Ojai City Council Regular Meeting

Okay, hello everyone. Welcome to the Tuesday August 11th regular City Council meeting roll call please Mr. Montgomery

Mayor, just a couple of items this evening. First of all I just want to thank all of our public safety folks, first responders who participated in the National Night Out last Wednesday at Libbey Park. It was a great success, well attended. We got some great footage thanks to our own Christian Kubikub which is posted on social media so just thanks Chief for everything that you did to make that happen. Great event.

Secondly, this is just a little item that maybe a lot of you are aware of. Mayor, you and I met with the representative from the governor's office on Friday of last week and during that meeting he let us know that the state is pausing the Zone Zero implementation for the time being. And he didn't have a lot of details about that. He said this was in light of public comment and concern received, so we're going to continue to monitor that.

I asked him for is there a position paper or news? No, there's nothing yet that's come out. I searched around couldn't find anything. So we'll keep you posted but that's something he wanted to share with us. Thank you.

So public communications, these are items that are not on the agenda. And I have a few cards here and then we'll go online after that. Ron Salarzano please? P.S., check out this new podium right here, look how beautiful it is. I was checking it out! Thank you James Hahn. Yes.

All right well thank you members of council my name is Ron Solorzano I am the regional librarian for the Ojai Valley and yeah so as of this month as of the first of the month the Ojai Library has closed for renovations we are doing some packing and taking care of things to make sure that we're ready for construction to begin At this point in about a week, they're going to be coming in.

So a couple of things I wanted to highlight with that going on first is that as of this Thursday the 13th, the Mobile Library will be visiting the Ojai Community Farmers Market every week on Thursday at three o'clock. There will also be a story time at 3.30 and you can utilize all of the regular mobile library services there that includes getting a library card or, you know, checking out items that they have there. You can talk to the staff there about other things that you might be able to do with the mobile library as well. So that's going to be every Thursday, 3 p.m., at the Ojai Community Farmers Market. The other thing I wanted to highlight is that if you're going just by distance, the next closest of our library branches is the Miners Oaks Library.

And that library in addition to again having all of our regular library services and some of our staff out there as well helping out also has something that is a little less common which is express hours There are express hours at the Miners Oaks Library every Saturday from 10 a.m to 5 p.m. If you are a library user who has updated your card to an express card, you can use your card to scan in and enter the Miners Oaks Library on Saturday during those hours. The library is not...doesn't have library staff present at that time it's a security guard only But you can again pick up holds, you can check items out from the library.

Anything else you might need to do just get in from the heat. You can do that at the Miners Oaks Library with an express card from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.. That's all I have for now and thank you all so much!

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Yeah. I'd like to just add something which is I just learned that maybe it's more out in the public than I'm aware of. But in addition to the library remodel, they're totally reimagining the courtyard in front of the library. They're going to do a native plant installation and cultural aspects to it. It's going to look totally different than it does today.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Stay tuned for more information on that project as it develops there. They're going to be looking for to get the word out a little more soon.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Next I have Nicholas Wiseman and then Candace Mennegan.

Good evening City Council members, Mayor Gilman and city staff. My name is Nicholas Wiseman I'm the president of the Ojai Film Society. I'm here tonight speaking on behalf of our volunteer board to help ensure that this 38 year old valley institution can continue presenting free summer films at Libby Bowl for our community As you may know, the Ojai Film Society began programming at The Bowl coming out of the pandemic with a simple idea to make use of the Ojai beautiful summer nights and create a place where community could come together for outdoor films. At the time former Parks and Recreation lead Renee Peace and the city generously invited us to use Libby Bowl as our venue. Now in our fifth year, the Summer Series has grown into a meaningful tradition for all ages with 27 screenings to date and an annual attendance of over 3,000 people.

You can still attend this summer we're showing Arrival on August 20th and Jurassic Park on August 27 The reason we're here tonight is to request that the new Libby Bowl Management Agreement, and specifically the challenge date system within it be reviewed by the City Council in the September regular council meeting. The Ojai Film Society is joined in this request by the Ojai Band also known as the Ojai Summer Band which has been performing at Libbey Park for 35 years. The Ojai Pops Orchestra now in its 10th year performing on Sundays at full and the Ojais Storytelling Festival which has served this community each October for 26 years All of us with deep roots in Ojai and long histories of creating accessible cultural programming for thousands of members of the public for reduced costs or free.

