Welcome everybody, calling this meeting to order of the Tuesday, October 7th City Council meeting.

Welcome everybody, thank you for coming.

We're going to start with a roll call.

Councilmember Johnson.

Here.

Councilmember Penrose.

Here.

Mayor Brownstone.

Here.

We have a quorum.

We have a quorum.

Two members of our council could not be with us today.

Vice Mayor Ruddick and Councilmember Negan Gast.

So since we have three people, that still qualifies for a quorum.

So we could continue.

Let's see.

We're going to start with a Pledge of Allegiance.

So if everyone could please stand.

Thank you.

Like to move approval of the agenda.

Make a motion.

So moved.

We have a second.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Approved.

Thank you.

We are going to start this evening with a proclamation.

And it is a proclamation recognizing domestic violence awareness month.

And we'll be presenting this proclamation to Cora, declaring domestic violence awareness month, and CORA stands for Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse.

And tonight we have Lynn Schuet, am I pronouncing that correctly?

Schuet?

Short, okay, who's the director of quality and strategic initiatives of at CORA, and will be receiving this proclamation.

And we will welcome her to say a few words in a moment.

I'm going to read the proclamation first for you.

Okay.

So, just my glasses here.

Whereas more than one in three women and one in four men and one in two transgender individuals experience some form of physical or sexual violence and or stalking by their intimate partner in their lifetime.

And whereas the marginalization of certain groups in society, including undocumented individuals, transgender individuals, and people living with disabilities, increase their vulnerability to domestic violence.

And whereas CORA staff provided more than 10,000 critical services in the past year, ensuring survivors have access to safety, advocacy, and healing.

And whereas CORA provided over one million dollars in client cash assistance, including subsidized rent, security deposits, and a range of emergency expenses from car repairs to storage costs.

And whereas in San Mateo County, 121 adults and children who provided emergency shelter, including stays in safe houses and hotels, and 144 adults and children who provided long-term rental assistance to escape their abusers last year.

And CORA fielded 2092 requests for legal assistance.

And whereas Half Moon Bay recognizes the critical need for a countywide services in order to support our residences, residents.

And whereas intimate partner violence continues to be among the most underreported crimes, and San Mateo County is committed to eliminating all forms of intimate partner abuse.

Now, therefore, be it known that I, Robert Brownstone, along with my fellow council members, hereby designates the month of October 2025 as domestic violence awareness month to raise awareness about and encourage all residents of Half Moon Bay to do their part to help rid our community of intimate partner violence.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

How about now?

All right.

Thank you so much for inviting us once again to come and bring awareness about domestic violence to Half Moon Bay.

As a fellow Coastide resident, I appreciate the fact that Half Moon Bay brings us here to talk about the services that we provide.

And I want to say our 1-800 number a couple of times for anybody who's watching this or here with us today.

This is a great way to access our services.

It's 1-800-300-1080.

So I'll say it one more time.

And you talked a lot about the different numbers behind the services that we provide.

And just to kind of emphasize, we're providing everything from hotline to housing.

And all of that is provided at no charge at all to anybody who's calling us for services.

We are co-located with them now twice a week on the coast.

And if that big props to Co-Side Hope for making that happen.

So we're working with young families that have no history of domestic violence to kind of set the temperature at a real productive level, giving them some good tools for communication and for having fun activities together.

And we're also working with kids in the schools, teaching them what a healthy relationship look like and how to say no when things are getting out of hand.

So those are just a few things that Cora is doing.

And again, if anybody listening to this feels like they need some services, we're here to help you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, weekends and holidays included, and again, that number is one-eight hundred, three hundred, ten eighty.

And does anybody have any questions in case?

Yeah.

No questions, but just a comment.

I am so glad that you're going to be on the coast, and especially that you're going to be with Coast Side Hope.

The, you know, that is wonderful because they are there with our most vulnerable population all the time.

They know them intimately.

And so a referral from them to you guys is gonna go very quickly and very smoothly, and it looks like it'll be uh marked for success.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And and just to highlight the fact that it has been successful from day one.

From day one, we were getting referrals, and that just shows that there was a need here in Half Moon Bay and the coast.

So thank you.

Thank you again for being here tonight.

Okay, um next on our agenda, uh we have a presentation from the Half Moon Bay History Association.

Can you hear me okay?

Thank you, thank you, Mayor Brownstone and Council members for letting me speak tonight.

Um I just wanted to introduce myself first of all.

Give you a little bit of a background of who I am.

Um, what I have on the slide, but a little more information is that I have a I have a passion for old photographs.

And um I uh when I first retired, I went to uh and joined the history association.

I went to Mary Ruddy, who is the who was the acting um collections manager and in charge of designing the new museum, and asked her if I could get into the archives, and she just said that she just didn't have time to supervise me.

When she finally did let me in there, she uh she tried to test me, and she said here's a here's a box with over 400 large negatives of various sizes and shapes.

Can you get these scanned?

And at the time we didn't have any equipment to do any scanning, but within a few weeks I had them all scanned.

A few months later, I became the collections manager, and a few months after that I was joined the board of the history association.

Um just just a FYI, the particular photograph that I have here on the slide.

This is um one of my favorites.

This is actually it's from a glass negative that we had in our archives.

It was a large glass negative.

I was able to scan it with such high resolution that you can actually read the signs on the other side of town.

Um there's several other photos that are very similar to this, but this one we have uh a huge you know, resolution in addition um to photographs.

I'm doing a lot of research in the coast side history, and um I've done several articles for Coastside Chronicles.

I've done two articles now for the Coast Site magazine.

The most recent one is in on the newsstands today.

It's uh about a shipwreck that almost was.

And um couple other things I've been doing.

I I've been I create just a couple of other things I did.

I created a database of um census records um in Excel that allow you to search by place of birth or um or occupation or anyone on uh any one of a number of uh ways to search.

And there's a lot of useful information that we've been getting out of it.

Um also working on a database for the the town of Half Moon Bay, um, looking at you know when the buildings were built, uh when they were torn down, and uh who occupied them.

Um to the next one, as as you learned from June when Juliet gave her talk most recently.

Um we opened our jail museum in uh 2018, the barn museum in 2023, and then we finished planting our native uh plant garden um in 2024.

So now that the jail is basically built, um you know the you know what are we gonna be doing now?

Well, first of all, we're gonna continue and doing a lot of things we've been doing.

We're gonna continue upgrading the displays in our museum.

We're gonna continue post uh publishing the coastside chronicles.

Um we're gonna continue doing our quarterly talks.

Um we're gonna re-vitalize or reinitialize our our education program, which unfortunately has not been very active the last few years.

Um also continuing to add to the photo database.

As a matter of fact, just yesterday I found uh over 100 public domain photographs of the Ocean Shore Railroad that uh we can now use to help tell the story of the coastline.

Um in addition, Juliet also mentioned uh last time that I that we've been working with high school students um to help catalog all the items that we have in our museum and in our archives, which is fairly extensive and a lot of a lot of it's just documents that things like that that we weren't even aware that we had.

Um so also what we're gonna do is is we want to reach out and create more is more partnerships and strengthen partnerships.

Of course, our strongest partnership was with the city of Hafoon Bay.

Without the city, we wouldn't even have a museum at all.

And so, you know, thank you very much for that.

Another partnership that I'd like to highlight tonight is with um with the program for uh postcards to the future.

Um this is a program that that Aaron from Um Make It Main Street has been and working with her team on.

We're getting she's gotten well over 100 postcards so far, uh, people writing a postcard to the future.

We're going to uh we're going to display them on um in our museum.

We're gonna have a we're gonna host the opening um reception, which will be on October 31st, and I hope I hope all of you will be there.

Um and uh finally we're gonna we're gonna store all the postcards uh for perpetuity so that we can bring them out sometime in the future.

Those are just a couple of things that we're doing, or we're doing a lot more things.

I just don't have time.

I know I want to be I want to be um you know honor your deeds for brevity tonight, but um again I want to thank you very much for letting me speak.

Thanks.

And by the way, thank you for coming here today and giving us the update.

I appreciate that.

And we have a question from Councilmember Pen Rose.

Yes, could you please have your history talks on some night other than Tuesday?

Um we can't go.

Starting starting uh November, we're moving our talks to Wednesday.

Yay.

So I've uh toured the jail and uh I'm a big history buff uh across the board, like in Truckee and Tahoe Donner and here and and especially with all the history that we have.

And these photos are amazing what we have, and it'd be great if we could maybe think about some of these photos on some of the remaining old buildings that we have that are still here in town or where they used to be and showing what the building looked like, like the one that's there.

So if you're walking down Main Street, you can see a little bit of history just sitting there because a lot of his historical towns tend to do that.

They'll show the old photos.

That's something we can maybe think about doing.

So that is that's something that we've actually talked about, and that's a you know, great idea.

I guess we'd have to work of course with the city to figure out you know how to how to display them, how to set up something, you know, to set up a you know, some sort of uh, you know, plaque or something.

We we have been, as I'm sure you know, putting plaques on some of the older buildings.

We'd we'd like to go back and add QR codes to that.

That will allow people to actually you know come up and they want to find more information about that building or more information about the city in general, the QR code would would then take them to our uh website and and they'd be able to learn more.

R codes are fine, but it's it'd be more of a visual thing, being able to see a photo and just have a small presentation of what it was.

It would be really nice if we could have photos like this, and and and just all photos of the buildings, you know.

Some of the buildings, in some cases, in some cases there's there's nothing where there was a cool old building.

And um, so we can't put a plaque on on on nothing.

Um, so so you know it would be nice if we could if we work out a way that we could put little stands or something like that uh to put those those photos on.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks again, and to uh all our members of the public who may be watching this live or later on on streaming.

If you haven't had a chance to head on down to the Historical Association, it's right next door to the old city jail building and a beautiful renovated barn, and it's a large space, and there's a lot of material there, and it's really an enjoyable visit.

Highly recommend it.

So thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Next, we have a presentation from uh regarding the Bay City Flowers property.

Hello, Mayor and Council.

Uh, my name is Daniel Theobald.

I'm here tonight to introduce myself formally to the council and to the residents of Half Moon Bay.

Recently I purchased the former Bay City's property, and we're excited about the opportunity to begin to clean that property up and um restore it uh to uh full ag use.

