Historic Preservation Commission Regular Meeting

Okay. Hello everyone, I'm calling to order the Historic Preservation Commission regular meeting on Thursday September 10th 2026 at 6pm. Public participation is encouraged. The meetings are conducted in a hybrid model, providing in-person and virtual public comment via Zoom. Virtual attendance via Zoom is the only way to remotely provide public comment. Pre-registration is not required. Instead, Zoom participants will utilize the hand raise function to indicate their desire to speak. The meeting is also live streamed on our city's website and on YouTube.

I'm going to do a roll call please.

and Commissioner Moore and Bassasha Absinthe All right, let's stand for the pledge

public comment here, Larry Steinkel?

Good evening. Larry Steingold, citizen not involved in anything. When I first got here, I was given this book and I come from New England where history is very important and without history we have no soul. You have no memories all you have is stories. I read stories online by Drew Mashburn. He writes and you listen to the stories and it reminds me of my childhood and of the childhoods that you all have And I didn't grow up here, but I've been here for nine years.

And I understand history. I understand what it takes to maintain the properties, to keep them private, excuse me, to keep them historical. It takes a lot of work. The insides of buildings back east, they become high-tech and that's fine. But outside you've got these chipboards, you've got the curly queues, you've got all the red brick and all in the wood and what have you whether it's 1750 or a McDonalds from 1950 right? The golden arches it becomes historical as part of our history so I just want to say that Keep up, do it and work hard. And it's all about that because once they're all disappears there's nothing. It just becomes another as my daughter would call it a pop-up town.

And we can drive, and she says, oh, drive through Agoura Hills when we first came out here. Go to Calabasas. Go to all these places. And I'm like no, no, no. We came up here. We looked around and said this is like Vermont. This is like Maine. This is a small town. So we came here for what it was or should be what it is then not for what it was before I was here because we have no clue but my goal is that you know as I like it here and I want to help you keep it like this or as close to as possible And whether it's things like the green freezer, okay? And what we do with that. I mean personally if you can get rid of it fine. If you can't you've heard me say brick it up and make it look like the rest of them right whatever the case may be but let's not set that as a precedent because now you can end up with these things all over the inside of the arcade which is not something that we want At least I don't, some people may.

If it's not a freezer, it's a shed. If it's not a shed, it's something else but it's just doing that so please stay on it, keep at it and everybody here wants history because that's all we've got otherwise it's just the town if that. It's just a place and it's home and I'm staying here. You can't get rid of me. No matter how hard you want to try. And so thank you very much for doing what you do.

Thank you. I would like to comment on that, that I've been visiting Ojai for 50 years and have been a homeowner here for 23. And it's that same book that was left by the previous owners in my kitchen on our island. It was left with a bottle of sparkling apple juice and two glasses in that book. And that's what started this whole thing. And then soon after that, I met Craig Walker, and well, here I am.

So that book was really important to just read it cover-to-cover and just learn about this town.

Yesterday I met a woman whose family was TECO, and she was giving me Suzy. Suzy Arce? Yes. And she was telling me song and verse and the whole nine yards. So those are the memories. If you can get people to record their memories that might be a nice project because once those memories are gone they're not writing them down.

Thank you, Larry. Would you mind just saying what the name of the title and author is since it's been

mentioned? The Ojai Valley and Illustrated History Ojai Valley Museum Edition by Patricia L. Frye revised and updated by Elise DePute and Mr. Craig Walker.

Thank

you.

Yes. And I do believe that the museum with Brian Aikens has been working on recording a lot of these stories for years, is that correct? Commissioner?

For lots of years. What are we, 2027 probably 2012 and Mr. Steingold We actually have interviewed Susie Arce. On our oral history for the museum, we've actually interviewed Susie. Thank you for that suggestion.

Thank you so much. OK, so do we have anybody online? Or anyone else want to? Yes, you

have me. No.

