Ojai City Council Special Meeting

OK, welcome here, everyone, to our regular meeting Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025. Mr. Montgomery, roll call, please.

None submitted, Mayor.

Thank you. City Manager's report.

Yes, Mayor. I'd like to turn things over to Ms. Cervantes to talk about an exciting holiday event. Thanks.

Perfect. I see the

excitement

already. Mayor, council members, we were invited to join the Christmas caravan in Oakview, and we will be getting the Ojai trolley to take us down. And you are all welcome to join us. So please let me know if you all are available and willing to be at the caravan on Saturday, December 13th at 5 p.m. And we will also be inviting commissioners.

Wonderful. Nope, super great. Thank you for that. Anything else?

No, Mayor, that's it for tonight. Thank you.

Okay, thanks. I will now open it to public communications. I have one card so far and that's from Mr. Steve Quilici.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Hello. Right now I'm wearing my City Clerk hat. I'll be back later without it. I wanted to let the public know and the Mayor and City Council members as well that there's a lot going on with the Fair Political Practices Commission and we will be furthering the automation This is for candidates for election or re-election, or their committees, either controlled committees or independent committees, as well as for, excuse me, Other elected officials and planning commissioners.

There will be a lot of different forms that have to be done. The clerk's office, which is to say Weston and a bunch of contractors doing most of the work, will be happy to guide people through that minefield. Also, we have seen from our current Assistant City Attorney information about Senate Bill 707 and Senate Bill 827. The first has to do with the way the city has to do things as it meets as you are meeting now.

The second has to do with training of elected officials and others. And so look for that to come along and keep your eyes peeled on the City Clerk website.

Thank you. Thank you, sir, for all your

great work.

I have no more cards. Anything online?

Yes, Mayor, we do have one raised hand from Brian. Brian, you have the ability to unmute and you may speak.

Hi there. Thank you so much. My name is Brian Schumacher, and I am the Advocacy and Community Impact Manager for Autism Society of Ventura County. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of our dedicated advocacy committee, who mediate weekly to ensure that the voices of individuals with disabilities are heard in policy decisions that affect their lives. I'd like to express our strong support for item five on tonight's agenda, the proposed climate resilience and fire preparedness education partnership with Nordoff High School.

This initiative represents a fantastic opportunity for our community, and we're really excited about its potential impact. We do, however, wish to emphasize that this partnership must be developed through the lens of universal design. It's critical that students with disabilities, including those with autism, are involved at every stage from its creation through its implementation.

Their unique perspectives and needs must be woven into the program to ensure that it truly benefits all students. We believe that by forming connections with advocacy groups like ASVCs, that the city can tap into a wealth of insight that will help shape a more inclusive initiative. We're here to offer our support, definitely, and ready to share our knowledge and to help ensure that every student feels empowered and valued throughout this process.

By actively engaging diverse voices and including those of students with disabilities, we can create a program that exemplifies inclusivity and resilience. So this approach not only aligns with best practices in education, but also enhances our community's ability to respond to climate challenges effectively. So we urge the city, under your leadership, Mayor Gilman, to ensure that this initiative incorporates inclusive strategies and that the voices of all students are represented.

Together, we look forward to leading Ojai to be a model of inclusivity in climate education and resilience, and thank you for your time and dedication to making Ojai a supportive and inclusive community for everyone, really from all of us. To connect with our committee, please email us at advocacy at autismventura.org. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, sir. That's all, Mayor. Okay, great. So we'll move on to the consent calendar. It looks like all we have are minutes this time, but we have a lot of minutes, which shows how much work we've been up to. Is there any comments on the consent calendar first off? I don't have any cards. Does anybody want to pull anything from the consent calendar? No?

Move to approve the consent calendar then? Thank you. Second. Any objections? Wonderful. Okay, on to discussion. Appointment of the new City Attorney and approval of legal services agreement with Alshire and Winder LLP. Mr. Harvey.

