Ojai City Council, Regular Meeting

Welcome back. Thanks for waiting, everybody. And I will turn it over to Ms. Anderson for a report out.

Thank you. So for items one and three, direction was given to staff, and I'll turn it over to Mr. City Manager for item two.

Thank you for item number two. Direction was also provided to staff. And in that vein, a near-term closed session will be scheduled so that the City Council may continue their recruitment and selection process.

Thank you very much. And with that, we will end the closed session. And we will open the open session. Great. Mr. Montgomery, roll call, please.

Yes, Mayor, I would like to report out that I'm appreciative of the city sending me to the League of California Cities Conference this past week, where I was able to network with colleagues and spend some time with my two council members who went, Mayor Pro Tem Lang and Council Member Whitman. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay, we'll go to public communications. These are items that are not on the agenda. And I'll start with Ron Salarzano, please, and then Kathleen Nolan, and then Larry Stengelt. Hello.

All right. Hello, members of council. My name is Ron Solorzano. I am the regional librarian for the Ojai Valley, and I wanted to give you a little update on what we have going on at the library. To begin, I want to talk about a special event that we have coming up in early November. On Saturday, November 8th, we are going to have local author Amanda R. Edwards, who's going to come to the library to talk about her book, Quiet Voice, Awesome Power.

So, as a description here, author and mystic Amanda R. Edwards approaches human spiritual gifts with both delight and practical wisdom for the very real crises of our era. From elucidating your mysterious encounters to teaching simple practices to boost your spirit connection, Amanda aims to equip you for full body, mind, spirit engagement with the world. Join this conversation about her book with curiosity and even a bit of skepticism to learn about the power you might not realize we all hold.

So this is, again, we're bringing a local author to the library to talk about their book on Saturday, November the 8th. That's going to be at 2 p.m. In addition, we have our continuing slate of programs at the library. We have, of course, our story times on Wednesday mornings. We have our pause for reading, where children can read to a therapy dog, also on Wednesdays in the afternoon.

We have our Enrichment Center going on in the afternoons Monday through Thursday. We have a few items for adults as well. Our Ukulele Club on Mondays, and then the Poetry Readings on the third Tuesdays. Just a lot going on. It's all still on our website. Also, you all have probably continued to be aware that we are planning an upcoming renovation. Unfortunately, we still do not have details on exactly when that's going to start, but we are hoping to have, you know, all of our logistics sorted out by then.

Right now, my guess is it would be no earlier than the end of November, but as details are available, we will send them out. The sorting

out or the beginning of the construction by the end of November?

We're hoping to start construction by the end of November. Thank you. But again, that might, that depends on how the plans come and go and what

changes need to be made. Understood.

But that's all I have for now.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Kathy Nolan, please, and then Larry Stengelt.

Council, staff, Kathy Nolan, I'm here representing the Ojai Valley Green Coalition. I'm actually here with an announcement and an invitation. I wanted to let you know that while I was here in August and I did a presentation on the 8-acre campus master plan process, and that was the schematic drawings, we have now moved on to a concept drawing. So on October 25th, This Saturday, we actually have three related events that I wanted to share. The first one is we have a volunteer cleanup day. We actually had one, was that two weeks ago? Mayor Gilman was there.

But we're doing another one from 8.30 to 11. And it's going to be in the restoration area. And we do require registration if you're interested. And I'll give you our website name when I'm done. But you can go to the register, and then that same day from 10 to 1045, no registration required. I'm going to be doing a site tour of the campus, so people can meet me. It'll be out front of City Hall. This is on our website as well.

And we're going to walk and show basically kind of the lay of the land what's here. Surprisingly, a lot of people don't even know that this jewel is located here. So they'll be back. And then from 1045 to 2 p.m. inside of our conference room right here at Kent Hall, we are going to have an open house and present a concept plan. But in addition, our process drawings so people can come and They can take a look, they can ask questions, and then we're also going to be having a programming survey there to get further information from people.

