Ojai City Council, Regular Meeting

Okay, we're ready.

Thank you, I appreciate it. All right, thanks guys for waiting, I appreciate it. Thanks for your patience. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Ojai City Council, Tuesday, March 24th. Roll call, please.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Do I have any changes to the agenda?

No, I'll make a motion to approve.

Second, any objections? Okay, we will move on. So we have a presentation tonight, Spark the Night, with a proclamation recognizing World Parkinson's Day, April 11, 2026. Mr. Harvey.

Thank you, Mayor, and I think I'm going to turn things over to Ms. Cervantes and former Ojai Mayor, Mr. Johnny Johnson, to receive the proclamation. Ms. Cervantes, do you want to tee this up for us?

Yes, so the mayor does have a proclamation for Parkinson's Day, which is April 11th. On April 11th, City Hall and our city facilities will have the blue light that will signify the remembrance of World Parkinson's Day.

I think I'll just read just the briefest, the beginning and the end. Whereas Parkinson's disease is caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors and manifests in motor challenges such as tremors, rigidity, slowness, as well as non-motor symptoms, including depression, sleep disorders, cognitive decline, and difficult swallowing, there is no cure.

And we want to highlight this and proclaim that we as a City Council, on behalf of all of us, and myself as a City Council, hereby proclaim April 11th, 2026 as World Parkinson's Day in Ojai. I encourage all residents, organizations, and businesses in Ojai to join this effort by displaying blue lights, Participating in awareness activities and standing in solidarity with the Parkinson's community as we illuminate hope, promote understanding, and support the ongoing work to end Parkinson's disease.

I'm here on behalf of Charles Levin.

Some of you may know Charles. In fact, he was a journalist for the Star newspaper and covered all the governments in West County. And Charles can't be here tonight because he is in New York. He just got back from a conference in Washington, D.C. on this subject. And he himself was not too long ago diagnosed with Parkinson's and he's participating in a clinical trial. So he contacted me and asked me if I would contact the city staff and the mayor and see if they, if the City of Ojai, who has a reputation for doing a lot of things first and doing a lot of things, ...that are kind to both the environment and to humanity. And in this case, this is a disorder that, you know, sometimes you go out of nowhere. It's not—they used to think of it as an old person.

Michael J. Fox was 29 years old when he was diagnosed. And he's done a lot of work and spent a lot of money studying the thing. So I'll just give you the high points or the low points of the high points to the low points. There is a diagnosis of this particular disorder, one every six minutes on the planet. The last time, well, a study was done back in the 70s that showed that Americans were being diagnosed about 60,000 a year.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation along with the Parkinson's Foundation conducted another study in 2022. Now the annual diagnosis of new patients or people with the disorder, 90,000. That's a 50% increase in that period. So it's the fastest growing neurological disorder, and they don't really know what's causing it. And so, in light of, without getting too political, the current administration of our Health and Human Services seems not to be interested in staffing and keeping data on a lot of stuff, and the only way in which this is going to be addressed is collecting data, just as they do in cancer and other kinds of diseases.

So, when he asked me if we would do it, I thought, well, I talked to Ben, and I said, you know, we tend to be a community that likes to help. It's fairly simple. The idea of shining the light is on Dr. James Parkinson's birthday, April 11th. He was the doctor in, I guess it was in England, in 1817, 1818. Don't quote me. I wasn't there at the time. He was the one who did the original examinations of about a half a dozen patients right during the killer fogs in London, where people were having these tumors. So there is a connection, both environmentally and definitely genetically.

So the idea was is let's, if we can get people worldwide to draw attention by putting a light, a blue light, on historic places, places of interest that people will see all over the world on the 11th. Four persons passed away in the last two years. Now, part of it is age. When you get to be 80, something's going to get you anyway. But it just seems to me that if you talk to people about this, you will realize that it's touching everybody's family.

You know, that's six degrees of separation. So anyway, thank you for...

Would

you

be willing to take a photograph with the council here in the front? Certainly.

Thank you.

Good job guys. Let me

get out of the way here so you guys can take a picture.

All right. Ms. Maurer, do we have any commission reports?

I don't have any.

Okay, and then City Manager's Report, please.