Thanks, Mayor, Council. As you well know, since you've been involved in the process since May, the City made a decision to go out for RFQ for City Attorney. We went through a competitive process, interviewed firms, and in the end selected Fellishire and Winder to be the firm representing the City as our new City Attorney. With us tonight, we have Ms. Bethany Burgess, Ms. Carrie Raven, and forgive me, Cody.

Cody Parker, all with us representing the new city attorney's office. It's a five-year contract that is proposed, terms that were included within the submittal. I think, you know, I would rather, rather than talk about the new city attorney's contract in the office, probably turn it over to Ms. Burgess now to say a few words, and then for you for questions, and then we can go from there. Ms. Burgess?

Good evening, Mayor Gilman, members of City Council, members of the community. We are very pleased and privileged tonight to be here and to introduce ourselves to you and to initiate the great work that we'll be doing with the City of Ojai. As the city manager said, I'm Bethany Burgess. I'm a partner with Elshire and Winder, and I've had a history of representing local governments. I've represented cities and other local entities for over 20 years.

Elshire is a full-service local government firm, for those of you who may not be familiar with us. And we have exclusively represented public entities for the last 50 years or so. We have over 65 attorneys in seven offices, six of which are in Southern California, so we have a strong presence in this region. And our firm and our attorneys are dedicated to public service and to, you know, working closely with the communities we represent.

As we've said before, we are beyond thrilled to be able to work in this community. Also, before we pass it back to the Council, I wanted to give Carrie and Cody a moment to introduce themselves as well.

Thank you, Bethany, Mayor and members of the council, to the community and city staff. Thank you for the opportunity to serve the city of Ojai as an assistant city attorney. My background has also been in public law for the last 20 years. I am a technical specialist in land use and planning matters, so I look forward to serving as the general counsel to the city's planning commission.

I am a litigator as well, so to the extent that you'll need those services, I'm here for you. And we have a deep bench of attorneys that are equally passionate and committed to the City of Ojai and the practice of municipal law. Cody, our Deputy City Attorney.

Thank you.

Hello Mayor, members of Council, staff members, and the community. My name is Cody Parker. I am a former teacher turned attorney. Since joining Alshire and Winder, I've been Working primarily in litigation, doing writs, breach of contract, pretty much code enforcement all over. And as well, I'm serving as WSUNY attorney to Rancho Palos Verdes in the city of Fillmore as well.

And likewise, I'm very excited to assume this role and help serve a community that is as engaged and cares as much about this community as you all do. So thank you again. Thank you.

And we can also answer any questions along with city staff or with Ms. Anderson regarding the contract.

Yes, questions, please, if there are any. I have

a question. I assume that our current city attorney has reviewed the contract. Yes. And that the terms are standard and appropriate for what we're

Yes, excellent question. Yes, the contract was reviewed by the current City Attorney's Office. They had some minor requested revisions, which were accepted by Allishyre and Winder. And I'd like to point out that the contract and the terms are consistent with what was submitted in the proposal, which was reviewed by the City Council. And then if I could just further elaborate, sorry, I know the other question that comes up because we're talking about terms.

Really, if you notice in the fiscal impact section of the agenda report, we don't yet have experience working with the firm as far as receiving invoices and billing. We will be better prepared to respond to you if we need to make any type of budget amendment Or not, at the mid-year budget, which will be in February of 2026. I think at the, you know, obviously, sorry, last thing I'll say, from now until that time period, you have more than adequate resources to fund the effort.

May I, if I can make one other thing. I did want to mention for members of the community, I know I had a chance to talk with a few of you. The other person on our team who was unable to attend tonight, Sunny Soltani, she is the managing partner of the firm, which, as I know you all know, means that she has many different things on her plate. She wears a few different hats.

