Ojai City Council Special Meeting

participating remotely.

There's something we need to ask her.

Yes, we have council member rule participating remotely will ask council member rule if she's the only person in the room over the age of 18

I am

yes and since we have someone participating remotely will take all council action via roll call tonight

got it and would you leave us in the pledge please yes thank you welcome everybody

Nope, I'll move to approve it.

Second that. Mr. Montgomery please.

Yes Mayor, this item is coming back to you after your meeting last week where Council gave us direction to have an item where they could deliberate and discuss the potential creation or not of a chair policy for the annual 4th July parade. Based upon the preliminary discussion that we heard, we came back with three options for consideration. One option would be to implement a policy wherein chairs may not be put out any earlier than one week before the parade Chairs only, not allowing items like armchairs and sofas and the like.

And in putting out the chairs ensuring that there is ADA access those that were put out either before the deadline or put out within the deadline but blocking access would be taken to the city's public works We would be asking the public if they are putting out chairs, if this policy was adopted to label the chairs with name address and contact information a phone number or an email something like that. That's one option.

Another option as discussed by Councilmember Whitman was establishing a potential encroachment Permit a policy working with Caltrans so that people could be permitted to place items in the public right-of-way in advance of the annual 4th of July parade. That is certainly an option we could pursue and lastly, of course the council could take no action leaving in place the tradition We see now which seemingly starts earlier and earlier every year The only thing I would add And of course this is a council decision It's not my decision We would respectfully recommend that you, whatever you decide to do and let's say you do create a policy we would respectfully request that it starts next year. We don't think that starting this year with the short amount of time between now and the parade is probably a good idea.

The ship has sailed if you will However, with whatever the council decides to do we will certainly provide a lot of public outreach and notice so that everyone is aware what the decision was. With that staff is here to take any questions that you have thank you very much.

Any question? Leslie if you have any questions just raise your hand up there and I'll look out for you.

Will do thank you

thanks Okay, let me take a couple of public comments. Kathy Smith and then Carol Avalon please.

I'm here to talk to you as a member of the Ojai Valley Women's Club. As you know, we have a property on Ojai Avenue. Chairs first started arriving June 4th in front of our building. We are all for the tradition of chairs in Ojai, but it would be our request that you pick a date so that everyone is on the same playing field. We have now had three sets of chairs placed there and we have an annual event continues to exist at that location. So it's really hard for us to, we don't want to put our chairs out on June 4th but we would like so I would prefer your suggested number one option however one week earlier It doesn't really seem like enough to me, but that's up to you all. And it's a charming thing that community—as we were just out putting our chairs up, we had many visitors stop and say what's going on?

Why the chairs? What's happening that we should know about when we're here this week? So I do think it makes Ojai unique, and that's okay. But some kind of regulation in place that everyone can live by would be desired. Thank you very

much. Just for clarification are you suggesting a week is too short?

I do. They wouldn't be out yet. A week is probably not long enough but that's up to you. Ten days compromise two weeks it's up to you. And if we're all working on the same timeline that makes it, like I said, an even playing field for all of us. My second request, if you choose not to do that would be that you give businesses priority to the space in front of their sidewalk. I know we don't pay for the sidewalk, but the space in front of their business would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Carol Avalon, please. Thank you.

I agree with what she said. And I just wanted to voice that, that I think number one would be great and a week is fine and make sure they put a note on their chairs this time so that they're not blindsided next year And that's it. And I also wanted to say, I think you guys should get a raise. I've been thinking about it. There's so much money coming in. I'm going to sit down but there's so much money from the DOT now that I know how much work it is to sit up here and I know you have slides because I know what it takes for me to read these and you have that huge manual.

That's nice of you to say. No other public comments for me? Anybody online? Yes, but no raised hands Mayor okay we can move on. Okay all right I mean I like what you proposed does anybody have any I guess I feel equally about one and two weeks one seems fine to me but I'm open to thoughts

I think either way you do it, you're going to have some people who want to have a certain place with the chairs. And so I don't have any desire for that happen any sooner than it has to and it seems like I thought about the idea of making it the weekend before, because I think that's when people would likely go place their chairs out on the weekend or maybe for those people who are only with us on the weekend.