Under the current challenge date system, community organizations cannot reliably confirm dates far enough in advance to properly plan, fundraise, contract with artists and vendors, promote events, and serve the public. Under the current Tier 1 process from May to October, a date may not open until 60 days before their event followed by an additional 48-hour right of refusal time which puts most organizations outside of the city's designated window for fee waivers.

Prior to this new system, organizations could submit their dates in September of the prior year giving them nine to 10 months to plan. Events at the scale of the Libby Bowl's capacity require months of advance work and the uncertainty created by the new challenge date system makes responsible planning extremely difficult. We believe the experience of these four organizations is exactly the kind of community feedback that is relevant for the City Council members to review this ahead of the November 15th deadline.

So our request tonight is straightforward. We are asking the City Council to begin that review now rather than waiting until November, to reconsider the challenge date system that the community organizations can request and secure dates with enough lead time to plan and to consider recognizing the Ojai Film Society, the Ojai Band, the Ojai Pops, and the Ojais Storytelling Festival as legacy Ojai organizations with consistent annual dates and fee waivers.

This would equate to 20 dates of the total 180 days available in tier one. All right,

thank you we got it and you've submitted a good document that's detailed so we have that in here okay thank you all right Candace Menigan please thank you and then Randy Cox

Good evening Mayor Gilman and City Council members. My name is Candace Mennegan, I am on the board of Friends of the Santa Clara River and Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources. Friends of the Santa Clara River is a local non-profit that protects and does natural resource protection and conservation as well as cultural resource protection Along across both Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

We are also a member of a larger group called the Biodiversity Working Group, and that has developed a community vision and policy platform to support biodiversity across California's Central Coast And really, I'm here today to say thank you because I believe a few weeks ago the city actually did adopt a biodiversity resolution. We started with the adoption of these resolutions in the county of Santa Barbara and we really are now focusing on Ventura County and we're happy that you have been early adopters along with the City of Fillmore And I just wanted to say that we heartened and we are looking forward to working with you, what you said about the nature garden in front of the library. It's these opportunities by adopting policies like that that we can really embolden and I'm just here today to say thank you on behalf of those 50 organizations across the Central Coast that are doing this type of work.

To protect our biodiversity during a biodiversity collapse and during global climate change And so the action that the city took was really a big one and a welcome one, and we just are very grateful Thank you very much

Appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, it's very nice Randy Coggin please and then Pat to my mate

Good evening, Mayor and Council and staff. While I previously sent you an email to each of you, I'd like to read this into the record for the benefit of those that are here tonight and those watching online. There are significant concerns that are being raised in the community regarding the lack of information about evacuation planning for the city. In the event of a evacuation level major emergency such as a wildfire, earthquake, flood or the like.

As you know evacuation planning is the responsibility of the Ventura County Office of Emergency Services OES which is a department of the Ventura County Sheriff's office While actual evacuation routes cannot be determined until the time, type and location of the event are known there are some actions that could be taken that I believe can alleviate some of the community's concern.

Accordingly, I would like to make the following recommendation to City Council One, the City contact the Sheriff's Office and as part of the city's contract with them requests that OES perform a scenario-based evacuation planning for the city. If it has already been done then OES can simply share this with the city and it could be shared with the residents. With proper caveats, the results of this scenario based planning can then be shared with the city's residents to illustrate that the city is being proactive in this regard I also sent you some information about C-SAFE. And C-SAFE is a comprehensive framework for developing emergency evacuation simulations to enhance pre-disaster preparedness. This isn't rocket science, and a number of organizations are doing it.

Two, that the City acquire and test message boards can be deployed if any of the four primary evacuation routes to the city are impassable providing directions for evacuees to passable evacuation routes or temporary refuge areas. I believe that in completing these steps, along with the City hopefully due to Ben's efforts obtaining the grant to install the two planned warning sirens.

This will go a long way in alleviating the community's concern about evacuation planning for the city of Ojai. And in the couple minutes I have left, I just want to make a comment to what Ben said about the state and Zone Zero. Those of us that are close to it knew this wasn't going to happen. The state's gonna probably be two or three years from doing anything but a reminder and I don't see anybody here for fire tonight because Nick I think is on the Foxfire up in Washington State but the county has its own zone zero so even without the state there is the county's own zero to follow And again, thank you for your time.