Um we have um uh a goal of making it a great um uh location for a number of uh different activities in the city, particularly uh helping out the future farmers of America, 4-H program, and uh things like uh farm worker retraining, etc.

Um, part of what uh we think would be beneficial to the use of the site is annexation into the city of Half Moon Bay, and uh we're here to um make that request and to start that process.

I have a number of letters of support for this activity, and I won't bore you with reading all of them.

I will just read two brief ones.

Uh one is from the Ritz Carlton.

Uh it says my client understands that the owner of the property wishes to annex the entire of the property into the city of Half Moon Bay.

Portion of the property fronting Highway One is already located in the city due to the property's intimate connection to services in the city and the fact that it is already partially annexed into the city.

My client feels that it makes complete sentence sense to annex the remainder of the property into the city and wishes to convey to the council its wholehearted support for this proposal.

Um, the Ritz Carlton is obviously an important uh um partner with the city of Half Moon Bay.

Uh also open space midpen open space says the mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space District understands that Mr.

Daniel Theobald has purchased the 48 acre site formerly owned and operated by Bay City Nurseries, and that he is interested in having the city of Half Moon Bay annex the entire site into the city limits.

As the district is currently purchasing property on either side of the Bay City site, we support we support this proposed annexation.

Um so uh the hope is that uh we can work closely with the city to make this site uh something that uh can help to restore ag um and clean up what's currently a nice or and uh with that I'll open it to any questions.

No questions.

I'm sure we'll have plenty more to talk about and see you again.

So thanks for coming in today and uh introducing yourself to the public and letting the public know that um you own it now, and we'll talk about annexation more in the future.

So thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Next on our agenda, mayor's announcements of community activities and community service.

Well, in case you haven't noticed, we've got a few things focusing on pumpkins coming up in the next week.

If you haven't noticed, then you're not living in Half Hoon Bay.

And we got some great events.

So starting on Monday morning, we have what's called the Great Way In.

And that's where farmers from around the country, even out of the country, right?

Do we have some Canadian?

I think in the in the past, no, no Canadian pumpkins.

Yeah, yeah, we have.

Yeah, okay, that's what I remembered.

Okay.

Um these are some big pumpkins, folks, weighing thousands of pounds.

And I believe it's in the outside of IDES again, right?

Parking lots, a lot of space for a lot of people to come.

It's a lot of fun.

It's the ultimate local event.

I'll tell you, it's great.

And um, so it starts at um 10 o'clock.

And nope, pleasure, oh, it starts much earlier.

Yeah, like 8 a.m.

Oh, it starts at 8 a.m., okay.

I come in later.

I have to do not at 10.

I come in at 10.

I'm lucky.

I don't have to get up that early.

Then okay, so great.

And then of course, um, next uh not this weekend, but next weekend is the actual pumpkin festival on Saturday and Sunday.

So um I'll tell you all again if you're local, got some shopping to do for food and whatever, you might want to just do it Thursday night before all the traffic hits and uh give yourself plenty of time because it'll get busy, it'll get busy early and all the weekend.

It looks like the weather forecast is great.

Always silly to say that, but I got high confidence in this forecast.

That's gonna be beautiful weather, and uh, be a lot of people there, so look forward to seeing everybody there.

Okay, um next.

I don't think we have any report out from our recent closed session.

Uh correct, um, mayor and council.

That uh the council did meet in closed session earlier this evening to discuss one item of anticipated litigation.

Um legal counsel regarding significant exposure to litigation.

Um, no reportable action was taken.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um any updates to council.

You know, the only update I'll give is just a little recap of the weekend.

Um we had a really great weekend here in Half Moon Bay.

The weather was spectacular, and uh we really got to celebrate our new uh community amenity, which is Carter Park.

Um, as many people know, we uh over the last several years remodeled John L.

Carter Park into a really, really nice performing arts facility, outdoor amphitheater with a with a bunch of different amenities.

And uh, of course, we did the grand opening back in July, and then um early August, and then the Shakespeare company did their performances of taming of the shrew over a six-week period in August and September.

And then on Friday night, we were able to host a really nice reception uh for community leaders uh from all areas of the community, and it was kind of cool to see it at night and the lights and the the moon was shining.

It was really really a nice evening.

We had Marcus Shelby, who's a very well-renowned jazz musician bring his quintet, and he's a big part of the local wine and jazz festival, and um we had some local supporters that made sure there was food and drinks for everybody, and it was just a really really nice evening.

And then bright and early on Saturday, we kicked off our Summer's End Music Festival at 11:30 with uh line dancing with our coastside country who offers line dancing classes through our perks and Rec department and uh had a nice crowd for that, and then we had three great bands throughout the day.

Uh, and and we ended the day at 5 p.m.

Um, we'll have actual figures here in a couple of weeks, but um, really, what we felt was great attendance.

Uh, the park was full and full of life throughout the day.

Um, it maybe it was too warm a little bit.

It was the sun was shining, and I don't think we were ready for it as coastsiders.

Um, but uh it was such a good vibe.

People are having a great time, and uh it really showed us what a great asset we have here with Carter Park, and of course, we're exploring other ways to use it for the community, and um just thanks to everybody who came out and and celebrated with us and and joined what was a great party, and then we know the rest of town was very, very busy with the great weather.

So I hope our businesses did well over the weekend and and residents were able to survive the traffic because it was an all-around great weekend.

So, just wanted to share that.

Thank you, Matthew.

I know um a lot of us were there, both events were great.

Um it's all over social media, lots of pictures, so a lot more people, they know where Quarter Park is now, and we filled the amphitheater, and um, yeah, it was a little warm.

By the way, words rarely heard in Half Moon Bay.

Um, but you know, there's also there's a lot of shade on the sides too, and picnic tables and benches, so people had places to get out of the sun a little bit, and um it was great.

I think um a lot of people there, it was the first time they've actually seen the amphitheater, and people are just loving it, and really wonderfully the um feedback we've getting is incredible.

Wow, what a beautiful amphitheater!

What a great new place for folks to congregate, and there were a lot of people there meeting each other's neighbors, and um it was great, it was like a real good village gathering ground as well with the fantastic music.

So, what could be better?

Food, music, wine, beer.

It was a great, great event.

Anything okay.

Okay.

Yeah, no, I had a great time.

Um, handed out a bunch of flyers just to get people going, and and a lot of the merchants really didn't know about it, but they didn't have flyers.

So I think we need to kind of focus on that a little bit, um, trying to get the word out a little bit more.

But I I can I can't tell you how many people that were just visiting in Half Moon Bay and just coming for lunch or shopping and going to the beach.

We're at San Benito, and they were at uh Nanos, and so I I dragged a bunch of people that didn't even that weren't even local with this town and didn't know where Carter Park was, so that was kind of cool for me.

Um, but I'd like to work on the merchants a little bit more, and maybe have on the windows they get a some kind of display, and then I'd like to think about maybe each community having a sign summer's end festival, like like I'm thinking Keyhoe Grand Avenue, the main artery inn to these streets, so that we can actually make sure that people see that a week in advance so that we can promote it more and be a little bit more efficient, and so that we can get more people to come because it was pretty packed, but in the beginning when I was there in the morning, it wasn't.

Um, not saying I did it all, I'm just saying I put up I put a lot of effort in, and there was kids putting out you guys had volunteer kids, which was kind of funny because I said, How many do you have you put out?

And so it was a joint effort, and it was it was super fun, and I did a bunch of social media.

Uh so that gets it rolling.

So we should promote that also within ourselves.

Um, if you're on social media, to utilize that and try to encourage your friends to do it also.

Great, thanks.

Okay, all right, so we're now moving on to public forum.

Um public forum, we have speakers both inside uh live at our uh city council here, and also people can call in online.

So if you're not familiar with public forum, public forum is a time where you can bring up any topic that is not on the agenda.

So as long as because if it's on the agenda, as a member of the public, you will have time to comment on each item that's on the agenda.

So this is only to bring up comments for items not on the agenda.

And the way it works is you will either come up to the podium or we will recognize you online, and you'll have three minutes to speak, and there will be a light and a tone accompanying the light, because obviously, if you're at home, you won't see the light, but I'm not sure if you could see the timer at home.

Can you see the timer from home?

No.

Okay.

So if you're at home, there will be two tones.

One tone is a two and a half minutes.

It's your two and a half minute warning.

It means you have 30 seconds left.

And then a second tone at three minutes.

And that's when you're done.

So that's it.

Easy rules, and uh we're gonna start.

So our first speaker this evening is Councilmember Deborah Penrose.

Good evening.

I'm speaking tonight as a citizen of Half Moon Bay.

I am speaking out as an elected official and as an angry and frightened human being.

Donald Trump left unchecked is going to destroy everything that we hold dear in these United States.

He has already shown unequivocally that he has no respect for the rule of law, that he is willing to jail the folks that you vote into office, but he will never allow a question to be asked from a public official that may have the potential to put to question his agenda.

And what will the consequences of your disobedience be?

He will federalize the National Guard, usurping the power of your elected governor.

He will call in the armed forces.

He is saying, be quiet, shut up, or if you defy me, I will come after you, hunt you down, and make you pay.

I know that my tone of voice and some of the words that I'm using tonight may seem extreme, but we do not have the luxury of mincing our words and pussyfooting around.

This is no longer a contest between Democrats and Republicans.

It is not a struggle between progressives and conservatives.

Between what is good and what is evil.

When democracy dies, be careful which side you are on.

If it's the wrong side, you and your children and your parents and your neighbors will lose your power, lose your right to choose, lose your right to speak out, and be in dire peril of losing your freedom and your life.

If you are an elected official, speak up.

It is critical that every elected official who swore to uphold the constitutions of the United States of America and of California show that they are willing to defend them.

If you live in the United States of America, please speak up.

All of our voices need to be heard.

Please protest against what you feel is wrong or dangerous.

Do not allow evil to triumph because you were afraid to speak.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Hi everybody.

Good evening.

My name is Monica Berlin, and I just wanted to clear up a misunderstanding.

Apparently, on September 27th, I had posted some videos to my ex-account where I actually was at the local Half Moon Bay History Museum for San Mateo County behind the Halfman Bay County jail.

And I noticed that they had installed some equipment there that was called a de Laval cream separator and milker, some equipment that looked like it was from around the early 1900s period.

And I have done research, and that particular equipment is used in adrenochrome production that is harvested from tortured children and uh drink and by the elites.