And I think a week is just simple. And I'd lean that way. So I've been at home in Ojai for 36 years, been here for over 55. Can tell you that when I started seeing chairs two weeks before it, at the time it was kind of annoying to me It seems like a week would be plenty of time to get your chair out there where you wanted it. That's just my thought.

Well, this coming year it would be a week in advance so we could try it out and see what we think. So it happens to fall on the 7th. We can try this out. Revisit it next year. Oh, that's right. It'll be on

Monday. Councilman Rowe has her hands raised.

I initially supported a week and had no big, you know, no feelings really one or two weeks. But the people who really love it, they've weighed in at two weeks, you know? So and I was thinking really what it is this great sense of community for You know, for the people who love it and the people who do it. And you know I'd like to give that sense of community for two weeks as opposed to one week just because it's better to have that great feeling for two weeks for the people who love it.

The people who, you know, I think are kind of neutral or they don't support it one week is kind of fine Ultimately, if we do not allow any impediment to mobility or movement then to me it doesn't really matter if it's one week or two weeks in that you know for reasoning that way and you would still have the people who really love the tradition really supporting two weeks. So That's why I ended up skewing towards two weeks, but it's not a make or break and I certainly support option one. And as far as I think we can...I think it's fine to not do this this year. I understand just the logistics of what that would take I do think the chairs can and should be identified.

You know, I don't—I think Bill Miley mentioned, I don't think name and phone number but some sort of identifying number or something that someone could call Public Works and say, Do you have chair number? And whether it's the last four digits of your phone number or whatever. You know, do you have Chair Number 1925 through 27? Or did somebody snag them? So, you know but I do agree that putting a name and a phone number is probably you know not something it's a little bit more info than we need. So that's my sort of comments on this so I'm ready to support whatever the majority feels is the best way to go. Okay

an email address would suffice?

An email address would suffice.

Yes, well I'm equally good with one or two weeks so I don't really care that much but I do think next year and I like the communication part and we can let everybody know if we go forward this is what's going to happen for next year I think that would help people prepare for it

Mayor yeah, so we're proposing a policy not an ordinance. Yeah, okay There are other particulars the council might want such as you know, do you want to prohibit things like sofa? Barking loungers

I think maybe benches should be on there because there are people that do bring, you know, like a picnic bench. It probably takes up less room.

Let's focus on what we don't want.

So how about if we do—this is just a proposal on that—is that anything bigger than a folding chair or camp chair can only

be

brought out the day of the parade? If somebody wants to have a you know bench or a sofa, but they're gonna take it away if they want to Set it out there. I don't have you know really have a problem with that. I other than the idea that it's gonna sit there for

I think it should just be cut and dry. This is what it is. It's not like, oh, is it OK here? I brought mine the night before. This is the rule. This is what it is. And then

I would

say no question. Right.

Yeah. Just maybe

you're going to have that one person that's going to come out there.

I think basically there's inches but no sofas or like what we see a couple of picnic benches out there now which seems perfectly

I think there's a safety aspect to that too and it's if you're bringing a big couch and it's too heavy to change, like if something happens and someone needs to move something fast.

All right so far we have no sofas.

Okay. No living room

furniture. I think it was just limited to folding camping chairs.

May we say folding and or camping chairs preferred?

It's kind of like patio furniture, outdoor furniture. Well here's

the good

news you

know what actually we don't have to go crazy on this I'm just going to put together a draft because this is not gonna be implemented until next year so unfortunately you're gonna have to see this again and then you can wordsmith it if that's

okay

You get the

idea yeah we're not just no sofas really

all

right

And then I know...

Yeah I mean I'm fine with somebody bringing out their throne sure why not There was one last year. Okay, that's funny. It was a big throne. Single chair or picnic benches. But they do

have some of those camping chairs that are two.

That's true okay.

I wonder if

the category seems to be

outdoor furniture.

So things that were intended to be okay. Or we could just say no sofas or large oversized armchairs.