Thanks, Mayor. Tonight, we're going to do things a little differently. Normally, I like to read a few items from my weekly summary, but we have a special mini-presentation with a couple honored guests this evening, and this is going to be a video presentation with some brief commentary afterwards, so I'm going to turn things over to Ms. Cervantes to introduce this.

So, Mayor, Council Members, we're happy to announce that this week you will get the Outlook newsletter in your mailboxes. One of the articles is the MyOhi app. So, what we've done is we've made a few updates to the MyOhi app to allow for greater functionality. So, when you download the MyOhi app onto your mobile device of any sort, it's like having city services at your fingertips is really what we want to drive home.

You can check status and follow up. So to make this reinvigoration of the My Ojai app more engaging, we've engaged with Jamie Stratford and Michael Jorgensen, both from Ojai, who are here today. They're local artists, and so this will bring a playful, creative energy to the message. And here's the video for all of us.

That's pretty good. Thanks. That's really great.

Could we ask Michael to come forward just to say a few words about this, if he doesn't mind? Michael did the music for this.

Wonderful. Welcome. Hello. Hello, City Council. Thank you all so much. Jamie Stratford, who is extraordinarily shy, did the animation for this, and I did the music along with my friend Jesse Siebenberg, who maybe you know as another Ojai musician, has been here for a long time. And Jamie and I have been collaborating on these fun little videos. We've done a bunch for the Ojai Playhouse, the sort of like, you know, get your snacks, throw out your trash.

And then we did one about the Ojai Trolley, which I believe is the sort of the seed for this one. It's just something fun, cool to do for Ojai. I mean, that's really all there is to it. We're very appreciative. Oh, well, thank you so much. We're very, very, very proud about this. Thank you so much. Thank you.

I love the trolley one, too.

Yeah, the trolley was fantastic. Yeah, that

was

really fun. Yeah, we need to get a YouTube channel going or something. Sounds good. All right, thank you all so much. Thank

you,

sir.

Appreciate

it.

Anything else on the City Manager's Report?

Now we're going to leave it with that very positive information. Look for it coming on your social media channels and like

it,

please.

Thank you so much. Okay, we'll move on to public communications. I have a few cards here. I'm sorry if I'm going to get some of the names wrong. Lisbeth Seckle. Okay, please come on up. And then Leslie Gacki next and then William Wyrick after that.

Thank

you

for listening to me. For speed limit signs, thank you whoever did that. I can't remember what part of the city did that, but I love the new city limit signs. But I have one request. If we can get one more 25 mile an hour sign anywhere from Kenyatta Thank you very much. Give me interesting gestures, yell at me, speed up, that kind of thing, especially the kids. But it really would be, there's no 25-mile-an-hour sign that goes on the right-hand side, on the west side, going up, but it's only from Kenyatta to, anyway. So that would be my big request. But other than that, I love the new signs. Thank you very much. And lowering them was interesting. Okay, is that you? Oh, thank

you.

No, no, all of us together. That was all of you, thank you very much. We only work as a team. Anyway, it's greatly appreciated. Thanks. And the other thing is, if we could please, we have a lot of kids in our neighborhood, not in our neighborhood, but they come to our neighborhood. The bicycle gang riding thing, I realize boys will be boys, I've been yelled at before, but honestly, these kids are blocking traffic.

I had to get behind a bunch of them. They wouldn't move, they wouldn't do anything. And if something happened to one of them and I accidentally hit one, it's my fault. So if something can be done, we really have a problem on West Aliso about speeding and a few other things and stopping, but that's another thing. So this is a stop sign, not a go through, slowly stop.

Anyway, but thank you for the new speed limit sign.

This is very useful. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right, Leslie, I think it's

Gak.

Gosh, thank you so much. Will Ryrick and then Craig Walker, please.

Good evening. I wanted to speak about the Ojai REC Department's decision to host the Ojai's first pickleball tournament on June 7th or June 5th through the 7th at the lower Libby courts, all four courts. And it was brought to my attention because I went to the REC Department today to reserve four courts for a USTA batch. On the same weekend, but I was denied due to the pickleball tournament. Now, can you explain to me why there's a pickleball tournament being held at Libby Courts when we have five dedicated pickleball courts out at Soule Park?

