How do we give us a h do we give us a h do we give us a hug Hello, everybody, welcome to our council meet our our special council meeting today, Wednesday, August 27th, 25.

I'm gonna go ahead and call the meeting to order.

I'm gonna pass it to Clementine for roll call and share announcements with the public.

Councilmember Barber present.

Councilmember Garcia.

Here.

Council Member Rash here.

Council Member Smith?

Here and Mayor Williamson?

Here.

And public comment and participation information is provided on this meeting's agenda, which is online at moderate.gov slash agendas.

In person attendees, please keep your electronic devices muted to prevent audio interference with our meeting.

And thank you for participating in your city government.

Thank you, Quintine.

With that, we'll go ahead and do kick off with the Pledge of Allegiance and I'll ask Councilmember Smith to kick us off here.

One nation under God.

Thank you, Ed.

All right, and with that, we're going to our one public appearance item that brings us here today.

Item one on the agenda is to receive presentation on potential strategies to reduce the city's ten million dollar structural annual budget deficit.

And with that, I'll go ahead and pass it to Hans for staff presentation.

As you all know, we uh passed in June uh this year the single largest budget uh in the Monterey's hand uh history um of around 10 million dollars, but we also passed uh the um the the note that the hundred and ten million dollars in um uh in general fund revenues is being outpaced by our uh expenses of 120 million dollars at a tune of ten million dollars.

So we have a uh structural deficit or a deficit between income and and uh expenses of around ten million dollars.

This fiscal year we were able to balance uh the budget uh using um uh variety of tools that we presented to the city council and ultimately uh got it approved.

But today we also shared with you uh that today we would uh talk to you about uh how are we going to bridge this gap of ten million dollars?

Um why do we have ten uh ten million dollar deficit?

One might ask.

Well, part of that is uh are uh a lot of costs that are outside of the control of the city.

Uh the largest chunk of salaries that we have in this uh the largest chunk of of our expenses are uh personnel costs.

Uh you you cannot have AI roll out to uh police call, or you cannot have AI uh fix a fire or extinguish a fire.

Uh a lot of the tasks that we are doing day in, day out are done by by personnel.

But also we have costs that are increasing and that are outside of our our city's control.

Uh and then as an example, uh the the city's liability and property insurance premiums raised between 2020 and uh 2020 by 3.2 million dollars.

That's 375% more that we have to pay for liability and property insurance.

And uh frankly, our revenues that basically the money that we are taking in uh are not keeping up with the cost that we have to pay for services and for insurance premiums and so many more.

So now today we want to talk about how can we address uh the $10 million structural deficit uh for this fiscal year.

Again, we were able to balance it with one-time solutions, but that is not sustainable.

We need to put something in place that is sustainable over the next few years, and we can do it by increase ongoing revenues.

We can also do it by reducing ongoing expenditures.

And so today we we have prepared um um a presentation uh as well as um uh a few um uh assignments to to the council as well as to the community, and we hope to bring this all back uh on September 2nd.

But without further ado, I have asked our finance director to um uh interest us uh with uh with a few charts and slides and some some costs um some uh number overviews that that will highlight where we are and uh where we can go if we do nothing or where we will go if we do something.

So with that, Rafael.

Thank you.

Thank you, Hans.

Good afternoon, council and um citizens.

So Hans just said everything I was gonna say for my first slide, so we'll skip back.

Move on to except for I just wanna actually really talk about um real quickly what um a structural deficit is.

Like every year we we struggle to make the revenues and the expenditures kind of balance out.

Um, and so 100 million, a million here, a million there is not a huge difference um with our 200 million dollar budgets.

Not we can we can pretty much kind of move stuff around, shift things, and we can actually absorb that.

10 million dollars was a lot different in absorbing that, and especially with structural structural meaning that it is an ongoing um expense, an ongoing difference.

It's not just this one year, not just something happened this year.

This is uh next year is going to be the same, the following year it'll be the same, or maybe slightly go up based on CPI and based on um other increases to things.

So we just wanna really make sure that everybody understands that it's not a one-time deficit, it is a structural meaning that this is ongoing, and so we need to put some things in place to kind of fix this problem.

So, again, like Han said, we did do a lot of temporary one-time things this year to actually plug that 10 million.

If we reduce the amount for 2024 and 2025 that we put into the reserves with the exception of economic uncertainty, we left that the same.

So that maintained is still maintained at 20%.

Um we increased um we took out seven percent of ONM across the board.

We froze, well, we chilled some positions, and we call them tilled as opposed to frozen, so that we had the opportunity to kind of move some things around.

If attrition came or something came up, where we can kind of move some things around.

Um, we increase the percentage of salary savings that we use to kind of um to bridge that gap because we know that we always have some vacancies, um, and we account for that.

So we did those are some of the just some of the things that we actually did for that.

So um, I want to move on to the next slide.

So just to kind of show you where we've come.

So I've done a 10 year kind of a real top um top tier um analysis, starting with the FTEs.

So if you look at the chart, where we have from 2015 from a fiscal year 2015 through um 2026, this current fiscal year, um, our FTEs have basically gone back up.

So our FTEs are higher than they were before COVID.

If you see that dip in the middle, that's that was the COVID years when we um there were layoffs and we slowly we, as you can see, we've ramped up the um FTE.

So we've gone from um gone from a higher number down to less than 420 back up to 488 this fiscal year.