Today, she was involved in an all-day mediation that prevented her from being able to attend tonight, so she will be here. She's fully committed to the City of Ojai as well. I know some of you have worked with her before, and she wanted me to send her regards tonight to all of you and to everyone else who's here.

Thank you for saying that. I have no public comments on this item. Anything online? Yes, please. Oh, more questions. Sorry, please.

Yeah, no, this is just a general sort of clarification. We had spoken when we were interviewing and doing due diligence that Ms. Saldani would be a co-counsel, but from what I understand, that government code doesn't allow a co-counsel per se, just because the language is specific to a, meaning single, but that for all intents and purposes, Ms. Saldani will be a co-council.

She will be. She will be heavily involved. We've already, you know, we've been in communication multiple times a week. I think, you know, it would be appropriate for me to just say on the record that, you know, she's fully available to each of you and, you know, will be here at meetings as needed. But also we'll be here for special meetings and other matters as needed.

So as early as next week, if, you know.

Yeah. I just wanted the community to know as well because many of them have associated with Ms. Saldani before and would welcome that. That presence. Yeah, exactly. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Rule. That's helpful. No raised hands on Zoom, Mayor. Okay. Well, we have the contract. We spent a lot of time with these guys. Ready for a motion? Yes?

Please. I'll make a motion that we move forward with the contract appointing our new City Attorney with Al Shire and Winder.

Second. And I'll just make a quick comment that I don't want to go in too much to the very lengthy process of interviewing candidates, and I felt like we were really fortunate that the, you know, the two final candidates that we came up with were each one going to be, you know, anticipated to be a winner for the city, though one thing I would say about the Alishar firm that kind of stuck out The most for me is their dedication to public service, which kind of translates to, you know, our community is first and foremost in how they provide their representation. And I really appreciated the way they conveyed that to us.

I suspect that this is going to be the first of many opportunities for the community to get to know you and ask you questions.

We look forward to it.

Motion passes.

And if I may, just a small privilege, I just want to say that over the last few weeks, As we've been preparing for this evening, I have had a number of calls and virtual meetings with your outgoing City Attorney and Assistant City Attorney, and they have been incredibly supportive and incredibly helpful, and especially Ms. Anderson has been very gracious and very accommodating and very helpful. So I just want to note that for the record.

I'm not surprised to hear that one bit. Thank you. And before we go on to 2B, I do want to say that I want to acknowledge Mr. Summers' longtime service to this city, and he's not here today, so we will postpone that honoring for when he can be here. And also, Ms. Anderson and everything they have done for us is really incredible, and we'll have his acknowledgement.

So moving on to 2B, Approval of the Fifth Amendment to Legal Services with Colitano, Highsmith, and Whatley. I've never said that whole name of it. I'm like, with Ms. Anderson and Mr. Summers.

Please. Yes, thank you, Mayor. As is standard practice in municipalities when you transition from one legal firm to another, there is the opportunity to allow for a continuation contract with your prior city attorney firm. Doing this allows for business continuity. It allows for the new city attorney firm to get up to speed on the matters that are right before the council and allow some matters that maybe are trailing to remain with the prior.

This is a City Council decision. There are a number of items that Culentano, Highsmith, and Whatley could continue to represent the city in, and I'd be happy to discuss any of those with you if you so choose. This would be an amendment to the existing contract.

I'm just curious, because I know when we spoke that you guys were going to get together and decide what's best, like how far you're into something that we have going. And I don't know if you've come up with a number, how many files, just out of curiosity?

We do not have a specific number yet. We have gone through, at length, a number of the pending matters, more significant matters before the city. We've discussed and reviewed pending litigation. You know, talked through some of the various contractual matters and other matters that are coming before the City Council. And, you know, there may be some that I think it makes sense for the Colentino firm to stay engaged on, but we will bring that back to you for more information as we go forward.

And so there's no, I'm not seeing anything in terms of a commitment. It's basically that we will go as it goes on, we will determine as time goes on what makes the most sense.

