Monterey City Council Study Session and Special Meeting - May 28, 2025
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Monterey City Council Study Session and Special Meeting - May 28, 2025
On Wednesday, May 28, 2025, at approximately 3:50 PM, the Monterey City Council convened a study session and special meeting. The primary agenda item was receiving a presentation and approving the 2025–26 City Council Action Item Schedule, a comprehensive list of 174 initiatives across eight priority areas. The council also considered a governance policy for boards and commissions but tabled it due to time constraints. Public comments were heard on both items.
Consent Calendar
- No consent calendar items were listed on the agenda.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Marel Larmoud (43-year resident) urged the council to prioritize an indoor smoking ban in multi-unit residential buildings, citing health and fire safety concerns and noting that neighboring cities have already enacted such ordinances.
- Jeff Whitmoyer (15-year resident) questioned why the Pride flag was not yet flown in June, pointing out that the city's 2022 ordinance mandates its display during that month.
- Another resident commended the council for the transparent process of publishing timelines and recommended not allocating staff resources to water-related policy until more is known about the cease-and-desist order CDO status.
- Esther (via Zoom) praised city staff as "the envy of neighboring cities" and urged the public to appreciate the council's and staff's efforts, especially given the budget challenges.
- Diane Coward (via Zoom) thanked the Community Development Department for excellent customer service.
- For the governance policy item, speakers expressed concerns:
- Elizabeth Yanish (33-year resident) supported the proposed changes, emphasizing transparency and community engagement.
- Mike Saveron (55-year resident, Chair of Museums and Cultural Arts Commission) warned against reducing commission numbers, noting a lack of communication between council and commissions.
- Rainy Kimsey (Vice Chair of Museums and Cultural Arts Commission) argued that consolidating commissions would reduce expertise and resources, pointing to the valuable volunteer service of commissioners.
- Shelly (via Zoom) objected to giving neighborhood associations preferential treatment in NCIP appointments and limiting the candidate pool.
- Lori Mazuka (via Zoom) expressed frustration with long meetings and disrespect for public time, asking that written comments be forwarded to future meetings.
- Chelsea Lenowska (via Zoom) echoed scheduling concerns and requested that future meetings not be overloaded.
- Kevin (crematory operator for Keystone America/SCI) requested a minimum 10-year lease extension to install a new, more environmentally friendly crematory at the Monterey Cemetery, noting that the current unit is aging and requires costly repairs. He offered free funeral services for police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty.
Discussion Items
2025–26 City Council Action Item Schedule
- Assistant City Manager Nat presented the schedule, developed from council goal-setting workshops held on January 21 and March 4, 2025. The schedule organizes 174 initiatives by eight priority areas: community engagement & transparency, public safety, fiscal stewardship, housing & homelessness services, economic development, quality workforce, infrastructure, and affordable housing/water sources.
- Councilmembers provided extensive feedback and requested additions or adjustments:
- Mayor Williamson requested a soft launch for the city website redesign to allow public feedback before the official launch; staff agreed.
- Councilmember Rash requested a study session on the tree ordinance prior to drafting, to gather community input, especially regarding fire safety. He also asked to move up discussions on public art policy, governance (including term limits), and a volunteer program. The mayor cautioned against adding staff workload given the city's structural deficit (approximately $10 million).
- Councilmember Smith supported reevaluating Measure G's renewal and exploring a vacancy tax.
- Councilmember Garcia asked about the timeline for the residential parking program and whether community input would be sought again; staff confirmed yes.
- Councilmember Barber inquired about staff capacity for housing element deadlines and water allocation planning; Kim Cole (Community Development Director) reported that 62% of 53 housing element programs have been initiated, but some deadlines may need to be renegotiated with HCD. She noted that the team handles 300–350 permits annually with only four planners, and recent state mandates have increased workloads.
- Councilmember Smith noted the importance of the Highway 68/Skyline Forest safety study; staff confirmed a meeting with Caltrans and budget for a consultant study after July 1.
- Staff acknowledged all feedback and stated they would update the schedule accordingly. The council voted unanimously to approve the schedule as a "living document" with the understanding that staff would incorporate input and bring back revisions.
Governance Policy on Boards and Commissions (Continued/Tabled)
- The council was scheduled to discuss updating the governance policy for board and commission appointments. Due to time constraints, Mayor Williamson made a motion to table the item to a future date. The motion passed unanimously. Public comment was taken as noted above. The council did not set a specific date but committed to scheduling it as soon as possible.
