Ojai City Council, Regular Meeting

Okay. Thank you for hanging. Welcome, everyone, to the regular meeting of the Ojai City Council. Tuesday, May 12th. Roll call, please.

I do want to call our Public Works Director forward. She's got some very important announcements I want her to briefly run through so that the Council and the community are aware. Be very brief. Thank you. Now take your time.

Good evening all. So I've had independent conversations with several of you over the last couple of weeks talking about safety improvements throughout the city, and I just wanted to give sort of a brief overview of some of the projects that Public Works is working on that relate to safety improvements. So, first off, I would like to talk about the RRFBs, and I will tell you what that means because I didn't realize how many people had no idea what we were even saying. So, RRFBs are Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons, and that's what we see in front of Jim and Rob's. It's what we see over by the high school.

So, the City, the Public Works Department right now is working With Caltrans, it's along the Caltrans right-of-way. We're trying to get some installed at the mid-block in front of the arcade and then at Montgomery in front of the brewery. I wanted to be clear that that was the Montgomery area we're talking about, not the one further down on the pavement. For now, anyway, just for now.

So again, it's along the Caltrans right-of-way, so we are required to get a permit Thank you all for being here. We are going to be purchasing, the plan is for us to purchase the equipment in advance because the lead time might be long. The lead time is quite long on steel and electronics right now. And the hope is that we can use our paving contractor, change order that contract, and have them install these for us. So there's some curb extensions, there would be a curb extension in front of Libbey Park. Because we can't have the RRF be pushed that far back. They'll be solar powered. So we need to make sure that they have solar access.

So that's coming soon. The other project that we're working on, and you will be seeing people out soon, and that is our paving project for this year, and we will be doing crosswalk We're doing curb ramps at the intersections, we'll be painting curbs, re-striping the streets, so there's an element of that. Of course, repairing potholes and the drivability of the streets and storm drains, and I've talked to a couple of you about storm drain improvements that are going along with that, so that's another safety element.

The other project we're working on with Caltrans is ATP. And we in this building refer to that as phase two. The portion over in front of Nordoff would be phase one. We're referring to this as phase two, although Caltrans sees this as one project. So I'm sort of thinking about this as the second The second part of the paving or the second part of the construction. So we're working through some concept designs with Caltrans on that, too, and moving closer.

Things get kind of bogged down and slowed down with Caltrans, but we're working through things. So another safety feature that you'll be seeing in the next couple of weeks is the corner, the intersections, three of the intersections at the corner of Ojai Avenue and Signal. So I am sure many of you have walked Since Caltrans came out and did the curb ramps on on the three all three corners except the movie theater And we've got these Step-downs these curbs at the ramps that people are having a problem navigating those So I've worked with Caltrans and again received approval to put some some concrete pots out there So we're going to plant some plants as a warning that there's a curb in front of you. They're not going to be able to walk across, you know, just kind of stumble down the curb, so.

That is coming soon. We've got the plants sitting in the public works yard right now. They're all native plants and we're going to plant them and hopefully it'll look lovely. Last but not least, we have a speed hump policy coming forward to you all pretty quick. So I don't actually know what meeting that's going to be on at this point. I think it's scheduled for the last meeting in June. Yes,

that's

correct. Okay. So what I'm planning on doing, where I know I understand the urgency, I get the calls, you folks talk to people all the time. And so I'll be bringing forward a draft policy, and the draft policy is actually the County of Ventura's policy. We will have the opportunity to tweak it, change the criteria, but at least it's a starting point, and I don't really see any value in reinventing the wheel at this point. I've talked to police and fire who are sitting back here behind me, and they're familiar with that policy, so it might be a really great place to start.

That's it. That's the update. I have one

quick

question.

With the planners or whatever you're going to put in the arcade, have you reached out to HPC and seen that everything dials into what their scope is?

I have been in front of HPC on that. Thank you.

Appreciate

that. I have a question also. I know I'm going to get this question, which is on the flashers. Why are we doing the crossing at Topatopa Brewery as opposed to the The other side of the intersection which goes to the pinion.