And then in addition, we're going to be posting the plans and the survey online, so if somebody can't actually attend, they will have a chance to do that. We're going to run that through the end of November. Let's see what else. Oh, and then just two other exciting things that are coming up, but it's student-related, but I just thought I would share it. In November, so November 15th and 22nd on, two Saturday mornings, we're partnering, and this is all with the City of Ojai, but also PACS Environmental is partnering with us on the volunteer days.

But the student days will be, it's an education day, so they'll learn some information about the restoration project, and they're going to collect acorns and plant acorns, because they need to restock some that didn't make it over the last cycle. So it's a really good opportunity. We're reaching out to actually all the high schools, but we're limiting it to 15 students at a time, just so it's manageable.

And then I do want to say, even though it's not on our website yet, planning to do more kind of volunteer education days, and hopefully ongoing. So people get, you know, they can come and they want to get their hands dirty.

Thank you so much. Appreciate all you're doing. And then Larry Stangle, please.

Good evening, Larry Steingold. A couple of questions, please. Status of the Carl Almeida investigation, where is that? I'm assuming that because nothing has been going on that we've heard of, I've heard of, but it doesn't mean anything. There probably may not be anything there, but maybe there is. The status of all the lawsuits are more where they are and the costs of those lawsuits and what would be the downside or the, what's the word I'm looking for, liability to the city if losses.

Also, the consent calendar seems to be growing. By leaps and bounds, and I quite honestly don't think how you all can handle all that besides your living and lives and what have you. It just seems that it's overwhelming, and by consent, it really doesn't come up. It's just sort of like we look at it and say, yeah, go for it. And some of those are very prudent and very proper, but some of them seem to be more involved.

And so I would please urge you to have less in the consent calendar that seem to be more involved.

Thank you, Mr. Stengel. Anything online?

Mayor, we have no raised hands, but we do have some Zoom participants in our hybrid format. Zoom participants, we are taking public comments for our general public comment period. And we'll just give you one moment if you were intending on raising your hand.

And while we're waiting for that, Mayor, I can respond. Please.

Thank

you. Mr. Alameda is tentatively scheduled for the December meeting.

Thank you. And no raised hands, Mayor. We can move on.

Thanks for that. So now on to this consent calendar that we hear rumors about. Its size. No, it is large. I agree with that. Is there anything anybody would like to pull from consent?

Yes. Go ahead. I would like to pull number 6 and number 12.

Number 6 and number 12. Okay, anybody else? Yeah, I would like

to pull numbers one and two.

Okay. Yeah, I was going to pull six, but it's already been pulled. Great.

No, take your time. All your microphone, please,

thank you. No worries. I agree with Mr. Steingold, so much stuff. I just had some questions on item, what is this? Item six.

Okay.

And what do we have through 12? Did they say number nine?

No.

I have an issue or question on that.

Okay, so I'll pull number nine. Okay,

and Rachel pulled 11, right? So that's- No, 12. 12. So 11. Oh, 12,

that's okay.

Okay, 12, not 11, I'm sorry.

No problem. Okay, so tell me, let me make sure I got it correct. We have not pulled three, four, five. Seven was pulled by the city manager. We have not pulled eight, 10, and 11. Oh, I do want

to pull number

five. Number 11, okay.

And I guess I'm going to pull number 14. This is crazy.

That's not consent.

That's not consent. Oh, great, great. And also the custom-built, yeah, number

eight. Number eight. All right, so then I'm gonna say one more time. We have not pulled three, four, five, and ten.

I'll move to approve those

three. Are those 3, 4, 5, and 10? 3, 4, 5, and 10. Okay.

I'm abstaining.

Okay. All those in favor? Mr. Montgomery, please, why don't you call?

Yes, Mayor. Mayor Pro Tem Lang? Yes. Council Member Whitman? Yes. Council Member Rule?

Abstaining.

Council Member Mang? Yes. Mayor Gilman? Yes. Motion passes.

Okay. So then I want to ask Ms. Anderson something, just because I keep forgetting how to do this part. So with items pulled from consent, would I ask for public comments on each item as we discuss it?