I have a private comment. May I make it as a citizen? I just want to remember all the people from September 11th. I was in Beijing, China on that day with my two daughters and my husband and it was terrifying. Never thought I'd ever see Ojai again. And all I wanted to do was get home and the State Department was there to assist. We were there for more than 2 weeks after this happened And when I got back to Ojai, to this beautiful town, I was so grateful. And I just want to say I am very grateful to live here in this beautiful town.

Thank you. OK, so I'm going to close public comment. And now we're going to go to the museum report with Mr. Commissioner Akins.

OK, thank you very much. Our executive director sent me this information having been and Craig will appreciate this too Is the fact that there is a town talk this Sunday. That's with Mark Lewis and Evan Austin, and they are going to talk about Big question been talked about a lot probably in that book that Larry's holding did Thornton Wilder write our town about Our town And they're gonna talk about that Sunday September 3rd I actually videotaped when they did an our town Out at Thatcher School in the theater, amphitheater that was there. And they did quite a discussion. I think Mark was talking about that at that time, Mark Lewis. So I encourage you again Sunday at 4 30 PM at the museum.

Thank you.

Consent calendar? I guess it's just the minutes. Yeah, so do we have any corrections to the minutes? Anyone? Corrections to the minutes? No? Okay, anybody want to make a motion to approve the minutes?

I move to approve the minutes.

Want a second?

I'll second.

Roll call please. Yes. Aikens? Yes. Sims? Yes. McCattin? Yes, Walker.

I would like to thank you for doing

such a- Commissioner Walker, could you say yay or nay to the minutes? Minutes.

Oh, yay,

yay.

Thank you Kate too for doing such a good job with these. Okay, we're on to item number two. Do we have a- Yes. Report?

So this is a request for a sign permit for a hanging sign identification sign for The Naturalist located at 208 East Ojai Avenue. This is within City of Ojai Landmark Number 5, the Ojai Arcade. The representative for this establishment is John Singer and he's applying for this permit to advertise the existing commercial retail organic winery. The sign meets the Yes, the Arcade Design Guidelines in that it proposes a two-sided hanging sign that's suspended from the metal chains that are existing.

And the permitted colors for signs in the arcade are earth tones by Benjamin Moore and I brought the palette just in case anybody wanted to see it. And the proposed sign again is two sided. It's made of one and a quarter inch walnut In a shade of brown with exposed border around a centered three-quarter inch white oak panel. If you want to pass that along. The signed copy includes five-eighth inch walnut individual letters mounted on the oak face and the botanical clear film graphic is of a California poppy, and it's to be centered in the arch above the copy and sealed to the oak backing.

The sign is proposed to be 14 by, or in three quarter inches by 38 inches which complies with the size requirements within the arcade design guidelines. And the sign is attached in attachment B in your packet. Staff finds that the material, the color, the size and everything about this sign complies with the design guidelines and staff is recommending that the commission approve the sign.

We do have an applicant here if you have any questions of the applicant.

I Have a question from to staff mm-hmm the The CMYK print on clear film have we other signs have done that in the past? Okay,

I Don't know if any other science have done that in the pastor if they've been like literally painted on yeah however I didn't. Staff didn't find it objectionable, but I haven't come across that, no.

Does anybody have any questions for staff or for the applicant?

How hard would it be to do this in a painted version rather than a stick-on?

Yes, yes please. When you come to the podium if you could just state your name please thanks.

My name is Josh Singer I'm not sure can you repeat the question?

How hard would it be to do this in a painted version instead of a stick-on? I don't particularly like the stick on.

I would have to ask the sign maker his name is Robert White. I'm pretty sure It would be more challenging. I don't know how much it might not be able to capture the detail.

Well, like in my personal opinion because I'm very familiar with with the man that used to do all the signs and Ojai Roy Patton if you know him he did signs for for my husband's business this this is just too to my taste not as Ojai characteristic. It's it's a plastic stick on and I would really like to see something that is at least carved into the wood and painted even if it was much more simple because I think this you're not even going to really see all the detail Once it's on the sign, I would like to see something that was a little more in keeping with more natural. The colors are fine but that's my opinion and I'm just one person.

