Ojai City Council Regular Meeting

Welcome everyone to the Tuesday, June 9th regular City Council meeting for the city of Ojai. Roll call please Mr. Montgomery?

reports? None received ma'am.

Okay and then City Manager's report

please. Yes mayor I'd like to call our Public Works Director to the podium to give a brief update for us please Ms. Palmer

Good evening all. So Ben asked me tonight to come and speak about an issue that some of you may have heard about, I know I have. And that is our handicap ramps that we're installing alongside our paving projects. So as we pave our roads, we get to an intersection a four way or three way into whatever it is. And we like to look at every corner to see if we can put a handicapped ramp in it. We get some economies of scale when we have our contractor out there doing the concrete work So I met with a group of citizens out at Mountain View and Grandview.

Lost my train of thought, so at Grandview last week just a small group and explained to them the reasoning behind those four curb ramps on those four corners. So number one it's near a school, it's in a school zone. So it's half a block west from Topatopa. And what we are trying to prepare ourselves for, staff in Public Works is also researching some Safe Routes to School grants.

And if we are successful in getting a grant, my recommendation to all of you would be we start in school zones. Because that seems to be a really good spot to start putting in sidewalks, if you so choose. So we look at all of the intersections when we're paving. Some of them we delete these from the plans because it makes no sense because it's a bridge to nowhere. And we recognize that that appears to be the case out here at this intersection, but we talked about it and talked about it and just decided to go ahead and do it. So we're in a really good position if we ever decide to put sidewalks in.

Furthermore there's four crosswalks at that intersection so we know children are crossing So at the very least, in the immediate future they have somewhere to land if they cross the street and don't have to step in the street. And I think Ben he gave you all a weekly update last week but I'm happy to talk to anybody or answer any questions.

You did mention that before thank you for saying it again.

Yes. Questions? Anybody got questions?

Thank you appreciate it anything else there is something else the chairs 4th of July You guys are going to say something about that. I think we might withhold until

the future agenda items portion of the meeting, if that's OK with you.

I have my note remind them to say something about this. All right.

Sorry. Should I connect it with you on that? Thank you, Mary.

No problem.

My chair isn't out there yet.

Neither is mine.

I thought you had the couch. Thank

you so much. Wonderful. OK, then we will move on to public communications Of which I have a few. Ron Salarzano, please. River this is going to be about the budget item so that's going to be later not public comment unless you have something else to say. Yeah it will be in that for that item. Larry Stangle please and then Helen Pascrella. All right,

hello. Yes thank you members of council my name is Ron Solorzano I am the regional librarian for the Ojai Valley and the main thing I want to talk to you all about today is our summer reading program. Summer reading began on June 1st so just very recently it's going to run through the end of July ending on August the first And as usual, we have the youth program. It's a little bit different this year and for those of you who are here you'll be able to see this if not this is all going to be on our website as well but this year in addition to being able to log minutes we have created a sort of grid of other activities that children and families can take part in in order to earn points in the program These include things like visiting a community park or, you know, planting something in a garden.

You know creating a video about nature to post things like that so you still get points for reading in fact you get the most points for reading but you also get points for these other activities And as the summer progresses, as we get into July, those points are going to be able to be used in the prize store. So as of July, the prize store will open and children can go in and spend the points that they've earned on a variety of prizes as part of this program.

In addition to the reading and logging and doing the activities, we also have certain programs that are gonna be taking place at the Ojai Library. We're going to have things going on every Wednesday, every day of the week really but there are certain one-time events that I do want to highlight On June the 14th and on July the 12th, we're going to have imagination stations set up at the library. These are geared towards children ages three to six and they're basically extended sessions where we can work with them to kind of imagine that they're involved in a certain type setting. So we have a farmer's market setting that we're going to have them do and then a pizza parlor setting later for the one in July. There will not, unfortunately there will not be pizza there but it's like a nice family play session for those dates.

We're also gonna have a presentation on shorebirds for June 15th. I also don't believe there will be actual birds but it's gonna be an educational presentation on shorebirds in the area that's gonna be another part of the program here And then of course, finishing off we have a final family day on July the 28th near the end of the program that's going to include the Kona ice truck and then also a game truck for kids. We had it last year if anyone remembers it was a lot of fun And then short on time here, so I'm just going to also plug that there is an adult version of the program as well. It has its own little bingo card of activities. So adults can go there and log the books that they read, write reviews for the books and complete activities to earn points and chances to win prizes as well.