Um, also want to say that when we want another reason, it's like our current labor contracts, they were negotiated and based on FTEs and FY24 of 450 personnel.

So when we look at what are some of the reasons when we look at we've got 30 more positions out there than then we when we negotiated the three year contract.

So that's also in something that helps to increase our expenditures that was not anticipated.

And our for FY2526 we adopted 482 and then since then we've added six new firefighters for the paramedic um program.

So there's things that are adding continually adding to um to the bottom line so these are some of the things that are happening next slide please.

And so this chart is our revenues versus expenses if we do nothing so first of all if you look at the blue line that's our acts from FY25 through um FY 15 2015 through 25 those are actual numbers the rest of the numbers moving from 26 through 31 those are our projected numbers and if you kind of look at the line you can see that for the most part with exception of the dip from FY20 and 21 which is basically the COVID years that the revenue is pretty solid it's pretty steady steadily rising.31 and that's captured here because that is in case um that would include a loss of revenue from measure g which is about 6 million a year we know that we're going to renew right everybody yes we're gonna renew but just I just wanted to actually show that what this looks like the expenses that are laid out here what they do is again if we do nothing so they include um no attrition if we don't do anything we um discontinue um the frozen and chill positions that we did this year if we continue doing COLA salary increases every year after the expiration of our contract if we continue to do 2.5 million contributions for CIP if we increase salaries um based on FTEs that number will continue to rise and if you could see the spread between the expenses and the revenues continues to grow and so that's the revenues outpacing our expenses outpacing our revenues wish it was the other way around but it's not yet next slide so our projected annual deficit um so doing nothing um and that's the green line here so these are actually don't you know these are what the the deficit would be so FY26 um would be 14 million as opposed to the 10 it's like if we actually did nothing um and that 14 million in six years by FY 2031 would be at 21 million so if we did the we just actually um looking at the same moderate adjustments that we did this year so those moderate things that we did like the attrition um like the um salary savings um those kind of things um the chill the frozen those things that we kept in place keep in place just that and this is not without our strategies that we're working on today what we see is that the 10 million deficit starts getting better it goes down every year um but it still takes six years to get to um to the right side so up to up to 41300 but again we are still not quite at zero but we're this is what the um projected annual deficit looks like if we only do the moderate level and if we do absolutely nothing so of course there's no option to not do anything so that's why we are here today next slide um and then our good news is our reserve policies reserve funds so we've put things away I mean so if you look at from FY20, we started at about 13 million.

Um, that was sitting in our reserve policy for economic uncertainty.

We have risen, it's risen because we have continually put money aside to take care of those um deferred costs that we have.

Um, and so while it looks great, so we're up to like 38 million in all of our general fund reserve account while it actually looks like a great number.

Um, we also want to keep in mind with even though we have 38 million here, we still have 170 million worth of unfunded pension liability.

We also still have more than 130 million dollars of infrastructure needs.

So it's a great start.

I don't want anybody think that, oh yeah, we got you know, 38 million to lay person is great, wish I had it in a bank account, but when you're looking at 300 million dollars worth of expenses that and liabilities, it's it's just a start.

Thanks.

And so I was asked the question, and so I just wanted to put it in kind of a chart form.

What if we decided to basically start spending the economic uncertainty fund?

We have that 38 million, and actually just an economic uncertainty, we have 24 million.

So if we do nothing and we start um spending down.

So this first year, um you see the reserve is 24 million.

We do nothing.

We've already kind of accounted for the 10 million.

So we start FY27 with that same 24, and then you have the 13 million to plug up that hole for next year.

Um, you start 28 with the 10 million as remaining, and you have another 13 million dollar deficit.

So you can see pretty quickly by doing nothing, your economic uncertainty fund went from 24 million down to negative 2.4 million.

Now, if you still do on the next part of it, start doing moderate changes.

Um FY27, it would take you to 2023 before you, you know, you can still continue to um to spend down.

It's not what we want to do, because again, we're starting with 24 million, and you're taking that down to 620,000.

The 20% is basically two and a half months, roughly two and a half months of expenses.

So you don't want your economic uncertainty fund, which is for emergencies, to get down to 620 because that's not enough to take care of any sizable emergency that we may have.

So those are the um things that I wanted to actually share with you.

And from that, I'm gonna pass it back to Hans.

So thank you, Rafela.

Um, what we are doing uh in the next uh 60 minutes or so, uh, we will uh introduce you to our uh index card systematic where we try to summarize all the various proposals.

Um they are ordered for the presentation purposes from high uh feasibility to low feasibility.

Um we use green and yellow cards uh and then uh you the green cards are things that that we can do directly to sub uh help the general fund.

The yellow cards are um indirect uh support for the general fund.

Uh we will ask you to take those cards home uh and then uh work with those cards and please come back to us uh on uh next week's Tuesday uh at that uh council meeting with us um with your uh preferred uh solutions uh to bridge the 10 million dollar structural deficit.

Uh we encourage you not to stop at 10 million because uh you know that um that is just the the the current uh projection that we have.

Uh if you can uh identify more than 10 million dollars in deficit reductions, uh that would be very helpful.

Uh what we ask you to do is uh sort your piles into yes, maybe and no.

Uh and if you um if you feel so inclined uh and also constituents are reaching out to you, and there are great ideas that we just didn't cover, please add your own index cards as well, because again we uh we are not all knowledgeable uh and um uh every every good idea is is an idea that we need to incorporate.