Okay, we will bring something back of course it will also I want to make the city attorney feel comfortable that we'll have ADA Requirements expressly stated within the policy but you will have to see it one more time. Okay So what we will and I'm gonna pivot now so that we're talking about what we're going to we're gonna go back out there again in place flyers to replace the current flyer on the chairs and We'll say something along the lines of the other council has taken action and directed a policy It will be It will take effect next

year

and Details of that may be found on the city website or something. I don't know something like that and put on the social media policy Oh, mm-hmm. I'll pick up some something along those lines

And do you think something should be on the document? Like if there's an item that doesn't fall into the category That's inappropriate will be removed

Well, I was thinking this would go in the policy. So I didn't want to put too much in the notice yet because you guys...I'm sure whatever I write there will be some tweaks but I was thinking just letting people know that a policy is forthcoming at a near future Council meeting for the fall.

Yeah,

go ahead.

You could say something really kind of you know sort of nice but a little bit firm saying please follow this policy for the safety and movement Ability to freely move for our mobile our mobility challenge neighbors, you know Just make it like you're gonna be a bad guy if you Don't follow the policy

and if I might ask just while you're drafting it did just some consensus Are we saying one or two weeks? Are we gonna try one? Leslie suggesting to I'm still favor one. Yeah And you're favoring to Leslie.

Yeah, just because everybody I've talked to who really love it

got

have supported too.

Okay. You care?

I don't have a preference one way or another. Personally, I sort of lean toward two just because I like seeing them out there and it puts me in the festive mood but I haven't heard from any constituents, I haven't heard any public comments specifying one week or two weeks. Well,

we just heard Kathy Smith and there was somebody last week who also said they understand the need but one week seems a little short and two weeks seem a little bit better. For me it makes people happier for two weeks instead of one week.

Yeah, I'm gonna go with two.

Kim what do you think? Two works for me.

Okay. Or maybe we'll decide when, in 2028. Yeah

you know it could change. It can change. Okay

do you have what you need? I

think i do

thank you all. Is a motion

required or

are you? I

would prefer a motion if you're willing to do that.

So then something like the motion is to request staff to produce a policy to come back for review including a two-week placement period and also restricted furniture. How's that?

Yeah, making certain that ADA access is ensured with whatever comes

back.

Can I ask one more question? So did we want to include anything about the businesses? That one's

harder.

It's harder because of the arcade...

I would not have that dimension myself this time but

Okay. But if you own a business or, you know, if you run a business, put your chairs out there.

Well I was hearing Kathy say, if we were not going to have the time

then that. Uh-huh. Okay. That's okay. It just makes

it a little tricky right? Like you're saying in the arcade.

All right, so I need a

second.

So just one quick thing. There should be a time. You know what I mean?

Like 6

p.m. the week before or whatever. Just whatever works. I don't care. I think 1201 is nice. It's clean.

12 to 1 a.m., and

if anything,

there's going to be more about it. There you go.

All right. On the start of the day? Yes, exactly.

Okay. It's in a new tradition! I

know. We're gonna have people camping out. If you see any people out there, it would be The Race. Like doing

them on

Doubletoad,

don't they do it?

Yeah.

The way it used to be.

They have to have their chair down at the east end and then it's 1201, you all run. Grab your chair put it where you want it. Okay so roll

Thanks guys okay so we're moving on to number two introduce ordinance repealing article 2 of chapter 3 of title 7 of the Ojai Municipal Code pertaining to well construction

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm

going to call Ms. Palmer forward and we'll deliver this along with our City Attorney. Thank you, Ms. Palmer.

Good evening

all.

So tonight I have an ordinance, the request to repeal an ordinance. It is ordinance number 973 of our code. It was adopted in 1990, March of 1990. It's a permitting process that we undergo here at the city. So it was adopted in 1990, a year before OBGMA was formed. So OBGMA is the Ojai Basin Groundwater Management Agency, and they're listed as one of the exclusive local agencies under California Water Code with statutory authority to manage groundwater within the basin. So they have a permitting process, we have a permitting process, and the County of Ventura has a permitting process. So we've had this before us. We actually discussed it briefly the last time we issued a permit. So our code requires us to accept the permit Set a public hearing, issue a permit.

OBGMA does as well and on occasion the county does. So there's a lot of redundancy going on and duplicity here. So the recommendation is to tonight to introduce this ordinance, to repeal this ordinance of ours, the cities and let OB GMA do their job. So tonight I would like to also invite Julia Aranda up to the podium. She is the GM for OBGMA, and she's got a couple of words she'd like to say, and she would also be more than happy as what I to answer any questions Hi Julia.