More information on our website. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

Good evening. Thank you for your service and it's sincere because it takes a lot of work to do what you do. Going forward, is it possible for two things to be added to the agenda? One is discuss recording of audio and video of closed meetings. Just put it on the agenda and have a conversation. Vote on it, don't vote on it but move it along because it has been a big deal around here for years.

Also having a biweekly meeting to have conversations beyond three minutes because otherwise we have to track you down and have conversations and people don't do that. Is it also possible to get a list of all the lawsuits and the costs involved? Because we've been spending millions, and some of that obviously has come from the road budget. Which is now down to two-and-a-half million.

But continue please to do what you're doing. Hopefully... Oh! If we could have visions, it would be nice if we could each have a vision of everybody, a vision of what you want to see the city one year five years from now. Because we don't really hear that from the council on a group maybe. The plan yes but your individual vision, your vision

thank you. Thank You Mr. Stangold. Ellen Pascarella please.

Good afternoon, everybody. It's been a while since I've been here and remodeled it looks so official now. Thank you for letting me take this time to speak. I'm not talking about Palestine or the fact that we're in another illegal war in Iran. I am talking about something local today And last week on June 2nd, I was at the Vons parking lot and I heard this horrible crash and screaming. And there was an accident.

And I don't know if you've heard about the accident on Highway 33 going into Vons right? I'm still kind of shaking from it because there was this young woman who Was in the car who hit the motorcyclist and he was Like ejected into the other side of the road like 20 feet from his motorcycle And for the first five minutes, he didn't move and I was consoling her and she was screaming because she thought she had killed him and So my question and my concern is that after words he moved and I was like, he's alive. He's live but The thing is that I've seen other people make that illegal turn Are there any plans for putting up maybe like some type of? you know those little plastic cones that are tall that they have like on HOV lanes something like that and Because people don't realize it.

And I spoke to the other people who were witnesses as well, and we all have seen people do that. And it was just... You know, I don't want to wait until somebody dies. So are there any plans? Do you know or...?

After you're finished, I'll ask the Chief to respond.

Okay, thank you.

I'm done. Okay. Yeah, Chief would you mind talking about the efforts so far?

Yeah, I know it's been an area of concern. I actually just tasked my motor officer probably a few months ago reaching out to Caltrans for a proposal to get delineators put up and the feedback in the assessment from Caltrans was that there was not enough crash to evidence, you know, support that putting the delineators up. But I'm aware it's a problem and that's one of the topics tonight. You know our motor program which the timing is perfect, you know it's invaluable, the motor program and that's another area of concern that I've tasked Deputy Burnett with focusing on there.

Yeah and it's something we're gonna just keep an eye on and focus our resources on that. That's, you know, the angle that I'm gonna take and just probably zero tolerance for awhile until the tone gets set. Thank you for bringing that up.

Anybody online? No mayor, we have no raised hands.

Okay that was a big accident that we all saw um okay so moving on to the consent calendar I know that i'm interested in pulling five and six because we have speakers here how do people feel about three and four?

Uh yeah I want to

okay So shall we approve four?

I'll move to approve four.

Second on that Let's do a roll call on four and then we'll go down the line.

And give us a moment if you would so Ms. Cho can join us up here if you don't mind. Thank you switch out the name badge really quickly if we can just give us a moment. Okay thank you So council member we are yeah, I believe you pulled this item. We're happy to take your question. Did

you have a question on three?

No three threes the warrants

Okay Which one was the menace that's what

oh you okay. We just we just approved the minutes so we misunderstood Okay, you

had a change. Oh, hey You know The problem is I'm looking at The minutes. Okay, so which item was that? The minutes were for yeah so okay so on item number can I

what can we just retract it and make the here hear what the change request is that easy enough

Okay,

so on item four there's actually Three places. Okay could be more accurate For from the minutes item number seven Consideration of city's ability to shift it says no action taken I think to be accurate It should say that a vote was called for But since the majority indicated it would not support change, the city attorney and the city manager concluded that the proper handling was to report as no

action. That sounds like there's intention language in it.