Thank you Mr. Coggin I appreciate it. Pat Tumamite please and then Cara Martin

Good evening Council, Mayor, Andy Glimp. The reason why I'm here tonight is basically to have a grievance about this consultation list that the city has with Native American people such as myself and my sister Julie. Since my sister and I have basically left the Barbarino-Venturino band of Chumash here in the valley, the new chairman has asked the city council to remove us from the consultation list of the city.

And beings that were local residents and people who have the experience and the knowledge of the valley It's really beside us that we're not involved. We no longer receive any notices of projects that are deemed sensitive to cultural resources in the valley. Some of the work that's being done now, especially this One Dignity project that's going on, they're having problems with finding native people to do the monitoring. We had one person that they were able to contact a relative of ours, Frank.

Or a Dondo and because he's not on the list they couldn't hire him. So my sister and I they certainly aren't going to hire us because we're not on the list as well. And it's not like we're not involved. We're definitely involved with what goes on here in the valley. You know, and I find it really biased and actually hypocritical of the situation because it's funny that I received this award of preservation in 2024. For what reason?

Was it a going away gift? No, I'm still here. We still exist within the city of Ojai. And I feel that The non-residents that don't know this valley, don't know it like my sister and myself. So it's besides me to feel and think that the city would follow within a policy that basically doesn't involve your most important expertise with issues of cultural resources in archaeological sites and knowledge of the history of the valley You know, Ojai is a.

A native Chumash name and it represents our people, and I would certainly like to see change come within the city and address this with you know, with this group, the Barbarian Venturino Band of Chumash Indians and. You know? Ask Matthew. Thank you. Thank

you, sir. I appreciate it. Kara Martin, please. Yes, did you have something? Oh go ahead.

No no we were looking at each

other. I'm just wondering when this happened and why and how.

And what can we can we have a discussion about? This would be my request to get. Yeah,

I would recommend this could be a future discussion. There is a city council resolution that governs how the list is established in the city coordinates with the chair to establish the list so we can we can put this on a future agenda if you like.

I would much appreciate that. Yes, I think it's a discussion worth having. Thank you. Great. Thank you

for bringing that up. Karen Martin, please. Thank you. And then Russell Spinney

Good evening, Mayor Gilman and members of the City Council. My name is Kara Martin and I am director of Performances to Grow On, the non-profit that produces the Ojai Storytelling Festival. I'm here tonight to talk about how the city's contract with Ojai Valley Music has affected our organization, specifically our ability to plan the Ojai Storytelling Festival and hold it at Libby Bowl where it has taken place since 2000. The year 2000.

Putting on an event like this takes extensive, advanced planning. We book performers of national and international standing, arrange their travel and lodging, build out our marketing for months ahead of time, sell tickets, line up volunteers and vendors, pursue sponsorships and grants, and commit funds long before the festival itself begins. This year, as we started marketing on our usual schedule I learned that another non-profit had been given permission to use the bowl the same weekend that we have used it for years.

Ojai Valley Music had granted the use of the bowl for a fundraiser without following the standard application process required of everyone else. As a result, we've had to relocate our Friday and Saturday night shows. But there's a deeper problem. The city's agreement with the Ojai Valley Music allows it to deny any groups except those with legacy status, the use of the bowl up to 60 days before a scheduled event from May through October.

That means nothing can be finalized until 60 days out. We had already begun booking performers for 2028 when we learned of this rule. Instead of planning confidently several years in advance as we used to, we now can't even count on a full year. Not knowing our venue or expenses early enough creates a cascade of problems. It delays when we can contract performers, apply for grants, approach sponsors with a real budget. It pushes back our advertising and tickets that makes securing housing for the performers harder and it undermines our ability to make sound financial decisions.

For international performers it's a deal breaker. 60 days simply isn't enough to apply for and receive a U.S. work visa. A simple solution for all of this is to grant us legacy status along with the four organizations named in the contract. Ojai Music Festival, The Tennis Tournament, The Lavender Festival and Ojai Day. The Ojai Storytelling Festival is a local non-profit that has been part of this community for 26 years. Every dollar we raise goes straight back into producing the festival and supporting Performances To Grow One's arts education program. We recognize the city has a responsibility to manage Libby Bowl well and love what Ojai Valley Music has brought to Ojai, but I hope the city will take a close look at the unintended impact this agreement has had on longstanding local nonprofits events and work with us so that organizations like ours can keep planning with confidence and remain part of Ojai's cultural life.