Right, I think the request would be, there's yes, yes and no. The request would be for you to approve the contract so that in the event that we decide to transition some things, excuse me, keep some things with Culentano, you have that opportunity to do so.

You don't

have to.

Thank you. I will add that it also allows us to be available to Ms. Burgess. As you know, Ojai is a very special place and you have a lot of I don't want to say complicated, but there's a lot of history involved, nuance in Ojai. And so that allows us to be available to provide some of that background and how we got to certain decisions and share that history with Ms. Burgess and be available.

Thank you.

So I did have one. So I completely understand about availability for, you know, background information and for continuity. As far as, you know, Continuing with certain pieces, specifically where you would be the lead, where the Calatano firm would main the lead attorney or attorney's firm, I would like that to come back to the City Council so that we are completely aware of how this is divvied up and what is being continued.

So, I don't know if that needs to be an adjustment in this amendment or how we would actually ensure that that would come back for.

We'd be happy to, if I could just, sorry not to step on you. We could take that as direction if the council so pleases and we could, you could approve the contract this evening with the understanding that that approval comes with a requirement that we bring back The list of proposed items that would be continued and that of course would also be a council decision to pursue those or not.

Okay. Yeah, I think that would I would like that if the rest of my colleagues agree.

That sounds fine to me.

Just a quick question. I'm just assuming that the terms are essentially the terms that existed over the past period of time and it's just being re-upped with the same terms but under this new context. essentially special counsel to our

city attorney. Yes, essentially terms of special counsel. Yes, I would agree with that characteristic.

I will acknowledge that the rates have shifted to our outside counsel.

That's what

I was just saying.

I would say they're still on par with what we are currently using and what we're about to use. Yes, I would agree. Okay. Well, I'm happy to make a motion that we approve the Fifth Amendment to these legal services with the condition that Ms. Rule pointed out, that which projects would go forward will be brought to count.

Mayor, can we check in on public comment?

Oh, we can, but I don't have anything. Do you have anything online?

We have no raised hands.

Okay.

Thank you for that reminder. No. Wonderful.

I'll second your motion. Thank

you.

Any more conversation?

Motion

passed. Thank you. And I do just want to make one belated comment. I agree with everything the mayor commented about our thanks towards the Colin Powell. Absolutely.

Ms. Anderson, this has nothing to do with my lack of appreciation for you. It's through the roof. In Mr. Summers, I've never met anybody with that good of a memory in my life. And that will be a real treasure for our new firm going forward.

He served with you for 10 years.

Yes. It's wonderful.

But also, you have guided us through some really difficult decisions and really hard times, and you have worked really in a creative way to accomplish some of the goals that we've had, doing lots of homework and lots of research. And it's been a joy to work with you.

100%. Well, to be continued. All right, so now we will take a small break. We have some treats over there. So enjoy, get to know our new folks, and appreciate our current. Thank you. 1, 2, 1, 2, check. Okay. Oh, yeah, Lucas, do you want to come up?

Yes, we are.

We are starting again. Come sit here.

It's his first

meeting, so. Boy, that's so far from the truth. Welcome back, everyone. We are back in session and we will move on to item number three, approval of the amendment number one to the Memorandum of Understanding, Development and Management of Tiny Homes at 408-410 North Montgomery Street.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yes,

thanks. Just for the record, my name is Lucas Seibert. I'm the Community Development Director here for the City of Ojai. The item you have before you tonight is, in fact, an approval of an amendment to the MOU that was brought before this body in 2024 and agreed upon. What they're looking for is the expiration date is set to expire at the end of this year. They're looking for a continuation of this MOU as a part of a project at 408 through 410 North Montgomery Street, where they have, in fact, applied to the Community Development Department and Planning Department for the design review phase of this project. It has not been deemed complete in terms of moving forward for workshops and Commission and before this body for final consideration, but they have submitted and are moving forward in kind.