Oh, I don't need any intention. Okay wanted to Report the fact that a vote was called for and then yes

What what page was that on if you don't mind me asking um just 20 okay, let's see

So no, I think officially no motion was made and therefore no action was taken. We could say that, that no motion was made to... Well, I think I did make a

motion. That's my point is that I did make a motion and then it was concluded that a motion wasn't appropriate if we weren't going to take action. I don't care how the wording is. I just like it to reflect.

The next one is in the future agenda

items, the

next page and it said the

full council

requested

a

call

up

of the

Planning Commission at Isle. My recollection is that the mayor asked for the call up and it was seconded by Leslie. I know that I didn't participate in that, I don't think.

So would it be correct to say that the council And then the very next item references a future item for fire ember screens.

And what I recall is that we discussed the idea of an item to address highly hazardous or flammable trees and that ember items was added to that.

I heard it, I remember it the opposite.

I do too, I remember it the opposite because I made the motion. It was specific to ember screens. That's fine. However we want to do that but it was specific to ember screens.

I did wanted to include the ember screens and I also wanted to include the idea that of identifying hazardous trees and, and look at mitigating that.

So maybe we can put that on items today. I mean if you

feel like it wasn't if it didn't happen at this meeting let's put it on under future items for after today at the end of days. Those are all the comments. Okay, so I'm hearing you'll go back and we'll look at the staff is happy to do that Yes, thank you. So then we'll retract that Well in will bring them back obviously the next thank you. Thank you So was there did somebody want to pull?

The warrants number three

I believe that is for the rec department. They needed an upgrade in their alarm system

Yes, sorry. Thank you took me a moment but that is exactly what it was thank you

perfect. Thank you

I Think that's it okay so I'll move to approve a consent item number three then Second from anyone

all second

wonderful. So let's call the roll on that and then we'll go to the other two Thank You roll call

Can you hear me okay Good evening, Mayor Gilman, Mayor Pro Tem Mang, esteemed members of the City Council and city staff. My name is Ricardo Torres, Director of Government and Community Affairs with the Area Housing Authority of the County of Ventura. So we proudly serve the City of Ojai, Fillmore, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Moorpark and the unincorporated areas of the county.

I have the privilege of working with a 15 member board of commissioners which keeps me pretty busy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Jurisdiction that we serve gets to citizens appointed to our commission and then we have a resident commissioner For a few years now the city of Ojai has only had one commissioner on our board That's Commissioner Steve Mason who does a wonderful job of saying the city of Ojai And fortunately for the city of Ojia, our resident commissioner Also, it's a citizen of Roth Apartments in Ojai. So in essence you also have that representation as well but there for a really long time has been one seat available and I think that's the item that you have before you today so we're really excited to kind of see the council appoint that seat As of today, or actually as of March 31st which is when our data is current.

We assist Ojai residents through 50 housing choice vouchers and we have 135 public housing units in the city of Ojai. Behind those numbers are individuals and families who are able to remain housed and maintain stability, and continue contributing to the community they call home. I really want to take this moment in this evening to express our appreciation to the City of Ojai for its continued partnership and collaboration. The Housing Authority serves seven jurisdictions as I mentioned, and one thing that we have learned is that strong partnerships are essential to addressing the housing needs of our communities.

We are fortunate to have a strong, positive, productive working relationship with the City of Ojai and we greatly value the city's commitment to supporting its residents. On behalf of the Housing Authority thank you staff, City Council and the Ojai community for your continued support and partnership and we look forward to building that partnership in the years ahead.

And then lastly just a quick update for the council our board recently appointed Ms. Carrie Sabatini as our new Housing Authority Executive Director Carrie has served as our Deputy Executive Director and has been an integral part of the organization for many years. We're really excited for her leadership, and look forward to continuing our work in service to Ventura County's and Ojai's residents under her direction. And thank you for your time, for your partnership, and thank you for your consideration to fill a vacant Ojai seat that we have on our board.

Thank you so much. Appreciate that. I'd like to move that we forward Mr. Dolan to the Ventura County Area Housing Authority Board with many thanks.