Thank you very much. I would say to Ms. Martin but also to Mr. Wiseman, it will be something that we will be bringing forward just so you're clear. Russell Spinney please and then Scott Weiss

Thank you, everybody for this opportunity. It's my first time to be able to speak here. Welcome. And in support of Patrick Tumamaid who you just heard speak and his candidacy to be re-added to the consultation list along with his sisters' candidacy and other local native consultants. Who am I very quickly? I'm a PhD in modern German history. This is my 30th year of teaching at 11 different institutions, universities, high schools, and places like Baltimore, Santa Fe, and here It's my eighth year here in Ojai, and at the Thatcher School I'm the head of the History Department and the Global Studies program there.

In these eight years that we've been here lots of local connections working with coaching my own kids in the AYSO program and volunteering for OIES when they are in that program But particularly more recently with the Women of the Valley Project and the indigenous work that I've been doing along with other work. With Matthew Vestuto, who I worked with before in our science program, and Patrick and Julie Tumamate in history and ethnobotany, with Lanny Kaufer who will speak here later in a few minutes. I'm going to start by saying thank you to all of our panelists for being here today.

I'm just, in my work, I've worked at Santa Fe, in Santa Fe where I started working with indigenous communities and developing indigenous studies. And so at Thatcher, I continued those things. And what I've learned along the way is that historical exclusion of indigenous peoples from democracy is a long result of all this. And I've seen divisions in different native communities that I've worked with like the Pueblos and I sense also here in the local Chumash band. So surprised to learn that the Tumamates are not on the list for local cultural preservation work Also, there's that history of divide and conquer and working with one group of Native leaders at the expense of others. And because of this it is something I think that is very important to be very aware of and mindful of.

And I also want to support all Indigenous efforts in those ways. And with the Tumamates personally, I have spent the last few years getting to know them. Meeting with them for coffee in the park to build trust, to listen to them and to support their efforts. Both are called cultural knowledge keepers. Their father Vincent, there's a trail named after him and there's long deep roots here. And I know of Patrick's recent award from the city for his experience in cultural preservation and have seen him doing that monitoring work at Thatcher.

And with Julie, as many of you may or may not know she is a cultural resource in the valley for the Chumash world. Especially for children that she reaches out to and works with a lot. And she's even been recognized and you can find her in a National Geographic a few years back where she was representing Ojai indigenous work here. And I speak with passion and that's coming forth. And I apologize for that emotion, but it reveals the importance of this. And so I just ask honorable council members that you would consider this history and you consider these people in your work.

Thank you

sir. Scott Weiss please? And then Clay Creasy.

Good evening Mayor Gilman, City Council members and city staff. My name is Scott Weiss. I've been with the Ojai Summer Band since its inception 35 years ago. I am the co-manager trumpet player and one of the conductors. I'm also the founder and musical director of the Ojia Pops Concert Series and Ojia Pops Orchestra. This year will be our 10th anniversary season. There are four long-standing valuable community organizations before you asking for legacy status. We're asking to include fee waiver and priority scheduling for our events as part of the legacy status.

The Ojai Band has been creating free Norman Rockwell-like concerts in the park bandstand for the last 35 years on Wednesday nights. This Wednesday night, the concert will not take place. It was preempted by the Gypsy Kings and Ojai Valley Music Event. This should not happen again. The Ojai Pops concert series has been waiting for the 60-day window for our October 4th concert date to be released. It was released on August 4th, 60 days before but the problem with this is we don't...we have an event in the end of September So we actually have only 26 days to do our booking of events, to do our marketing, and to do our planning. And it's just an impossible way to work basically. It'll be very hard to get anything ads in the newspaper let alone get all of the groups booked.

We've brought a woodwind quintet, a professional woodwind quintet up from Los Angeles We have a French horn quartet that comes from Santa Barbara County. We have the pops orchestras, about 45 musicians with singers and we have jazz groups that are presented as well. In 35 years there've been numerous city council members, city managers and city attorneys. We hope that these organizations will outlive all of you and all of us You have the opportunity and responsibility to shine, and to provide for a vibrant future for these four organizations by providing legacy status to these organizations. We ask that you pass a resolution to provide legacy status at your next City Council meeting I have provided Weston with a document that has a draft resolution that I'd like you to look at, and also a draft section E of the contract challenge system.

Thank you very much.