Hi, thanks for coming. Sure of course full disclosure so I am the general manager for the Ojai Basin Groundwater Management Agency. I'm also the engineering manager at Casitas Municipal Water District so I wear a lot of shoes because I don't like hats. So just just a little background OBGMA was created by the state legislature it is a state agency The boundaries of the Ojai Groundwater Basin were created by Department of Water Resources. It is the sustainability agency for the Ojai groundwater basin and it has a very specific charge and mission for the and activities that it's responsible for in the Ojai Basin.

The county issues well permits, the county has the authority to implement well standards for construction like the nuts and bolts if you will For wells, that's what everybody in Ventura County has to follow. OB-GMA had to prepare—you may have heard of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act that was passed in 2014? OB-GMA is the groundwater sustainability agency that has to comply with that. We prepared our groundwater sustainability plan in 2022 Department of Water Resources approved it in 2023 and we follow that. Our mission is to make sure that the groundwater basin is sustainable for the future, and when someone is drilling a well or replacing a well or modifying a well They think automatically, I got to get a permit from the county.

Then the county says you've got to talk to OBGMA first and then they say they've got to talk to the city as well. So they get kind of the runaround and they have to go to multiple agencies right now. So when they come to OBGMA, they fill out an application if it's a domestic well two acre feet or less than two acre feet or public well A public well could be Casitas or it could be one of the mutual water companies. That's kind of an administrative effort where I can just approve it and present it to the OBGMA board as a consent item.

If it's two acre feet or more, they have to go through a process where we get a deposit from them, hire our hydrogeologist consultant to go through a whole process where they look at what kind of groundwater extraction they're proposing, how much they're going to extract, where that well is located, how deep they're proposing to drill that well and make sure it Weigh that against the criteria in our groundwater sustainability plan, and there's several criteria that they look at.

Some of them are silly for our basin. Is it going to cause seawater intrusion? That's usually a no. We can all agree that's gonna be a no Will it cause land subsidence? That's also a no Water quality, will it impact groundwater quality in the basin? Will it impact nearby wells? Will it impact interconnected surface water or cause chronic groundwater level lowering?

If they can demonstrate that it won't be inconsistent with the Groundwater Sustainability Plan and won't decrease the likelihood of achieving the sustainability goals, then we'll present it to the board and we'll issue a letter to them. And they take that letter to the county and they get a well permit. That's what the process looks like. So there's really different, there's parallel paths with the county and with OBGMA. One is kind of the nuts and bolts of well construction and one is looking at the sustainability of the basin itself and the groundwater levels.

Adding another layer onto that is kind of what the city is doing. It's up to you guys to decide, I guess with your ordinance on what the value of that is for your constituents. That's what's before you today. I'm happy to answer any questions you have about it.

And I would like to add one more thing to what Julia said. Ours is primarily an administrative function. We're not doing what OBGMA does nor what the county does so

And last time we had when we had the end, we asked did OBJMA approve it? The answer was yes.

I

said great.

Yes. So we're

at

the end of that.

Understood any question?

I do. I'm just curious why this is coming to us now. Is there something underlying that this makes sense with or what's going on?

Yes, actually, there is something that makes sense because they have just applied for a well permit and so so they applied for a well permit a month or so ago, some time ago and I said this is the time now. Let's see if we can get this repealed before we have to overlay that on the application that we have in front of us right now.

But beyond that, we've had a discussion at staff level for over a year. We're not the water purveyor. We don't possess any water rights. And so it just always seemed a little bit absurd to me that we were weighing in on something where I understand why it was created given the history that was explained, but at this point it really is just an additional

burden. And the last time we did have a permit application and brought it to you all we had this conversation about let's talk about repealing this or something different because why are we seeing it

now? I heard from the chair in a phone call that if this isn't the first time that it's been requested by OBGMA for the city to look at it but not during this council meeting

And then how many, how many wells do we do a year and the dollar amount that that generates for the city?

It doesn't generate anything for the city. There's zero generation for the city. We see...

We've done two since I've been here. Okay. Two and a half years.

Yeah. And just so you know, the wells that we were applying for are monitoring wells. One of One of the issues we had with the state was they want to look at the interconnectedness between the shallow zone and the deeper zones. So, we were going to put like a half dozen monitoring wells out and they're in the city boundaries so you have to go through, jump through this administrative hoop to put these monitoring wells in.

