Ojai City Council Regular Meeting

Thank you everyone for waiting and Mayor we're ready.

Thank you all for waiting for us, welcome to the Tuesday September 22nd City Council regular meeting roll call please.

thank you for that and would you lead us in a pledge please of course thanks welcome honorable council community Ready, begin.

Commission reports

Thank you mayor. Stand it's slippery.

Okay, good evening Council and staff. Randy Coggin, Chair of your Public Safety Commission. I want to give you an update on the commission's activities since its creation. I am pleased to announce that with Katie Donwen being sworn in at our meeting yesterday we're now finally fully staffed. Since our inaugural meeting on August 3rd we've been hard at work on several initiatives that have been sent to us by City Council and some that we felt were needed on our own With the number of time-consuming items we have and only meeting once a month, we have made effective use of work group which I believe you all refer to as ad hoc committees.

The first item that we tackled was the speed hump policy. After further review, the Commission along with staff felt it should be more of a comprehensive policy so we pivoted to what will be a traffic calming policy which focuses not only on speed humps which are but one form of traffic calming but the wide array of all methods by which traffic can be addressed For this item, I appointed a working group of Commissioners Steingold and Keechin who along with Lindy Palmer and her staff have developed a policy that I believe will meet the city's needs. The policy is currently undergoing legal review and once finalized we brought to the council in the near future for adoption.

We were also asked to discuss and evaluate the most effective and physically responsible uses of available fire mitigation funds, and offer recommendations to the City Council for consideration. The Commission approved five recommendations for your consideration which staff will be bringing to you at a future council meeting. Our next focus was the safety element of the general plan, which was sent to us for review by the Planning Commission. We are currently reviewing that element making revisions and additions that we thought were appropriate and are working towards a final version.

Once our review is completed it'll be sent back to the Planning Commission for their final review and from there to City Council for adoption At our meeting yesterday, we began work on the Ojai Community Disaster Plan. I appointed a work group consisting of Commissioners Sims and McEachin assisted by Chief Abbott and Chief Cleary as needed and subject to their availability who will review the plan make necessary revisions and additions and bring it back to the commission at a future meeting for the commission's discussion and approval and then subsequently submission to City Council for your consideration Finally, based on a number of issues that have been raised to Council concerning e-bikes the Commission believed that an e-bike policy was needed.

It would provide guidance to both e-bike riders and law enforcement. The discussion of creating this policy is on the agenda for October meeting. A number of e-Bike policies from other municipalities have been gathered for use as reference And I appointed a work group consisting of Commissioners Steingold and Donwin, assisted by Chief Abbott as needed and subject to his availability to work on and develop this policy. And eventually bring it back to the full commission for review and ultimately to the City Council for your consideration.

I should note as staff support to the Commission that Lindy and Jackie are part of any work group that is formed subject their availability. Needless to say, we've been busy. I do want to let you know that our meetings have been well attended and we received numerous public comments at our meetings which are much appreciated. In closing, I want to thank Lindy, Jackie, the rest of City staff along with Chiefs Abbott and Cleary for their excellent support that they have provided the Commission That concludes my report, unless you have any questions for me.

I don't have a question but I want to say that I'm so grateful for how ambitious you guys are and we're all benefiting from your work. Thank you for that.

Yeah and thank you for your leadership as well. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. I'll pass

it on to

the

commission. Thank you for the council support.

Yes, thank you very much. And just to say before we move to the city manager's report, I know if you are here to speak on the public discussion item which was El Roblar, that item just to say again did move to a soon item in the future. Just so you know. You're not waiting for no reason. That got brought up when we approved the agenda. It's being moved forward.

So it's not for tonight. I can see that that

was worth saying. Yes ma'am and anyone looking at the agenda those would be items number 10 and number 16. Number 10 and 16 moving

out.

Okay,

moving on to the city manager's report.

Mayor I have two items but I'd like to first let the city attorney go then I'll follow her.

All right so I'm here tonight and I'm happy to announce to the City Council and to members of the community that the city and council member rule have reached a settlement agreement in the pending litigation matter Rule V. Ojai Tomorrow the city will be releasing a statement that's a joint statement of the entire City Council including councilmember rule and the other four council members.