Mayor and City Council, I prepared a document that Westin has taken and it shows the pacing of financial reporting that has happened over the past several years in Ojai going back to 2018-2019. If you look at these numbers, we have two major financial reports that we issue. One to the state of California and one published generally the financial statement audited statement each year as you can see from this report for the first three years in my charts from 2018 through 2021 we were pretty much publishing on time After that, what you see is an accelerating pace of late reporting. The State of California report, they call it Financial Transaction Report or FTR, we used to be on time which is January 31st back in the good old days through 2021 but since then we were 48, 62, 74 now 181 days late.

So the last four years it's been late and getting later and we owe the city or owe the state a relatively small fine when you're late and frankly I don't even know for sure whether they assess it or not but in theory there is some financial consequence with being late. The financial statements, the audited statements I've also been later in an accelerating way your policy, the financial policy that you adopt as well as the state guidelines say for each fiscal year you should have that statement published by the end of December. So year ends June 30th, you got six months to publish.

We are still in a state where we haven't even published the audit from the year that ended June 30th of 2025, so you're over a year late with that. I'd love to point fingers and find villains but the truth is I think life is just getting a lot more complicated and this accelerating trend predates your new city manager it predates all your finance directors and by the way you're on your fourth one now in the last 17 or 15 months, excuse me.

So my recommendation if I was CFO of this city, I would have two job requisitions in now one for a financial planning manager and another for an accounting manager because you're obviously understaffed Maybe in the old days, five people was the right number. Now it's obviously not and if you go four years and it gets worse every year at some point you can't blame turnover anymore. You just have a basic structural under engineering of this staff.

And the final notion is if there's a job that takes five people and there's only four people to do it, those four are going to be pretty stressed. And one or more is going to drop out. Then you've got three and you've got two and the whole thing falls apart. So add two people to finance is my message. Thank you.

Thank you

sir.

Lanny Cofford please and then Delaney Labar.

Hi Mayor Gilman, Council thank you for this opportunity. My name is Lanny Coffer and I have been leading ethnobotanical interpretive walks and hikes in Ojai since 1976 so celebrating 50 years this year. I first moved to Ojai in 1969 so I will never be able to say I'm a native But I've seen a lot here. And because of the nature of the work that I do, ethnobotanical work, I'm here to on behalf of Patrick and Julie Tumamait.

I knew their father Vincent. In fact there's been discussion about legacy events in the bowl. My brother Michael Coffer And his friend Kerry Sterling co-founded the Ojai Bowl Full of Blues, which occurred here for 25 years. And they started a legacy tradition of asking Vincent Tumamite to lead a Chumash blessing to open that event. Something that's become almost a routine thing when you see city events, non-profit events, private events. This interest in acknowledging the that the Chumash are still here and asking their blessing on the uses of our land here So, continuing that tradition all these years have been Patrick and Julie Tumamait.

And as Pat said there's nobody that knows this valley that knows the Chumash culture and traditions that's trained as archaeological monitors, as cultural consultants the way that they are. So when I learned that they had been removed from the consultant list, I was shocked. And I just had to come down here and find out how that happened. So I was hoping I could even get an answer tonight but I know things have to take their time to work out.

But I think this is a...I don't know what's going on within that organization And that doesn't really concern me. What concerns me is these are the two most qualified people who have given of their time and their lives to this community and to the Chumash people, and if anybody should be at the top of that consultant list it would be the Tumamites.

Thank you. Thank you sir. And then just to be clear not removed by us but we'll figure it out. Delaney Labar please and then Larry Steingold

Good evening, Mayor, Council, staff, one and all. Delaney Labar. I live here on Blanche. And just a quick thing to get on the radar. I don't know how many of you might be aware that the flock Cameras are taking a lot of heat and communities are dropping their contract. There are other companies who also do the same thing, but Flock in particular has an extremely bad reputation. And you may have seen the article in the LA Times this last week that meaning no disrespect to our law enforcement here, but 50 Police officers have been arrested for abusing the system and stalking women, ex-wives, cute gals they'd like to get to meet whatever their thinking is.

So I don't know if we have this contract in place. Word on the street is there's a Cameron Miners Oaks are in Oakview. I don't know but I think it's something we want to be aware of and think about whether we want this because especially with the immigration, it's a real problem because it's getting the license plate, it's getting the picture of the person behind the wheel And it's just more data collection on private citizens who are simply driving to work or taking their kids to school. So I wanted to bring that to your attention, to consider whether or not we have one contract that is and perhaps we don't want it if we haven't at least you would want to go with a more reputable company at this point.

