City Council — April 1, 2026

I'm sorry what was that?

I see his mouth moving, yeah. Yeah they're standing.

You can't hear him either? Should I talk even? I know what they're saying. It has nothing to do with this, right? Okay.

Thank you. Hey, how are you? I saw your mouth moving.

Okay.

Mayor, we have sound now.

Yeah. It went off again.

Oh, I'm like no!

.

Walking around saying hello to everyone, but again. Thank you things happen technical difficulties ma'am clerk would you please do a roll call?

but may be away from the dais at the moment But I will come back to that or would you like to hold on? We'll hold on roll call

Sorry

Point of inquiry real quick. How many public comments do we have?

Just one.

And it's just on one agenda item?

Yeah, just general comment. Okay, we're back from the break. My apologies for starting without you Council Member Mornellis. Madam Clerk would you please do a roll call? Thank you. Here. Here. All right thank you. From our City Attorney a closed session report

Yes, thank you Mr. Mayor this evening City Council recessed into closed session on item 5A on the special agenda public employee performance evaluation pursuant to government code 54957B1 title city manager there were no reportable actions taken just concludes my report thank you

all right thank you very much next we have is public comment and DD Chambers and this is just general comment thank you

Hi, Mr. Mayor.

Good

evening, council members. The reason I'm here tonight is quite a few people have asked me to see if at some point very soon we can get some clarification on the firework issue that's going on here in town trying to blow up the night skies east end of town 10, 11 o'clock at night they start blowing up. I happen to be a manager for the Senior Citizen Mobile Home Park.

The other night when they went off it was a Saturday night. I had three phone calls one from a war vet whose PTSD had him laying in his bathroom floor. The lady called telling me that her dog was dying of heart attack and the other lady just sat on the phone and cried When I speak to an officer, I spoke to an officer the next day. He says, DeeDee there's nothing we can do. Well wait, I know you guys can get fines. Well not unless we see them and they're doing it in the backyards.

Okay well I'll find out which backyards they are and I'll go and sit in front of the house. DeeDee it really doesn't matter if we give him a fine. Why doesn't it matter? Because it's not gonna go anywhere We'll send them another, if they don't pay it we'll send them a second warning that you know they have to pay it. But that's as far as it goes well what do you mean?

You guys don't go for a third warning no so I called down here to the city hall and asked finance what happens if they don't pay the second one why I don't know what you're talking about. So I asked oh I don''t know um have to call the police department So if we could get some kind of clarification, because the fireworks are crazy and I know everybody complains about them.

And people are getting angry at our officers and there's no reason for them to get angry at our officers. Our officers what can they do if it only goes as far as them? And I hate to see people talk smack about our officers when it's not their fault. They're doing the best they can so if we could maybe do something and put it on an agenda or something, and just talk about it. Because we've got to get something done.

So that's just what I have to say. Thank you all for listening.

Thank you, DeeDee. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? We do have the Chief of Police here and I would ask the chief when at some point this evening maybe come up and talk to you about some efforts that may be going on. And I'm sure before we're three months away from the 4th of July and I'm sure we'll get some kind of update from our police and fire in fact our Fire Chief is here tonight but I don't know if his presentation talks it all about fireworks but certainly that's a topic worthy of a discussion as we get closer to the fourth of July You're very welcome. Okay, thank you very much. Okay we

Sure, go ahead. I'm Jerry Becker. I am the president of Ventura County Coastal Association of Realtors and thank you council members, mayor and community on behalf of Ventura County Coastal Association of Realtors. I'm honored to accept this proclamation from your city during Fair Housing Month. Fair housing as you know is more than policy it's a promise It's a promise that everyone deserves access to opportunity, dignity and a place to call home.

While headlines today revolve around affordability supply and cost and it can feel unclear one thing is certain real progress happens when we work together locally The City of Santa Paula and our association share a responsibility to lead with clarity, collaboration and purpose. Together we can ensure that fair housing is not just protected but advanced and activated for every member of this community. And together we are so very happy to move forward with you City of Santa Paula with fairness, integrity and purpose. Thank you so very very much.