You know, there's not I don't have a real logical explanation for that other than we've been talking about those two intersections for a very long time and when I mentioned that earlier and I'm saying we're starting there and I would I would not want to change course right now because we're so far down that path with Caltrans. But the good news is we know what Caltrans is looking for now. We know the specifications, we have the specifications for the RRFBs. So I wouldn't expect that that intersection would be super problematic other than the closeness to the other two. But we can work through

that. Right. So we're not precluded from adding that. And I guess, you know, what I'm anticipating is I think there's been a couple of accidents involving that crosswalk. One of them's very old, but very notorious. And one of them, it's very recently.

Yeah,

we probably need three.

Yeah, we do. And I totally agree with that. And I again, I don't want to switch gears right now on this particular permit application. I have no problem reapplying and applying for another one for the for the next intersection for this further east.

Thank you.

So

that's really great news. Yeah, we've been wanting it forever.

I'm sure you have

been, too. So

any other questions?

Thank you. Great report. Thank you. Anything else to report, Mr. Harvey?

No, Mayor.

Okay, and any public communications, Mr. Montgomery?

I'm so sorry, Mayor, I haven't gotten to your stack of cards. I raised hands on Zoom, and I'll give you your stack. It'll be Ron Solarsano at the library, Griffin Schrader, and then Zach Leija. Zach, welcome.

Okay, Ron's not here. Well, I'm going to call out, so we have Ron, not here. Griffin Schrader spoke already. He's not here anymore. Zach Leija? Zach left too. Teal Rose, not here. Randy Haney's not here. And Clay Creasy, do you want to come up? All right, we got one. Thanks for sticking around.

My pleasure, and I won't be long. I actually wrote a note to you all last week on this topic, but, you know, when I write to everybody, the protocol rarely gets any response. I just want to make sure that you heard. As we recall, the bids for the maintenance yard project expire on May 16th, so we're getting close to the end of being able to avail ourselves of the Thank you very much.

No landscaping and, you know, all the other things that it didn't have. And you were hoping that the million-dollar grant, Hail Mary, would relax their issues with regard to the 18-24. I haven't heard back on that. I haven't seen anything. So I'm just speculating that they didn't play ball. But be that as it may, one way or the other, it doesn't really matter. In four days, you're going to lose that January 16th pricing on your landscaping, on your gates, on your kitchen appliances, on, you know, several other things.

And if you're going to do that anyhow, which I think you have to, you're really choosing to either take a price that You got a lucky break. It was before the price of gas went up and inflation going up and so on. But if you wait four days, those prices go poof. Now when you go for landscaping, instead of X, it's going to be 1.5 times X or something like that.

And I don't know structurally whether you need a special meeting to pull that trigger or not. But if you're going to landscape it and do that other stuff, you know, it would be smart to pull that trigger before May 16th, or alternatively, you might be able to get the vendor to agree to extend that to your next meeting when you could handle it in the normal course. But I just want to make sure you didn't miss that in all the hullabaloo here.

Thank you very much. Okay. Anything online? Still no

raised hands.

Okay. All right. So we will move on to the consent calendar. And I already heard some people want to pull something out of consent. Did I hear? Yeah. Number five. Number five. Okay.

And I'd like to pull number four and number eight.

Number four and number eight.

It can be fast though.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Anything else? Okay, so then I would propose, can we move to accept one, two, three? One, two, and three.

I'll second that.

Okay. Any objections? One, two, and three. Okay. All right, let's move on then. We'll go to the number four. Confirm appointment to the midterm vacancy for the Planning Commission, Bruce Hansen.