Okay.

I do have a question about it. Is that your logo?

It is. Okay. That's on our bottles.

Okay

And it's also like if you go into the shop, it's displayed behind the bar so it is

I would also like to echo that, that the arcade is supposed to reflect the early 1900s and the historic character of the arcade at that time. And I think having a stick-on sign might violate that a bit. So if it was painted on, I think that would be more authentic and would fit in with the era I like the sign, I think it's beautiful and the colors are great.

I like the little splash of orange there but I think just with the character of the arcade being early 1900s buildings that it would be preferable to have it painted on.

If I can just interject really quick, and that is on this board, this sticker. I guess I wouldn't have called it a sticker. However, on here it is a sticker and it has a black background but on the brown oak the background would be clear and the whole thing would be brushed so it would appear Like this. I mean, I'm not disagreeing. I'm just stating facts. It would appear like this that's in your packet as opposed to having this black background stuck Thank you. I still don't like it, I'm sorry. I think etching it in, woodworking can make beautiful etching designs and lay them into the wood

And add some color and I think it would be stunning. I don't know what a sticker like that, I know it's not going to be black will do in the elements. It's not going to look very good after awhile so that's my opinion but I

like

the rest of it.

Cool you like the design just not the actual texture?

Yeah absolutely

yeah. So I can check with the sign maker see what is achievable what he has the ability to do And if that's the best way, then we could probably comply with that. But I don't make the signs so I don't know myself but I can pass that along.

Anyone else?

Yeah, I just want to say something. So if the question is the stamps and items that are underneath the flower and painting those, I've seen my wife do fine detail on portraits and fabulous eyes. And I think that's recreatable. And I think we have artists in the Valley that would love to recreate that for

you. Great. Yeah, if you have resources as well then I'll take them and see what I can do.

Come to the Ojai Valley Museum look at the artists and see what you like. We have we have the Ojai Studio Artists up right now so

So I have a question for staff. So if we were to approve the sign with all the colors of the style and everything, but are requesting that it is be painted, can we do that so at least he can keep moving forward?

You can do that. You have a couple of options. Another option would be to continue it, well if that is the only option for the commission then yes you can absolutely do that if you want to know whether or not he can accomplish that and give him and do something else. If he can't accomplish that you might want to continue it to date certain which would be a whole month.

You really have lots of options or several options.

I mean, I'd like to let him move forward if he can achieve that. And then if he needs our help with resources or something, he can always ask to come back next month. But he might not have to.

Your approval can be with the condition that the flower detail be painted on the wood and no sticker. That would be a condition?

OK, does anybody have any other questions for the applicant while he's up there?

I'd like to see it. It's easy to do. I mean, I'm not an artist. I don't know how to do it. But everybody does stuff like this. So I think that you'll find some woodworker that can easily do that. And if else maybe your wife can do it.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, you got it. Anything else for me? I don' think so. How do you feel about that, of trusting an artist

to do it without having them come back as long as it keeps the same color and the same style? Or do we want them to come back?

Yeah, I have no doubt that there are people in the valley that can replicate that. And would love to. I

think we might continue it until the next meeting and have them come back with the design painted.

OK. So?

So I'll make that motion if. Go

ahead and make a motion.

OK, I make a motion that we have them return with this exact same sign except painted instead of sticker. And we'll vote on it then.

I'll second it. It doesn't have to be exactly like this if it's just because as long as it's similar you know exactly what we're saying right?

Yeah.

OK, so

was that a second?

Yeah.

OK, roll call please. Neeson? Yes. Aikens? Yes Simms? Yes McCattin? Yes

Walker?

Yes

I'd like to just read back what what I have is a motion and a second and that is a motion from Commissioner Walker to return to the next meeting which is October the October meeting with a sample of the painted flower

Right, but we like the sign. Everything is approved with colors and

style. Yeah, we approve

everything.