So, anyways, when I had posted these videos, and I also had um made some videos in town about the Alas Dreams nonprofit, um, I received death threats that were commented underneath my post here.

So I printed it out, and I'm gonna go to the sheriff's department because um, to make an official report after this, you know.

Um I had forwarded the threats, one of them says that was um posted right here right here on September 26th.

You won't live past the 28th this month, you're too close to the truth.

I won't allow it.

And then the second comment that was a death threat toward me.

It was not directed toward Matt Chester.

I forwarded him these comments to try to raise awareness.

Hey, there's people threatening me on my social media, and if I end up dead, I want you to know that these people threaten me.

And one of them says, I know where you live in Half Moon Bay, I'm coming, I will kill you.

And there's my picture, and somebody commented that.

The account is called Z Z.

I didn't, I did not threaten anybody in any kind of way, and the police came to my home and said that I had threatened to kill the city manager.

No, that is not the case.

I've lived here for 45 years, I love this town.

I love this town, I love all of you guys.

I love you, I mean peace.

I go to church.

I was at I go to church every Sunday.

I had Christian Mormon missionaries at my home tonight reading the Book of Mormon.

So I definitely am not meaning to cause any harm.

And I just want to clear up that misconception, and I deeply apologize, Matthew.

I really apologize, and I came down to the city hall when I found after the police came because I just wanted to clear that up that I would never harm you or anybody here, and and I love all of you, and I'm just trying to raise awareness and thank you so much.

God bless you guys, and I love Half Moon Bay.

Thank you, Monica.

Our next speaker is Harvey Warbeck.

Good evening, Council.

Uh the East Side Parallel Trail is going to be built soon.

And I highly, highly urge that we name that trail after John Lynch, the John Lynch Trail.

Those of you who knew him, you would understand that he was a fighter for democracy.

He was never uh intimidated by uh threats, although there were many against him.

And he's the kind of person that I would like to emulate in that we do not bow down to what's happening in this country.

Uh as councilwoman uh penrose just said, we can't be intimidated.

We we need to speak up against what looks like uh increasingly authoritarian government that is going to come after everybody.

So it's really important that we stand up together, that we not be intimidated, that we have the backbone to do what is necessary to keep democracy alive.

Thank you.

Thank you, Harry.

Our next speaker is Joaquin Jimenez.

Good evening.

Uh Honorable Mayor, uh Council members, uh, city staff, members of the public.

Um I wanna share with you that I recently uh visited a site in Palo Alto, uh 231 Grand Avenue is a building.

Uh is housing for teachers.

It was built by Mercy Housing.

They're they're also uh managing this site.

If you get a chance, uh visit the site, it's a four-story site uh with uh three patios and uh area they call it uh dog run.

It's very nice.

It's uh for you to get an idea what a four-story building looks like.

I saw the parking area.

Uh I went in one of the rooms.

Uh I had a nice tour of the the place, uh the garbage uh shoots in the uh in the building.

Uh if you get a chance, uh please visit.

They also had us uh an area where we keep the the bicycles, the bicycle rack area.

So it's uh two thirty one Grant Avenue in Palo Alto, and it's for teachers.

She's downtown right across from the courthouse, right next to the police uh uh department.

So take a take a look at it, you know, visit the site, uh, get some ideas because we need housing.

Uh the other thing I would like to talk about is uh I'm uh sponsoring organizing a series of events in Half Moon Bay.

Uh the next the first event is gonna be November 22nd.

It's called uh music and vendors.

You know, the idea about shopping local is gonna be it's taking place at Magdutra.

I'm gonna have uh music, uh several vendors uh from our local community, they all have their business license.

Uh the second uh event is uh in the same area uh November uh December 20th.

So one is the weekend, the Saturday before uh Thanksgiving, and the other one's the Saturday before Christmas.

Uh hopefully, you know, we help uh our local vendors uh to sell their uh their items.

Um so far we have uh seven uh vendors, you know, for the 22nd, which is gonna be Yaswell Magdutra.

Uh music, I'm working with somebody, hopefully we can get some uh live music uh for no uh for December 20th, and that's a Saturday.

The event I wouldn't at the next one of the next minutes, I will bring you the flyers.

Uh the event will take place from uh uh twelve to five, you know, right in the middle of the day.

Uh this is a way of uh bringing uh uh uh more actually more uh people to visit our community uh for vendors to be exposed.

Uh most recently a young man named Carlos uh opened up his uh his store in La Granada.

So those type of vendors are the ones I'm gonna invite, I'm gonna be inviting, you know, to come over to downtown Hafum Bay on the November 22nd and December 20th on Saturdays.

Thank you.

Thank you, Joaquin.

Make sure you get those announcements over to us so you can put them in our own public announcement page.

Okay, great.

Okay, thank you.

Our next speaker is Chris Crystal and Greek geeth.

Hello, thank you.

Crystal and geet speaking as a resident.

I want to thank you for um taking the time to do the proclamation for domestic violence.

I myself am a survivor from the ages of five to thirty-seven, and it's an unfortunate statistic that children who grow up in homes where abuse is prevalent, then tend to find themselves in abusive situations as they grow up because we're like just um prone to continuing um the cycle.

So I want to thank Half Moon Bay and the city council and city staff for working with CORA and um honoring uh domestic abuse month.

And I would also like to just throw out there that if um future iterations of the nonprofit cohort are able to add on.

Um I would like to nominate Cora as a um uh service provider that has a very important core service.

I did not have any services like that, and I had to save myself.

And when I say half moon bay saved my life, I truly mean that in the most literal way.

Um so uh thank you for honoring domestic um violence month and it's everywhere and everywhere you don't think to look.

Thank you.

Thank you, Krista.

I don't think we have anybody online, but let me double check.

Nobody online.

Okay, public forum is now closed.

We will now have a look at the consent calendar.

Did anyone have an item that they wanted to um pull out?

No, no.

Okay.

Well, I'm happy to make today's motion on the consent calendar.

Um I move that we adopt the consent calendar and the fight following items.

Items 8A, waive reading of resolutions and ordinances, item 8b, approve the minutes of the September 16th, 2025 special meeting.

Item 8C, approve the minutes of the September 16th, 2025 regular meeting.

Item 8D, approve the minutes of the December 16th, 2024 special joint meeting.

Item 8E.

Um adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute amendment number one to the professional services agreement with Christine Boland in the amount of 142,800 for a total not to exceed a contract amount of 172,800 to provide services to related to the office of the city clerk through June 2026.

Item 8F, adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to award and execute a construction contract to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, G.

Marlato and Company of San Carlos, California, in the amount of 659,460, and approve a construction contingent contingency amount to exceed 131,892 for the fiscal year 2025 through 26 for pavement management project number 1038 for a total construction budget of 79 791,352 and item 8G adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute program supplement agreement number five five zero zero eight with the California Department of Transportation Caltrans for the East Side Parallel Trail Segment 2 project CIP project number 059.

Can I get a second, please?

Second.

Let's have a roll call on that.

Councilmember Johnson?

Yes.

Council Member Penrose?

Yes, Mayor Brownstone.

Yes.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

Okay.

That closes out our consent calendar.

Uh we'll be moving on to resolutions and staff reports.

And the first item is item 11A on the community microgrid discussion, and we'll receive a staff report on community microgrid options and direct staff as appropriate.

Uh.

Good evening, members of the council, Mayor Brownstone, and members of the public.

I'm Daleita, associate engineer and interim city engineer.

And I'm joined tonight by Ross Fisher with Peninsula Clean Energy.

Ross is going to be giving us a presentation overview on PGE's community microgrid program.

This is the same program Moss discussed at the last meeting.

He's going to give a little bit more background and also get more into the detail of the different microgrid options that we're considering application to uh PGE's program with that one doesn't the light doesn't work.

So, it works.

You just the light is off.

You just have to press it again.

Let's proceed.

It should.

Good evening.

There we go.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members, city staff, public.

My name is Ross Fisher with Peninsula Clean Energy.

I'm excited to present a potential funding opportunity through the PGE microgrid incentive program.

Today we're gonna go over at a high level, just an overview of a microgrid, what the program entails, and also some options that we vetted uh for potential community microgrids within Half Moon Bay.

We're gonna end the presentation with two viable microgrids as part of this microgrid incentive program that we're looking for council to uh make a decision on if one if we should apply for one into into this current program.

Um just a quick background for those that are not familiar with Peninsula Clean Energy.

We are your community-based energy provider.

Uh our service territory is all of San Mateo County, as well as the city of Los Panos.

Um, our mission statement is pretty uh clear.

We want to lower your electricity rates, so our rates are cheaper than PGE, and decarbonize.

Um can I jump in really quick?

I apologize, just as a heads up.

We at our last meeting talked about the program.

So you can really condense those that portion of it and jump to the sites.

Yeah.

Sounds great.

Yep, and I did watch last uh council meeting, so I'm I'm familiar.

Uh, some of the savings uh that we've uh afforded San Mateo County residents um and greenhouse reductions, um, also revenue that comes in goes in towards community-based programs.

Um part of the program that I'm a part of is what we call our solar and storage for public buildings program, where we're actually doing behind the meter solar projects at City Hall and Sheriff's Substation just north of us.

Uh so high level, what is a community microgrid?

Uh community microgrid consists of uh various what we call distributed energy resources.

This could be solar, batteries, uh, and as well as loads, uh, dynamic loads such as electric vehicles, um, electrical loads that we can turn on and turn off.

Uh, specifically a community microgrid.

There's a clear defined boundary that in the event of an outage, we can isolate or what's called islanding and serve uh everyone within that uh microgrid boundary.

Um so during any outage or emergency uh everyone within that boundary would still be provided uh clean energy.

Uh other key components of this project uh this is what we call it in front of the meter project.

So this is uh connected at the utility lines overhead.

Again, this is uh designed to support critical facilities, which we'll get into more in the coming slides.

Uh during uh normal operation when the grid is up, it it operates in what we call blue sky mode.

Um so this is just serving power to the grid.

Uh and then in the event of an outage, we isolate an island ourselves, and we can serve that microgrid.

Uh this program is managed in partnership with PGE, um, community microgrid aggregators and DER owners.

So the microgrid incentive program itself, and I'll go through this quite quickly as I know you addressed this last um council meeting.

Uh, there's a 200 uh million dollar statewide budget.

Uh, that second line is actually incorrect as of this morning.