Um next slide, please.

Uh I wanted to read from the city manager's budget message.

Uh if you pull it up, it's uh it's a little longer.

Where's that slide, sir?

Let's see.

We'll get to it.

So let me let me start reading from the city manager's budget message.

All of us, city council, residents of the city neighborhoods and city staff are in agreement with the basic purpose of the neighborhood improvement fund to def to devote increased attention to maintaining the quality of life in our neighborhoods through the building and maintaining of appropriate public facilities, parks, streets, walkways, recreational facilities, and other improvements.

Two policy questions need to be answered.

First, the amount of money which should be devoted to this purpose in this year's budget, and also identifying the smoothest and most effective process for developing and reviewing proposed neighborhood improvements in a fair and equitable manner.

This last, the latter consideration was discussed at length with neighborhood representatives at the adjourned city council meeting.

Regarding the appropriate amount, is it adequate and appropriate given the other priorities and needs in the city?

Stated differently, should additional money be devoted to this program, and what are the implications and impacts of doing that.

Responding first to the second question, the answer is that it would be possible to do so.

However, any additional monies devoted to this program would be of necessity be taking from other programs of the city.

To give a more specific answer, any allocation of TOT monies for any specific specified purposes represents a retroduction, reduction of that amount which flows to the general fund of the city, and as such will ultimately represent a decrease in one or more of the city's operating budget, capital improvement program, and general fund reserves for future emergencies.

So that was the city manager's budget message.

Next slide.

In 1985 and 86, when the TOT program was being discussed in front of the city council.

And what the city manager in 1985 and 1986, and those who want to know who it who it was can look up on the wall, was John Dunn.

What he was warning about is that the neighborhood improvement program, while a good idea will eventually catch up with the city's other expenses.

And the question at that time, he wisely asked how much should we actually devote to this type of program?

So 40 years later, we are here, and uh next slide facing a structural deficit.

Next slide.

We had 22.5 uh folks working in the library.

Today it's 14.

We had 13.75 people working in streets.

Today it's 6.53.

If you want to see the 0.53 employee, I can show him to you.

Uh we have in parks 22.55 folks in 1987-89.

It's now 18.26, and I bet you we added probably about 10 to 12 parks since 1987-89.

Planning, we had 10.81, 9.5 conference center at that time, we had 15, we're down to 12 and a quarter.

So, what I'm showing you here is we have shrunken our workforce since the invention of our NIP program on the NCI program, but we also have built up other programs, and this was just is just a snapshot of that.

So the next slide is now we are getting into the so I went back 40 years just to show you what was already predicted at that time, what the city may suffer at one time that we have to look at all of our programming, especially also at programs that we are very, very proud of, like the program that everyone agreed on the in those days of the neighborhood improvement program as well.

So with that, I wanted to lead into the cards.

We have uh divided the cards up into uh different sections, and Ned will describe the cards now.

Great.

Thanks so much, Hans.

Uh good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

What we've done is uh developed uh these index cards that uh provide a view of not every single option, but as many options as staff could come up with that uh look at various uh reduction strategies for the deficit.

The title of each card, as you see up in the upper left corner, there's the title.

Now, it's important to also recognize that we have, in addition to the value, the frequency.

What we have in the green cards, and the green cards address the ongoing efforts that will help address the structural deficit.

Yellow cards that we've presented to you are items that indirectly address either the deficit or the city's budget at large.

And so many of the green cards will have an ongoing frequency, and that is similar to a tax measure that provides revenue to the city on an ongoing basis versus one-time revenue.

Some of the one-time revenue options you'll see in the card deck will include yellow cards that might be one-time revenue, other types of reduction strategies that may not directly address the uh the fiscal deficit.

We also have a time frame listed.

The time frame describes how soon the strategy can provide revenue.

So some of them can be immediate, things that we can implement now.

Some may be short-term, midterm, and others may be long-term.

Taxes, for example, may take, depending on whether they're added to the ballot in June of 2026 or added and voted on by voters and approved in November of 2026, would not actually bring revenue into the city's coffers until late 2026 or perhaps 2027.

So that's helpful to keep in mind as we're trying to address the fiscal deficit starting in the 2026-27 year.

The feasibility is also a factor.

High feasibility means that only council needs to approve that measure in order for that to pass.

Medium feasibility, we've classified as items that require not only the council support, but voter support, perhaps a third party.

And then low feasibility, these are items that are on the list that requires more than just the council and voter approval.

The pilots, for instance, the property taxes or revenue in lieu of taxes.

That's just one example that requires negotiation with each of the parties.

And even if voters and council agree to it, another party needs to agree to those payments as well.

We'll go to the next slide.

So some information and background on the ballot initiatives.

A number of the recommendations that we're providing for you this afternoon are items that are tax measures, sales tax measures, various measures that would require approval from the voters.

There are two upcoming elections.

The first is on June 2nd of 2026, and the second is on November 3rd of 2026.

There are some advantages and disadvantages to placing a tax measure on the June ballot.

The first is that it would certainly will reduce overcrowding of tax measures that might be on the November ballot.

And depending on the tax, it could allow for collections of taxes sooner.

In the case of June, we could receive funds as early as October 1 of 2026.

One thing to keep in mind is that a June tax measure would cost more than placing it on the November ballot.

A little bit more, probably on the high end of what we've listed here, the 131,000 per election.

Also, there are stricter requirements.