Other questions? Yeah, go please.

Is there a benefit for us in knowing how many people are drilling in the city? I mean, water is such a precious resource and right now we don't have the problem that we have had in the past. But would there be a benefit to having this city have one more layer of

Review yes You know, there's other ways to get that information Julie and I speak regularly So we're in close contact with casitas and ob-gma so we could gather that information in a different way for sure and Present a report on an annual basis or something. How many of these have been issued? And the OBGMA

board members I have a representative from the city

on

them. Yeah,

Mr.

Whitman. And a member from Casitas, a member from the mutual water companies and agricultural member and one from the CFP. It used to be the CFP. I

was going to say too if we were concerned about over pumping, the basin extends way beyond the city limit so we would only have limited control but we would all be voicing our concern it seems to me if we were worried but I haven't seen them be overly ambitious

And that is literally OBGMA's job. Yeah, yeah, of

course.

Yeah.

Other questions? Thank you for being here.

Of course

I did you write a comment card if you can give it to Weston, please. OK, well come up to the podium, please. Yeah. If we're ready for public comment, he might have been talking about chairs. Oh wait are you talking about the drilling? No wait, sorry. I wanted to clarify. So we're talking about the wells and the ordinance right now, not something else? Whether

you really do want to repeal that or not is kind of significant. Okay. We did come through—I remember 1978 was the relief from a drought. Lake Casitas went down. 60 feet. And we were concerned about how long it was going to last, and it filled back up again. This last time it went down to 30%. It looked like it was going to take four El Ninos to fill it in a row.

They changed the law and they can detour the water from the river over to it now. So steelheader at risk but build the lake up. Should another 14-year or, God forbid, a 25-year drought like has occurred historically occur again you're going to have all kinds of well permits requested. You'll be waiting on them. You might want to think about do you want to retain control for at least the city part of it? The city might expand by that time who knows but maybe is there a way to deactivate an ordinance and bring it back to the table and start enforcing it or is better go ahead and repeal it just idea for you guys to think about.

Anybody online? No, Mayor. No raised hand. Okay. Any more discussion?

Yeah.

So

my thought on this as opposed to just removing the ordinance, we just suspend it. I've listened to... I have been one of the hearing officers on all these permits and OBGMA is doing its job But, you know, retaining the ability to say no to a well if at some point far off in the future. We would be very worried and our policies might be at odds with OBGMA. So my suggestion would be that we suspend our permit process with the idea that we can reactivate it at some point in the future. I don't expect, you know, that to happen but I can foresee that maybe 50 years from now things are really different And you never know what the state might decide to do in terms of how they're managing water, groundwater or whatever else. I'm 100% satisfied that our interests in the groundwater basin are Completely protected right now and that OBGMA is doing all of that, but I just wouldn't want to give up the Right to jump in at some point in the future if we were you know, I think Even like four years ago.

We might have started thinking about You know imposing moratoriums on drilling But just on that point, I will say that we did receive the analysis which is that if it's only two acre feet or less it's gonna be extracted. You would really have to have a lot of wells before it would impact sustainability but things can change so and that would be my suggestion as we

I would probably want to look into the appropriate method by which we would suspend it, but I'd be happy to look into that and bring that back. The other option of course is that if you repeal an ordinance you can always re-adopt it in the future. you know, you need to have that organizational memory of the fact that we had this ordinance and what it said. So that can be trickier with the passage of time in either case potentially.

But we would be happy to look into options for a suspension or some sort of suspension with a sunset that would come back

at some point.

I'm interested

in that. Ms. Will, you had your hand up?

Yeah, so I guess I was a little confused because I know that OBGMA has the statutory authority over groundwater management in the Ojai Basin but Ojai's ordinance can override their statutory authority in the City of Ojai. Is that correct? They could say yes, and we can say no and then it's no is that correct? It's

it's not so much that they that the city's ordinance would override But it's simply that you have two layers And so in order for someone to actually move forward with drilling a well within the city They would need the approval of both agencies. So so some you know in the same way that The city has police powers over other issues that affect the public health, safety and welfare. The city could impose or can continue to have its existing ordinance. It's just a policy question for the council as to whether you want to keep both layers of review.

Okay, but

I think the question that I heard was what if one says no and one says yes. What happened? Yes,