And that will be issued tomorrow on social media and also provided to other local media through a press release.

Thanks. Great, and then if you haven't yet received it, you're going to be getting your Ojai Outlook in your mailbox started landing. It's the fall edition we're very proud of it. Hope you enjoyed reading it. We enjoyed it. Thank you.

Okay. I'll move on to public communications. I have three cards. Ulrich Brugger and then Bradley Smith. Yes, thank you.

Hello, sir. Well I'm not sure if I should speak now because you said item number 10 has been postponed?

Correct.

That's what I wanted to talk about

and you would have waited till that item anyway instead of now but anyway gotcha for next time and then Bradley Smith please hello

good evening council members city manager too many times like come to the meetings where i watch On my TV at home. And I see people come up here and tell you what you should be doing, and how you should be doing it. And just a lot of negativity. I don't know whose idea it was to have the My Ojai app. Last week I downloaded it, and I put in a request to Public Works to make them aware of a hazardous situation. What I felt was a hazardous situation.

Two days later, the hazardous situation was caught. And I'm really impressed. Since that happened to me, one of my other neighbors also had a similar thing happen to him. I wasn't contacted by the city. I believe there's enough information on there that they could go and look and do. But I'm really happy with whoever developed that app. It certainly worked for me. Thanks.

Thank you. That's great to hear. I've had similar experience with the app and it works great. Leanna McNeely, please?

Good evening City Council, Mayor, Administration, Attorneys at all. My name is Leanna McNeely I'm a resident of Ojai. As my husband said there's a lot of negativity and I'd like to acknowledge some of the good that the council members have accomplished over the last month We find it's really easy to lob criticism at the City and City Council, and we see it all over social media and in our local paper. But it isn't difficult if you look to find a lot of good that this council has accomplished.

Just the last month gives us examples of leadership and positive governance that should make us all proud of our city and local government. First, thank you to Councilmember Rule for her leadership in spearheading the informative and important community conversation on public safety and immigration. Well done! A big thank you to Mayor Gilman for leading a thoughtful Chautauqua about the future of Ojai, and I'm hoping for many more productive positive conversations about our city's future.

Council Members Whitman and Rule should be applauded, silently of course, for working together to craft the RFP for Program Manager for the Permanent Supportive Housing. Mr. Whitman's been opposed to the project from the get-go and he had his reasons. But now that the housing project is a reality, construction has started. He has moved forward and is lending his legal expertise to ensure the project succeeds with a strong management team in place. Mr. Whitman's willingness to help this project be successful as a wonderful example of how to pivot from opposition to proactive support when the circumstances warrant it.

And to the council as a whole, thank you to your response to the grand jury report. Council members Lang and Rule walked us through all the events that led to the grant application. The growing homeless population outside these doors and elsewhere in our city The lack of a plan of how to management and the chaos that at that time was the city administration. Their input helped frame the responses to the grand jury, and remind us all why the decisions that were made came to be. And again Councilmember Whitman's legal expertise guided the response advocating a less defensive more contrite tone.

To see the council work through their response was a reminder of how civil discourse and local governance should be conducted. So thank you all for your commitment to the city and to your leadership, thank you.

Thank you, we appreciate that very much. Anybody? Let's see, Mr. Miley do you want to do a public comment? Go ahead and stay up there. Hello.

This week I got my newsletter from SOAR, a lot of you did. And there's two articles in here that are really exciting and we want to tell you about one on the first page. Ventura County Open Space Collaborative is born. You may know about And we'll quickly read it. One of our former county boards of supervisors, Linda Parks is the executive director of SOAR and she's involved.

They said from the beaches to the mountains, Ventura County is home to an abundance of wild open space that gives our region its unique character. These landscapes support extraordinary biodiversity Essential economic processes that sustain both communities and our economy. To support the work of organizations dedicated to protecting and conserving these places, we have created...

Come on open up. The Ventura County Open Space Collaborative The collaborative, a group of two dozen organizations and agencies was convened by Melissa Baffa with the Ventura Land Trust. And they've done really great things here. James Friddle with the Canal Recreation and Parks District. Candace Mahegan with the Friends of the Santa Clara River. And Linda Parks-Whistler We are committed to safeguarding the natural landscape that surround us and make Ventura County so special.