So what they're asking for is basically an extension to December 31st of 2028 and or an execution of the ground lease for the subject property, which is at the corner of Franklin and Montgomery Street, north of Ojai. Vacant lot.

Questions

for staff? Yeah, so my first read was, my immediate reaction was, I want to get this project. Thank you very much. Thank you.

So you're talking about like a check-in versus, so just to answer your first question, which is the 2028 takes it to the completion date versus, you know, getting permits or getting finals. It's the completion date is what they're looking at. And they're really kind of following the format that they've submitted for a grant recently, for the home grant, which basically they had to provide a timeline. That timeline itself puts it all the way out to 2028, which if you look at the staff report, you see that, for instance, the first real milestone is breaking ground in April of this next year.

Can I reference that? That's page 66 or two of two in that packet. Yep. And Mr. Whitman, I was going to ask something very similar. So construction begins at least according to this April 2026 and then the deadline for the final drawdown of home funds is the end of 2028.

Correct.

But when it says home sales complete by May 2027, That would satisfy your desire, it seems to me. Am I getting what you're asking right, Mr.

Whitman? Yeah, I mean, in general, but I guess my question was if we're, you know, breaking ground on construction in April, isn't that, by then, shouldn't we be looking at more permanent agreements than the MOU. And I... Something coming before this body

for a

final consideration. Yeah, right. So that we're... So we're getting locked into that, like, the lease document and maybe some additional documents to lock in what's going to happen. And, you know, one of my thoughts was that we've got... Well, I don't... That's a discussion issue. So that's where I'm coming from. Like I said, it was my first read-through where I thought, oh, this is going way too slow. I, you know, got into it further and saw that no, there is incremental progress throughout what's in the agreement and what's being proposed. But I would like to see us kind of, you know, move forward. And one of my thoughts about that Well, again, that's a discussion. I do have some more questions, but if somebody else wants to

jump in. If I could add, I think part of the reason for that later date is because they're still seeking grant funding, and so they haven't been awarded the home grant funding through the county yet, and so that would give them the space to pursue other grants if they were unsuccessful. And the timeline that's being provided in the staff report is not in our agreement. It's something that they have provided for the home grant.

So is there a date when that would be accepted? Because it's federal funding, which that's scary.

Yes. That is a really good question. Do you know offhand, Lucas? I

don't know offhand. Is there a representative? There is. Oh, wonderful. Come up. Thank

you.

Hi there. I'm Katie Norris. I'm with Habitat for Humanity, Ventura County.

I move the microphone closer down to you. Thanks. Wonderful. So here's your card. Okay,

great. Thanks. Let me just pull up some points here, but to answer your specific question, we have been in close collaboration with the county on the uncertainty around federal funding. I think at this time they feel pretty confident that this is safe. Our expenditure deadline is the end of 2028. However, in order to enter into a contract with HUD, some things need to happen before May 15th, 2026, one of which is a building permit.

So we would absolutely accept, you know, a more permanent agreement, you know, ground lease or something like that, you know, as opposed to just extending the MOU for three years. I think we put in three years just to cover all of our bases for that federal funding.

So I think this is a two-part question. Have you ever had a time when the funding hasn't come through, and if the funding doesn't come through, what are our options after that?

To my knowledge, we have not experienced a loss of federal funding. If we don't receive this half a million that we are counting on for this project, we're still committed to the project, it may push the start date back. But we are doing everything we can. We're in the NEPA review process right now. We're trying to get all of those ducks in a row so that we could enter into that contract with HUD, or the county can enter into that contract with HUD.

This is another part of the question, too. If the funding doesn't come through, because there is so much uncertainty right now, so that's the reason why I'm extra interested in this, in order to expedite a project, would it ever be within the scope of what you all would do to rearrange the designs or look at a different plan, like tiny homes are manufactured, something along those lines?