I just wanted to pull this because Bruce is my neighbor and I think he's an excellent selection and I'm very excited to have your expertise and your knowledge and all of your wealth of experience as a part of our Planning Commission. And patient. And patient. Yes, exactly. I know. I know. You're preparing. It's like a dress rehearsal for our future Planning Commission meetings. I don't think

they don't go this

long. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm really pleased to be here. So, wonderful. I love living here. So, it's a good place to get involved. Kind of returning to something that I've loved to do and I do in other countries now. So, I'm working with eco-villages in China and some other areas a little bit in Europe. And just interested in how we can have thriving business and good nature relations at the same time. So that's probably where a lot of it is. And, but I love living, you know, loving here. So that's the other piece of it, is find some way of any find out what's going on.

Lots of activities and things. Thank you for

being here. Thank you for your agreement to serve the

community. It's really

important. Would

you like to move that we accept?

Yes, I'm going to move that we accept Bruce for the Planning Commission, so filling that vacancy item number four.

Yep, second that. Want to do a roll call on these items? Mr. Montgomery, thanks. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

And just one small little comment, which is with Bruce's appointment, every acting commission is full. minus the public safety, which we are filling. And there's about 12 applications still available for different commissions. So we're in really great shape. And I just want to affirm, I think that the unanimous, you know, collection between the mayor, the rotating council person and the chair, I think is working really well.

So anyway, great news on the commission front. So number five, Mr. Whitman, you pulled this one. I just pulled it because I'm going to abstain when we vote. Oh, OK. Well, Mr. Stangle, come up. We want to hear from you.

Good evening. Yes. Hello. Thank you, Mayor, council members, rather than wing it. I'm a proud—my name is Larry Steingold. I'm a proud Ojai resident. I'm deeply, sincerely honored to be nominated to serve on this new Public Safety Commission. Public safety is everything else rests on. When residents and visitors don't feel safe, the character of a community erodes. Businesses struggle, families leave, and the qualities that make Ojai special begin to disappear. We start to become like everybody else.

I'm committed to keeping that from happening through emergency preparedness, collaboration between the city, first neighbors, first responders, and our neighbors, and making sure everyone who lives or visits Ojai feels safe and welcome. Ojai is worth protecting. Thank you.

Larry, you talked about how you've actually gone around and counted all of the streetlights that are out and sent them in to the MyOhi app. Well, we

finally got the streetlights on our street up and running. There

you go. It's

only taken four

months. So I think, you know, you're very conscientious. You come to all of our meetings, and I trust that you're going to be You're not going to let me down or make me look bad. That you'll be an excellent servant for our safety commission.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

I just wanted to say that I think you're an absolute natural for this commission, and I'm so glad you're on it. No, I do. I honestly think that this is, it's a perfect, a really good match. Thank you. You've always, when you speak, you always speak about safety. And so I know it's one of your primary concerns. So welcome. I'm pleased as punch to have you.

Thank you. Thank you. Would you like to make a motion to accept? Sure. Yes, thanks. I'll

make a motion to accept Larry and move forward with item number, consent calendar item number five.

Yeah.

And I will second.

Okay, wonderful.

Enthusiastically.

Just so my colleagues understand the next step of the process, I've contacted the next council member. My hope is that we can get this populated this month and they, you know, we get it ratified and up and running in June. That's the hope, so I'll keep you posted. Thank you, Mayor.

Yes, okay. May I say one thing? Yes. Because we're on commissions, I just have one tiny announcement. Please. We have our reappointments for all commissions-wide for May. The Muni Code for all commissions places May as the term-ending month. Okay. So, Mayor and I have begun to work. We're going to have an update for you on all the reappointments that we're going to address, and that'll be in the second meeting of this month.

Okay.

Thank you.

The last item I'm seeing is number eight, if I've done that correctly.

Yes, please. I brought this forward because I had some concerns about the unions being opposed to this resolution, and I wanted to just ask our city attorney what was the reasoning for that? And are there any concerns that we should have about that?

So basically the background on this resolution is it's actually something that our firm has been involved in working with Assemblymember Johnson on and so, you know, we've inquired with a number of our city clients to see whether it's something that they also wish to support. It's, you know, obviously, I think each council member, you know, has, as always, you know, you have to vote in a manner that you're comfortable with, but the purpose of this item, or of this legislation, would be to ensure that when claims are submitted to public entities, that they are submitted basically under penalty of perjury, meaning that claimants are not, At least they're certifying that they have not included any false or perjurous information in their claim.