Placing a tax measure, any tax measure on the June ballot would require a declaration of the fiscal emergency, and it would also require a unanimous support from all members of the city council.

So that's also something to keep in mind.

Remember tax measure, on the other hand, would cost less to administer, would require two-thirds vote of council.

So four out of five council members would have to support that.

As with all tax measures, at least the ones that we're presenting here, uh, 50% plus one or supermajority, depending on the case is required for approval.

And that does vary depending on the type of tax.

We'll go to the next slide.

Before you are a list, this is a table of contents of sorts that shows the various deficit reduction strategies.

As I mentioned, we have yellow cards and green cards.

The green cards are strategies that directly address the 10 million dollar deficit.

So the goal is to come up with as many cards as possible in the green card category that will get us to the 10 million dollar deficit in the yes pile.

The yellow cards are also very important to us.

And I'll use some examples.

I won't read each of these because we're going to go through each of the cards one by one and each of the strategies one by one.

But uh just to use uh one example with card number 21.

This is the public safety facility bond.

We don't currently have a funding source for the public safety facility, which is in dire need of replacement.

A bond would address this need, it is in the yellow card pile because it is not a direct benefit.

But it's important to note that without a bond, the city would likely have to use general fund dollars to pay for it.

That would using general fund dollars to pay for a public safety facility would exacerbate the $10 million fiscal deficit that we have to the general fund.

Card number 22, when we measure PNS very similarly, it's important because while it's a current source of special revenue, without it, general fund dollars would have to be used to support that strategy.

So we're inviting members of the city council, members of the public as well who've already chimed in to sort the cards into three piles.

Yes, you like the solution.

Maybe you're maybe not so sure, or no, it's not a option that the city should pursue.

What we are planning is next week on Tuesday evening is to gather your input and uh identify where there may be consensus from council on each of these strategies, where there may be support for not only you but members of the community.

And uh please know that uh there may be some other deficit reducing reduction strategies that we may not have thought of or presented, and we certainly invite you to uh to add that as well.

Okay, before we go to the next slide, uh I just want to remind the council one more time uh that um what what the index cards are showing you are uh options, alternatives, ideas, suggestions, um, but many of those cards are outside of the council's control.

Many of those measures are outside of your control.

So we cannot really bridge a structural deficit with things that we are not um uh uh fully uh having under the city council's um authority.

So with that, I I start with with the first uh card that that we are showing here.

Uh, the the city charter um allows uh wisely uh the council to uh determine if there are insufficient funds available to provide for the ordinary and necessary services in any budget year.

They may by an affirmative vote of four reduce the amount of funding appropriated to neighborhood and community improvement program.

So that program right now is funded with six million dollars.

Um the city charter uh clearly identifies that if we have uh a structural deficit uh which will can lead to us not paying our employees or not paying for other uh services that the city residents require, um, there is an opportunity to reappropriate uh funding from the NCIP that can be uh a million dollars, five hundred thousand dollars to up to the whole amount.

So again, uh, that is a value of up to six million dollars.

And when you think about that, um, we uh received also uh proposals already uh through our email system where folks said, well, take X amount from the NCIP or don't take all but take this amount.

So this is something that um that uh that you you uh have to consider.

And again, um think when you look at the the index cards also that um what are what are the resources that we actually, can control and what are the resources that that we cannot control in order also to build uh hopefully uh a budget picture that will reduce the structural deficit.

Next slide.

Um, we are using uh uh existing attrition for salary savings right now to to uh we are uh estimating uh right now with a chilled position around 1.5 million dollars in savings for the current budget year, but uh there are certainly more we can do.

And uh if we are uh using uh existing attrition and if we are reducing the number of budgeted positions between 15 to 20 at an average cost per employee of 154,000, including salaries and benefits and pension, uh that could add up to 3.1 million dollars.

So we can uh slim down further, but I want to tell you that all departments will be affected by that.

That includes uh not just um uh the the departments like public works uh but also other public safety departments uh can be affected by that.

And of course, we have to honor the existing bargaining agreements when we talk about attrition in uh across the board.

That means also that there are um negotiations uh with all the bargaining units as part of that.

Uh that is something that the council can do, approval required just by the city council.

Uh the next one is uh uh the 911 fee, and uh, here's uh where that comes into play again.

Great, thank you, Hans.

Um, the first responder fee program.

Uh, so as many of you know, the fire department has increased the paramedic program's reach today with all three monitoring engines providing advanced life support ALS services 24-7, and uh the aerial ladder truck providing ALS service as staffing allows.

And not all cities provide this higher level of service.

What is becoming more common are first responder fees, and uh what uh the way that these first responder fees work is that any time there's an ALS or paramedic response from the fire department, the there's uh billing involved directly to the insurance company, either of the automobile insurance if it involves a vehicle uh vehicle collision, and if it involves a medical call, the health insurance is billed.

And there are over two dozen agencies throughout California currently that provide and currently have this cost recovery fee program.

Uh examples include Anaheim, Folsom, Long Beach, Napa, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Vallejo.

In 2024, our fire department responded to 5,475 rescue and medical calls, which is about 55% of the total costs within our fire department.

The way what we're recommending is revenue from this proposal and from this program could be transferred from the general fund and then dedicated specifically to public safety equipment and vehicle replacement, which continues to increase year over year.

Under the proposed program, the fire department could charge fees for these types of emergency medical responses.