PGE increased their budget to 30 million.

We just got this news this morning for uh the community microgrid projects.

Um they anticipate on funding seven projects, so that's roughly four million per project.

Um, in addition to that four million, they also provide one million dollars for interconnection upgrades, uh, three million dollars for additional microgrid infrastructure that can include grid isolation switches, um, undergrounding overhead utility conductors, and additionally, they fund our application preparation, which is the current process that we're in right now.

Um, so who is eligible for the microgrid?

So, when we first uh uh wanted to embark upon this program, we looked across our entire service territory to reiterate they're really targeting areas of our community that that are prone to outages.

Uh, perhaps they're also disadvantaged communities, uh, they're in high threat fire districts, earthquake zones, which pretty much covers all of San Mateo County.

So you can see on that map the highlighted areas, it's more or less justified to our coastal communities, and more or less from Pacifica down to about Pescadero.

Um so Hafoon Bay is right in the uh thick of those uh eligible areas.

Um we're not gonna go over every line item here, but the intent of this slide is to show how the program is or how the projects are scored.

Uh so there's various attributes that that allocate points towards the project.

Um, the one I do want to highlight here is the critical facilities.

That's the the third column down, or excuse me, the second column in the third row.

Um, and this is where we have a total of 30 points.

So the microgrid incentive program is really structured around identifying critical facilities within the community that we can provide backup to that can serve as resiliency centers for the community.

And and how the final project score is calculated is we we take that chart that we just saw, we tally up all the points, and we divide it by how many funds we're requesting.

That ultimately derives our total project score, and that's how we'll uh it will be determined if funds are awarded to us or not.

So now into the Half Moon Bay project.

So we we heard council last week uh the areas that are of most concern.

Um what we're here to present to you today is us vetting out the uh various potential community microgrids, and why some are quite difficult and why others are viable.

And so this slide, it's an animated slide.

Uh what I'm trying to articulate here is there there's three different feeders or utility overhead conductors that that uh interconnect right at the crossroads, more or less of downtown Halfing Bay where we are.

Uh so Dale, if you go back one, you can see the first feeder.

Uh, this is the feeder that serves the high school if we go to the next one.

Uh, this is the feeder that serves Sam if we go to the next one.

This is the feeder that serves downtown all the way to uh the town of Pescadero.

So you can see Half Moon Bay is literally the crossroads of three utility feeders.

Why this is important is when we talk about a community microgrid, we can only have one, we can only have a community microgrid on one of those feeders.

We cannot intersect and pick up other facilities on that on those feeders.

So when we talk about, you know, isolating a section of downtown or including SAM, that just might not be viable because it's on a completely separate feeder than the feeder that serves downtown.

Um, of these three feeders, we've also identified all the critical facilities that would be connected to that feeder.

Uh, you can see the feeder that does connect to SAM.

Um, it's it has a lot of critical facilities, uh, transitional housing, uh, the sheriff's substation community center where we are today, uh, two schools.

Uh the high school, however, is on a completely separate feeder.

The only critical facility within a community microgrid boundary there would be the high school and the high school only.

Um, and lastly, the feeder that serves south of downtown and and south uh southern San Mateo County.

Uh, that would comprise the library, uh, the fire station, uh, senior coast iders, and specifically their medical clinic that would qualify as a critical facility, as well as Seacrest School.

Excuse me.

Um, this is some outage uh data that our uh data team collected.

Um, and again, we heard you loud and clear at last council meeting.

Uh, feeder 103, you can see there, that is the feeder that has the most outages, and that is indeed the one that serves the south of town all the way down to Canyada Cove.

Um, so council is very correct in identifying uh the areas that are that are of higher need.

So now we're going to review the various microgrid boundaries that we did look into and and why they are not viable as part of this microgrid incentive program or the MIP program.

And so the first boundary that I want to call your attention to is on the southern section of town.

This would start at senior coastsiders go all the way down to Canyada Cove, west out to the Ritz Carlton.

This microgrid boundary has a significant amount of load.

So we can see around 10 million.

These are very rough numbers here, 10 million kilowatt hours load that would require about a seven megawatt solar system.

The solar photovoltaic or solar PV system alone would cost about 16 million dollars and require 30 acres of land.

So as far as the funds that are available to us and available space, this is a very difficult community microgrid to win funding and also to build.

And being a critical facility, which which it truly is.

We also heard in wanting to incorporate the high school as it's the current community resiliency center.

And the issue here is that these two critical facilities are on separate feeders.

So it's it's just not viable to have a community microgrid that bounds both the high school and SAM as part of this program.

The third one that we looked at was what if we get rid of the high school and we just isolate from SAM down to the two schools.

There's a couple issues here.

One is this also has a lot of commercial facilities that are not considered critical facilities, the two shop shopping centers, excuse me, which increases load significantly.

Secondarily, we also need to cite a project somewhere, and the the SAM is in a tsunami inundation zone, which which leads towards a very difficult proposition to site a solar project there.

The system itself for uh this type of boundary would require around 20 acres of land and be about 12 and a half million dollars.

So, again, to reiterate from uh from a land uh from what land we have available from a cost perspective and the load.

This is this is also a very difficult community microgrid to submit towards this MIP program.

So the two sites that we do want to present to you today, and ultimately ask council to make a decision if you would like PCE to submit an application are the following two.

Um and so this one is is again right where we are in the downtown.

Uh this really checks all of the boxes for critical facilities.

So we get all of our points there.

Uh the project has good economics in the sense that there's it it's it's a rather light load in comparison to the other uh community microgrid boundaries that we looked into, um, and the land requirements are significantly less.

Um so this one again as per the criteria for the MIP program is a viable microgrid that we think we can be competitive in getting funded.

The second one is on the south side of town, and this starts at the fire station to the south, again goes up to uh coastside uh senior coastsiders out to the east to the Seacrest School.

Um, this does have double the load to the downtown community microgrid.

So we are increasing the load, which which is essentially 2xing the land requirements as well.

Um, but this does check the box for our uh critical facilities, and we think there are perhaps some viable areas in partnership with perhaps the dealership or the school for a hybrid solar roof mount, carport, andor ground mount.

Um so solar siting is still an issue here, but listening to council and staff, the the needs on the south side of town are seem to me much more significant than the downtown area, um and we do feel that this could be a viable microgrid to be competitive to submit an application as part of the microgrid incentive program.

So the next steps.

Um we're currently at stage one.

So the last six months have been a lot of uh due diligence and detective work to see what the most viable community microgrid boundary uh could be, working with city staff and and now getting feedback from council.

Um we have to make a decision on our boundary by uh October 15th.

So we do not have much time to make that decision as to which microgrid boundary that we would want to submit as part of this program.

Thereafter will be about a three to six month uh uh process for PGE to assess the applications and and make their awards to see which projects received grant funding.

Um, and then to to give you rough timeline, we're we're probably looking at another three to five years thereafter to actually get the microgrid to fruition.

Uh so there's a lot of technical studies thereafter once the once the project is awarded, um that will take uh uh about a year or so.

Uh then we have project development and then actually building the project itself.

Uh so in all actuality, we're we're probably looking at like a a 2028, 2029, perhaps 2030, uh for a microgrid like this to actually come online.

And so our next steps in our our ask here is that we we determine uh if there if one of these two options that that we've deemed viable as per the MIT program, council uh would like us to submit an application for.

Um we would we're asking council to make a decision on that um the uh uh to submit a excuse me to submit an application to uh PGE um and then thereafter we'll submit the uh excuse me, I'm sorry.

Uh we're asking council to make a decision October 15th as far as which community microgrid boundary to select.

Thereafter we have uh a couple months to assemble our application and and formally submit on December 17th.

And so that is the ultimate question that we are asking is should we pursue either of these options?

Option four uh we're classifying as the downtown uh community microgrid, option five as the south of town, which again would be the fire station up to senior coastsiders if either of one of those are are of interest to submit um in application for so completely open to discussion.

Any questions?

That was a lot to throw out you guys.

Yeah, I you gotta treat me like a dummy.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I understand the concept, I get the feeder fact that you can't go from one feeder to the other.

What I don't know is what you're talking about double the load.

I don't know what that means and and what you're talking about when you talk about all the solar panels that are needed.

Sure.

And the acreage, where are you gonna get that from?

What so can you explain that a little bit?

Absolutely.

So when we refer to a load, that's that's can you go back to the slides so I can look at the slides?

Absolutely.

So let's go to option one or one of them.

Sure.

So let's if if we may uh stick to option four and five, just because those are the ones that we're asking council to make a decision on.

Um so if you look at the uh first bullet point under estimated project details, 900 uh and that should be uh thousand uh kilowatt hours.

The load is synonymous with energy consumption.

So within this boundary, if we were to tally up the energy consumption over the entire over the course of a year, it would tally up to 900,000 kilowatt hours of annual energy usage.

In order to offset that 900,000 kilowatt hours with a solar photovoltaic or or solar electric system, it would require around a 640 kilowatt uh solar PV system that would require around three acres of land.

Okay, have you have you determined that there are three acres of land available?

So we we haven't gotten approval on the areas that we um that that we believe are are viable.

For example, uh uh Hatch Elementary um has a nice pla uh outdoor playground area.

We were discussing an elevated uh shading structure.

We have not been in discussions with the school to have that partnership and and use that uh use the land.

Uh there will be a land lease for whatever land that we uh if that we were to use or could use uh for this project.

Um but to answer your question, we've looked at various areas that that are perhaps viable, uh, but that's completely to be determined which ones are are ultimately going to be acceptable to build upon.

But but you have determined that there are probably three acres available through through so that three acre uh number is for a conventional utility scrap ground mount project.

When we talk about uh roof mount, uh excuse me, roof mount systems or carport systems, we are able to tighten up that space uh uh and and have more power density um ones.

Okay, okay.

I just I just don't want to be voting for something that is not gonna be viable.

I mean that seems silly to me.

Yes, and and that's a challenge at every community microgrid within Half Moon Bay is is available space.

Got it.

Okay.

And can you go to the other slide, the the other option that we're considering so that I can compare them?

Yep.

So so this one, again, starting at that estimated project details, uh, two million kilowatt hours uh annual energy usage.

Um, so about two X of the annual energy usage within that downtown boundary that we showed.

Uh a system uh for this, again, if we look at a ground mount would be about 2x of land around six acres.