We'll do that. OK, but you wanted to come back? You haven't approved it yet. You're going to look at it next time. I just don't want him to feel like he has to redo everything because it's just a sticker. That was the only thing that was objectionable. Yes, and you can also call me.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Okay, item number three.

Item number three is the annual Historic Preservation and Lifetime Achievement Awards. And at the August 13th meeting, the commission discussed the nominees and they selected a list of recipients for both those awards and directed staff to come back with a resolution for the commission to adopt. So the resolution is in your packet attachment A of this very brief report.

What you'll do tonight is review it, and then recommend that staff forward it to the council for ratification. And then staff will provide it to the chair outside of the meeting for her signature and with tonight's vote. And then it will be scheduled for council.

I do have a correction. So the award is for Rob Tucker, not for Jim and Robs. So attachment A page three or four?

Yes. So it would be, I'm sorry? Yes. So Rob Tucker, would it be of? Rob Tucker of Jim and Rob's or just Rob Tucker period? Just Rob Tucker. OK.

He is one of the founders. But he's the Rob part of the Jim and Rob's. But it was recently sold. And he gave the collection to the current owners. Right. But it was Rob's collection that we're celebrating.

And so the language here would be Rob Tucker dash founder and longtime proprietor of. OK, perfect. Thank you. We'll make that change, you can still vote on it this evening with that change in mind and then again we'll forward it to the chair for signature for then forwarding to the council for ratification.

Okay does anybody have a motion to approve it with that change?

I'll make a motion of approve it with that change too.

I'll second it.

Roll call, please. Nissen? Yes. Aikens? Yes. Sims? Yes McKee? Yes Walker?

Yes

All right on to item number four we're just moving along here which is the Heritage Trail do we have a staff report

Yeah, so Commissioner Walker reported at the last meeting that he'd obtained access to photographs and visuals from the Ventura County Museum who approved of a first draft of the signage. And he stated that they were trying to have the first four signs ready by Ojai Day. And this evening we have- Do

you want me to?

I'll bring them up. What would you like to do?

This is a momentous day for this project because we uploaded all the artwork to the

company that's going to fabricate the signs.

So they're on their way and it's been a long process. We have had a wonderful committee with the three members of the museum, Mark Lewis who did most of the writing, Wendy Barker and Roger Conrad did most of the photographs and pictures and then Colleen McDougall did the actual artwork and layout and design she deserves a lot of credit for that I think they look beautiful And then Rick Passaccia and I were on the committee as well.

And so we have four to start with, hopefully we'll have maybe 25 by the time we're done it may take a while but one of them will go to the left of the pathway down to the jail and So when people walk along the trail they'll see this Beautiful sign on a cantilevered frame that tells about the Ojai Jail. And then it'll encourage them to go down and actually read more about it in some of the plaques that are on the museum, on the building itself.

And then another one will be right next to the former location of the depot, which is just to the east of Fox Street. That was all the depot area and this is a picture of the depot in Nordoff, and different stories and historical facts about it. Each one has in the lower left corner a thing called The Kids Corner which is a wonderful cartoon done by Colleen McDougall she used to do cartoons every week in the Ojai Valley News for many years And she's been working really hard on this project and she's done most of these, well done all of the cartoons.

And then to the left of the pathway that goes off of the trail into Libbey Park will be this sign Talking about Libbey Park and some of the historic landmarks that are there. The tree, the bent tree that's a county landmark that was left from the Chumash days. The tennis courts, which have recently entered the news because there's been some question about should these be saved just for tennis since they've been tennis since 1900 or should they be available for other kinds of games? But anyway this will give people a really nice look at the history of this area. It's kind of interesting that Pierre Boulez who was one of the big conductors during the 60s and 70s He actually had to conduct the train going by. As you know, the train goes right behind the bowl for the festivals and usually they weren't a problem but one time the train came in and then it stopped backed up then stopped went forward again and Pierre started conducting the train into the musical piece and the train got a standing ovation from the audience afterwards

What is that concert, Craig? What? What is that concert? Do you know? This one here? Yeah. Who's conducting that?