We also wanted to invite everyone to the Fair Housing Forum. This year it is in Ventura at the Museum of Ventura County, and it is hosted by our association VCCAR and this time the City of Ventura last time It was with you Thank You And it will be April 22nd from 1130 to 3 p.m.. We hope that everyone can attend

all right.

Thank you. Thank

you welcome And with that, let me read the proclamation. City of Santa Paula Fair Housing Proclamation. Whereas the city of Santa Paula declares that fair housing is a fundamental human and civil rights essential to the public health safety and welfare of the community and to the creation preservation and strengthening of stable diverse and inclusive neighborhoods and whereas the city affirms its obligations under the Federal Fair Housing Act, the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and all applicable federal state and local laws prohibiting discrimination in housing and Whereas the city is committed to the fair, consistent and diligent enforcement of laws that prohibit discrimination in the sale, rental, leasing, financing and provision of housing and housing related services on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, familial status, disability age, marital status, military or veteran status, source of income or any other protected characteristic Whereas the city recognizes that historic and systemic discrimination, including redlining and other exclusionary practices has limited housing access for many residents.

And affirms its responsibility to affirmatively further fair housing and address such inequities. And whereas the city recognizes that access to safe, decent, accessible, and affordable housing is vital to economic mobility, educational opportunity, environmental quality, And public health is and is integral to the overall vitality and resilience of the community.

expand awareness of fair housing rights, and prevent discriminatory practices. And whereas the city affirms that promoting fair housing is a core governmental function and a continuing policy priority necessary to ensure equity, opportunity, inclusion, and justice for all residents of Santa Paula. Now therefore I, Carlos Juarez, Mayor of the City of Santa Paula on behalf of the City Council do hereby proclaim and reaffirm the city's strong and ongoing commitment to fair housing and equal housing opportunity for all. The city shall continue to implement, administer and enforce all applicable fair housing laws and policies and shall take proactive and affirmative actions to eliminate discrimination in housing. The city further commits to advancing policies programs and initiatives that expand access to safe decent and affordable housing for all persons including members of protected classes.

The city calls upon all residents property owners housing providers lenders developers and businesses to fully comply With fair housing laws and to actively support inclusive, equitable and non-discriminatory housing practices. The city also encourages public agencies private partners and nonprofit organization to strengthen collaboration in advancing fair housing and expanding housing opportunity. We had further proclaimed that the city will continue to educate the public on fair housing rights and responsibilities, and we'll support ongoing efforts to remove barriers to housing, address disparities, and foster inclusive welcoming communities for all. Dated 26th of March 2026, Carlos Flores Mayor Santa Paula. And with that I'd like to come down and present this to you, and I'd like the council to join me because we all support fair housing.

Thank you.

Okay, now we'll move on to item 7b Ventura County Fire

Department

Chief Williams.

Good evening Mayor, City Council, city staff and members of the public. I usually do a quarterly review when I do these presentations but this will be more of a summary of 2025. So last year if you look in the center there it says total calls for service by quarter Except for quarters two and three, call volume usually climbs a little bit. I'll show you another slide in a minute where it will show the trend. Since 2018 when the city was annexed with the fire department, it's gone up by about 17%. And I'll be able to show that to you in a little bit.

I'm also going to be showing you as well is our Fire Prevention Bureau statistics and you see that on the left in the middle there, 698 total inspection activities. If you see in the middle where it says City of Santa Paula wildfires 7 although it says a 250% increase over a total of seven total it's not that much Where that may differ is, a lot of times you'll hear us in the river bottom off 12th Street for some of those fires down in there. They may not reach the acreage or they may not come out as a wildfire or a brush fire and maybe more of a nuisance fire or warming fire. And so you'll see some of that under the other fires.

Far right side total type of incidents we have The majority of the calls we run are 70% or medical. Fire is about 2.1%. But when we look at our man hours, fires usually take a majority of that time. Okay, this graph has not changed in four years. Santa Paula's had 5% of the calls of the fire district in this time but one thing to consider is the unincorporated areas that surround your city so you have the Todd Rail Jail, you have the 126 Corridor both Engine and Rescue Ambulance 26 and Engine 29 are going out of the city a little bit to capture these calls so their numbers will be a little bit higher And here is a look at, if you're curious of what times of day we get the most call. It's that 11 o'clock in the morning and it kinda obviously with people, bless you.