Um and it would warrant uh around a 1.4 megawatt uh solar PV system.

Okay, great, thank you.

Keep this one up for a second, just um.

So this includes a lot of a fair amount of summer downtown here in addition to those critical facilities.

Just a little bit.

So if you if we just north of senior coastsiders is is where we would isolate uh this microgrid boundary.

When you said there could be rooftop solar to supplement if you didn't have enough acres, right?

But you're talking about acres of rooftops.

So it doesn't directly translate the six acres would be a uh ground mount system where we have inner row spacing between row to row on on a roof mount system that it's much tighter spacing, or if it's a slope system, it's a completely monolithic array.

So we are able to have more power density in a roof mount or a carport system versus a ground mount.

We wanted to paint the worst case scenario of required land if it were to be a ground mount system.

Uh but the point still stands that space uh is is uh is an issue for every one of these microgrids and and uh I believe it would ultimately be a hybrid of some type of carport roof mount um to truly use every viable square uh foot for uh uh supporting this type of system.

Two more questions.

If we wanted to, can we submit two proposals?

Does it have to be just one?

That's a good question.

Um the fund so I I'm thinking about how my team would respond.

Um I uh, you know, the funding is very competitive.

I'm not sure how that would um how PGE would take it if we are submitting two applications within the same area.

Neither project or excuse me, uh only one of the projects would be entertained, I imagine.

Um I also want to uh yeah, I I don't have a straight answer for you on that.

If if that's something that my team would be uh okay with submitting, or if the program administers from PGE would be okay with us submitting two within the same uh uh downtown area.

Can you go back also to the SAM project for a second?

We had all the numbers there.

So now I get the challenge here.

The reason I bring Sam up is Sam.

If Sam goes down in a real disaster, really terrible flood, earthquake, that affects like the whole coast side.

Not just one part of town, not just one emergency thing.

It just affects everything.

So um, and I know we talked about a little bit about that at the last meeting where we discussed this thing.

And at least for me and some other council members, that kind of trumps everything if we can somehow do something about that.

But then you say it's got 19 acres of land for solar.

Now, if some reason we also put that in as one of the projects, would we actually be able to come up with 19 acres?

Like where would that go?

I don't know.

I know it's a challenge, but I'm just saying what you have in mind.

So in in speaking with city staff, we were trying to identify some viable areas and and outside of uh the SAM property itself, which again is in inundation zone.

Uh we weren't able to identify a viable spot for a system of this capacity.

Mr.

Mayor, the reason the the presentation narrows down to those two options at the end, is because those are the only two that we feel like are viable.

Yeah.

And years from now, the technology might get better where we might be have more efficiency of um some of those uh potentials.

So, okay.

So we have two options.

We should identify our top option.

But maybe what the heck?

Submit both and see if they might consider it.

Uh a TBD.

Uh, okay.

I know we don't have a lot of time, but I just want to double check.

Okay.

Yeah, it's a very difficult half moon bay is a very challenging territory again by virtue of those those feeders or those utility uh uh conductors that just all intersect right here um in addition to being space constrained.

Um those are the two biggest challenges uh uh for every microgrid boundary, and we actually vetted out another three uh that I'm not sharing with you guys tonight um to see just we truly try to check every box in every uh you know area of halfway bay.

I really appreciate all the work you've done.

So you can get this far and present these options.

So let me go over to Patrick's question.

Can I see the uh the one where sampling again?

See the photo of the sand plant.

Ums that whole where the Keho ditch is and Bev Cunha Road.

Is that something we could consider talking to them about for a grids?

For the panels?

I mean it's uh it's not 20 acres, and uh I know that we own a bunch of land on the other side of the road that's Asha.

Yeah, and I'm not sure if that'd be the case.

So it's something we can look at, but um, and what about the beachwood that's above that we won the lot or we lost a lawsuit on it?

Again, covered in Asha.

Okay.

So you can't put solar panels under National.

I don't think so.

So I I think one clarification that's important is like these boundaries that have been drawn.

They've been drawn to capture the facilities we want to cover, but they've also been drawn to actually make them competitive with this particular grant program.

So what that means is we could separately start to explore a micro grid that only serves the SAM plant, which would really reduce the load.

And you please tell me if I'm wrong, but the load, um, the cost and the land requirements for the solar.

It's just it wouldn't come with this grant funding.

So this is just one opportunity that we can pursue, but it also comes with constraints because it's a grant.

So I don't want anybody watching to think that oh we'll never have uh you know an opportunity to do this for the south end of town or for the SAM plant.

It's just under the requirements of this grant to make it competitive.

That's the footprint that we would have to be chasing.

So you had it you had to add in all that other property in addition to SAM just to quality.

Just to make it competitive, exactly.

So the the two that we are now gonna be focusing on would be that you're suggesting would be downtown four and fire station uh five, senior and f as and fire station.

So fire station would cover for emergencies for the fire department, but don't they have solar panels on that building already?

Aren't they kind of self-supportive or not?

Um I believe they have some solar.

I don't know what to to what degree though.

Okay, then that would cover a private school, and then it would cover the seniors, and that's pretty much it.

Um when it comes to critical, you know, the seniors.

I'm looking at the seniors, and I'm looking at the fire station, and of course I'm thinking about CRS, I'm not leaving them out, but I'm trying to see which one would give you the best for the for our community.

I'm kind of I'm leaning towards that one.

Um, but I'd love to hear what our fellow council members say.

And then go back to the downtown, it's the sheriff's substation, if I'm not mistaken.

Yes, is that correct?

Yes.

And then in the blue, what's the blue on there?

What is that?

Uh sheriff's substation.

Sorry, the icons are a little hard to see.

Uh we have the community center as a uh secondary resiliency facility, uh, the San Mateo County Medical Clinic just to the west, um, and we have the two schools.

So we actually have five critical facilities which within the downtown boundary, and the maximum of three give us the the or excuse me, three give us the maximum points for the middle.

And that wouldn't cover us in this building here.

Would it cover us here?

Uh yes, sir, it would.

It would.

And then I'm I'm definitely yeah, okay.

And then that your acreage is less.

Uh it's three acres of land, so that's that's even better.

You're a six on the other one and three.

Mm-hmm.

So that's the downtown.

Okay.

Thank you.

I think it's great.

You're talking awfully fast because when I go to the board meeting.

It's normally really calm and cool, but it's easy.

I I apologize, I threw you off when I asked.

No, it's it's uh it's fine.

I gotta say, isn't it?

PC uh I mean, you guys, it's really cool stuff that you guys are doing.

It's really cool.

I've learned a lot, and and my solar panels are going up, they're working on it today.

Awesome.

And I think you told that you're doing yours too, or something like that.

So I'm I'm learning more now.

It's pretty cool.

Really cool.

I don't think we have any public comment on this, right?

So we can go right straight from questions to um discussion.

It would be really helpful, I think, to find out just how self-sufficient the fire station is.

Because that was one of the key emergency facilities on number five, right?

It is, and and so any existing uh uh resiliency asset, be it a generator or a battery energy storage system, um, first it would be it would become the secondary power source.

So the community microgrid would be the primary backup power source, and then any generator thereafter, should the community microgrid run out of energy capacity, say say it's designed for a day or two days of resiliency, then the generators would take place.

So even those facilities that have existing generators, we can actually defer running the diesel generator in lieu of the community microgrid.

Um also any any project that has existing uh behind the meter solar photovoltaic um like Cunya and Hatch, that actually reduces the load.

So that that 900,000 kilowatt hour load that I'm showing you, that's the net usage for the community microgrid, um which takes in consideration the existing solar photovoltaic systems uh that serve the two schools.

So actually existing solar, existing batteries actually help this community microgrid in the sense that we can uh reduce the system size overall because there's less load to address.

But that's already been taken into account for these numbers.

Okay.

So we're not like taking the 900,000 kilowatts and then reducing it.

That's where we get because of what's already existing.

That's the net uh hatch, I believe came online somewhat recently uh within the last year or so, um, but it does have the net usage uh for every PV system that's been online for for at least the last year or more.

But you're saying the fire station, because you mentioned they have some solar on their roof, right?

I I actually I I think I misspoke.

I apologize.

I think they have backup generators to operate, but I don't believe they have any solar system.

JB diesel generators, I'm sure.

Yeah.

And you're saying that there would only be two days worth of diesel.

So, uh no, uh, just to clarify, the minimum design requirements for this community microgrid are 24 hours minimum of backup in the worst case scenario.

So that means just the capacity in our batteries could provide at a minimum uh 24 hours of resiliency.

Should it be a nice sunny day, the the solar photovoltaic system will produce power, recharge the batteries, and there could be perpetual um energy in a nice summer outage, for example.

Um how it would work at the fire station if that were to be the community microgrid boundary.

If there's an outage, first the fire station would be supported by the community microgrid, and only in the event that the community microgrid is no longer able to support the fire station, then the generator would run.

So the fire station wouldn't really have visibility as to you know if the grid is up or if the community microgrid is supporting um their energy usage.

They would only see an outage should the community microgrid no longer be able to support that outage, be it a day or two, um, and then the diesel generator would uh become the secondary backup power source.

But the microgrid only provides you say a day or two of the Yes, sir.

Worst case scenario is is around 24 hours budget uh and and what happens after 24 hours.

After 24 hours, it would be a it would be a full outage.

Um, and then your secondary uh backup power sources would take over, such as a diesel gen set.

Um again to reiterate, that's that's the worst case scenario, assuming no sunshine whatsoever.

If the sun's in a we do produce power and we're able to recharge those batteries.

Unfortunately, no sunshine for a few days.

So we do factor in cloudy events, we we take local meteorological stations here to determine the performance of a solar PV system.

Um so we absolutely are taking that into consideration, but that when we truly design a system for resiliency, we look at the absolute worst-case scenario, which is there is no sun, we only have the capacity that's that's in our batteries.

So on the downtown, just so uh we're clear, my train of thought, and I'm just this is me thinking.

If we had an emergency, this is an area that people would would go.

We also have the sheriff station and the substation, which I I went and monitored and and listened and learned how that cert the cert certification, they're in that room, they need power, they're talking to our communities.

So I was just looking, and then we have boys and girls club, which would be like a place you would go for a major, like we've got it's a red cross shelter.

It's registered with Red Cross.

That's what's making me go towards the downtown.