And we have courts here at City Hall. Now, I know the city spent approximately $600,000 on those pickleball courts, and they wanted to restore the goodwill and peace among the neighbors and tennis players. Now, there are no pickleball signs on those courts. It's posted everywhere, and as well as signs stating, no other activities other than tennis. So I think this pickleball tournament is very disingenuous to the tennis community and to the neighbors. Thank you.

Thank you. I believe that there was some conversation around just posting something on the website explaining some of those details, but that's something we could talk about with staff. I'm here to speak about what is happening at Ojai

Mountain Farms

in Ojai's

Historic Arcade. It's a building listed on the California Register.

We are being told that the changes to this historic building and the plaza are minor and don't require review or further discussion, but anyone who has seen these alterations knows they are not minor. They are substantial, highly visible, and may significantly affect both the building and the public space around it. The purpose of environmental review is simple. It ensures that decisions affecting historic resources are made transparently, with full information, and with public input. It exists to prevent exactly this kind of situation where incremental changes slowly erode the character of a place we all care about.

In this case, multiple additions were approved without the required review by either the HPC or the Planning Commission. The HPC recognized this and requested City Council review. A public meeting was scheduled, but then it was canceled and replaced with a closed-door session. Since then, we have been told that the unpermitted work would simply be labeled nonconforming and allowed to continue.

That's not a fix. It's a workaround. Nonconforming applies to structures that were once legal but no longer meet current standards. These additions were never legally permitted. They should not qualify. Let's be clear about what's being installed. A large electrical panel covering a historic brick facade and blocking a window. A walk-in freezer that emanates continuous noise measuring 58 decibels.

Metal ducting on the roofline, an unpermitted fence, large soft water tanks. Many of these are placed directly on the plaza, a public right-of-way that belongs to the people of Ojai, not a single property owner. The plaza is meant for gathering, for tables, chairs, and community life. What we're seeing now looks more like a service alley. The surrounding property owners and community members were never consulted or even notified.

People showed up to speak at the public meeting that was scheduled only to find that it had been canceled. This undermines trust in the process. What's being proposed now sets a dangerous precedent that unpermitted work, even on historic resources and public space, can simply be allowed after the fact. Please appeal the non-conforming designation and require proper environmental review.

Doing so will show that this council values transparency, respects the law, and is committed to preserving Ojai's historic character. Ojai is a special because people have cared enough to protect it.

Thank you, Mr. Walker. Mr. Weirich, please. Ian Mondal, and then Clay Creasy, please.

I'd like to follow up with Mr. Walker. I'm going to string together some perceptions and follow up with a common sense idea. Perceptions. Staff seemed to violate a fundamental principle of proper planning practices, which was to engage in something that was substantive in character-defining or character-violating, depending on your point of view, but in a piecemeal fashion. I remember being constantly drilled, for years, when I was involved in planning and also when I was on this Council, that projects should not be piecemealed.

So, the perception is, and I'm not subject, I don't know everything you know, the perception is that there was a staff piecemeal approval of something that should have been included in overall review. You may be being advised that that perhaps has opened up some liability for the City in terms of the applicant and the fact that they acted in good faith and now they're looking at problems and getting final approvals.

But clearly there's a perception problem that this is a, you know, the Arcade Plaza was a public art installation. And we have this thing that's aesthetic abomination in most people's eyes that is violating that perception of it being a public piece of public art that's being violated. I would suggest that the Council direct or consider a constructive with humility approach Talk to the applicant, say we need to review this thing. We know that all that financial burden should not be on you for reviewing this and that the City Council takes some responsibility so that the applicant is not punished for the need to fix this problem. So that's my constructive suggestion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Wyrick. Ian Mondo, please. Clay Creasy and then Chad Ress.

Hey everybody. My name is Ian. I live here in downtown Ojai. I'm a member of the Ojai Valley Tennis Club. I'm a board member and I'm also a rec tennis player and we've gone through this dance with the pickleball community for years and I know I believe three of you are here for a lot of those debates. So it's really frustrating to me with somebody who doesn't have a ton of time on our hands and you guys have way more serious things to talk about to re-litigate this conversation again, but I'm here to ask that you nullify the approval of the tournament that they plan on hosting at Libbey Park.

I felt it was important to remind the City of the conversations that have been happening for years. I mean, it goes back before COVID, but I believe it was in 2024 the decision was made to not allow pickleball, prohibit it. The signs are up. The Rec Department reinforced that with those signs. I believe the verbiage that was used was even on a temporary basis because at the time we were trying to relocate the City Hall ones.