As people coming home from work and go to bed it slows down but you can see kind of the peak periods when we get our incidents. There's a heat map where the majority of the calls within the city limits are located so it looks like a big blur because they're fairly well spaced out 2025, as I mentioned the large majority of the calls we run are medical and here's that those are the types on that list there.

So here's the slide I mentioned previously that shows the trend line so that's approximately 17% since 2018 And countywide growth of calls is about 2.2 and a half percent a year so you guys are exactly the rest of the county in its growth and as busy as we get with increase it calls to look at the medical call types we run although sick person is the highest at 17.1 that doesn't necessarily mean somebody has the flu and they're calling somebody feels crummy we go out we put them on a cardiac monitor and we find out they're feeling crummy because they're in AFib and they have dysrhythmia so then it's now a cardiac call but it didn't get typed at that coming from the dispatcher so little bit miss misleading there on the type of calls some others there we can see 2.5 to 2.8% overdose poisoning, that stays approximately standard for all the times I've been following it.

Next slide will show 2024 and 25. And some variations but not a lot. If you see any numbers here that stand out to you and maybe looking for further explanation feel free to ask. Okay, I mentioned that I was going to talk a little bit about our Prevention Bureau. Here showing the last two years of their activity in the city. One of the things I did notice on here if you look at fire code violations 2024 or 15 and this last year was four we get those from referrals so either other businesses or engine companies that are out in the field are gonna see something there's somebody calls it in and maybe is a complaint And it gets further follow-up inspection, or our engine companies are out and maybe they're in a business and they see something.

Exit lights out, something like that, and they'll have our prevention folks. If they don't fix it on scene at the time, they'll have somebody come out and investigate. New construction, you can see the growth there. So inspections on new construction. Planning and development, I think, and I'm not a prevention expert but I think there will be larger developments. Obviously East Area 1, the Harvest Area and then obviously probably large complexes, condos and apartments.

So I was talking about calls we run outside of the city area, but local engine companies are responding to. This one I think is that's the first video and then the second it'll go repeat because it's a gift not a full video. See how it seems like smaller? That explosion you see there is magnesium. It's commonly found in steering columns and engine blocks reacts with water when you apply water That firefighter's standing off at a 45 a little bit because front bumpers and the hood has gas shocks on them. They're known to explode and shoot forward, so he's in the right position there on the side.

About a month ago I know the top is covered up with the graphic there but we had a technical rescue. On the picture on the left there you can see that's a boom and you can see on the right is the guess what would you call it? The carriage that he's riding in. So it started to buckle, it looks like is maybe 75 feet in the air. This is a joint effort with us obviously Ventura City Fire is in between the two districts.

We have a closest resource response criteria so All resources that respond are whoever's closest to the call. That was a USAR call, or Tactical Rescue. So our USAR team went out there. You can kind of on that bottom left you can see a line going off to the side of the crane or the boom there. That thing has been back tied off so it will not continue to go and it has more back ties on the base. So then they threw the aerial after they secured the boom and then they went up there and got him.

He was unharmed. This is kind of a cool, this was last November but got a call about fixing the halyard. The halyard is the rope system that's at the top of a flagpole and on top of the bell tower the halyard was busted so we got a phone call. This is a ladder company from Camarillo because yours isn't here yet that came out and threw 105 foot aerial from across the street you see where it's spotted across the street by the bank and firefighter climbed up there And those things shake when you get to the top. They're not that stable, they move around a little bit.

And one other thing I didn't notice as I was reviewing this this morning is the bells on the outside of the tower. Do you see it there? Yeah. I'd never seen that because it's the back side. You can't see it yeah. So the guys like doing it and they got a picture up there in a minute. Okay so truck 29 which is your truck is here It is actually going in service at fire station 27 in the end of May because we need to get it running, make sure it works good. So the crew, it'll be coming here in August when the fire station's completed but truck 29 will be in service at Filmer Fire Station 27 of ours and it'll be there for the summer until this opens up.

So speaking of station construction That is two years ago in July when we broke ground, or a little bit after. What is that? It looks like December of 26 and we got all of our rain. That's

cool.