So the insurance providers, whether that's auto or health, would be billed by a third-party billing agency.

It's important to also note that with all the programs and the city would do this as well.

We would have a compassionate building policy that allows for the complete waiving or the reduction of the fees for those who have financial hardship, those who might not have insurance or where insurance doesn't cover the full cost.

We understand we there's uh cities that have this program may be concerned that uh folks may be more reluctant to call 911 because there's a fee.

That's where the compassionate building comes in, but we also have cost recovery that's that's important as well.

The cost could range for anywhere between 400 from a medical aid call or 700 per motor vehicle collision when there's extrication involved.

Revenue from this program could bring in as much as 800,000 annually.

We put the 700,000 figure in the upper right-hand corner.

And uh, happy to answer any questions you have on on this when we um when we go to questions.

This one is this card here.

Uh, we put as a value of up to $360,000.

And it's an opportunity for council for the community to look at if there are any current programs or other services that might be provided by the city at a premium cost that we like to reduce.

Some of those services or programs might be more efficiently provided by outside organizations or nonprofits.

I know some of the programs that is a priority for council currently is the rental assistance program.

Uh, we brought back the special event support program.

Not every city provides uh grants to other nonprofit organizations that could reduce uh the the budget expenses by $50,000.

The city currently provides funding also and sponsorship to first night in Monterey at the cost of $35,000.

So these are just some examples of programs or services that could be reduced and also yield savings in terms of expenditures to the city in the general fund.

This next card is optimizing veterans park campground.

Many of you know Veterans Park campground, located in the hills of Monterey in the Monterey Vista neighborhood, features campsites on a first come, first served basis.

This past year, the campground brought in $115,000 in net revenue after all the expenses.

And a few years ago, we updated campsite fees to be more competitive and to bring in greater cost recovery.

Just an example of the base fee for campsites is $47 per day.

But we also know there are some other opportunities to expand the campground and potentially bring in more revenue for the general fund.

Some of those include accepting online reservations.

Folks sometimes are more reluctant to uh to go to the campground because they've packed all their gear.

I go camping every once in a while.

Used to go more often, and uh a lot of folks aren't as willing to go to a campground if they don't have the reservation ahead of time and show up with uh with all their gear.

Uh increasing and providing online reservations can bring additional revenue to the city.

Also expanding the number of campsites, perhaps using campsite hosts to help provide some of the services so that our staff, our park staff can focus on other areas within the community, or just some examples in addition to uh maximizing revenue from the two group areas and picnic areas to bring more revenue to the city coffers.

A conservative estimate is that we could bring in 125,000 to the general fund by implementing some of these strategies here at the campground.

Changing government access providers.

For many years, we've appreciated and are very proud of our partnership with AMP, a program that we've we've had and a partnership we've had for many years.

We there's staff from AMP in the audience, David Cardoza, who's working behind the scenes for our city council chambers and many of our boards and commission meetings.

Uh we also recognize though that uh the cost for these services through Access Media Productions, which is a nonprofit in our community, continues to continues to increase.

The annual cost for the service last year was 256,000, just over.

And we paid for that using two different sources of revenue.

One is 118,000 in franchise fees, and the other is 137,000 in what's called peg fees or the public educational and governmental fees.

There's an opportunity for the city to look at other service providers, and doing so could allow the city to keep all of its franchise fees, $118,000, as part of general fund revenue, like many other cities do in our county and throughout California.

So it's one option for the city council and our community to consider.

I'm going to pass the next slide and next couple of slides to Hans.

The next one, the next slide is in uh in conjunction also with uh with another card that is uh that we categorized as yellow.

But if we are um uh eliminating uh seven underutilized properties that have a total right now of $2.3 million in urgent repairs, uh the annual on uh reduction in operational cost, utility cost will be likely around $150,000.

The seven properties that we are proposing right now include the Vasquez Adobe, the French Consulate, the Harbor Yard, the Gordon Halls, the Ketchum Halls, and the Casanova Oaknol neighborhood building, not the park.

Next slide.

We suggest discontinuing the MILTS Act approval.

Uh there are uh a total of I think over 120 properties eligible for that.

We have roughly um 66 uh in in um in the program.

Right now, you know that they receive significant property tax relief in exchange for having the property owners preserving and restoring these historic properties.

Uh, we propose to completely eliminate that program and uh keep all the property taxes uh in the city.

The next is a sales tax approval.

As we just discussed with the council a few months back, there is another 0.375% of sales tax available.375% will lead to an additional infusion of 4.5 million dollars into the general fund.

But what you will notice with that is now we are in the cards where you have council and voter approval required for that.

So this is the first card where you are losing your complete authority over that process.

And now we are talking about ideas that can help us to balance the budget, but where we depend also on the voters to support that.

Sales tax is always an interesting one because our wealth, our service levels, are 62% paid by non-residents when you just look at the sales tax.

Again, sales tax is paid by 62% of non-residents.

That's not a happy thought for the residents who pay the higher sales tax, but uh with the inflow of the visitors and uh that we have and the other residents from other cities shopping in Monterey, um, that is uh an interesting number always to mention.

Next slide, admission tax.

That that is um is a tax where we would basically look at taxing um uh the venues such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium, uh, Monterey County Fairgrounds, Golden State Theater, the movie theaters, other ticketed events with a 5% uh ticket tax that would go to the general fund.