Yes, so they are tiny homes as currently designed, but we would consider, you know, cost-saving a redesign or a cost-saving

redesign. And I'm hoping, my fingers are crossed that it won't happen, but I just wanted to get some clarity. Thank you.

My question for you, I guess, if I heard you right, you're saying you would happily accept something that's more stringent, but you're offering this, or it's been proposed to offer this to give you the most flexibility, but is there an option that's more useful to you to further ensure funding?

In order to move forward with the contract with HUD, we need our NEPA review completed and our building permits. In order to, you know, move through all of those drawdowns of that funding, you know, that involves the home sales, so we need a ground lease. So really, a ground lease would be number one.

Yeah, so do you have a A sense of whether the funding is going to come through?

I believe it

is. I guess this is more for our staff, and it kind of goes back to my original question. If we're moving down this road towards construction, which I'm happy that I discovered that is really where we're going, Don't we need to have that ground lease in place as a starting point for beginning construction?

I agree. Yeah, so the ground lease was something I wasn't completely aware of, but it's something that certainly needs to kind of be in the forefront versus something you're seeing at the 11th hour. So that's something we'll certainly have a conversation with offline. I think the other thing to point out is, so this project just as a whole has been before this body, but it hasn't really had the chance to air out throughout the community. So they've already agreed to a workshop before going to Planning Commission, and typically with these types of projects, it's typically a two Planning Commission meeting where there's the opportunity for questions and then a decision or recommendation. And then it would become before this body. So we're looking at, you know, the first quarter, basically, four meetings to really kind of hash out, or workshops, I guess you could say, to a certain degree, to kind of hash out this project and kind of provide it to the community.

Not to say that the community hasn't come and spoke on this, but really, when we provide official notification within that three, 500-foot radius, it's a different conversation once we get to a workshop and official public hearing.

Just to say what I think you said, there would be a public workshop and then there would be two Planning Commission meetings.

Yeah, I

anticipate

with projects like this, it is on and I've already talked to Habitat about this. It only makes sense to have that first opportunity to kind of comment and not feel so rushed. And then the second meeting is responding to those questions with determination.

No, thanks. Ms. Rule, did you have something?

Yeah, what is a DEPA review? You just said a DEPA review? Or did you say DEPA? Oh, sorry,

a NEPA review. A NEPA, okay. Yeah, because of the federal funding, we have to do a full NEPA review.

Yeah,

yeah, or DEPA.

Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Okay, so again, I have one more question, and I think this was at least partially answered, but If we start the project and the funding doesn't come through, then what happens next?

We are committed to completing the project. So whatever doesn't come through federally, we will pull from our general fund, you know, our donations, our restore proceeds, et cetera.

OK, thank you. OK, yeah.

I've got so many, I have questions. I'm just curious, so for the last 19 months, what has been going on? Because I haven't heard anything about anything, so it's, I don't know what you guys have been working on, just curiosity.

Organizationally, or with this project? With this project. Our planning team isn't here, so I wish they could speak better to that, but I know that we just submitted or we did a resubmittal just now, or a couple weeks ago. Yeah,

it was in October. So, a couple of things. One is, we started the initial conversations after the MOU went through, I would say probably a couple weeks after that. Since then, we probably had in between four and five conversations, which then led to an application that was submitted, I believe, at the end of At the beginning of 2025, and then we've had, we sent out revisions and then have just recently had resubmittal in October. So over and during that span between the first quarter of 2025 and October, There was conversations and regular meetings just to kind of understand the scope and the information that was being required of this project versus what they felt like they had the capacity to do.

So it's just kind of getting familiar with our standards, Habitat then kind of figuring out how their, you know, based on their experiences and the information that they have, can bring something forward. And their design team has been very responsive up to this point.

Well, I have questions, but it's into, you know, this, the fine paperwork, you know, like, as far as, you know, median income and all of this stuff going through this, I don't know if now's the time to ask questions with that or if we should wait.