So they're going to talk about the inspiration of economic study that was done in Santa Barbara County, they're gonna do one here soon. So the collaborative was created because we know we can accomplish more together than we can do on our own in support of the natural open spaces that engulf us all. Thank you.

Thank you,

sir. Anybody online? Mayor, we have no raised hands on Zoom. OK.

Great, we'll move on. Okay so we'll move on to the consent calendar. Does anyone have any comments on any of the consent calendar items? Please come up then.

My comment is on number... I forgot what item it

was.

Number nine? It's on the one for the

Disaster

the town hall. Okay, that council member rule is requesting

just to be clear it's actually Council Member Whitman in the original packet it was a duplicate and so one uh the correct

can my time be restarted yeah sure sure did you get a card for me what number

this well you're asking for number nine under the consent calendar

yeah I'm asking for the one for the town hall That would be

eight. Okay, sorry.

So number eight

then? Okay.

Okay so the city should vote no on or the City Council should vote no on this proposal. This proposal is for a city facilitated and sponsored televised campaign event for a sitting City Council member running in November for the same seat We are less than 45 days from the election. It cannot be viewed as a city remaining neutral on this. We, the taxpayers pay the city salaries.

Kent Hall is a taxpayer funded venue. Council Member Ruhl has posted this event on her campaign page, which makes it a campaign event. I have a screenshot of it. Leslie Ruhl for City Council District 1. It was posted two days ago at 157. That makes the campaign event to put on your campaign page. So she could delete that post if she chooses, but it's too late. She posted it, people saw it. It's been at least two days ago. People commented on it. Screenshots have gone around. I was sent one.

It's documented. That train has left the station. It is a city-sanctioned taxpayer funded televised campaign event. In addition, council member rules should not be allowed to vote on this. She would be voting on a campaign event for a seat she currently holds. This could be considered self-dealing there is money involved in that city is facilitating it they are paid staff taxpayer paid staff. It isn't a taxpayer funded facility So this is a hornet's nest for the city to step into. It's going to look very corrupt if this is approved and it goes on again, we the taxpayers pay city salaries. They are going to facilitate and set up this event. It is gonna be at a taxpayer funded building. So I urge you to say no. Thank you.

I could talk about that in a second. Mr. Miley, I should have said we're going to have any wedding can comment on all the items that we're gonna consider it condense into one three minute period for the items not three per item. So please do come up. Can you do it?

I'm gonna comment on item number six. Okay. I don't have a business, but the first time I joined as a non-business member of the chamber this year. And that was hoping to get involved in some of their board issues and such. So here are my comments about the agenda item. The work plan ideas look really positive involving productive and benefiting our city's future.

But I see challenges Except there are a number of specific labeled events which are listed, there are no numbers of services to be provided. Even minimal numbers are assigned to the Chamber's consultant, not even minimal numbers. All the statements are like these, do this, offer that, provide this but nothing to count. I suggest there'd be a range of events To be accomplished, like two to 10, one to five, three to six. All depending on the subject and the complexity of the issue.

Also I did not find any statement of consultant services accomplishments by either contract name or business. Who is the consultant dealing with? What businesses are they considering or trying to get here? Maybe it's not legal, I don't know. Or the number of contact. There was no requirement for a report narrative of work on a monthly or quarterly basis that I could see in the document.

I would think this would have value for current joint efforts to gain businesses and investments, joint efforts with the council and the city. I do not see any requirement for a detailed services report narrative at least quarterly to the City Manager and to the Mayor The bowling alley property looks abandoned. I'd like to see them take that on. Also, I'd like to see energy put into considering the idea of a valley-wide legal structure for a park and recreation district.

And very new idea. I think your city council should be asked to make a list of the businesses and service consultant entities our city needs Give it to the chamber, board and have them work on it. And then council in the chamber and board and consultant can work together. Also I think that the city council oughta come up with the obstacles it sees that are in their way of getting things we would like in town.

That would be a joint effort with the chambers efforts. I like this.