OK, thank you so much. Thank

you so much. I appreciate it. Larry Stangle, please. And then Leanna McNeely.

Hi, Larry. I want to thank the mayor for the assessment meeting we had at St. Thomas. Where we had a good crowd, people from the insurance companies. And the mayor made a suggestion that we should waive fees for fire hardening, fire trimming, anything related to fire. That's something you can do today or next on the agenda meeting or however it works out. I know it's not a lot and maybe a lot to somebody but it's $225 for me for each time we had to redo the tree.

And I think it's something that will be helpful. It shows immediacy, it shows something is being done now and it doesn't amount to a lot of money in the scheme of things. After listening to the people regarding the theater, the Playhouse, Libbey Park maybe it's time to re-look at the contract. To see how we can make it better, make it different, make it more acceptable for the legacy for other groups, for new groups.

And one last thing, please move the agenda to Thursday. Just instruct the city manager to make it happen because when we have a Monday holiday they still get it out on time so maybe we pretend a week and he gets it out on Thursday. I mean it shows transparency you want engagement, you want people here. I mean not everybody can read the agenda on their phone And it's really no fun. It's actually nice to read it in the paper occasionally, and then you have to follow up. But it gets people here. So please move the agenda. Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Leanna McNeely and I'd like to begin by thanking the mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and council members for their service to Ojai. We know you don't have to be here and you deserve our respect, our gratitude whether we agree with you or not. With this administration, this Council Building on the work of past councils has achieved more than any council I can remember in the last 40 years.

You deserve thumbs up for the work that you've done, you've done good things, you've made big commitments and you've made me proud to live in a city that works so hard to make life better for all of its citizens. Tonight I'm speaking as a member of the Ojai Rhetory Club of the West We've supported the Ojai Summer Band program since its inception. The contract signed with the promoter, as you've heard, Ojai Valley Music gives them priority over 164 calendar dates.

Everyone understands that booking groups to a small venue is no easy task and anyone who's paid attention to the recent concerts is happy to see a more vibrant group of performers than we've had in the past. Also as you've heard, this agreement impacts multiple longstanding and cherished programs. The Ojai Pops, the Storytelling Festival, the Ojai Film Society, the Summer Series Ojai Band Concerts and many other worthy non-profits.

These groups deserve legacy status and protected dates for their programs not because these programs have been around for decades Mere existence does not earn a right to legacy status, but because they represent the best of what Ojai is. Most of the impacted programs are entirely or partially free to the public. They build community and they reinforce what makes Ojai, Ojai. These programs represent the inclusionary ethos of our town. Not everybody has $150 to see The Gypsy Kings but people can afford a 50 cent balloon for their child to take care, to carry in the balloon parade and I'll bet that tomorrow night The night that would usually host the band concert, you will see people of all ages many with children in tow confused because there's no band concert and no balloon parade.

Ojai is a welcome oasis of small town values, evidenced by so many of the events that the city celebrates. Whether our parades or public concerts, Ojai Day, the list is long. The city needs to support the organizations that bring value to all the citizens of the valley by giving them the protection these groups, the protection of legacy status. Thank you.

Thank you. Elena Rios, please. Hi,

Council. My name's Elena Rios and I'm an Auxiliary Battalion Chief with the Chumash Fire Department, Santina's Band of Chumash Indians where I've also received training as a cultural specialist from tribal elders and archaeologists which has really enhanced my perspective on what it means to be in relationship to land and place I'm also a Nature Connection Guide and a cultural practitioner myself.

I remember when Julie Tumamaia created the non-profit that is called the Barbareño Ventureño Band of Chumash Indians about 20 years ago, I've been living in this valley for about 30 years or so. And so I think it's worth mentioning that the BVBMI started out as a nonprofit. And as a nonprofit, all of the descendants of Barbareño-Ventureño Chumash Indians did not necessarily join the BVBMI. So it's important to note that the BVBMI doesn't necessarily represent the views of all BVMBI members, as all are not members of the nonprofit.

So this invites us to think a little bit more deeply about what it means Also in my work in the fire department and as a board member of a non-profit called Sacred Indigenous Preservation, I've learned a little bit more about some of the things that we're talking about. And I know that the nonprofit that Julie started helped the BVBMI gain state recognition from the California Native Heritage Commission.