It's big too. This is the backside it's got the masonry up now it's kind of cool. A lot of concrete in the back is down And we'll finish with this. Dan and I, the city manager were having a conversation about the years on here and I thought I knew what it was and I was correct but it says founded in the middle and on the right is 1928 that's Ventura County Fire was founded in 1928. We've had three headquarters here in town and 1903 was Santa Paula Fire Department was founded so both years are up there and will be forever.

End of report. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Chief for that presentation. Questions or comments from Council? I guess a question probably lingering in everybody's mind is with Fourth of July and New Year's Eve and all that does the county do anything countywide for fireworks? I know you can't do enforcement but any proactive or fire

Other than our PR campaigns, there isn't anything we've done different. I do know that the City of Oxnard had drone surveillance program last year and they were using that to surveil where like the speaker earlier talked about you can't do anything it's in the backyard but a drone flight will be able to see that but that's a hold if that's law enforcement deal And then you get to deal with privacy and issues like that. So I do know that's one of the things people are doing.

All right, thank you Chief for your report.

You're

welcome. Now we move on to City Council reports. If we could go ahead and start with Council Member Cornell.

Thank you Mayor. Just a couple of things since the last meeting. On March 19th, as Vice Chair I did chair the VCOG, Ventura Council of Governments Administrative Committee by Zoom. As our chair Mayor Tennyson was not available. On the 25th I attended and enjoyed socializing with the city at the employee appreciation lunch And then on the 30th, I met on invitation by residents to listen to concerns about the cannabis meeting coming up next Monday. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Council Member Chavez, do you have anything you'd like to add?

I'll provide my written report. I'm just going to add two things for the public's interest. One, at the last City Council meeting I made a request for a future agenda item to talk about the roadmap for our future growth as there have been many community concerns about growth traffic patterns safety issues and so The council and the mayor agreed to conduct a future study session. So we want to make sure that the residents know that there's a strategic plan around how we're going to adapt to new housing, its impact on traffic patterns and overall public safety.

Recently I was invited by the Mexican consulate to join 19 other elected officials from Southern California for a bi-national foreign relations tour through the border Ensenada and via the Guadalupe. And we got a chance to meet mayors from the various cities, build relationships and one of the things that I've been planting the seed for this last three years was the idea of having a sister city program so we could strengthen our relationship with our largest trade partner which is Mexico.

And so that was very positive interaction and that's all I have for the moment.

Council Member Chavez, thank you for your report. Council Member Nellis?

I always forget something but I don't think I have anything to report this time.

All right very good thank you. I have a few things. I also attended the employee birthday lunch on the 19th. I think you might have heard at the last council meeting our city manager announced that he and I were going to go to Washington DC To try to lobby for some money for the police radio upgrade, 700 megahertz and the encrypted radio system which is about 1.2 million dollars and we did meet with the staff of Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla at the end of the day Julie Brownlee actually sat down with us for half an hour she's always been very supportive and were hopeful that You know our request will be one of the 1300 that they've received, but we'll see because we believe that she's pretty supportive of us. I did see Councilmember Cornejo at McDonalds on the 26th for coffee with a cop.

Any chance to get free coffee and donuts? Although they didn't have donuts there, but... But we had coffee and it was well attended by not only the police but a lot of I'm Director Barnes gave the presentation that he gave to the council about everything the parks and rec do. And believe me, they do a lot. It's just not parks, it's buildings, it's programs, its youth, it seniors so...and then there were the ad hoc committee was talking about hopefully a future dog park.

I went to the Business Connect on the 27th, which we went up here to full-scale Hot Rod Customs 1117 East Main. If you haven't been there what a phenomenal location where they The men that work their restore hot rod cars just fantastic to go in there if you walked in there I'm sure they'd give you a tour and lastly I was able to give To a new hire of the police department officer Caesar Ayala Brief history lesson of the history of the Police Department Which is the chief? I'm honored to do when the chief allows me to do whenever they hire a new New employees, so that's my report now. I believe passes on to the city managers reports

Thank You mr. Mayor members of the council Pleasure joining the mayor and advocating for our little town in Washington DC And we had a very I think meaningful trip and Then I came back and I serve on the League of Cities revenue and taxation policy committee So it was down in Orange County the next day Talking about revenues and taxation matters. I did want to point out at our last council meeting, Councilwoman Cornejo had said once the point in time count for homelessness comes out if I could make sure that gets shared with the council while I was out of town but thank you to the chief of police for distributing that report as soon as it was released I think the Friday before last Numbers continue to decline, as is true countywide. The county is down about 11% year over year in the number of homeless.