That's why the Soule Park ones got created. Cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars. The tennis community has fought this fight now for a good five or six years. We don't really want to do this again. I feel like if we let this one event go through, we're setting a precedent, right? How are we going to go back from that? And what is this loophole that's been created where just because it's a one-off event, we're not repurposing it for a pickleball? What's to say a one-day event, a doubles event, whatever, just doesn't become a recurring thing that the tennis community has to fight against every single time?

It's just a blatant disregard to all the decisions that have already been made. You know, the group, the Ojai Valley Tennis Group, they've just kind of relied on a very antagonistic bully, just won't take no for an answer. Measure O overturned the City Council's decision for these courts here. We got the Soule Park ones installed. Clearly, that's not going to stop them from continuing this fetish of having Libbey Park, which is, we are a huge tennis community. We put on the oldest tennis tournament in the entire U.S., except for the U.S. Open. For everybody, you know, this debate between tennis and pickleball might sound really trivial and stupid, and I understand that, but for the tennis community that's trying to uphold that history and hold on to those courts, this is important to us, and it's just really tiring to have to be back here and be Going over this all over again.

So, yeah, my ask being here today is that the City Council just nullify that event. If we put that one event out of its misery, then we won't have to be back here again having this conversation. So thank you.

Thank you, sir. Clay Creasy. Try to hold up if you can. Clay Creasy, Chad Ress, and then Francine Castanon.

Good evening, Council. I have to say, to start, the theater guy in me enjoys seeing such a full house, so it's got its upsides, even if we don't always agree on everything. At the Speaking of Not Agreeing last Council meeting, I made some points about our budget situation and the deficit, and at the end of my comments, The Mayor made a comment that he thought I was perhaps obfuscating the issues.

Well, I didn't know whether to be insulted or not, so once I got home, I checked my dictionary, and it wasn't really an insult. He was just saying that I could have been more clear. So tonight, I'm going to try to be a little more clear by approaching the budget issue from a different angle. Five years ago this month, in March of 2021, The general fund in Ojai was down to $700,000, not $7 million, $700,000. We had one month of cash flow left before the drain was dry.

Jim Vega at that time was visiting with banks trying to negotiate an emergency loan. Fortunately, the Ojai Valley Inn reopened at that point, and so the tap started a little bit, and we came back into the black slowly but surely. But that encounter with those financial difficulties was not without its ramifications, and the workforce was very severely impacted, as was our capital budget process.

Two years later, in 2023, Mr. Vega reported these impacts to the Budget Committee. And Mr. Johnston was there, in fact, I recall. And at that point, the Budget Committee decided to adopt the 100 percent reserve policy. So it was an adoption based on a near miss and a hope that it could not have that fate again. I have done a fair amount of financial analysis. That's what I did for a living, and I'm semi-decent at it. And I'm here to say that the trends that we have right now, and I've got paperwork to back it up if you're curious, show that we are probably going to dip below that 100 percent number, if not this coming year, then the next one, unless trends change very significantly. And it's conceivable in five years that it could be very significantly below 100%.

The weird thing is, I can't get anybody on the Council interested in this topic of a five-year financial forecast. I recognize that numbers are not everybody's top activity, but we need to focus on this at some point, or we'll wake up and suddenly it'll be, surprise, no Delta Fund, what are we going to use to do those fun things? Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Chad, rest please, and then Francine Castanon.

I'm here to second Ian's thoughts on what's happening with the approval of this pickleball tournament. I want to also point out that this pickleball community is spearheaded by one person, and I see that one person as our biggest problem. It's not a one-off event. It is the latest attempt by Mr. Kraut and his Pickleball Corporation to displace the Ojai tennis community from Libbey Park Tennis Courts. Mr. Kraut is continuing his efforts to take from our community for his own benefit.

He sought to take over Libbey Park Tennis Courts previously. Having been denied this, he then took over the City Hall Tennis Court. Having subsequently been denied this by public vote, Mr. O, he then took $600,000 of our taxpayers' dollars to build the new facilities at Silk Park dedicated to kickball. If this is not enough to satiate Mr. Proud's appetite, we see him once again trying to take Libbey Park Tennis Court, a team pointed out at borderlines on fetish.