That's up to you, Mayor. You could, since they're all on consent, you can ask for

any comments on anything that

we are going to discuss right now. If you'd prefer to take public comment on each of them individually, you may do that as well.

Mm hmm. I'm opting for the all at once for the obvious reason. So I guess that's going to be my invitation to the audience. Does anyone want to speak on any of these consent items that we are going to discuss? Please come up. Thank you, Mr. Miley.

And Mayor, I'll speak to our Zoom participants. We are taking public comment on all consent calendar items.

Thanks. Maybe not all consent, right? Except three, four, five and ten. Thank you, Mr. Miley.

Hello. This is item 12. OK. I didn't expect to see this, even though the city recruited from Fillmore recently. There was no comment about the local recruitment challenges. And there's a section I wonder about. It's titled Contractors' Responsibilities. Looks like they're paying some benefits. Are we paying benefits? Also, the money chart's confusing. $59 a day?

What are they paying their drivers? How does that compare to what we're paying our driver? Maybe now is the opportunity to get public details on our trolley driver recruitment and management of the system, e.g., number of drivers employed, number of being trained, number of applicants over the last six months, Number of completed training in driving? Number rejected for less than acceptable credentials?

And what were the rejected reasons? And where's the brand new position that we're going to offer with benefits? Where's that? My opinion. It looks to me like there's a policy direction going on here for a full-time use of the transit company for our system, and this is the first stage. That's not good. Okay, item number 11, survey question for the economic diversification part of the general plan. Seems to me that the Oye Valley Chamber of Commerce should be consulted on these survey questions.

They're the center of our economic energy. Please involve them. See, I guess that's it.

Thank you, Mr. Miley. Mr. Stengel, I have a card for you for number 12. Thanks.

Thank you. I agree with Mr. Miley on a lot of the things. My question is, because we do subcontract lots of things here, I mean, if we're going to do a better system, are we going to subcontract or not? And maybe we should, or maybe we shouldn't. But I think getting proposals that benefit the city from outside sources need to be compared to what we're doing.

Just on the basic fact of transparency about putting it out to bid, does anybody want to be our subcontractor for two buses, three buses? Here's our schedule. This is what we want, and what's the cost, and can you deliver, and can you do it better than we can? And if you can, fine. If you can't, then do it in-house. But I think that's part of it. And on General Levin, just keep doing what you're doing and finding out who wants to come here and try to make that happen.

Thank you, Mr. Stengel. Anything online? No? No, Mayor. Thank you. OK, so let's start with number one.

OK. I'll jump right in, please. So, you know, I would like to ask the finance department at some point to categorize these amounts by sort of sector, like how much are we spending on legal, how much are we spending on investigative processes, how much Are we – so there's just a lot of – alphabetical is not really kind of helping me. So, for instance, I'd like to know, you know, how much we have spent on CROL so far for forensic financial investigation. I know that that's coming up, so we'll be discussing that because I assume that that forensic financial investigation was with our ex- Assistant City Manager, Cara Alameda.

But those are big numbers. And then we have Liebert, Cassidy, and Whitmore, July and August 2025 investigative services. That's 20,000, and I think that they've shown up at other, I'd have to go through the rest of the warrants, but, you know, I'd like, if not by sector, at least by company, so I can get a sense of, you know, how much we're actually spending on this. I'm sure that it will be I'd just like it itemized in a different way.

So maybe if I could ask some clarifying questions. So the warrant register is a recounting of checks that were already mailed out. And I think what you're asking for is a little bit different. It's related but different. What you're asking for is like a quarterly report or a biannual report by vendor, perhaps, if that vendor was paid more than once. I'm just, you know, trying to freestyle as to. So, okay. So maybe perhaps what we could do, if you're okay with it, is come back with a concept review item so we get this right as to how you want this report to appear. Is that acceptable?