And so I understand some of the parameters of that, but I hope that Because I know Julie and the Tumamayo family are true locals here, that the city can come to a conclusion that is fair for all native cultural consultants especially ones so deeply tied to this land like the Tumamayo family. Thank you.

Thank you. I have no more cards anybody online for general comments? Yes Mayor

we'll move on to Zoom. Okay first we have Eric. Eric you may unmute and you have the floor.

Hello Mayor Gilman and members of the City Council. My name is Eric Cardenas, I am working at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and like Candace Mennegan before me who's in the audience there, I just wanted to come on here and appreciate offer gratitude a couple of months after the fact for your recent passing of your biodiversity resolution on June 23rd. It was something that as Candice mentioned We have been pushing and promoting throughout the region to really start to uplift the importance of biodiversity, to highlight the fact that we are in a biodiversity crisis. And that there's a lot of really really important work happening throughout the cities and the counties on the south central coast to address some of these issues Tried to try to have some positive impact.

So your leadership in elevating this resolution and adopting the resolution a couple months ago is really, really important as we build a movement and we continue to build a conservation movement in support of biodiversity. I am the chair, the current chair of a Biodiversity Working Group which is made up of 50 organizations including the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy, the Ventura Land Trust a whole sort of organizations throughout the tri-county region.

And if the Botanic Garden can offer any resources, particularly around native plants which I've heard referenced a couple of times at this meeting already we would love to be a resource for you. Our other colleagues who have spoken before and who I think may speak after me are also here to support their expertise however they can so thank you for your leadership. We really appreciate it and let us know how we can help in the future.

Thank you. Next we'll have Brie. Brie, you may unmute and you have the floor.

Hello and thanks for your time. My name is Brie Sliker and I'm the Director of Grants and Engagement at Farmhand Foundation here in Ojai. We're an agricultural nonprofit with a demonstration farm in Miner's Oaks at the intersection of El Roblar and La Luna. I'm here as a member of the Biodiversity Working Group, as well, and we are a network of like-minded organizations across Santa Barbara and Ventura counties working to advance solutions for protecting and enhancing biodiversity in our communities And this collaborative working group, we bring together our collective expertise and fire wildfire resilience wildlife and habitat connectivity. And in our expertise as farmhand foundation agricultural and agricultural landscapes, and so I'm here representing with Eric and Candace who spoke before me.

And thanking the City Council for your leadership in adopting the recent biodiversity resolution. And this is just a critical state and going forward to elevate biodiversity, and how we plan manage and invest in it in our communities across the central coast. And we are a local partner here in the valley who are involved in this effort and like Eric offer our assistance and expertise in any projects going on throughout Ojai. Thank you all have a great evening.

Thank you. Our current last raise hand, we have Martin. Martin, you may unmute and you have the floor.

Good evening. Good evening Council, Mayor. My name is Martin Fleischman. I am a partner of Ojai Valley Music, been listening with interest to previous speakers. And I think it's no secret that the Libby Bowl concert season used to consist of not much more than journey tribute bands. Now Ojai Valley Music has brought world-class artists like Laurie Anderson, Mavis Staples, Jacob Collier and Big Thief to the bowl.

And as people pointed out, tomorrow night Gypsy Kings. There's still a few just a few very few tickets available if I may plug and it's no coincidence that we have Ani DiFranco on Friday either. It's not something that can happen if our booking process gets unnecessarily cumbersome Um, we've worked with the petitioning organizations among others over the last two years waiving our contractual rights to accommodate their needs. We ensured that the Ojai Film Society got their six dates by mid-February leaving a full five months ahead for planning for their series.

I did hear the gentleman from the film society say that it takes months of planning for his events and I agree and he had five months so To me that seems like months plural, more than two. We have also done the same for the POPs although I have to concede that we did hold off for a while on a few of the requested dates. We ended up booking artists on several of them and the last one yes we granted two months out and that speaks to the process My questions for the petitioners, especially the OFS are what aspect or aspects of this year's process need adjusting? How was the series negatively affected by this year's process and if there were indeed issues with this process why was no attempt made to reach out to us resolve issues before coming to the Mayor and Council.

Our booking process requires flexibility, we hold blocks of dates for artists sometimes in a week or two weeks and have to wait usually several months for the artist to decide which of those dates works for them to route their tour. And if anyone needs further explanation I'd be happy to sit down and tell them how this actually works. There's also our productions which need lead time of a day sometimes two days And we have potential solutions that we'd like to bring to the table and explore further in a non-political and neutral fashion.