The EOC, which is where everybody goes when there's an emergency.

Right, right, right.

Which would be the downtown.

Right.

So that's why I'm kind of leaning towards that.

I know the fire station is an important thing.

Of course it is, but I'm sure they have some kind of backup.

They must.

It's a fire department, but and I understand where you're going with that.

But I'm looking at the for the community.

The that and it only takes three acres for for the solar panels on that one on the on the four, so less land, more space for our community if we had a major emergency.

That's how I'm looking at this.

Is the library in the downtown?

That's a great question.

We actually have that in our appendix.

The library happens to be on the separate feeder.

Um, it's it's right where the feeder starts, that goes all the way down to uh South County.

Um so yeah, it's right there.

So the library does have solar.

The library does have solar.

I do not believe they have uh any battery backup system, so if there's an outage, uh they they do not have a backup power source.

Um the star on this map shows the location of the library.

Uh that light blue is the feeder that serves uh the downtown community microgrid that we're discussing, and then that dark blue is the one that serves uh the south side of town all the way to South San Mateo County.

Um so you can see that the the library is almost at the start of that feeder to the south.

So if we do have a downtown microgrid, unfortunately, we cannot incorporate the library.

Hey Matthew, can you find out tomorrow from a fire station how many days worth of backup diesel they actually have?

Sure, because that would be.

I mean, I assume they're like us, they they have somewhat of a stockpile, and then they have plans to replenish so that they can just operate as long as they need to, but we can we can talk to them about that in more detail.

I need to think to work downtown as being a better option.

Yeah, I'm just trying to get all the I'm always thinking worst case, you know.

It's gonna be two o'clock in the morning, earthquake and raining.

That's why I always say what do we do then and what's gonna be available and um, so yeah, great downtown sounds good, and it sounds like it's doable and maybe quicker to get online since it's less um land and less.

You know, I'm uh from a build perspective.

Yes, uh, from the project timeline, it's it's going to be the same.

Um, you know, uh just a couple things to note.

Uh we're still in the very early stages, it's a highly competitive program.

So, you know, again, we're we're going to put our best foot forward, but but no funds are are truly guaranteed.

Um, and then the second thing I'll say is that any existing uh behind the meter, such as uh you know the hatch or or uh the project that we're gonna be supporting at Sheriff Substation, um, that doesn't negate any uh uh on-site battery uh backup systems that we can install.

So this is this is just a another way to address resiliency, but should that we not receive funds, it doesn't negate uh us going after um or or continuing to support behind the meter uh solar and storage projects for resiliency.

So I think we had a consensus though.

Downtown number five, right?

That was terms of guidance.

Do we vote on that?

Uh well, I guess I would want to check with you.

It might be helpful just for the record to have a vote um in terms of the preferred alternative.

By motion.

I make a motion for the um microgrid feed for the PCE is bringing forward us tonight.

And I'm recommending that we choose the number four, which is the downtown microgrid.

Second.

Okay.

Hold on a second.

Let's just take a quick vote, real call.

Councilmember Johnson.

Yes.

Councilmember Penrose?

Yes.

Mayor Brownstone.

Yes.

Motion carries.

Great.

If you could keep working on the Kenyatta Cove idea that we've been, I keep pushing at you guys.

So come up with something.

We've been in touch after the pumpkin festivities is when we actually have a meeting set up to further investigate how we can support Kenyonicov.

Alright, thanks.

Thank you, Council.

And thanks for the great presentation and uh helping us out with all that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next item is 11B.

We're going to receive a report regarding the resolution consenting to the dissolution of the San Mateo County Cities Insurance Group joint powers authority.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members.

I do not have a PowerPoint.

I am going to go through the information rather quickly and simply and then give you the opportunity to ask questions since the staff report was pretty detailed out.

I don't want to reiterate what you already have in front of you.

But just some key points.

As you probably remember from the report, the county San Mateo County Cities Group was founded in 1978 and Half Moon Bay was a founding member.

This is a very small JPA that handles our workers' comp claims.

For some of the other members, they actually do also handle some of their medical, I mean some of their dental and vision benefits, but for us it is solely our workers' comp and our long-term disability supplier.

I guess it's not the right word.

Sorry.

Recently in 2024, Foster City, which is the biggest member and has the most claims, decided to pull out of Cities Group.

As we've been finding, we probably could have survived without Foster City, but to have decided that it's too much of a chance financially to take since they are the one of the key members, and most of the money in the fund belongs to Foster City that the other group decided to pursue what it would look like if we disbanded and started to pursue other options.

So as a group, we started doing research.

So the process to provide a dissolution began.

And so what we're do at this stage now is we're coming to you with all this information.

Tonight is just about information, just because we are missing two council members to be able to give you an opportunity to ask questions, and then we will come back next meeting with a resolution for approval.

And with this resolution, it will join the other cities in the cities group, and we will prepare to dis to dissolve the cities group.

And what that means is that following that in the next few months, I will be bringing back other options for the council to consider for our workers' comp coverage.

And generally we have some good options.

But fortunately, because we are so small and because we are very I'm knocking on wood, I'm fortunate to not have a lot of claims.

Um we have a lot less liability than some of our partners within the group.

So um Catherine, when I am I forgetting something key in this?

I think you covered everything.

So I'm here, Catherine's here to answer any questions that you may have regarding this process.

Questions?

Patrick, any questions?

I don't have any questions either.

So I guess we can move on to the next bring it up again with the next meeting as I'm looking forward to the next meeting where you're gonna have more resolutions of direction we're gonna take.

Yes, yes, and I will have um different options for you with costs and breakdowns.

Um, but again, we're very fortunate because of our claim numbers being so low.

Um the cost, while it will be more, it won't be significantly similar.

Some of the other cities are gonna be seeing significant increases in their workers' comp.

And this is just for workman's comp for our staff, people that work in the city.

Yes.

Exactly.

Nothing with the punk and festival liability or anything like that.

No, this truly is just our staff.

Okay.

Great.

Thanks so much, Lisa.

I appreciate it.

Our next item, uh commercial vitality ordinance study session.

We're gonna see your presentation on the draft commercial vitality ordinance, establishing standards for blighted and empty commercial storefronts, provide feedback and direct staff on any revisions or next steps.

Thanks.

Great.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor, Council, and community.

I'm Karen Decker, your economic and community vitality manager, and it's my pleasure to bring forward a draft commercial vitality ordinance for your consideration.

Uh the focus of this ordinance is to establish standards for dilapidated and empty storefronts in Half Moon Bay.

And this is an informational item.

So I won't be seeking a vote this evening, but I will be seeking your direction, your guidance, um, and I'm looking forward to taking a lot of notes from anything you or the community has to share with the intention of bringing a revised ordinance back for a first reading at a future date, likely in November.

Okay, so jumping into background and purpose.

This year, earlier this year, we had our annual listening sessions, we had our annual priority setting workshop at both of those meetings and at other meetings.

Uh, we received feedback and concerns about dilapidated or blighted and vacant commercial properties.

We know that empty or neglected storefronts contribute to urban decay, diminish property values, disincentivize investment.

Um it's also really discouraging for responsible property owners just doing the right thing.

Um it also poses risks to public health and safety, and this ordinance is intended to address all of that and to support support an active and attractive and a safe um commercial area.

So what does the ordinance do?

Um the ordinance sets standards for empty and neglected storefronts and commercial property exteriors in general.

Um now when a property owner experiences a vacancy, that triggers a notification process that doesn't currently exist right now.

And what that would mean is that that property owner would notify the city by filling out a very simple form.

It was one of the attachments in your staff report, it's one page, and the intention is not to be cumbersome or um overly complicated.

It's also very manageable for staff, and it gets the point across that I space has become vacated and it gives the city more information than what we would normally have.

Um it also provides the city with additional enforcement tools.

So the desire here is to take a balanced approach.

Um the emphasis is on collaboration with property owners, and that's really central to the ordinance.

And whenever possible, um staff will of course uh educate and collaborate.

Um it also, though, enables staff to have leverage in those rare instances when collaboration and education isn't working.

Many other cities use a lot of complex registration systems because they're larger jurisdictions, they have a much higher volume than Half Moon Bay.

They have very large staff capacity.

So the approach that you see tonight is really streamlined for Half Moon Bay Scale.

The ordinance does not introduce a lot of you know multiple forms or a new software tracking system or anything cumbersome or expensive to the city, really trying to encourage compliance in a straightforward and easy to understand way.

And the draft that you see before you is the results of a lot of input, some input from downtown businesses.

I spent about an hour doing a subject matter expert interview with a local broker who was really generous with his time and shared perspectives from local property owners.

And also the city is a member of several economic development associations, and so I have lovely colleagues, some of who were really helpful in terms of their own ordinances and the processes that they used to develop theirs, Saratoga, Santa Cruz, among many others.

So this slide focuses on some key policy areas, and this will be a lot of the heart of what I'll be asking you to consider later.

So I will revisit this slide at the end of the presentation after clarifying comments.

Of course, please go to any section of the draft that you'd like covered, but this is just an example of some areas of the ordinance where staff could benefit from council guidance because it touches on policy decisions.

So, for instance, the definition of an empty or neglected storefront.

Should we include time thresholds, right?

So, how long does a property owner have before we expect them to communicate that vacancy to the city?

Maintenance standards.

Should storefront displays be required, and if so, does the city have involvement and what is appropriate?

Is that you know too subjective?

We'd love your guidance around those kind of expectations.

Um the notifications, should it be within 30 days?

Is that too soon?

What do you think about the timing?

Um the applicability.

Should the standards apply to all commercial properties or just vacant ones?

And then finally, enforcement, education first, or should we be more proactive in inspections?

If we were to be more proactive, that would require more resources and staff bandwidth, for example.

So again, these are suggested policy areas to trigger discussion.

Happy to take it in any direction council would like, and then in regards to enforcement and just general administration, enforcement will use existing city processes.

We are not suggesting any new positions or major costs anticipated.

And we focus on resolving issues, you know, informally whenever possible.

The tools that our code enforcement would have at his disposal would be of course starting with education and assistance, then we would go into noticing and correction opportunities, and then if that doesn't work, resorting to fines or nuisis abatement when necessary.

This is what success would look like.

So if we get this right, it should result in cleaner and more attractive business districts.

It would encourage investment and tenant retention.