Given this track record, we should consider Mr. Kraut's ultimate intention as nothing less than his attempt to take over parts of all of Luby Park tennis courts in perpetuity for the benefit of his Pickleball Corporation. I know that sounds extreme, but I believe that. I think the members of the OI tennis community also believe that. So, the ability for one greedy person to take, tear down, and remake public infrastructure for his own benefit is antithetical to a functioning democracy. A reminder that the beauty of public things, of which Libbey Park Tennis, for its first stellar example, comes from the continued protection of those things.

Libbey Park Tennis Courts and its ever-evolving tennis community are one of the long-standing pillars of Ojai's public identity. I should go without saying that we should continue, as our predecessors have, to protect it. Thank you. Thank you,

sir. And then Francine Castanon, please.

Hello. Hi, City Council. My name is Francine Castellan. I'm a resident of the city of Oxnard. I am a HUD certified counselor for the United States Department of Veteran Affairs. And I am here to say hi. Oh, hi. It's my interest. My hat's off to City Manager. I have seen gang fights less controversial than this pickleball tennis stuff. I have seen like seniors throw hands over this. I was like, my God, what the hell?

It was wow. I don't. I don't know what either sport is. I know there's a ball and a racquet involved. That is my level of expertise on that. I just know to run away from it. But I am here because I am a fifth-generation Oxnard resident. And you're like, what does that have to do with Ojai? I have been around to see Ojai through its glory days, through its controversial days in the late 90s, through its redevelopment funds, and seen the growth and development of Ojai, which has been very interesting to watch. So I study a lot of cities, a lot of counties. I've studied in Utah to learn the expertise. My area of expertise is from homelessness to home purchase.

So I help people from homelessness all the way up until home purchase. I do all of that and I am certified in between. So it's been interesting to see Ojai not only now get into housing, homeless services and other things, but you guys are kind of trending on a lot of it. There's 478 cities in California and 58 counties for those of you who don't know. And it's interesting how far you guys have come in such a small amount of time. In the last 10 years, how progressive you guys have come within regards to development, now addressing homeless issues. At one point, it was never an issue for Ojai. No one ever thought about it. When you went to the continuum of care meetings, there was no Ojai.

But one thing that comes with progression comes problems. And nobody likes to be the unpopular kid at the party. And unfortunately, you guys are faced with some controversial issues right now regarding housing. You have quite a few housing projects that people haven't digested well with. And there are other cities that I've worked with that also face the same problem.

Orange County was one of them. So my area, I cover five counties for the Department of Veteran Affairs. LA, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Slough, and Kern County. And then I extend sometimes to Orange County, which is the strangest place on earth. And at times, I venture into Riverside County. And I make those ventures very small. If you've ever been to Riverside County, don't stay long.

Orange County learned the hard way with their resistance. They had a lot of residents, a lot of people that were opposed to things, or I'm sure City Manager hears this every day, I know a better way, I know how to do it. I'm here for questions if you guys want more.

This will have to be at another time.

Yes, thank

you. But would you mind leaving your card?

Yes.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. That's all of the public comment cards. I have anybody online?

Mayor, we do. I actually have Arts Commission Chair West. He wanted to give his commission report right now.

Great.

And then I have two other. Thank you. Go ahead, Chair West, unmute yourself.

Got it. You got me? Yeah. Okay, great. Good evening, Council. A few updates from the Arts Commission. Last week, we unanimously approved a new mural for the site of Poppies in town. Before it came to us, the proposal went through our volunteer mural jury. which included community members, artists, commissioners, and representatives from both the store and the building owner, Steve Sprinkle. We actually held that review meeting right there at the site of the artwork. Special thanks to Joe's Quick Stop for letting us borrow their parking lot for the gathering, and to our staff liaison, Bridget, for organizing the whole process so thoughtfully and efficiently.

It was a very Ojai way to review public art under our Ordinance 416, under the expertise direction of Commission Vice Chair Christine Steiner. We ran this through our bureaucracy, from planning to commission to jury, back to the commission in less than 80 days. We hope to continue to demonstrate how government, business, and artistry can collaborate efficiently, greasing the skids of our important creative economy.