Okay. Ms. Burgess, just before we talk about the consent calendar I guess it seems like a response is warranted around if you believe in responses warranted around item number eight?

I think we would have to take a look at what was posted on the website in order to be able to opine on that. I will say that an informational town hall As presented in the staff report and as requested at the last council meeting as part of the future agenda items That is purely to provide information on its face would not be a campaign activity, but we would want to take a look at that posting just to say for sure

right

I just wanted to validate that at the last town hall that you had, there were people who were expressing concern about safety at the polls. And it seemed to me like this was more in response to that concern for what kind of surveillance is there going to be? ICE agents, it seemed to me like this was a direct response to some of those fear baits. Some of the really very real fears that were expressed at that town hall but I could be wrong and- I read that exactly the same way.

No it was that and in fact I will just say that I actually posted something about election integrity. It wasn't my post and then I put underneath that in the comment that the city will be sponsoring a election that Eric Narosenko will be coming on this particular date to discuss this. So it was a post that had to do generally, not my post with election integrity with a statement underneath that the city would be having one on October or whatever. In other words, it was two sentences This, I mean, I really feel like this is a personal attack and I'm happy to deal with it in any way that we need to deal with it.

But this was not an election at all. It was not meant to be an election. I did post it there so I could sub-post it in other places. So most people probably didn't see it on my site because I forwarded it to other sites which immediately came back with personal comments about, you know, me. And so let's at least agree to what it really is and so I'm fine with it but that's all it was. I'm happy to forward it to you. Yeah we would be happy to take a look at that. It really is two sentences that say please, you know, we're having an election integrity Town Hall we get it. Please come on this date at this time and our speaker will be Eric Narasenko That's all it said it didn't say anything

Again

vote for me.

Okay,

so well we can take a look at that though

So the recommendation would be to postpone either.

Yeah continue that item just to the next meeting The

problem is what's that? We have dates set up right? So if this council believes that that was actually true What's the date? The date is the 14th of October and It is a direct result of what is being talked about in this community right now

get your points clear

And I would hope that this council would stop the silliness.

No, you're right My my inclination is to proceed unless you see some kind of an objection So, I

mean the other option would be for Council to move forward with consideration of this item on the consent calendar and if we do determine that there's an issue then we can We can follow up with the council member rule and and the city manager and And I'm

fine with that if really I did cross a line that I never saw as we

don't have

another council meeting until the right and we've already confirmed with Your points clear. Yeah,

okay.

I would be I would be okay with moving forward with it provided that you see But because I've heard from a number of people with those concerns and I heard it at that night, but people have reached out to me specifically about what the city is doing. And are we safe? And what about mail-in votes? And so I think this is worthy of a conversation. So I would be in favor of moving forward with it.

And I will just say that the governor has just signed at least three new bills around this, that I think would be very important for our residents to actually know what those are. So

anyway- And I would note for the record, just because I know we've gone with a little more discussion, I would say let's treat this item as being pulled for discussion for purposes of the record. Okay, fair

enough.

Since we're discussing it So and we'll put a pause in that maybe go ahead and approve the rest of the

consent calendar Thank you for that item. So let's are there any other items on the consent calendar that many members wish to pull?

Yeah,

okay

number

six,

okay

Anybody

else I have just a statement I want to make with the warrants number three

Well, what's pulled out Okay let's then, and we're going to just by default poll number eight since we're talking about it. Okay then I would move to approve items one two four five seven and nine.

I will second that.

Let's go ahead do a

roll call.

Thanks.

Let's start with number three.

It's just there is a couple items on here, one is the transit washing with Emmanuel Mendez and another with Christopher Reno who's our trolley repair man so I did reach out to Norma today and she's helping me walk through it and we're gonna meet next week on Tuesday I think to go over everything so I just wanted to be transparent and let you know and thank you Norma I appreciate that

Okay. Then I'll move that we accept item three. I'll second. Okay, wonderful.

I guess so. Yes. Council Member Whitman? Yes. Council Member Ruhl?

I was paying attention. Oh, just item

number three that she was just saying that she's working on the some of the trolley expenses with whether it's whether we're accepting. OK,

yeah, totally.

That's good. No worries.

OK?

That was a

yes.