Um of course the the big um um big um tax revenue generator is the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

And when we look at their latest published reports of uh um visitors who are paying the ticket fees there, uh the Monterey Bay Aquarium alone could generate with a 5% admission tax, $3.3 million.

Uh that will be a very interesting uh conversation.

Should the council go for that, because uh we we saw a couple of years ago, I want to say 12 years ago in Pacific Grove, how that adventure went for Pacific Grove together with the aquarium.

Having said all that, um it is uh it is something that is totally paid by uh the visitors uh who are visiting all those venues, including the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The next is um is a is a topic that was brought forward also by by uh some of the council members is a vacancy tax.

Um, this is basically a tax that will impose a tax on vacant commercial properties and empty homes.

If you live less than six months in your uh second home, uh you will be taxed according to the uh the the underlying idea of a vacancy tax.

Um the idea is that it would increase housing availability, it would also combat speculation, and uh here's my uh my warning for you those funds uh are expected one way or another to also end up in housing programs or city rental assistance programs.

So I don't I wouldn't count those funds immediately as a large help for the general fund because uh I would see some uh arguments being made as part of that ballot measure to ensure that some of those funds are being returned to the renters to help the rental market.

Um the note here is San Francisco's vacancy taxes on appeal and pending a decision on the legality of the tax.

So I think that is uh is um is uh is a tax that comes with quite a number of uh constraints right now.

Next one is Nat.

Yes, uh next.

The next card is on parking tax and uh some cities have a parking tax in place.

So parking is not subject to sales tax.

So a number of cities, uh Santa Cruz is just one example, has a uh tax on parking, and we estimate we have roughly 1,400 private parking spaces, strictly on private, privately managed parking lots in the city.

Some of the examples are the Clement Hotel Parking, Portola Plaza Parking, Heritage Harbor, and others.

And most of most likely these parking garages and parking venues are paid by visitors and non-residents.

A 5% tax, we believe on private parking spaces could generate as much as 450,000.

A 10% tax rate would double that amount generated.

Last year, as in one example, voters in Santa Monica increased the parking tax rate from 10% to 18% for non-city parking facilities.

And it was estimated to bring in an additional $6.8 million to Santa Monica's general fund.

San Francisco's parking tax is an example is 25%.

San Francisco is 20%.

And then Santa Cruz, LA and Malibu are at 10%, just as examples in California.

Streaming tax.

But to share with all of you, since 2017-2018, the city's revenue from cable franchise fees has declined an average of 4% per year, resulting in at least $3,000 in lost revenue over the past eight years.

And so over 40 California cities have started to tax streaming services, often pass as an extension of the utility users tax or UUT at a rate of anywhere between 5% to 7%.

And as we all know, and uh me personally at home, I've cut cable as well, subscribe to whether it's Paramount Plus or other services, Netflix, and having a tax on those streaming services can bring in 440,000 in revenue to address our 10 million dollar deficit.

The next one is potentially updating our real property transfer tax, also known as a documentary transfer tax.

The transfer tax is applied at the county level anytime there's a transfer of real property.

The city's current tax rate is 55 cents per 1,000 of property value, and the county's rate is the same.

That's the statutory limit that's a standard statewide, but charter cities can have a charter city only transfer tax.

Based on that, we could potentially increase our rate from 55 cent per 1,000 value of property to $1.10 per $1,000 of value.

Part of the caveat is the county, if we have a charter city-only transfer tax, the county would need to retain all of the revenue from the base tax.

So the total combined tax rate for the city and the county would be $2.20 per $1,000.

Some cities charge more.

LA charges $4.50 per thousand.

Oakland charges between one and 2.5% of the total value.

It is worth noting there's a current proposal, AB 698, that is being sponsored by majority WIP Assemblymember Gonzalez from LA as well as Assemblymember Buffy Wicks from Oakland.

Cities that happen to have the highest property transfer tax rates that would limit charter city only transfer taxes to the current statutory rate, thereby eliminating our option to increase this tax altogether.

So that is currently working through the state legislature right now.

And that's important to note before considering this card.

Okay, next card is Hans.

Most of the things we do in the city are services that you can buy on the marketplace as well.

Public safety services probably is not as much as a commodity than landscaping, mowing lawns, fixing potholes, et cetera.

So this category is a category where we say we can look at ideas to uh find ways in number one, finding partners who do the things we are doing already that we don't have to do.

When you look at the Schultz Center, you you see already we have a strong partnerships with partners who are providing services there.

Um do we have similar um models out there where we just provide staffing at the Schultz Center and the programming is done by somebody else?

So that's that's one idea.

Do we have to uh do everything in-house?

Is it uh easier for us to uh purchase uh services, labor somewhere else where we think it's it's it's uh it's a good opportunity and keep in mind what I said.

I think everything in the city is a commodity except policing and also fire.

Um, but everything else you can buy also somewhere else in the region.

And I give you an example here because we discussed it in front of the council a few months back when we had a landscaping contract in front of council and council was um hearing also we should keep this in-house.

Um I ran the we ran the numbers for last year when we used the landscaping contractor and using the that contractor and comparing it with the labor hours that we would have uh spent with our cost.

We saved uh over 240,000 that uh that for a contract that was a little over 400,000 that we spent on that.

So this this is the idea to talk about that and uh to to see where opportunities to partner with others and where opportunities to uh use um various means, uh including attrition, to find other ways of providing services.