Yeah, that would be great. Thank you. I think that would be very, very helpful because I end up making these lists of amounts, and then I calculate them, and then I'm pretty sure that the dates are OK, but then I have to go back and check the warrant to make sure that I got the date OK, you know. So it would be helpful to have something formatted, you know, in a spreadsheet that would help me. That would be great. Yeah. And then secondarily, I noticed two things with Myer's Knave, that we have three warrants from them in a total of, and that is our attorneys who are working on the reimbursement mediation situation with myself and the City, that we are at, in the last three, September 9th, August 12th, and July But it's got a September date where it's $16,365.

I was not in that closed session, but I hope that we're getting our money's worth on that because I would say we are now probably in the area of $170,000 paid out to law firms on this mediation. And I know from my team exactly where we are. So, I just want to point that out for transparency that it's costing. And secondarily, I see that we have a $10,000 item for California Consulting for grant writing.

I may be just drawing a blank, but I know that we talked about getting a grant writer, but I know California Consulting does specific types of grant writing.

Yeah, so this is a check to pay for their services for, I can't remember the term, it might be their annual fee. They derive money, a very nominal amount for their annual fee, and then a portion of a grant if they do. They are successful in landing it, so we have a bi-weekly meeting with them where they're scouring every and any type of grant that might be something that's applicable to

us. Have they written a grant for us as to

date? We've got a couple in the pipeline, so I hope to have some news on that shortly.

And can you refresh my memories to like what their specialty is? I know I read about it all the time.

It's across the board. But so, for instance, the two that are in the pipeline, one relates to it's like a tree tree planting reimbursement grant. Another relates to infrastructure, if it's specialized asphalt. I mean, there's all types of. OK. Yeah. Opportunities that just simply would apply to the city.

Thank you very much.

I think it's McChang, MChang Finance Consulting Service for $11,620. And that's kind of what I'm talking about. There's a lot around finance and software and training, and I'm having a hard time really being able to put those pieces together and get a sense of how that's moving forward, although I'm sure that it is. So perhaps in that concept review or something like that, you could come back. And give us an update on how those pieces around financial services consulting software is coming to a better understanding for us and fruition for us would be great. Thank you.

Thank

you. I appreciate that. I'm going to put one and two in one category since they're warrants just from different time periods. Any other questions about one and two?

So I just see here that MB Chang and Associates was in for $15,000 as well as the $11,620. So we're up to $26,620.

Yes, thank you. So can I get a motion to approve 1 and 2? I'll move. Thank you. I'll second. Please.

I'll call Mayor.

Thanks.

Mayor Gilman. Yes. Council Member Mang. Yes. Council Member Rule.

Council

Member Whitman. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Lang. Yes.

Thank you. Okay, so we'll move to number six, ratify the appointment to fill midterm vacancy on the Planning Commission.

I pulled this one because I usually when we have a commissioner who is, we're appointing, there is a resume or there's some kind of information and I was curious to know a little bit more about her And so, yeah, I wanted to hear about that.

That's why I pulled it. Good. Because I'm not objecting at all. I hear that. And my only reason for pulling it was to say, number one, that John Trent was a fantastic planning commissioner. We're going to miss so many people. Absolutely. He really sacrificed a lot to our community. He was fantastic. Katrina Schmidt was our Mara. When I was on the Planning Commission 20 years ago.

And she worked her entire career as a planner, a community planner. And she then, you know, retired. And she told me she, you know, just kind of missed I think she's going to be a fantastic asset because she knows so much about planning. She'll understand all of the planning concepts that come through, and I think she's a fantastic person.

Clarifying question, who was the

committee? It was myself, Ms. Mang, and then John Trent. And so it was unanimous to come forward here, but I wanted to help Ms. Mang. No, we felt with

her that she was a great fit and that the committee could just hit the ground running. They wouldn't have to take the time to educate to do because she does have so much knowledge and so tied to the community and all of that. So I think she's a great fit. And then we just have now, I guess, I don't know when that comes into play for John's

Thank you. Mr. Harvey, I know we put something in the paper, I believe, correct? I'll let the Chief Deputy

City Clerk answer that. Thank you, yes.