Right now, under the law, technically, if someone files a claim against a government agency, they can say whatever they want. The biggest two contexts where this comes up are typically in cases of things like tort claims, but it also comes up in the context of labor and employment claims. It adds an additional hurdle for a claimant. And so if that's, you know, if that's something that you're concerned about, you know, certainly no pressure to support it. However, you know, it is something that theoretically will help local government agencies save money in reviewing and defending claims that are not submitted with that additional It's not really verification, but without the additional statements, everything in the claim is true and correct.

It's

veracity.

It adds an additional hurdle for someone. And so, it is something that we think adds value. I think the original version of this legislation would have gone a step further and actually required claims to be verified. However, I think through the legislative process, one of the committees has kind of modified the wording to reduce the standard a bit to things being submitted under penalty of perjury.

Are there any other questions on this one?

I'm not sure I would view it as an additional hurdle because you do have to sign a claim. And all you're doing to the claim is adding the statement. What I've said is true and correct under

penalty

of perjury of the laws of California, which is something that is actually a pretty commonplace thing that we have to do, you know, fairly So I think it's a good idea to have that provision.

And at the state level, that is already a requirement for claims that are submitted to state agencies. It is not something that is required under the government code for claims submitted to local government agencies.

Yeah, I would support number five. I'm

sorry.

I mean number eight.

I was following. I was

following.

Sorry. No, no. Yep. So I would move to accept

eight. I'm planning on I don't support it just because I'm concerned about anything that would make it harder for workers to, you know, to bring forward a claim.

For sure. So let's do a roll call.

All right, thank you

guys. So now we're moving on to our sole last item, which is number 10, Habitat for Humanity Projects, Real Property Management, Disposition Options.

All right. And before we get started on this item, I will note that after my initial remarks and questions from me, For Mr. Seibert, there is a brief presentation that Councilmember Whitman requested be included. Councilmember comments would normally be held until after public comment, but in order to ensure that the public has the opportunity to comment, On his remarks, my recommendation to staff was that we include that presentation ahead of public comment.

It will also be in the standard practice for presentations. It will be added to the agenda so that it will be publicly accessible as well.

So I have a question. What is the time frame for getting presentations?

So I think this one was submitted, it was submitted today. But we also don't, we don't normally submit presentations or include presentations with the agenda itself.

Sometimes we do, but we in general say if you provide them day of the meeting, we will then append them to the meeting. Sometimes we do get them ahead of

time. I'm just wondering about the policy so I can come in the day of with a presentation and have it presented. I was not aware that that is possible

to do.

I'm just wondering about timelines and expectations and things like that. I'm just wondering about process, because to me...

Council Member, I'm going to remind you that you have actually done this before. No, a presentation, a piece of paper. Yeah, it was pickleball, actually, in our very first year. And you had all the images of people on the screen playing pickleball, and it was a presentation. It was a video.

There was no comment. It was a video. If you don't think that there's a reason to ask the question,

that's fine. And what I would say is that, you know, Council, as you have discussions on items that are You know, typically result in longer discussion and you cycle through each council member with the, you know, your time for giving your remarks. I mean, I would recommend, and I haven't discussed this with Councilmember Whitman, so I apologize if you're surprised by this, but I would recommend that, you know, maybe this be the equivalent of his first, you know, like five minute period.

I think that, well, I was going to say, if that's

acceptable. I'm going to do my best to get through it in five minutes. Well,

let me just say, though, Ms. Rule recently brought a document and was limited to her five minutes. So it does seem to me you would do the

process well to keep it in time. And would have been happy to make a presentation out of it had I known that that was an option.

