City Council — June 29, 2026

The City Council special meeting, I'm calling this meeting to order. The time is now 532. Madam Clerk please take roll.

Council Member Gama?

Here.

Council Member Perez? Here. Council Member Lopez? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Hernandez? Here and Mayor McQueen-Lachon?

Here Madam Clerk do we have any public comments?

No public comments

Great thank you will now move to the closed session item Mr. City Attorney please read the closed session item into the record

Thank you Madam Mayor. We'll be going into closed session tonight on two items, both of which are pursuant to Government Code section 54957.6 for conference with labor negotiators. This is with respect to item A with the SEIU Service Employees International Union 721 and item B, the Unrepresented Management Professional Employees. The agency's designated representatives on both items are James Vegas City Manager, Charles Pretz Deputy City Manager and Frank Lee the Human Resources Manager

Thank you. Do any of the members have a conflict of interest as it relates to this item? No. We'll now recess to closed session, the time is now 533. The time is now 618. Mr. City Attorney, please provide a closed session report.

There's no reportable action from closed session tonight.

Thank you so we'll move on to business item approval of appropriation for increased solid waste refuse disposal costs. Will staff please present the report?

Thank you and I'm gonna just give a couple notes and then I'll hand off to our Public Works Director Fred Camarillo but I wanted to just give a couple notes up front about this generally stemming from an issue that we had talked about maybe a year or so ago whereby Oxnard had increased the rates that it was going to be charging its customers, which included the City of Port Hueneme.

That change, I think as Mr. Camarillo will go over, that change ended up making an impact in our budget this year. It impacts our budget and ultimately the fund balance for the Solid Waste Fund. But before we started I just wanted to note that this is something that we had identified a year ago and we had mentioned to the council as one of the key reasons why we needed to start the process on a utility rate study, to look at the costs that were being charged that are increasing that we have no control over and then therefore being We are continuing to work on that utility rate study and we'll be bringing that to the council in the public over the summer with a workshop is what we're planning to do. So, that is still continuing but with that I will turn it over Mr.

Camarillo to talk about this particular item Fred

Good evening mayor mayor pro tem members of the council and Yeah, well you have before you is an approval of an appropriation of $350,000 to the solid waste fund For our tipping fees essentially everything we gather. We take it to the transfer station It gets dropped there they sort it do what they do with their process it As our city manager mentioned Oxnard recently raised their rates They have another rate Increase of about four and a half percent effective July 1st, so we're going up again One of the things that for this item Why it wasn't covered in the mid-year budget cycle. It was as Oversight when the available balance for the remainder of the fiscal year was looked at it was thought to be current as of The date when we were looking at it but actually Oxnard Sometimes runs anywhere from 30, 45 to 60 days before we get invoices.

So when it was looked at and looking to see whether we needed to adjust the budget at that time it Was overlooked so in order to cover what we still had as The attachment here shows May and then we also will have June's invoice. So to get us through this fiscal year We're asking for approval to get the appropriation so we can cover that and then as our city manager mentioned, we have been looking.

We're continuing on our rate study which will be bringing back to you. With at least one workshop and then if there's any adjustments that council would like to see made to that, maybe possibly a second workshop where we can get feedback from the public. And then continuing that process going through the 218 process as well which will all be part of the conclusion of the rate study.

For this, a couple of items of note. We looked at the past two fiscal years. We've had our total gross tons of all products go up by 1,500 tons. As I mentioned with a couple that with the rate creases that Oxnard is charging us and Then we've also had with our organics program as you know We rolled that out two years ago and Organics by far in a way is the most expensive Charge, we get it's like $189 per ton Very expensive to process 189 And So with the organics program, it's from its inception where we had a partial year and then The first full year being last year and now we're in almost through this next fiscal year We've seen almost about a four time 400 percent increase people are using the program so as intended But it also happens to be with the most expensive tonnage fee that goes along with it, so.

We'll be evaluating this in the current budget year. We left the original budget which was there from two years ago in place because we knew there was gonna be rate increases and we wanted to see how this was gonna roll out and how the organics program was gonna work. So we'll be making a mid-year budget adjustment but we'll have So, we're going to be looking at a number of different ways that we can do this.

In our contract with Oxnard, it's an evergreen two-year and then at the end of every year it rolls over again so it's a constant. And it was done to protect both agencies that way Oxnard can just cancel us and then we'd have to scramble to try and find a new place to take our products. And for Oxnard because losing a customer of our size, we're the second biggest customer of the transfer station besides Oxnards themselves That would be a big impact on their revenue stream as well. So anything we do and it's tricky wording, it depends on when we would send them a letter if we ever wanted to do that to start that clock.