Next slide is what Ned called pilots earlier, but it stands for payment in lieu of taxes.

And um it's it's it's something that uh is absolutely voluntary, voluntary, uh, with the partners that we have to meet with.

Um but when you look at Montage Health, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Middlebury, Cal State, Monterey, these are all large-scale operations that are tax exempt and do not pay property taxes.

However, they all receive uh considerable amount of police services, fire services, public works, and other services at no cost.

And uh we are not um getting paid, and they don't pay us property tax.

And uh the moment this property is is purchased for eight, 10 million dollars, um, that property is off the public payroll and Montage Health keeps buying properties and uh keeps uh swallowing um smaller outfits in order to provide health care for our local residents, but we are uh still providing services for that, but we're not getting revenue.

So the payment in lieu of taxes is a negotiation tool to sit down with uh with those uh nonprofits and find the hook to negotiate with them and find the angle to make them interested in delivering um uh reimbursements in lieu of taxes to the city coffers.

The next one is the um central public safety building bond measure.

Uh it again, as Ned introduced it earlier, the strategy does not address the structural deficit but would address an unfunded need.

And then it outlines here what we have what we can do in order to fund a public safety building, which may cost between 90 and 100 million dollars.

One of them is to allocate uh portion of the NCIP funds to bond payments.

Um, another one would be voter approved general obligation bond measure uh to be paid through property tax, and um there are various uh um variations of how you can structure a bond payment for that.

Next, uh renew measure PNS.

Uh, again, this is not a strategy, and that's why it's yellow that reduces the structural deficit.

But if we wouldn't have measure P and S, uh we would need to have funds to uh continue to invest in our city sidewalks, uh city streets and our storm drains and ADA improvements with our traffic signals.

So again, this is something again where the council uh hopefully uh as Rafella said, you need to do that, where the council will hopefully send us a signal to continue that, and we need voter approval for that.

Um if we do not change measure P and S and leave it as it is right now, by uh as it is approved, we only need 50% plus one vote to get it approved.

If we are doing anything change to the existing measure PNS, just adding a simple word to that ballot measure, we need again two thirds majority.

Next slide, sell underutilized properties.

I shared with you uh those seven properties that we think are really liabilities for us and not assets anymore.

Uh we estimate that they can uh fetch on the market around 10 million dollars.

Um, and again, um that is uh the the a yellow card that would not reduce the structural deficit, but it would help us to balance the budget while we are trying to catch up through other measures, including tax measures.

It gives us room to to breathe, also gives us a one-time infusion in certain areas where we might want to where we need to invest uh CIP funding right now.

Next is Ned.

All right, next is uh rooming measure G.

So in March of 2020, just uh days before the COVID 19 uh shutdown, third 63% of Monterey voters approved a half cent sales tax, a zero uh the half cent uh 50 cent sales tax for a period of nine years.

Now it's important to note that uh this initiative will end on June 30th of 2029, which would then cost the structural deficit balloon uh two balloon.

And again, this brings in six million dollars on an annual basis to directly into the general fund for any purpose.

Updating stormwater fees.

We began collecting stormwater fees uh through uh Monterey One Water for many years.

And when we transitioned sewer collections through the property tax roll, we adopted new sewer fees, and we recognized the need and took a hiatus on collecting stormwater fees.

It is our hope to uh bring back a stormwater fee as we're currently finalizing our stormwater fee study and bring this back in fiscal year 26-27 with voter approval.

And this is a mailed ballot for property owners and is uh not typically part of a county's election process.

It would have to go through a Prop 218 process and is here currently the general fund does cover the cost this year of uh the stormwater needs.

Parking fee strategy.

Again, this is another indirect strategy that does not directly reduce the structural deficit, but it would increase revenue in the parking fund.

And uh it's worth noting that the parking fund can actually be, which is currently an enterprise fund, can be absorbed into the general fund.

And the more revenue that we generate in the parking fund can also support the uh the general fund.

And as long as we maintain and set aside dollars for parking facility maintenance and replacement.

Some of the examples that our parking consultant has recommended to council over the years include extending downtown parking garage hours, enforcing parking in private parking lots that also helps encourage on-street parking and paid parking, and then also adding paid on-street parking in key strategic locations such as downtown and putting in uh not necessarily parking meters, but parking pay stations downtown could bring in upwards of six hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars per year to the parking fund, or if it's part of the general fund, it would do the same.

Hans has this one.

I have all the popular ones.

Uh the uh tight land leases, uh the aquarium uh uh covers a great deal of tightland leases, and the city has traditionally uh agreed to uh a lease that uh covers um about that that um receives about one dollar per year in rent for the for the area that the aquarium is leasing over the tide lands.

Um we have uh we will have increased cost in the tide land area um with uh respect to sea level rise.

Uh we are charging uh other uh of other um property owners who are extending into the tide lands um quite a good sum of money.

Uh for instance Bubba Gum, 700 building, Monterey Plaza Hotel, and others who are um who are paying uh a market rate for the privilege of being over the tide lands.

Um if we are uh negotiating with uh with the aquarium, there's a process for that actually in place where the aquarium provides an appraisal for the tide lands, we provide an appraisal with our appraiser, and then uh shouldn't we not be identical, which I doubt, uh a third party will sit down with both appraisers and they will determine what is the right uh appraisal amount, what is the the lease rent.

So we expect um, and we we are very um covered here to not give away what we think it's worth, but we uh it will increase anywhere between 500 to a million dollars, and this money would go into the tide lands.