Well, and I think in the future we can certainly do that. I was uncomfortable having a presentation that was presented after public comment in case the public has comments. And so that was the basis for that. So that's my recommendation to staff. We could also do the presentation after public comment. I'm

just trying to distinguish between what a piece of paper and a comment is different than a presentation and what that works like. I just think we need to figure it out.

We will have the staff report go to public comments and then there's a presentation during a council person's response.

That's fine. We can do that as well. Yeah, that's

fine.

So, okay, that's fine Okay So tonight's discussion on the property at 408 and 410 Montgomery Street, which is the location of the Habitat for Humanity project. This is a continuation of presentations that were made at the Council meetings on At the second meeting in March and at the April 16th, 2026 special meeting. And as part of those discussions, in the meeting in March, there was some information, but it was more limited in scope, that was included in your staff report regarding different potential options related, or kind of raising the question about whether A ground lease might be the appropriate mechanism for addressing this property or project.

And out of that discussion, additional information was requested to be presented at the April 16th Special City Council meeting. At that meeting, We did present some information regarding three potential options for how the property could be managed or owned. One was the concept that was included in the Memorandum of Understanding with Habitat for Humanity. which is a ground lease held by the city.

Specifically, in the MOU with Habitat, it contemplates a 99-year ground lease. And so, to be a little more specific, that was part of what presented the concern related to the ground lease, because the city legally can only enter into below-market value leases up to 55 years. So, as part of that discussion on April 16th, we also included some information regarding You know, a potential conveyance or disposition by conveyance to habitat for humanity and development subject to a disposition and development agreement.

But then there was also information included in the staff report regarding establishment of a community land trust and a ground lease held by a community land trust. There was additional information that the council wished to see regarding the community land trust, so what we have brought to you tonight is, I would say, a more robust staff report that provides additional information regarding All three of these potential options, and I'm going to kind of describe this. It's maybe described a little bit differently as I thought about it more. I kind of refined how I would describe it. So, you know, option one included in your packet would be Basically, the status quo, which is city ownership of the property subject to a ground lease with Habitat and or potentially the future homeowners, we would have to confirm with Habitat that knowing that they can only do a 55-year ground lease, whether it should be a shorter ground lease with the ultimate leases being held with the homeowners.

Option two. That is described here would be conveyance of the property to Habitat for $1 to develop five residential units and the eventual conveyance of fee ownership of property to the qualified homeowners. And then the third option would be city ownership of the property subject to a ground lease with Habitat and or future homeowners along with conveyance of the property to a community land trust if one is established. And then we are also looking for direction from the City Council to initiate the Surplus Land Act process under any of these three options.

The Surplus Land Act requires before you lease or convey city-owned property that you follow the process for property disposal under that act. And then, you know, without really knowing exactly which direction this discussion would take, you know, we are looking for council to provide us with direction regarding which of the three options we've Council would like us to move forward with, which to be very clear for the public who's listening as well as for the council, you would not be approving a conveyance, you would not be approving a ground lease, and you would not be approving the establishment of a community land trust tonight. You would simply be giving staff direction to bring those back to you.

If you provide us with direction to establish a community land trust that would then hold the lease, there's a whole other process that will be item number four in the recommendation section. If you provide us with direction to just do a city-held ground lease, Once we've developed that ground lease, we would be bringing that back to City Council for approval. And if we do the disposition, you will have to provide us with authorization to convey the property.

What I'm hearing you say, though, if I heard you right, you're asking for the direction so that you can do the work and bring it forward again. Exactly. Not another debate.

Exactly. And so we will prepare the documents that are needed for whichever item Council selects or Option Council selects. Additionally, I just wanted to note that some of these items are not mutually exclusive. So, you know, if Council has interest in moving forward with establishment of a community land trust, Obviously, if you want to move forward in that direction for the habitat project, we need direction to initiate that process, but you could also provide us with direction to return to City Council as part of a future agenda item to kind of Thank you.