I'm not sure which one this is.

Oh, that's OK. Just curious.

It's part of the, it was before the renovation of Bell. And then this one is on the Matilija Station. There was a station that was located where Rotary Park is now and that's where people would get off and get on a a stagecoach and ride up to Matiloha Canyon to one of the spas, health resorts up there. And then there were also several farms and ranches in the area that produce would be loaded onto the train at that point.

And one of the quotes we have here is from Howard Bald who said that the men of the town would sit along the boardwalk that was there before the arcade sidewalk. It was just a boardwalk in front of those old buildings and they'd hear the whistle blow down at the Y, what we call the Y at Matilija Station and they'd all go running down to the station at Nordoff to go welcome the train.

So anyway, that's just a peek at what we have and my hope is Maybe at Ojai Day we can have a table set up somewhere, maybe down by the jail where people could look at these and they could maybe decide if they wanted to buy a sponsorship for one of the future ones. But we can talk about that in a future time.

I'm going to put those back over here, just in case someone wants to

look at them. While she's doing that, Craig, how will those be presented and protected?

How what?

How will they be presented and protected?

Presented? Oh, they'll be on a cantilevered sign. There'll be two posts that go up, and then a frame will cantilever back at about three feet, just high enough so that if somebody is on a wheelchair, they can go over And then this material that they print on is resistant to graffiti and is easily cleaned. So with part of our budget, we'll buy a supply of that.

I'm sure the city already has some of that but hopefully it will not be

graffitied.

And then they print on both sides. Each side is guaranteed for 10 years, so at the end of 10 years if it starts fading at all you can just take it apart and flip the thing over and you've got another ten years for that side. So that's pretty good. Any other questions?

I would like to say that I cannot believe how good those pictures look. To be able to blow them up to that size and have them have that sort of clarity, they're just lovely.

So I would just say it's the jailbird in the jail. Yeah, I'd love to have the jail one come down to the OI jail. The displays that we had last year and the plaque were very well received. Everybody loved reading them and getting more information on the jail in that area so yeah.

Are we going to have them installed by then?

No, unfortunately I don't think we'll be able to have them installed by then. They have a five-week turnaround and I doubt that we would be able to get them back in time. They do have an expedite feature but even then they don't know if they could get them back to us in time and that costs an extra $1,200 for the expediting So, we'll just have these available for people to look at and then we can put them up afterwards.

So we're going to be talking about Ojai Day a little bit. So I would like to discuss how we can do that, because last year the focus was our plaque and this year this is going to be the focus. So we should talk about having two locations. We're going to have a booth in downtown and then we're going to have

the chamber. Oh it might be good for the booth. So we

could kind of separate, have two spots where we're letting people know what's going on.

That'd be great.

Okay, thank you so much. It's a beautiful project and to thank you to everyone working on this. You've done a beautiful job. Yeah? Yeah. Okay, do you- you don't need us for anything right? Just moving along?

It was just a report.

OK, and speaking of reports, it's going to be Craig again. This is item number five. Do we have a staff report on

the survey update? So yes, this is the Historic Resources Inventory Survey update. And at the August 13th 2026 meeting, Commissioner Walker stated that about 75% of the contact statement has been completed and could be reviewed by commissioners. And since then a request has gone out to commissioners by staff just kind of poking a little bit letting them know that if they have any questions or comments That the time is here.

And so with that I'll just turn it over to Commissioner

Yeah, just picking up on that they were trying to cut off those comments on September 1st but they said that they'd still take comments for another week and So if any of you want, you can take a look through the draft context report. And if you have any comments or questions, if you notice any errors, you can send those to me and I'll forward them to the surveyors.

They would really appreciate any comments so they'd like to get you involved. So you should have a link to...

Staff sent a link to all the commissioners.