Yes, I know Mayor, yourself, and the Chair of the HPC have been in talks. And as soon as we are ready, we will issue the rotating council member and then do our normal outreach, public outreach, so the public has the opportunity to apply and see it and go through the process.

So can I just clarify, like a time, what is when you're ready? Because this has been open for several months, and I'm just curious as to

when.

Is there something that you're waiting on from me?

It depends on the commission chair and the mayor, and what we're really waiting on is the rotating council member, because it's a rotation list set by municipal code in the clerk's office. So once we know that we can issue that rotating council member, then that would begin.

And why can't we do that? We can do it. Let's do it. As of now. Let's do it. Yeah, no, they're missing their person.

Yeah.

OK.

Yeah. And so we're still and I know that this would depend on your workload, of course, but whether or not we do things, you know, one after the other or whether or not two or two appointments can be happening simultaneously. And I know that it has to do with your workload. And I know that we've gone back and forth over, you know, it's got to be one after the other because that just keeps everything, all the ducks in a row. And we've also said, well, but if we get backlogged,

we can

do more. So a little clarity sort of on that would probably help at least the commission that's in the queue. You know, they're like, well, You know, just as a point of note. Anyway, that was just a comment because they don't really know. No, but thanks for clarifying. So I didn't

realize that was the state of the

process. Yes.

Yeah. And yeah,

staff can handle multiple nomination committees at the same time. I would say that there is discretion in your grassroots finding of these volunteers in the community. So there is some wiggle room there to finding these quality candidates.

But we also advertise in the paper. Correct. So my thought is that's actually the stage we should be in for the HPC now. OK,

hearing

that, I will,

you know, start tomorrow. OK,

we'll

assign that

council.

And then you start. Yeah.

Have we done. An announcement of the most recent opening on the. That's correct. And for the for the second planning. Yeah. Commissioned vacancy. Yes, we have. So we have done

that one. And did we give them a deadline for applying?

I completed the first requirement to notice the unplanned vacancy. And so we'll continue with more Friday postings in the Ojai Valley News. And it is up on the city's website right now.

But there's not a deadline to apply, I think was the question. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Should we do that? Well, assuming that Ms. Schmidt will go forward, we do have a quorum so they can meet. They're not prohibited from meeting. Yeah, I mean, it'd be nice to say, I don't know, a month from now, we get everybody and start the process.

That's what I was thinking, is put a 30-day window to receive applications.

OK,

and just finally, so I think especially well, I think it'd be very nice if as standard procedure we did have a resume, an application, a CV. And as well, I would like to hear from the two members sort of what what struck them, you know, as is a really good choice that would give us insight. I

totally agree about the resume, and I was going to do that, but it got pulled, so I figured we would talk about it,

but

the resume is a good call.

Yeah, yeah, and I think just hearing from, you know, the people who nominated, why they thought that this candidate was a particularly good candidate,

would be very helpful. I would just mimic 100% what Ms. Banks said. I think it's going to be a great fit for the commission, somebody who's going to actually help them with a gap in knowledge, and that is the nuts and bolts, right? Especially if things like zoning, so I think it'd be wonderful.

And another woman on the board.

And another woman.

Yes. So all of those reasons

are

really fabulous and it's good to hear them. Thank you.

Great. OK. I move that we nominate Katrina Schmidt to the Planning Commission.

I'll second.

Great. Mr. Montgomery, I guess since we're just calling, you know.

Council Member Whitman? Yes. Council Member Mang? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Lang? Yes. Council Member Rule?

Abstain.

Mayor Gilman?

Yes.

Okay.

On to number eight. Approve the purchase of the new custom-built dais for the City Council Chambers in Kent Hall.

And I am just waiting, Mayor, if you don't mind for Mr. Armstrong. There he is.

Yay!

Thank you.

Now, did we have some disconnect in the drawing from the description? That was some of the feedback I thought we had received.

Yeah, so the estimate was written and they gave me an A and B. The A was 4, the B was 5. The reason I decided to go with the B is because it would put a lake right between Mary Gilman's place.