I just have a comment, I've raised it before especially with these boards where their activities don't frequently come in front of us. I think it would be good to have some type protocol where we get like a quarterly report, uh, presentation from one or the other of the commissioners. Um, so that we are aware that that's cool. I would like that as well.

Okay, any more discussion I would like to make sure that mr. Whitman's of request is noted so we can work on yes

Thank you. We sorry this has been brought up before we will put this on the working agenda and the parking lot item to make Sure, we scheduled it. Okay.

Wonderful, thank you. Thank you Mr. Torres for coming and then item number six the inaugural vacancy of the Public Safety Commission of forwarding of Mr. Randy Coggin to service there. Mr. Coggin if you'd like to come up and say a few words? Thank you That's okay we got all the time in the world

Enjoy this it'll probably be the fewest words you ever hear from me. I am truly honored to be given a position if approved on the Commission and look forward to using my very public safety background along with Larry and Jim and the other two TBD commissioners, and to make this Commission An example for all boards and commissions in the city. So again, thank you and thanks for your confidence in me and Rachel. I can't wait to hear what you're going to share with us in July.

Thank you very much.

Any

questions?

Just congratulations, Randy. I can think of very few who are as good of a fit for this as you and you're just going to be such an incredible contributor to this commission so thank you for your service and for being a part of this.

Many thanks. Does that sound like a motion?

I'll move to approve.

Second that. Let me not usurp, you were about to. Okay second. Any more discussion?

Yes Mayor I'm going to hand things over to Ms. Holman once she's situated. Thank you. Oh look

at that more sparkle

All righty. So good evening, honorable mayor and our city council members. I appreciate the opportunity to present our annual public hearing regarding the City of Ojai's job vacancies and our ongoing efforts in recruitment and retention. This presentation is made in accordance with Government Code Section 3502.3. This section of the code falls under the Myers-Millius Brown Act or MMBA which ensures local public employees have rights related to labor matters It also requires public agencies to meet and confer on wages, hours and other conditions of employment.

With the passage of Assembly Bill 2561 effective January 1 2025 all public agencies were required to publicly address position vacancies as part of their ongoing responsibilities. Even though the City of Ojai does not have any recognized employee organizations AB2561 still applies to us that's why we're holding the hearing today to report out on our current vacancies and share updates on recruitment retention efforts before adopting our annual budget in compliance with the legislation.

Since our last report of May 1st, 2025 we have actively recruited for nine full-time positions and six part time temporary or seasonal positions. As of May 1 of 2026 the following positions are vacant accountant transit operations supervisor Trolley driver, recreation leader, lifeguard. And I lost the rest of my page and record this recreation leader in lifeguard because the transit operations supervisor role is a critical role. It is currently filled with an interim appointment as we go through our active recruitment.

Speaking of active recruitments, we are recruiting for all the vacant positions listed except for the position of accountant, which we successfully successfully filled as of May 26th of 2026. While we have not identified any policy changes that are needed to address any hiring obstacles, we did implement some improvements to strengthen our recruitment and retention efforts.

We enhanced the use of our applicant tracking system to make recruitments more efficient and to expand our outreach. This included utilizing the automated background check feature that the program has, interview scheduling, and sponsored job boards. We developed a benefit summary that gives employees a clear one-page view of their benefits package. We introduced an online benefits portal to help onboard new hires and manage annual open enrollment elections. And we continue to recognize our employee contributions through appreciation events and awards.

So this is a very brief presentation for our public hearing. It concludes that so it's my conclusion of our job vacancies, recruitment and retention efforts. And I welcome any questions you may have.

Questions? It seems as robust as I've ever recalled. So wonderful. Nice work.

Thank you.

I have no public comments on this.

We currently have

no

raised hands on zoom

air. No questions. Thank you so much. Wonderful. Yeah.

Okay. Mayor? Yes. We will need some council action.

Oh discussion

to receive.

There's no, there's no action on this one. I believe it's just my mistake. Receive the report. Conduct a public hearing. No worries. But if there is no public comment we can close the public hearing and move to the next item.