Santa Paula's number dropped more like 22%. So we're really pleased to see that it says that a lot of what we're doing and the investment that you've all made is really paying off. And then finally, I just want to announce for the public's sake that the council will have an opportunity this coming Monday to convene in a special meeting. That meeting will be solely for the purpose of discussing a recommendation from the Cannabis Standing Committee for the whole council to consider possibly placing a ballot measure on the ballot to allow retail cannabis to exist in the city. So that meeting is a special meeting because we expect a large turnout. We'll hold it at the community center at 630.

It will be televised, it will be recorded, it will be translated. We have material out on the website, City's website and the staff report and packet should be released by the end of the day tomorrow. In preparation for that Monday meeting so just wanted to be sure Everyone knows there's an opportunity to come out and have your voice heard That ends my report. All

right Thank You mr. Singer, mr.

Mayor. Yes. I have a question with the city manager real quick Is can you just share if there's been any follow-up regarding the community concerns that were shared at the last meeting?

So a couple of things, there was a meeting this morning with Chamber and other members of the business community in preparation for the PBID meeting next Wednesday. We have under James Mason's suggestion if you will or guidance he is suggesting a revision to the facade improvement program that might make it a lot easier For applicants to proceed through the process and not.

have the burdens of prevailing wage and other things. I need to be careful not to get too much in the weeds on it tonight. Once we hear from the PBID, we'll probably need to come back to the council if the program is to change. I've also reached out to Mr. Melgar who spoke on behalf of a number of businesses. We have a tentative meeting set for next Thursday and he's going to invite a number of downtown merchants to that.

Thank you for that update.

Thank you for asking that, Councilman Chavez. And I did ask the city manager if he could include whatever he could in our Friday updates regarding that concern as well. Thank you. We

Something very minor on item 10-D, and I already mentioned it to City Manager. It was just the order of things as they were noted in the minutes that we had a motion and then we had it noted that Councilmember Chavez requested that it be pulled. And so it needed to be the other order, that it'd be pulled, and then we have the motion. So it's more of a clerical than anything else. But I just want to make note of that.

This item was not required to be

Correct, because we're not adopting this evening while a public hearing is required for public comment. This item was not noticed because we are not adopting this evening.

Okay so we can just move on to the staff item. So this will be presented by our Senior Attorney Monica Castillo. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I won't belabor this too much. This item has been before you several times as a reminder. This is a first reading that was of an ordinance to regulate successive rent increase applications at mobile home parks. This was referred back for reintroduction after some amendments were made. Generally speaking, once a park application has been denied They may not reapply within 12 months of that denial if the second application they wish to reapply under is based on substantially the same facts, same theories and that denial was decided on the merits or is under judicial review.

And there's an exception to that. If there is a material change in circumstances, then they may apply but they need to meet the criteria for material changes and circumstances. So that summarizes what this ordinance would do if introduced this evening and moved on for a second reading. That concludes my report.

Thank you, City Attorney Monica Castillo. We don't have any public comment. Quite a bit, and so I think the message is getting out that this council is acting on this. So any questions for our city attorney on this item? Go ahead.

Actually just to comment because I appreciate that though the process went a little longer, I know that we asked you to do extra research on this to make sure that we had it especially on new items that have been brought up to make sure that everything was covered before we went forward. And I appreciate that.

You're very welcome.

Thank you. Anyone else? And we also thank you for your time, Monica Casillo very much. Okay with that I would entertain a motion on item 11A.

So moved.

you have to introduce it by title.

Oh,

go

ahead. First reading of and read by Title Only Ordinance Number 1353 entitled an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Santa Paula amending Chapter 152 Mobile Homes and Mobile Home Parks of the Santa Paula Municipal Code to regulate successive rent increase applications and finding these the ordinances exempt from the Environmental Quality Act.