We also welcome two outstanding new commissioners for this season, Carolyn Wagner and Bradley Tabak-Bank. We're incredibly lucky in this town that the people with real experience and insight continue to step forward and volunteer their time to help shape Ojai's cultural life. Thank you for appointing these excellent citizens and government servants. Your Arts Commission continues uninterrupted by vacancies for over two years now.

And finally, I just wanted to wish you well on tonight's housing discussion. The Arts Commission has been working with the Chamber, Ventura County, and folks up in Sacramento on the broader question of how we support a healthy, creative economy here in our valley. including safe and affordable housing, health care access, and basic infrastructure for the people who make this place what it is. So, in a way, tonight feels like a preview of some bigger conversations that are sure to be headed your way. We're cheering you on, and I'm going to watch the whole thing. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

We now have Larry Steingold and then Gina Shiraga. Gene Shiraga, I'm sorry. Thank

you.

Go ahead, Larry.

Good evening. I hope everybody's well. Two items. One is with the arcade and the walk-in freezer. I truly hope people can come to a resolution with the tenant so that our legal costs and other costs Regarding pickleball and tennis, if the sign says no pickleball, and that's the rule laid down by the City Council, then there's no pickleball. To carve out an exception for an international contest or some national game, that doesn't work.

Because now we're talking money and votes and everything else. Either change the rules or enforce them. It's one or the other. Thank you.

Thank

you. Have

a nice evening. Thanks, Larry.

Thank you, Larry. We now have Gene Sharga.

Thank you.

Sharaga. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Gene.

Yeah, hi. Good evening. I'm Gene Chiraga. I'm a city resident, and I have expertise regarding ADA compliance. I spent 32 years as a litigator, trial attorney involving ADA compliance, as well as the last eight years as a mediator. And I've been involved in about 50 different ADA matters. And we're talking here about barriers, And I'm going to connect this to the PSH, the location for the unhoused that, you know, still, I guess, pending for the maintenance yard.

And I've conducted, I conduct mandatory settlement conferences now for the Superior Court in Santa Barbara as well as the Ventura County Superior Court. A year ago, I sent an email to the City Manager, City Council, and the Mayor after walking through the whole area of Ventura Street, Santa Ana Street, and Blanche Street because of ADA accessibility issues that went beyond just what was going on at the PSH location in the kind of dust bowl of the maintenance yard.

And so in addition to the 325-foot ramp that made no sense and 30 steps, there were numerous barriers. In other words, not enough width in the sidewalk because of telephone poles, walls, mailboxes, and that email was ignored. And now it's my understanding, and it's probably the reason you did a feasibility study for 503 South Ventura Street, that there are accessibility issues that I raised, you know, for the maintenance yard.

And what's interesting now, and this is important, that Mr. Clay Creasy, who spoke before about something else, has submitted a new proposal for the location near Kent Hall, and it will allow for a smaller footprint, and you will get rid of the 325-foot ramp, you'll get rid of all these other problems, and there are no barriers, ADA compliance problems, to get to downtown Ojai by using Blanche Street. There was one problem there that I had raised a year ago, and that was subsequently corrected when Blanche Street was repaved. There was about a three-inch compliance problem that got Connected. I also want to point out one other thing that because this location involves the Green Coalition issues that the mayor and

city... Sorry, I did a little too early. I apologize.

That's okay. Is he gone?

He's still there.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead. Just give

us five seconds.

Okay, so basically what I'm pointing out is do a new feasibility study. You have the time. You've already done one for 503 South Ventura Street that you know doesn't work, and do one for the Kent Hall location again so that people who are unhoused actually can have a facility that allows them access to downtown Ojai. Thank you.

Thank

you, sir. Anybody else online?

Okay.

All right. We will move on to the consent calendar. Are there any items that any members would like to pull from consent? Okay. Okay. Anything else? Sorry guys, it's hard to hear. Thank you. Anything else? Okay, could I get a motion to approve 2, 4, 5, and 6? Let me just say, I do have one comment. Let me take the one comment first. Clay Creasy, please, on number 4, the Treasurer's Report.

Thank you, sir.

Very quick comment on the Treasurer's Report. That report is designed to inform you of the location of all the city's funds and the interest that you earn on those funds. It's nearly $40 million, as I recall. Currently, there's roughly $5.5 million or so, a little over $5 million of City funds that are currently I'm under the management of Dignity Move. When we paid our deposit back in June of last year, it was $5.9 million. It's a little over $5 million now.