We could get it down to two years depending on when the letter would be generated Gold Coast does have some rates that are lower and some that are higher we haven't gone through and look to see yet because Again, even if it was two years out. We don't know what they're gonna do in two years So we can say as of today this is how it could affect us but in two years

Yeah, I was just kind of curious cuz um It just seems like The distance is almost the same. Yes, I think there's one tenth of a mile difference yeah and it would just its competition so when you talk about competition There's It's beneficial to at least look at if we can have a cost savings for the residents and same time

Another thing else another thing. We've well I was working on a few years ago was getting a new agreement with them Realizing that we shouldn't be treated The same as just anybody that goes in there to drop stuff off. I mean, we are a large customer of theirs Unfortunately, the person in charge at the time left and then they've had three or four at least interim people in multi-month or maybe a little over year placements who were like I'm not dealing with any contract negotiations. So we finally have somebody that is now permanent and in there we've been built Discussion up with them on different items So hopefully we can start talking about with them with that to see if we can work on getting a new agreement in place Okay. Thank

you I'm assuming the state since this is the state's mandate that we did this there's no fun fees or Anything that they offer to help offset any of the costs here This thing you have to do and oh, by the way, it's expensive and well, you're on your own

correct Where is Gold Coast? I thought there was the Ventura Transfer Station and Del Norte.

Gold Coast is over there off Transport Road, I believe it is by the cemetery off Victoria if you go down the road

Isn't that that's a couple miles further than

There's very little difference between the distance we're traveling on that, because there's kind of a more direct route to get there to going up Victoria. The travel distance would not be a huge financial impact either way.

Yeah, just to follow up on Councilman Lopez's comments. I did have the opportunity to talk to message back and forth with Nan Drake about this item and while she said that you know the rates are not necessarily less than their services might be broader than what we're getting now from Oxnard And she's been inviting us for a while to come and tour the facility. So I think, you know, she's being honest with us because I said well if your rates are cheaper let's look at it but she clearly said that they might not be similar to what we heard Here earlier, but that the services that they provide Might be better. So

yeah something and another thing that we I Believe that The Gold Coast does not offer That Oxnard does is our household hazardous waste program where our residents it's built into our rate so that it's not a cost and so Our residents can go take all of their household hazardous waste free of charge There's they have very little variances in their programs and what they offer. We'd have to really put like numbers, the tonnages and all that just figure out whether what's the best thing. The other item that was that we looked at a while back was The access at Gold Coast, much smaller tipping floor area.

So it can get backed up at times so that could cause more delays and the trucks getting in and out. We'd have to evaluate all those things.

Yeah, when I sat on or when I chaired the VRSD some time ago. I was there when they made the transition from taking our trash because once it leaves the transfer station it was going to Santa Paula toll and landfill And then they switched over to waste management, and now it's going all the way to CME. So they promised us at that time that there would be no fee increase, that it would be cheaper for us, but other things happened, right? Yeah.

Any other questions down at the end? Go right ahead.

How many services do they offer? I understand like they pull out the recyclables and group them, but what are the services that we're talking

about? Well they've got the organics so we can take our organics there. They separate that out on the food waste from the green waste which is all organics under one program umbrella. The residential and commercial recycling the glass aluminum that type of stuff that goes in our blue cans

Does the city get credited for those items or does that just get built into the overall system?

Yeah, no About three years ago four years ago The market for recyclables fell out when China started rejecting loads because we were, China was taking most of the United States recycling stuff. But then they started rejecting loads with, because they got very narrow on their contamination rate and so they started rejecting things so it made it unaffordable to do that. At that point we went a couple years where we weren't charged for recycling, dropping it off zero to drop it there But now it's at the point where because of as with everything else the cost of processing it Now we get charged a tonnage fee for taking it

there. So Okay, madam clerk do we have any public comments

no public comments I

Great, thank you. So we have before us a recommendation to approve an appropriation for $350,000 from the Solid Waste Operation Fund to cover cost for refuge disposal through the end of fiscal year. May I have a motion and a second?

Move to

approve.

Second.

All right

any other discussion?

So just to confirm this is coming out of solid waste reserves? Correct.

No other questions okay Madam Clerk please take roll

All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed? Hearing none, motion passes unanimously.

Okay if there's nothing else our next regular meeting is scheduled for Monday July 20th at 6 30 p.m. This meeting is now adjourned the time of 6 33