It's interesting. Okay, so on the public hearing is only number seven and not doesn't go to eight and nine

It's technically a separate

fine with me okay, we'll close the public hearing to move on to item number eight So the city of Ojai has proposed budget for fiscal year 26 27

Thank you, Mayor. And I'm just going to briefly ask the Chief to vacate his seat so that we can have-

Stay close, Chief though.

Our finance team come up to deliver this. Thank you. Thank you Mr Montgomery. Mayor, we've got a presentation loaded, so ready when you are.

Good evening honorable mayor and city council members. I'll be presenting the proposed fiscal year 2026-2027 budget So to begin, the Finance and Budget Committee has reviewed the proposed fiscal year 26-27 budget at the May 19th and June 2nd meeting. Finance staff has also met with two members of the committee following the preliminary review. Changes have been made to the budget document to reflect the feedback and comments from this committee.

The budget document outlines the financial plan and priorities of the city. Developing and monitoring the budget is an ongoing process, and can be modified throughout the fiscal year to respond to changes in forecasts on anticipated events, and to allow for the pursuit and achievement of established City Council goals which are listed on this page. This slide highlights factors of the budget in relation to personnel and staffing. Included in this budget is a cost-of-living adjustment of 3.5 percent, does not include the city manager, and has an impact of approximately $172,000. The budget also considers staffing changes to address operational needs and to create growth opportunities.

Five positions have been changed to full-time as well as nine positions have been elevated, most of which are budgeted halfway into the fiscal year. This slide highlights some of the anticipated costs that are also included in the proposed budget and a couple that are not included for council's consideration. The current agreement with the Ojai Fire Safety Council does extend a few months into the new fiscal year, however at this time there are no new fire safety projects or proposals included.

Also to note with the budget document it does provide a line item detail of the budget and that also includes the percentage change from The three major revenue sources are projected with HDL, who specializes in revenue analysis and economic insights. For the prior fiscal year, the city received 2.3 million in sales tax, and when looking at how much we received through April, in comparison to the same measurement period as last fiscal year, we are trending to exceed the current budgeted amount of 2.4 million. Sales tax for next year is projected at 2.5 million.

Per HDL's analysis of the latest sales tax update for quarter four of 2025, the city saw a growth of 9.6% when compared to same quarter in 2024. And for comparison, the county saw a growth of 1.7%, and the state saw a growth of one point one percent when comparing the two time periods. The current budget for secured and unsecured property tax is 2.4 million. The 26-27 projection of 2.6 million takes into consideration a two percent CPI adjustment. Additionally, for properties that were sold in 2025 the projection also considers the difference between the value that's on the tax roll and the price paid for the property as property is replaced when there's a change in ownership.

Just to note the graph here does show property tax around trending at 4 million That's because this includes the vehicle license fees as well The trend for transient occupancy tax continues to rise with next year's forecast to be approximately 8.1 million in the general fund and 12 point 16 million citywide including measure C This slide shows the allocation of the general fund expenditures by department. And as seen here, the police or public safety accounts for roughly 23% of the general fund budget.

And just to reiterate, the individual line item details are included in the budget document. This is just a visual graph to see by department where the allocation is. This slide is an overview of the balanced budget policy and minimum fund balance policy. This highlights that operating revenues must cover operating expenditures, though it is allowable for expenditures to exceed revenues in the case that the fund balance is used towards capital projects or one-time nonrecurring costs.

Additionally, the minimum fund balance policy states that the minimum balance is to be 100% of the prior year's general fund operating expenditures as the minimum reserve amount. This slide shows the general fund is structurally balanced, where recurring revenues are greater than recurring revenues resulting in a structural surplus of $119,000. The one-time cost includes the OUSD grant match and historic inventory survey which ultimately decreases the fund balance by $94,000 This table is a summary of the general fund balance. The table starts with the beginning balance, followed by revenues and expenditures. The net operating is the difference between revenue and expenditures, and that's followed by the non-recurring costs to get to the ultimate change in fund balance.

The ending balance takes into consideration the total change in fund balance and the amount under the 100% reserve column is prior year's operating expenditures. The unallocated column is the amount beyond the 100% reserve amount The middle row of this table shows the estimate general fund balance at the end of this fiscal year to be approximately $21.7 million, leaving $5.6 million of the balance unallocated or beyond the 100% reserve amount and this is a projection of expenditures based on spending through mid-May.