Closed Session Items
- The council held closed session to discuss real property negotiations for items 3 and 4: 1 Old Golf Course Road and the crematorium lease at Monterey Cemetery. Public comment was taken from Kevin (see above). The closed session lasted approximately 10–20 minutes. No report-out was provided in the transcript.
Key Outcomes
- Unanimous approval (5-0) of the 2025–26 City Council Action Item Schedule as a living document, with staff to incorporate council feedback and return with revisions.
- Unanimous decision (5-0) to table the discussion on city council governance policy for boards and commissions to a future meeting; no specific date set, but staff will coordinate scheduling.
- Staff will add requested items to the action item schedule, including a smoking ban policy, tree ordinance study session, public art policy discussion, volunteer program exploration, and water availability policy (timeline to be determined).
- The city will continue to address its structural deficit, with a budget proposal for FY 2025–26 to be presented at the next council meeting (likely week of June 2).
- The city was recognized with an American Planning Association Northern California Chapter award for excellence in planning for its housing element.
- The council did not take formal action on the crematorium lease extension; closed session negotiations were held.
Meeting Transcript
Recording in progress. Hello, everybody. Welcome to our study sessionslash special council meeting. It is Wednesday, May 28th, 2025. I'll go ahead and call the meeting to order and I'll ask Linda to do roll call and share announcements with the public. Okay, roll call. Councilmember Barber present, Councilmember Garcia. Councilmember Rash. Councilmember Smith. Here. And Mayor Williamson. Here. Okay. Information on participating in this meeting and providing public comment, including remotely by Zoom or telephone, is available on this meeting's agenda, which is online at Monterey.gov forward slash agendas. Remote commenters. You will be muted until it is your turn to speak. And a timer will be shown on the screen. If you are connected on Zoom, the timer is accurate with no delay. In-person attendees must keep phones and devices muted to prevent audio interference with the meeting. Thank you for participating in the democratic process in your city government. Thanks, Linda. And with that, we'll go ahead and go into our public appearance items. First, we have a receive a presentation and approve the 2025-26 City Council Action Item Schedule. With that, I'll pass it to our assistant city manager, Nat for presentation. Great. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor, and uh good afternoon, City Council. We're uh pleased today to provide you with an overview of the uh 2025 and 2026 City Council action item schedule. Uh with us uh this afternoon are all the department heads who represent uh the various uh areas of service delivery in our city, our public works director, fire chief, police chief, and others, and um here to answer any questions you have about the schedule. What I'll do uh this afternoon is walk through uh where we are today, how we got to uh developing and presenting uh this action item schedule, what that means, and then uh go through some of the examples of projects, programs, and initiatives that fall within each of the city council priority areas. And of course, uh we'll have time for uh for QA uh as well. So um first what I'll do is uh share the screen here and uh let's go back in time just a little bit. Um earlier this year, uh city staff, we presented the city staff work program to all of you on January 21st. Uh following that uh on the 28th, we held the prioritization and goal setting workshop at uh Schulte Park Center. You may recall uh lots of uh engagement, uh feedback on what are the city's priorities. We had the very challenging uh prioritization exercise, what's most important, what's least important, and um what items are the most urgent and and the least urgent. And on March 24th, council reviewed uh summary of the workshop, uh feedback, uh received updates on some of the initiatives within the top eight priorities, and uh and you all adopted those priorities by resolution. Um what uh some of the feedback we did here on March 4th is that it might be helpful for each and every one of you to learn a little bit more about when specific items are going to be brought to council for deliberation or for a presentation or action. So that's what we've done here in the uh three-page 11 by 17 sheet of uh initiatives uh so uh again. Here's uh just uh a reminder of uh what we brought to you on January 21st, the council priorities that were adopted on the 4th of March, and then the schedule that we're bringing before you today. Uh this uh graphic may look familiar to you. This is the uh import levels of importance and urgency based on the various city priorities, everything ranging from at the top community engagement and government transparency uh all the way through to uh other areas of service delivery as well. Okay, yeah, you may recall this as well. This is the ranking of city priorities based on what's most important to all of you. And what we're gonna do today is focus on these areas. This is not to say that other areas of city service delivery aren't important, but based on what you all identified as most important, uh, and these are eight of them. Uh that's Weber's presenting uh to you today. So this is actually a slide from our council workshop back in fall of 2019. And some of you were on council during that time. Uh, we talked about how managing the agenda is also about managing priorities.
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