It would reduce complaints that the city receives around dilapidated or neglected or empty storefronts, and hopefully it would reinforce community pride.

It would be appealing to tourism.

There's a big emphasis on the importance of tourism, it's one of our hallmark industries, so it would be in support of that.

And really, this effort aligns with the council goals for economic vitality and public safety and community well-being.

So after this evening, the next steps that we could expect.

Um, staff will incorporate council direction.

I'll be typing a lot of notes this evening into a revised version of this draft ordinance.

Um, this would get noticed, and so uh other folks, community property owners, businesses would have a chance to respond to these revised um these revisions for a period of 10 days.

And then uh we would continue um chatting with businesses and and talking with them about implementing and continuing to engage our stakeholders.

When we bring this back, it would be in the form of a formal introduction and a first reading.

That would be followed by a second reading, and then hopefully adoption.

So that's just a brief overview of the ordinance itself.

I'm so happy to start with clarifying questions.

I'm gonna take notes if you don't mind.

Turn it over to the mayor.

Um, no, no, no.

Um, So I think believe we're up to clarifying questions from council, and then we'll have public comments.

So council, just some clarifying questions a little more public comments.

Okay, clarifying question.

Clarifying question, Patrick.

No, I just um I think I think it's great what we're doing.

I know exactly a couple of buildings downtown that you know that we are trying to work on.

The only thing I would say is I would I would like to say that we need to talk to the merchants a little bit more in depth and run it by them because they know that they're downtown and they know what buildings are bothering them and what should be.

I'm a little worried about saying you have to have this storefront how it's supposed to look.

Because each one's unique in their own way, so I don't want to look at like look like big brother saying this is how it has to look.

I definitely want feedback from the downtown merchants.

That's the main number one I want to say right now.

This is a a good beginning, but it's got a lot of things like as Karen pointed out, as you pointed out in your slide, time and all the details.

So this is a good bite of the apple.

If we can get these slides in particular, Karen, because we could send them, especially those clarifying ones to downtown association.

Ahead of our next meeting.

So it'll be prepared to say what's your preference and stuff like that.

Great.

Okay.

So um we'll now move on to public comment and then go back to council discussion.

Um first speaker on this topic is Nancy Fontana.

Uh, council and staff, and the few members of the public.

Um, what a relief to hear an ordinance presented in this manner.

It's it takes into consideration the size of the city.

It's not overbearing, and you're doing outreach to the people that have the businesses, and after what I've my observations on another ordinance that I've been very outspoken on, this is a relief.

It's positive, it's a positive Patrick's proposing a positive way of reaching out to the community that it's going, the business community that it's going to affect on a personal experience level.

In addition to my regular job for a while, I took a job at the Hillsdale Mall at William Sonoma because I like to cook and I wanted to get really good stuff during the 2008 recession when close stores were closing down.

It was very interesting to see how the mall approached that, and I'm sure you probably already know what I'm talking about, but at first it was very depressing.

You started noticing that you thought there was a business error, but then you realize, and there were dark drapes in front of some of the windows, and and then some um in front of the entrances, and then some of the windows were blocked off, and it became more and more.

It was almost um, it was like it was in mourning almost.

It was really weird, but then they started put having the other businesses on the street put in little displays in the vacant windows so they could get extra advertising.

If it's close to Christmas, that might be a really good way for them to have extra products that they want to display to draw people in, and it would direct them to the business.

You could also put in some community of one window that's been vacant for a long time, some community event things coming up that to in big bold and and you could also direct people to other businesses in the areas of Main Street that don't get as much foot traffic, but let them know hey, there's more, there's new there's new businesses down the street and that sort of thing.

So this is how an ordinance should I realize I'm sorry, I realize that we're talking about storefronts and the rent control is talking about people's lives, but I think there's a much better, more positive approach the city could take on on the other issues.

Thank you.

Thank you, Nancy, and thank you for your ideas.

Also, during COVID, we a lot of storefronts close.

We put things in the windows and stuff, so it wouldn't just be blank.

So I had some experience with that.

Our next is Crystal.

Thank you so much for bringing this forward.

We're really excited about this.

Um that I would like to bring forward on behalf of the merchants, is I do um really appreciate the um trying to keep it light and not overly burdensome.

Um there's definitely benefit to that.

I will say that when merchants have had to work with city staff on projects, one of the main pieces of feedback that the chamber gets back is that the depending on which staff they talk to, they get different interpretations of what is supposed to happen next.

Um, and so I do think that this particular draft could um add a little bit more clarity currently the way that it's written.

There's a lot left up to the um enforcement person who would be working with the merchant.

Um but if two different merchants get two different people, or um, you know, somebody comes in to the position, they might get different um advice on how to move forward, and I think that potentially leads to more frustrations than intended.

And there's a piece of the draft that points to the California Health and Safety code, which is really great.

Um, but there are parts of that health and safety code that would not pertain to this and could easily be um misused and represented.

If somebody just wanted to make somebody's um life a little difficult on so um like a facility must have a kitchen sink.

It's like, well, that's probably not gonna apply to a lot of things, but it's in there, so it could be utilized.

Um so I would just um hope that maybe the there could be some a little bit more um expanse in the or uh in the proposed ordinance to keep everybody kind of rowing in the same direction.

And there is also no definition for blight in the current ordinance, and I think that would be a very helpful one for the merchants, so that when they read it, they kind of have an idea of what everybody's thinking about.

Thank you.

Thanks, Kristen.

Good suggestions all.

So thank you very much.

Especially the part about enforcement, that's always you know how to stay objective and not bring in too much subjectivity, and um there's so many ways you can um yeah, overly enforce something that might not be applicable to a particular business, but it happens to be in a health code, so uh hasn't been updated in 15 years, so good stuff.

Um, back to council.

I don't um this is great.

We're gonna have to really think about you know going back again to the businesses and find out, you know, from them what's the difference between a vacancy and a more severe um abandonment of a property, and then what is enforcement look like, timeliness of it, penalties, um so I think the more I mean this is a great framework, right, for us to start thinking about and to go back to our businesses and uh see what guidance we can get from them because we get a lot of good ideas from the business community and they're very creative as well in terms of what to do with an empty building this summer, just can't rent for months, you know, months.

So um Patrick.

So on the neatness and appearance requirement, um I actually took um one of the merchants like there was a bench right next to Cunha Market there, and there was a bunch of leaves stuffed under the bench, literally decomposing and turning into dirt.

And I had walked from Joe Kotchette's corner, which he is now just revamped that whole corner, looks beautiful, and I get to the end, and I'm like, wow, this needs some help.

So I went in and asked the merchant if I could sweep and clean, and and I grabbed her bench and I power washed it and I brought it back.

It's T.

It went from being dark gray and black to brand new looking.

She was a little upset, and then when I brought it back, she was pretty happy.

Because I kind of went over my boundaries, I'll be honest with you.

I kind of and I had to apologize.

But the final product was pretty nice, all right.

And I had a whole trash can of of leaves now.

They're always talking that the city needs to take care of that, you know, cleaning the sidewalks and all that.

But I personally think the storefront, because I do it every morning at my place, so I'm always cleaning before I blow the weeds, I clo clean everything, cars are all parked nice.

It's to put how I like to present the business.

And I feel a merchant should do the same.

A little bit of sweeping, not I know it's asking a lot, but the city's we're not gonna get to that point.

I know, and and knowing when the cars are not supposed to be parked, because I have the same thing in front of my shop, don't park here every third Tuesday because of sweepers come to sweep, and then, you know, and they they can't.

There's all these cars parked everywhere.

And then the other thing that would be just the fact that merchants shouldn't be parking in front of their stores because we have really hardly any parking.

So all my guys on my work park around the corner, around the back.

They don't take any of my spaces up front.

It's just a courtesy, just so we have the easy access.

People can get in and out, less damage to your own personal vehicle.

The other thing is trash bin enclosures.

I noticed the Taco Bell where Keaton Nearhand's building is.

I think did we require them to do an enclosure trash can or not?

We did.

Thank you.

That's perfect.

Because this is the standard I think we should be doing now.

Because as we're getting the unhoused or going in, they're just pulling things out as they want, throwing things all over the ground.

I don't know how many times I basically have to back off on Matthew because he's been getting it too much.

The 7-Eleven, the trash bin by right right was just crap every weekend during the and then eventually somebody's actually sleeping there because he built a little fortress for himself.

So the items for him to build are in the trash can.

Now we have to deal with him sitting there, and we had to.

And then you talked about the clothing donation.

I'm not opposed to that.

I just think that should be over maybe by a loss where they, you know, if if we're paying them to clean, they they're right there.

They can get their shower, they can get their clothing, and if they end up throwing it on the ground, the loss can actually put it back in there and maintain it.

The one by 7-Eleven is just being constantly being pulled out with stuff every week, and I'm seeing that in that to the point where Matthew, you probably got 50 pictures of it, and you told me stop.

I'm gonna stop.

But the point is that we need to make a change.

The trash cans definitely need to be locked, but I also know that they charge you more because when I lock mine, they charge you more per month.

Recology does that.

So I leave mine unlocked, but I push mine in the shop, which is enclosed, and I bring them out.

What is it?

Friday for Monday, Monday for Tuesday.

So recycling is different than your normal garbage.

So it's a little bit of a pain in the ass.

My cans are big, but the merchant cans are I think a little bit smaller.

But if you look at the cans that the larger facilities like Ace Hardware uses and Hassett rentals, those are the big cans, those what I have.

I notice in Santa Cruz they're all enclosed.

And the reason why is there's a lot unhoused over there, and they're basically have the same problem.

If you enclose it and it's locked, you're not gonna have as much trash all over your city.

So I notice that's in here.

So we have to figure something out on that.

I don't want somebody to have to pay another 130 bucks just because they have to have a key.

We have to come up with a system that works.

Yeah, I am I am very grateful for this ordinance.

I have a personal bone to pick with Robin Dunlap and her dark, dingy law office that nobody is ever going into or coming out of.

She made us promises when she moved in, that she was going to be community friendly, and that the only reason she wanted to be there was that she had all this foot traffic that was gonna be in and out of her building, and it was going to be helping all the other merchants on the street do well.

Liar, liar pants on fire.

Sorry to pick on one person, but I'm sick of it.

You know, the the uh over the last month she's put in, I think two or three dead looking plants in a very dark room that you can barely see because the windows are dirty and there's no lighting inside.