Yes,

that was a guess. Council Member Lange.

Yes.

Mayor Gilman. Yes mayor pro tem.

Okay, moving on to number six the Chamber of Commerce.

Yeah I have two concerns about this one I agreed with the public comment that what I would describe as, you know, it's the proposal is not really oriented towards deliverables. Okay this we're paying this amount. This is what we're gonna get as a result of the amount that we're paying for the service and my other comment is that I have reservations about the extent to which the arrangement benefits community members in general, as opposed to members of the Commerce Committee and members of the Chamber in particular.

And I've had this reservation all along the way And I don't think that we've moved as far enough in the direction of demonstrating a resident benefit to justify the expenditure.

So I'm going to comment on this. The mayor and I are the liaisons to the chamber, and last weekend they had an event – or actually over the weekend they had an event, and there were three booths that I went into. And each one of those vendors are Ojai residents, local residents, and they said we are so grateful to have opportunities to be able to sell our work because it is so hard as a small business. They said this in very – I'm paraphrasing. But every booth that I went into had an artist.

had a local maker, had someone who was taking the risk to start a business and feeling that sense of community and that sense of support among our artists here. I'm getting really emotional about it because we have a formula business ordinance and it's something I believe so strongly in making sure that our downtown stays unique to Ojai. And we've seen businesses leave.

People that are our neighbors losing their jobs, losing their businesses and to be able to see how much CARLA has turned this organization around and how much the board has changed They're always thinking about that. They're doing so much work behind the scenes that we don't even see to help businesses survive In this really difficult economy and after the tariffs they were right there on the front lines Looking at how to have fundraisers for our local consignment shop And so I have a different perspective of it, but I think it's just because I go to the events and I'm there With them and and after this weekend. It just was really clear to me how much Some of the events do draw people who are outside of Ojai, or in Miners Oak, or in the surrounding areas.

But the people who are benefiting from that activity, they're They're my neighbors, so I feel strongly about moving forward with this. And we revisited this contract because she had so much in there and so we said let's cut it back because there's no way that you can do all of this. One thing I know about the board is that they're very They have measurable goals. So I won't keep talking, obviously I feel very passionate about this but I think that they've just done a really good job for some of the people who need it the most here.

I just want to echo that. I won't copy what you just said, I was at the event this weekend as well but it's the amount of shepherding that ends up happening for a business working through the process and we don't make it easy as a city everybody gets that but that I see it as a gigantic service that is being offered to the businesses and I do have a lot of faith in the board as the liaison that we do get to see what's happening so We did work on this agreement. I believe the pieces are there, so I would hope to approve it but any other comments?

Yeah, I just want to say page 2 or page 90. I don't know what number you're going by. Down what is it 1, 2, 3, 4 number 5 developing signage kiosk marketing plans. I would like to see input from the HPC included in that as well as two down facilitating discussions regarding signage and business support. And managing tourism and balance local and visitor needs. So I just think back with the signage, I think to work with the HPC to ensure appropriate and compatible outdoor displays signage as we know it's an issue. It's coming to our agenda soon and I just wish that they could be included in anything.

If I might suggest, my thinking is that the Chamber's going to take the direction from them. And so they won't do something that we don't recommend.

But there's signage... We can argue, I won't argue about it but- Well it's coming before us. Right. So it should be, I think the HPC should be included because there are issues in all of the signs everywhere that aren't, I think it needs to be addressed. If I

could just jump in on this really quick, that could be Council direction?

Yeah, that's what

I'm saying.

You requested the item to go on the agenda, so of course it will. That will be something that you could do. You can say I just want to refer this to the HBC.

Thank you

I'll just comment then. My concerns aren't about Ms. Ferrante and I do recognize that the relationship between the city, the community and the Chamber of Commerce has changed dramatically for the better under the leadership of Ms. Any thoughts?

Just ditto. I support this. I see how much work goes into it, and I definitely see the benefit to the community and to the individuals who participate. So I don't have that question in my mind at all. I walked through very briefly, and it was great. And people you know, people I knew were there a lot of people were there so I support it.

So I would move that we accept consent item number six.

I'll second it.

Roll call, please.

Yes.