Very good so it's been moved by Council Member Chavez. Is there a second?

All right,

it's been seconded by Councilmember Nellis. Any discussion? All right seeing none all in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed okay that motion passes thank you very much and thank you Monica Castillo. Okay we move on now to number 12 action items 12a St. Francis Dam flood path project conceptual design and this will be presented by Director Greg Barnes our Parks and Rec Director, I do just want to disclose that I am a board member on the Board of Directors for the Santa Paula Historical Society. I do own property but it is not within the 500 foot conflict zone of the proposed project.

All right, thank you. Thank you Mayor, Council. So this evening the item you have in front of you for consideration is a project that was brought forward by Chris Wilson and Doug Nelson and the Santa Paula Historical Society. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Nelson are here this evening and are going to present the project so I'm just kind of here to start it off But it is for the St. Francis Dam Floodpath Monument, which should be located in Railroad Plaza Park next to the Granite Ball Fountain.

I just want to take you...I'm just going to quickly talk about the process for approval of this project and then if we have enough handouts? I'm going to talk about the process for approval of this project and then I'll invite Mr. Nelson, Mr. Wilson up to take it from there and kind of share the project in the funding components of it So tonight we're here for your review of the conceptual design and proposal.

If council decides that you're comfortable with this and want to move this forward, there still would be additional steps. The group would need to take this or the Historical Society would need to take their plans to the Fitzgerald County Transportation Commission for approval It would require them to get a right of entry permit from Sierra Northern, the railway operator. Then we would return to City Council with an MOU to allow for site improvements at that point after those approvals have been met.

If an MOU is approved and executed, they're hoping to complete this project by March 12th of 2028 when the centennial commemorative... I'm not saying it right. Yeah, I'll take it there. It would be held. So they're here this evening to present that to you. I'd like to invite Mr. Nelson and Mr. Wilson up, also Jennifer Heighton with the Santa Paula Historical Society is here and can answer any questions that you might have as well so...

I don't know who's going to... Doug's coming up first?

Mr. Mayor, City Council, thank you for having us here tonight. I have to tell you that I feel honored to be timing for this presentation is really something because almost exactly 30 years ago in March of 1996 I was here at the Chambers presenting our design conceptual master plan and downtown design criteria for not only Railroad Plaza but for our historic Downtown Improvement Project. For those of you who may remember that, that was the beginning of quite a lengthy process of many phase projects that have evolved specifically around Railroad Plaza Before I get into the specifics of our conceptual design presentation, I think it might be worthwhile just to read one page here of Greg's background. I think we have that up there on page two but I'm just going to go ahead and read this because I think it gives you a pretty good overview of our proposed St.

Francis Dam flood path monument On March 12, 1928 the failure of the St. Francis Dam released a catastrophic flood that swept through the Santa Clara River Valley devastating communities and resulting in the loss of more than 400 lives. The floodwaters traveled through the region during the early morning hours specifically the dam completely failed at just a couple minutes before the hour of midnight And it covered about 54 miles as it made its way down the Santa Clara River Valley.

And it impacted six towns and communities, including the city of Santa Paula. The disaster remains one of the most significant civil engineering failures in California history and has had a lasting impact on the region and its residents. In the years since, Local historians, community members and descendants of those affected have continued efforts to ensure the event is remembered and its lessons preserved.

The Santa Paula Historical Society has expressed interest in commemorating the centennial event locally through the installation of this permanent monument within the Railroad Plaza Park. Due to my involvement in the planning of Railroad Plaza 30 years ago, needless to say I'm very familiar with all the specific design elements that we feel are consistent with everything that has been built over the last 30 years. And that starts with phase one in the late 90's and around the year 2000 We did extensive renovations and remodeling around the historic Southern Pacific Railroad Depot. It's one of the few depots that is still on its original foundation, so it's a very important building here in Santa Paula. And it's just strategically located right across the street from our proposed St.