Um I'm hoping the ordinance can deal with that.

When we talk about the appearance, you have to talk about something that's alive, not something that's dead.

And that's what her place looks like.

Um I also, as everybody, I think in town is upset with Coast Side Publishing.

Uh, that building and the disgrace that it's been for so many years now, it's it's awful.

I'm wondering if somehow we can get the downtown merchants association to uh agree on things like window cleaning, sweeping.

Um I agree, it's it's it should be the merchants' responsibility to keep their storefront clean and attractive and tidy.

Um I don't know if something as as a group they might be able to handle it better, or if it's something each individual merchant has to deal with themselves.

And I also um agree about the um what Patrick was talking about, which is nothing to do with this ordinance, but um keeping the owners uh uh the uh the merchants themselves uh from parking right in front of their building.

Um Half Moon Bay Booker bakery does that.

They were they were all upset and against having a um um uh a um parklet, what do you call parklet there?

And Harpo wanted to have a parklet, and they said, oh no, no, no, you're taking up parking, and they park in front of their store, all their employees do, and the owner does, and it's it's a disgrace.

Disgrace.

So um, yay, for the ordinance.

Um I think we have to be very careful about how we word things.

I don't want to make it difficult on the merchants.

At the same time, I want the the um the language to be clear enough that something like Robin Dunlap's store can't exist.

That's all I have to say, I want to add one to what Penrose said.

Um I noticed something on Main Street one morning because I ride my bike down there, I stop off nanos, have my kava, and just look at things and talk to people.

The awnings, there were some awnings being cleaned, and just not power wash, because I know that's a bad word to say that, but just basically hosed off, and so much dirt was coming off, and it and I took a video of it, and it looks so much better.

And just the simple things that I think uh merchants forget about, uh the coffee place down before you go to the bridge.

If you look at awnings now, just look at awnings in general and and look at just when you when a business goes out of business and they tear they take the the name of the business off, and you still see the old sticker sign of what it was, and they put the new one over.

I want better than that.

I think Hafohn Bay is better than that.

So just paying detail, looking at is the awning in good shape, is it ripped, is it discoloring?

Um is the lettering clear and it's not over an old lettering so that we don't look like an old worn-out city.

Little details is what's gonna put us on the top.

Well, I was actually um Kristen was there and Matthew at the last uh downtown merchants meeting and downtown association meeting.

And yeah, they were at this really aligns with all the things they were concerned about, you know, point for point, the parking, you know, having your own employees park in front of your store and etc.

And um, you know, the people who are there had were talking about all the best practices.

So it'll be great to have an ordinance, and then I think you know, the next level is how do we incentivize, you know, it's one thing, you know, to penalize people who aren't doing the right thing, but then also how do we come up with some good incentivized ideas, right?

Like um merchants of the month, beautification of the month attempt, you know, and you would do it in a way where like other merchants come and help each other.

Oh, yeah, here you know, you want to do that, you know, come and help me, and we'll figure out ways for the city to help.

And um, and I just wanna if Patrick's really willing to reenact the bench cleaning, I'd love to take you on that to show service above and beyond.

That's great, but the bench that looks pretty good.

Yeah, yeah.

So um, and uh, you know, we can work, we can work with merchants.

They they want to attract business, you know, and sometimes if we can just make it easier for them and give them some good ideas, the ones like people have already been mentioning uh and share it, um that'll be great.

You know, people can help each other out and wash things off.

Matthew also did bring up, you know, when it comes to power washing, there's certain health codes too that we have to be careful of, because when you're power washing, there's things coming off that sidewalk that shouldn't be going down drains, you know.

So um, but again, that's an education piece, you know.

How do you clean it up?

And that's where I think the city has to come in and and help guide the our merchants on the uh you can do this and you can do this, and they need to know why.

So they don't think that we're being the bad guys, because we have to follow certain code.

I mean, I can't just go pouring oil into a into the ground.

I have to contain it, and there's a reason.

So educate them on that.

And say you can use this product, you can use a garden hose, you can do this.

Uh blowers, you know, use the battery one versus the gas because of the noise.

You know, that's just a common thing.

Things like that.

And we what we loved hearing about at the uh last meeting was um there's quite a few merchants now who are investing in looking at murals on their walls, and you know, not necessarily, you know, in addition to the big ones, uh up high, you know, the ones that are at ground level, because that's what people love to take photos of themselves in front of, and that really attracts people, and it's a lot of fun and uh attracts people to downtown.

So um so this is great.

Um, thank you so much for putting this together.

It's a lot of hard work looking at everyone else's ordinances.

We might need to go back to some of those towns and say, yeah, how the heck do you enforce this and incentivize it?

And where are the things that need the most clarity and where you know you can make sure that the point that Chris Lynn brought up, like how do we make sure we don't have different enforcement people kind of having different standards and how do you stay consistent?

So um, but yeah, you know, it's an ongoing thing, you know.

We learn as a community, so great.

Thank you very much.

And I think where we have enough guidance or just enough information moving forward here.

I don't know if we needed guidance per se, just as more informational, right?

I mean, I would definitely ask Karen, you know, there were certain pieces that she wanted some clarification on, and just make sure that you feel like we've got enough to incorporate them into a draft ordinance, yeah.

I mean, I think that I'm hearing that the general framework is positive, that it's touching on the right points.

Um, some of the examples on the slide around key policy areas.

Um, I can use my discretion based on size and scalability in terms of the time frames.

Like, is it 30 days?

Is it 90 days?

Unless anyone has an opinion about time frame.

Um, one thing that I would like your guidance on are the maintenance standards.

So when a property becomes vacant, is it an overreach for the city to ask the property owner to have storefront displays?

And does the city have some say in what, you know, for example, um one jurisdiction asks them to have art in the window?

Well, art is very subjective, right?

So what one person thinks is beautiful, another person thinks is like spilled ink.

You know, so um, do we want to require that and will that help address some of the the darkness and the appearance of inactivity, or is that an overreach?

I would just love some direction on empty storefront displays.

And who's responsible for the sidewalks in front of a store?

Is that the um landlord or that?

Is that the city in terms of cleaning it.

If it's vacant?

I mean, uh, so I think one thing that's an important clarification.

We've said merchant a lot tonight, but we're really talking about landlords.

Yeah, that's right.

Because if the property is vacant, there isn't a merchant, that's the problem.

So we're talking about landlords, and and there are certain maintenance maintenance responsibilities that the landlord has, whether they have a merchant in there or not.

Um, but certainly if there's a merchant there, there's a pride of ownership and you know, you've got the space, so maybe that's something we could look at clarifying more our expectations for cleanliness of not just the building itself, but the area in front.

And that may be one where we have to use a carrot instead of a stick because I'm not sure we can require certain things there.

So that's that's an area we can certainly look at more closely.

Because I know we talk, we're using the term blighted and empty.

So you're right.

If it's empty, it goes back to the landlord.

Blighted could sort of be both, right?

A merchant can just little it could be both or one, yeah.

Yeah, so we have to distinguish a little, I guess, between those two.

And um, yeah.

I think it's great.

When you talk about that, uh, uh, art in the windows.

I I think after a merchant leaves, there ought to be an allowance for a certain amount of time to go before they the landlord has to do something.

So I think we ought to consider it.

Maybe you give them a month to get another merchant in there or to do something.

Right, that's all.

Yeah, that's one of the thresholds in the ordinance.

It could be 30 days, it could be 60, it could be 90.

Um, but it should be clear, and it's just easy for them to notify the city.

Um, we're also suggesting that they have information in the window of who the property owner is.

Should someone want to rent it.

Um, I that seemed to be a helpful suggestion.

Um, and I you know, start with the 3090 day thing, you know, and then we could move from there.

In terms of the artwork, I love that.

Um, and that's what we did do during COVID, and I'm not sure exactly how that happened, but I could easily see the city helping out with that.

You know, we can store some artwork and we take some pictures of what could go in there.

Someone knows it's gonna be vacant.

It could be whatever the owner wants, and we give them options.

Say, well, you know, we do have some stuff that's already here, you know.

You might have some nice ideas, you know, and we can, you know, work with them on that.

I yeah, I'm thinking this section, we want to probably provide some flexibility and discretion at the staff level, so that as new ideas come up, we can incorporate them, you know.

Just thinking tonight, maybe there's opportunities to promote local nonprofits or you know, other things that are important and that could ebb and flow, and so if that's too prescriptive in the ordinance, then we got to come back and change it every time.

So I think um that's an area we can look at uh providing enough definitions so people know what to expect and and what they need to do, but enough flexibility that we can evolve it with the changing times.

But we can say things like it has to be clean.

Right.

Uh we can't have trash house.

I we can say things like that.

Yeah, I think that's pretty pretty clear and and would apply always, so yeah.

So on the art thing, just the gentleman that was here tonight, like the historical art of Half Home Bay, things that promote our town, things that are currently happening that are you know, nonprofits that are current, whatever it is.

So it loops back.

Okay, you are now promoting, even though you're not here, you're promoting us.

And you know, maybe we could give you know, as we get into this, we can provide some nice before and after pictures of what it looks like when someone did clean it up, you know, and and then they can go to that merch and say, how the heck did you do that?

You know, is that expensive?

Or you know they can start talking to each other and how they uh did that.

So the other thing, um, Mayor Brownstone, the idea of acknowledging our merchants, I think is an important thing, and and Kristen, we talked about that and we had it in a meeting.

Just to acknowledge them up here, that your business is looking great.

Like Sam Bonito Sandwiches has been uh you know, how many awards do they have?

But we don't want to exclude the other people, because not everybody can compete, but just acknowledge that you know you're doing a great job here, and we appreciate you.

Yep, great.

Okay, thanks so much.

I really appreciate all that work on that.

Okay, any commission committee updates any future discussion agenda items no more air conditioning in tech on Tuesdays area um you know it's some we're gonna bring Caltrans back again remember to talk about what the heck they're doing for the shop project you're talking the the big project they're gonna do um yeah uh we're still meeting with them and they're planning meetings and it evolves but we can we can definitely schedule that I know Paul is really interested I was well just to see if we can negotiate a little more with them okay um well uh l let's be clear I don't think they're changing the project they they've got all their permits and um but we can have them come and provide an update and we could provide some feedback I'm sure okay also let's see what else.

Any city council reports?

Great.

This meeting is adjourned.

All right seriously