also, one thing I'll add is that anything that comes to us is public. So, actually, if the newspaper wanted to do a public records request, she could see anything that you sent us.

Actually, this is a great point. I didn't mean to cut you off. Thank you, because that satisfies my concern. You're right, so it's public, so that's perfectly fine. It also, hopefully, allows for the requests of information that I submitted that have yet to be delivered to me, be delivered, because they should be delivered within 10 days of the request by law, and that will be very shortly.

Public Records Act requires that the city respond that it has available records within 10 days. It legally requires that we provide records to you promptly. Staff is working on those requests and we'll get them to you promptly. And I believe a response should be going out to you this week whether records exist. They're working on searching to ensure that.

Great. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thanks for being here and for the next steps. And thank you for being here. I appreciate it. All right, we have one more item, which is, actually we have two more items.

Correct.

We are on discussion of number four, the extension of the three-month pilot program with Ojai Valley Chamber of Commerce and establishment of the 2-in-2 Committee. Mr. Harvey, please.

Yes, Mayor, and I would like to note that our Chamber Executive Director is also here in the audience. But basically, this is as promised to you three months ago. We embarked upon a pilot under a scope of services provided by the Chamber. We have successfully reached the end of that term. We received detailed invoices from the Chamber explaining the work that was done for each month during that three-month period. And here we are now, as we talked about at that meeting, recommending that you continue the agreement for the duration of this fiscal year, so that's until June, at the same rate of pay that you were extending to the Chamber under the pilot program, and with the addition of establishing, as is mentioned in the scope of services, a two-by-two committee comprised of two, excuse me, Council members and two Chamber board members, with your determination As to whether you wish to make this an ad hoc or a Brown Act committee.

As I indicated, the Executive Director is here with us, in case you'd like to talk any more. But that is the extent of my brief staff report. Thank you. Thank you.

Well, so there's two items. One would be extending the contract, as I'm seeing it, and the second would be the 2-in-2 committee. So maybe we can take those two separately, just for expediency. I've been very pleased with what I've been seeing so far, but I would love to hear from my colleagues from the Chamber, please.

Oh,

do we have any public comments on this item? Thank you. Thanks.