Francis Dan Flitpath Monument. So the linkage, if you will, of other historic monuments and buildings and memorials That had been built over the years is the police memorial, which is right to the west of the Depot. We have the gazebo we have a public restroom and further down. We have the farmworker Memorial on the corner of 9th in Santa Barbara Street. So we have this beautiful four block linear Park that extends again from 9th all the way down to Ojai And the linkage, whether it's along that Santa Barbara street, it does spread out its fingers into other areas. And just down the street from what this proposed location is our Santa Paula Art Museum within just a half a block walking distance and then a full block walking distance Oil museum So some of the vision of what we intended to do here with With that master plan for a railroad plaza was to attract visitors to Santa Paula who now they might have interest in History of our unique location, but just to come and shop see museums Spread their dollars around town.

I mean this this was intended to be an economic development Not just a design effort. Even though this St. Francis Dam flood path monument might seem like it's a benign project, it actually will just enhance further that overall vision for economic development to get people out of their cars walking around town Santa Paula is a walkable, walkable city as we know. And so this is going to be a very good project that fits that criteria.

I mentioned the 54-mile flood path. If we could just move to the design drawings and specifically You can tell I'm retired because, you know, I don't use one of these anymore. The one I have at home is the batteries ran out about 15 years ago. So this is a conceptual site plan of our project just to orientate you. This is 10th Street. This is our Santa Barbara Street corridor.

This is the granite ball This is the warning which is that beautiful. steel bronze sculpture that Eric Richards did back 25 years ago celebrating the 75th anniversary of the St. Francis Dam disaster so this has a continuum to it, the fact that now we have our 100th centennial project wrapping itself around the granite ball and down along around Eric Richards sculpture and then opening out on to 10th Street.

The decorative clock stone monuments And these denote the communities. I mentioned that 54 mile flood path as it came down to Santa Clara River, and this is the location that we're showing for the actual dam site. We will be modeling what we call the tombstone. When all the hydraulics structurally removed what was just huge large chunks of reinforced concrete, there was left a monolithic literally it looked like a tombstone and it stood there for many many years so we will model that We will also locate some rather large boulders that are on site.

That will be part of that location and as we start that flood path, we're going to be using a decorative tile material here that will denote not only the flow of the water but This is called the lack of debris starting at the very beginning of the dam site, because you just imagine 35 million gallons of water coming out of this dam site coming down towards Saugus.

Saugas being right here which is now Santa Clarita and as it moves down the valley we have Rancho Cumulus, Piru We have Fillmore, and here we have Santa Paula. Saticoy and Ventura denoting again its opening out onto the Pacific Ocean. Each of these decorative stone monuments will have not only the time that the flood reached each town, but it'll also denote the speed of the wave as it came through. In other words for Santa Paula, uh, the debris flow reached us at 3 0 5 a.m and it was traveling at that point 11.2 miles per hour You can just imagine as this thing was going down the valley, it just continued to build up more and more debris.

So needless to say by the time it got to the Pacific Ocean in Ventura, it was traveling at about half the speed of what it was when it came into Santa Paula at 11.2 miles per hour. The interpretive walk that is along the path of devastation, I think I mentioned before will be constructed out of a combination of decorative tile and some natural stone and some other materials that we're still working on. This is truly a work in progress But in terms of trying to make all the design elements comply with what we built elsewhere in the railroad plaza, you want to make sure number one that they are well detailed.

They're high quality and the life cycle of these projects we need to have at least 50 years out. In other words this is the kind of project that needs to stand the test of time. So for each of the actual Decorative clock stone monuments, the time and the speed will be provided in a bronze plaque that will be embedded on. Don't even need help from Greg on that one.

Here you go with Pretty good representation of one of those stone clocks. Here's Eric Richards' sculpture, and you can start seeing how all of these stone monuments work their way down. This again is Santa Paula in this location right there. I'm going to have Chris Wilson come up and talk a little bit about funding and probable construction costs, but I want to make sure that everybody realizes this is truly a community-driven project.

And it's community driven like a lot of the other projects we've done in the past. This whole community park that we're building this on was community-driven, community funded and in the spirit of that Following a good example of Chris Wilson's father, Roy Wilson Jr., who spearheaded the construction of that park and stands as a testimony to his vision. So the key here that Chris will be talking about is community funding, no public money.