Yeah, so try to get that done in the next week and then HRG which is the company historic resources group they sent their surveyors up to Ojai for two or three days at the 24th I believe it was of August and it was like right in the middle of the heat wave but They did about half of what they call the reconnaissance survey, that's the first step. They go out and they cast a wide net and they try to pick up everything that could possibly be historic.

And then they've done half of that and they're going to come back within two weeks and finish that part up. They'll

be here on Monday?

Okay, they'll be here on Monday. And then the step after that is for them to take their reconnaissance survey and get together with the people that wrote the context statement and go back and forth to kind of inform each other so as to kind of strengthen and beef up the context statement which Gives the context of what is historic in Ojai and then also maybe helps to lead to more information about the individual houses that they find.

And then after that, the last stage will be for them to do the final step which is to begin researching and narrowing down those properties that they found in the reconnaissance survey into the final The final survey. So anyway, they also would like to I know I don't think we have the historic resources report available just I mean you can't find them easily is that right? They're all associated with properties by address so it would be hard for them to know which properties already have an HR are done on them. Is that right?

Correct, so we do have address files in community development. And if there's an HRR it would be in the address file. What we've talked about previously and I think it's another item on the agenda is the fact that we don't have a separate list of just HRRs unless it's historic site or structure.

Yeah, and that's understandable because the time you would need it would be if a particular address came up. You'd want to look and see if it had an HRR. But I think for their work, it would be nice to have them organized some way so that they can just see. Separately, yeah. Because those are so valuable, the information that are in those. So that's about all I have to report on that one.

One thing that I had requested is just another little column on the final survey that just says HRR and if there is one, just check so they know to look for one. Even if they have to look into the address file at least we know that it's someplace.

Yeah. And I was on the commission 10 or 12 years ago, and I can remember several of them so I've written those addresses down for them so they can ask for those but I can't remember them all and it's only a few years period of time there might have been a lot more

So when we have a historic, and I mentioned this to the chair. Are we waiting for the item? We have

an item. Yeah. Do we have anything else to say on this? No.

The write up that I read today, I spent the afternoon reading it. It was wonderful. It was wonderful. I learned so much.

Oh, they've done an amazing job. You know, as one example, I only knew about the Japanese in Ojai during World War II. I only knew about the one family, the Fukusawa family. And I wrote about them and have talked about them, and so forth. They had like three or four or five different families that they discovered that were Japanese Americans who had spent time in the internment camps. So they really know how to dig down and get information that's not always easy to find.

The Fukusawa was interesting. I'm sure she was one of your teachers as

well,

and Rick's and mine, and she was even at our wedding.

Oh, she was?

She was at our wedding.

Yeah. Well, she spent three years in Manzanar And kind of a moving experience for me was stopping at Manzanar, which is on the 395. And they have a big banner that has all the names of the people that spent time there and seeing her name there was quite moving because she had been my algebra teacher and it was great to learn about her

And when we have this document, this is going to be so valuable for so many reasons just to have this information.

Right.

Okay, I'm going to move along. So now we're on this item. Item number six is the scanning of historic resource reports to create a master list. Do you have a staff report? Well yes

however kind of already so We don't have a master list. We have address files for every address in the city and And if an HRR has been prepared, it would be in that file. And of course, if it's a landmark then we do have a list of all landmarks that are separate. So what's been talked about here recently is creating or having that list or the desire to have it and I'm going to turn it over to you, but I think staff does think it's a great idea.

We don't have the manpower to do that. Again, I'm going to turn it over to you to discuss.

We found out that it is in the address file and then after talking to Commissioner Aikens he explained that he's been grabbing them out of his packet for years now. Why don't you tell them?

And giving them to Wendy so she can maintain a folder. The other thing that I've tried to do, and I'm trying to get all my files in order is that there people are like, oh it's going to take so much time to digitize. Well all you do is you go to the package, you go print PDF, and there it is. It's digitized.

Scan it,

yeah. Yeah, don't even have to scan it because you just print pages three through six as a PDF and then I save it that way. So it's fun but you're right the reports are amazing.