I have included a lot of information in your staff report. I'm happy to talk through any of these options, but knowing that we've had a long, a long meeting so far, I will not necessarily go into a more detailed discussion of each one of those options unless you have specific questions or would like me to address any of them further. I

appreciate that you laid out those choices with clarity in my mind. Any questions for staff? Yeah, sure. So while

the city manager might kick me because I don't believe it's on the working agenda, he's going to send out to you later this evening.

If council's direction is to move forward with either option, either a ground lease held by the city or a disposition and conveyance of the land, we would try to put that together and bring it back to you as quickly as possible to get those processes started. So it would likely be sometime in June. For the community land trust item or facet of this, if council wishes to move forward with establishing a community land trust, whether or not that's tied to the Habitat Project.

You know, I think it would depend on whether Council wishes to establish an ad hoc, in which case I think we would work with the ad hoc first. And so we would probably be looking at returning to council. My my guess, realistically, having looked at the working agenda, we'd probably be looking at July at the earliest. But, you know, it might take a little bit longer. Or if, you know, again, if we were to proceed with a ground lease that results in the eventual conveyance to a community land trust, we would still move forward with work on the ground lease.

Thanks for the question.

And there is one other thing I would add, and since Mr. Seibert's at the dais, we can put him on the hot seat. At the last meeting, and there is information about this included in the staff report, but there was also a request for more information about the valuation of the property. And I know Mr. Seibert, he was unable to obtain an appraisal quite this quickly, but he does have some information based on discussions with a local realtor who was able to provide some comparables.

Yeah, the appraiser we had used for 503, he was not able to put information together in time. So, instead, I pivoted to a local real estate agent to kind of spitball what that would look like. Now, understand that these are estimates. I think it was in the staff report as well. It's as a value, just as a vacant piece of property as it sits today, you're looking at a range of in between $700,000 to $795,000.

As it's developed as five units, you're looking at each of those units, regardless of the size of the lot, going for, at the floor, $1 million.

Even on one-fifth or less of 0.2 acres? Yes. Okay.

Each individual unit? Each individual unit. Even a tiny home?

Yes.

That's Looney Tunes. Yes?

So I have a couple of questions. We can't hear you guys. First of all, in terms of, I know Habitat's model is for the homeowners to have sweat equity. And if we do a land trust, it's my understanding that, would it be harder for For them to find homeowners, what would the limitations there be if we go with that model versus the other model?

As I've thought about this, I think the way that that would probably have to work would be that the city would still enter into some sort of agreement with Habitat for development of the property. And, in full transparency, we haven't had discussions with Habitat about, you know, the details of what that looks like and whether that's something they would be interested in.

But, from my perspective, the way that would play out is that we would still have an agreement with Habitat, and what we would need to endeavor to do would be to During the development process, so before they are ready to convey homes to homeowners, the City would have to move forward with establishment of the Community Land Trust, And if the city is unable to establish the community land trust by that date, I think that would be problematic. But I think as long as the community land trust was in place by the time the homes are built, then it would effectively be that the community land trust holds the ground lease that the city would otherwise hold. Can

I interrupt for just a second? Absolutely. But I think the question I'm asking is if the homes are built by the homeowners, And homeowners have to be determined before occupancy in order to build the homes. Could that delay prevent homeowners from – could that delay The project in

general. I think we would probably have to ask Habitat, you know, what the timing is for when they enter into agreements with those, you know, qualified home buyers. You know, because the conveyance of the home doesn't happen until the home is constructed. But I don't know exactly at what point in the process. But the home

isn't constructed until the homeowners are selected, because the homeowners construct the homes.

So I think if the city were to desire to move forward with the community land trust option for that project, Thank you all for joining us today.

That that person who's choosing to put in their sweat equity to the property, if it's a community land trust, if it ends up being owned by the community land trust, then what they will realize in equity in themselves will be a smaller amount than if they're effectively eventually given the land, because now they're going to get the land.

Let's do the discussion in a little bit if I can.

I think just for clarification, correct me if I'm wrong, at the last meeting, Darcy said it takes like up to 12 months to vet to find the people for the homes and 18 months to build is what was said at the last.