They are required by the ERF contract, if they put that money in an interest-bearing account, to credit your ERF fund with the interest that's earned. They just filed their financial statements for last year a few days ago. I investigated those statements and determined that they have, in fact, invested those funds in interest earning account. That's the good news for us.

I guesstimate that it's about $140,000 so far that they've earned for us, or should have earned for us, and should be crediting to us. I suspect, given the hurly-burly of all the other things that we're worried about, that we probably haven't paid close attention to this, Somebody ought to reach out to Dignity Moves and say, we would like a monthly report that says where is that money and how much interest are we going to get credited because you could maybe buy a communal kitchen with that money if it actually worked out.

I want a clarification on that comment. The grant actually doesn't say exactly that. What it says is that interest earned must be applied towards the project. It doesn't say that it's credited towards the city's account. That's an important nuance. We're aware of where Dignity Moves holds that money. They've advised us of that, as well as how much they've earned and the interest rate that those funds attained.

Do you want to have a discussion about that item?

No, we can't have a discussion,

so

that's okay. Well, it is agendized. I don't need to have a discussion

about it. I'll have a discussion some other time. Could I have a motion then on 2, 4, 5, and 6? Unless there's anything online.

No, Mayor.

Okay.

I'll move to approve 2, 4, 5, and 6.

I'll second that. Any discussion? Okay, roll call, please.

Yeah, just a quick question on number three on page 16, second item down, check number 80295. It says survey work for OPSH project. I'm wondering why that is in our warrants and isn't in associated with the grant, because we generally don't see expenditures for the grant here. I mean, this seems to me to be something that came out of the soft costs of-

So, we do have some costs that do appear in the warrant that are items that we pay for, for the grant. So, for instance, legal fees, other technical studies, we have paid for those on our side, and those are allocated for in the ARF grant. This one should, I would agree, this should have a little asterisk that says grant reimbursable. This is just work to denote where the boundaries of the project fall.

It was mostly about how it was noted. Thank you.

Thanks for pointing that out. Anything else on number three? I make a motion that we accept consent item number three. Any second on that?

I'll second it.

Okay. Roll call, please.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to wait for Mr. Seibert to get himself seated.

Thank you.

Good evening, City Council, community. 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 a design review permit and tentative track map for the consideration of the approval of a proposed five-unit, single-story, de-districted affordable housing project located at 408-410 North Montgomery Street.

The applicants are here tonight. They are RRM Design Group as well as Habitat for Humanity of Ventura County. What I'm going to do is I'm going to kind of set the table for some of the background and some of the discussion, and then I have representatives for Habitat as well as RRM Design Group. that have a PowerPoint, they're going to go through the project, as well as what Habitat does and what they provide in terms of the service overall. So just to give you and the Council just some understanding in terms of this project and really kind of the site in general, some history. I know it's in the staff report, but for the community and really kind of to just refresh the Council's memory, the site has been tied to City affordable housing goals really since 2010 as a part of really the housing element for the 4th, 5th, and now the 6th cycle that we had before us and that we're following moving forward all the way to 2029.

I think it's important to note also that this site actually has a deed restriction for affordability, and that's really tied to the fact that we took over this property as a part of co-compliance, because the units that were there in roughly 2010-2012, really when they were destroyed and demolished, Thank you. There was an understanding and kind of a task to try to find a way in which to put affordable housing on this site. That has been ongoing since 2012. We are now at 2026. So just understand that as a city-owned piece of property, there's been a lot of conversation, a lot of ideas. I know that Habitat will identify that When they started the conversation with the City in 2021-2022, there were different ideas and proposals that came before this body and for the community to kind of wrestle with, ranging from four to eight units.

You'll see some of that tonight. Overall, what you're seeing that's being brought forward tonight is five single-story units. Four of those units are being classified as tiny houses. They do qualify from a square footage standpoint and will be meeting the standards as it relates to building standards. So, there are specific building standards that are either ANSI or otherwise. You can follow building standards. There's a separate, I think it's chart AQ, through building code, that allows for substandard building standards that meet tiny home provisions. So basically, miniaturizing certain areas that are still meeting safety requirements and livability.