This money would help us, the city pay for expenditures we have to make uh sooner than later with respect to the relocation of utilities, relocation of roads and streets uh that are then threatened by the uh sea level rise.

The next one is uh we have uh, as you've heard uh last week, Tuesday, quite a backlog in uh NCIP projects.

Um, despite all the good work of our team members, uh, there is, I believe, uh funding available to defund a bunch of the projects that we haven't started yet, and that also may be not necessarily add the uh maintenance uh aspects that that we discussed last time as well, where there are worth projects that help us with existing uh existing uh buildings as existing assets.

Uh and we we we went over that uh very roughly.

We think uh there is a value at least of 12.5 million dollars uh when we said to be TBD, that is um is kind of coy.

Uh we think there are projects that will amount to about 12.5 million dollars, where we say let's uh take them off the list.

We are not getting to it in any foreseeable future and uh free up those funds.

Again, this is one-time money that we are receiving, but it will also help us in our uh funding strategy to get through the next few years.

The next one is uh is uh Heresy uh charter amendment for the VAF.

Uh, that VAF zone is the vehicle uh the visitors accommodation facility district that basically throws the positions of the hotels and and said there shall be never and ever any other hotels in in place where uh where we have now the hotels and nothing else can go up anywhere else.

We feel this is a real impediment now.

Um Monterey uh is falling behind with respect to uh competition from neighboring cities.

Um and we need to discuss to loosen up the restrictions that the VAF zoning imposes on us.

It doesn't mean necessarily that you will see now brand new hotels uh getting um built on window on the bay, but we need to be able to shuffle uh spaces around in zones where we have already hotels.

When you look at North Fremont, for instance, uh North Fremont uh can provide more economic development opportunities.

If there is a chance to um demolish a motel hotel, put it somewhere else up on North Fremont, uh in an abandoned strip mall or something, and put something interesting there that the neighbors really like.

So we have to discuss VAF zoning and what opportunities that charter change may give give us.

And so again, approval is required by city council, but we also need a vote of the people for that.

And with that, um that concludes so far our our uh structural deficit reduction strategies.

Um, we will bring this back on September 2nd uh to you.

We again, as I shared with you earlier, we hope to uh listen and learn from you and see also what you pile, what you sort into the piles of yes, maybe or no.

And um, then uh very uh very rough uh rough uh calendar September.

We should need we need to start with an opinion research and strategy firm to discuss uh to identify themes around potential ballot measures.

Uh, is it viable or not?

We need to go uh start October 2025.

Maybe uh also a uh transparent public outreach um process with our residents involved that that will help us to uh identify uh the the appetite for some of the measures and hopefully help us identify additional new measures, and then uh late 2025, early 2026.

Um we we need to kind of um finalize the long-term strategies.

So uh next steps.

Uh we are giving we are handing you now out the index cards, and um so every one, every single one of you gets a package of those index cards that we hope you will uh ponder and and write on and and uh uh figure out what you want to do.

We expect a lot of questions from you right now, and also uh we hope that uh we receive uh some public comments tonight.

Um I can share with you, and you have seen those emails as well that came in from some of our constituents.

Um there appears to be a good understanding of the challenge ahead, and there seems to be also a good um willingness to compromise on certain topics.

So the um uh I believe the the community who has response uh has responded in writing so far, uh, has been very constructive and very supportive and we're very understanding of of uh of the challenges that lay ahead.

So again, um take please take those cards, uh uh ask us questions now, and then at the end uh we will uh see each other again next week, Tuesday evening uh at 7 p.m.

And uh hopefully can uh together with the city council uh develop some uh um strategies for uh quite a few of those uh budget reduction strategies that we just presented to you.

So thank you for for your attention.

Awesome.

Thank you, Hans and team, for the presentation and introduction to this.

Um I'll open up to the council for questions, um, but just kind of high level to try to work our way through in time management.

We're gonna end by six o'clock.

So um brevity in this space is helpful.

I think the goal from the council's perspective for today is trying to get questions that might be able to help us prioritize our cards.

Um, we'll be able to provide additional public input uh and feedback at the council meeting next week.

So we'll do questions now, save comments until after public comment, um, and then we'll come back to the council and then just high-level feedback comments from the council.

So not looking to get drilled down in any of the specific um proposals that have been given to us by staff.

So just trying to set expectations here a little bit so we can try to move through the next 55 minutes.

You want to start us off with questions?

No, I'm gonna pass on questions because I'd rather hear from the public, and I want to make sure we don't run out of time.

Sure.

So I'm okay to just let the process move and then save my questions for later today if there's time or next week.

Appreciate that, Councillor Smith.

Um anybody have questions, please.

Yeah, uh we'll do Councilman Rash, and then we'll go to Dr.

Barber.

Okay.

Are there any of the Mills Act um properties that would be grandfathered in?

The current ones would be grandfathered or what?

We're working on that policy right now.

Uh, we are uh proposing to not grandfather them in but have them expire after 10 years.

Okay.

And is there any admission?

I think it's admission tax on the aquarium now.

No, there's not.

Okay.

So the aquarium will fight us tooth of nails on the admission tax.

Uh, if if history repeats itself, because that is what they did in 2015 or so when Pacific Growth was in financial dire straits and contemplated uh a similar tax measure.

Okay.

And if you'll just walk through for the for the public, some of these I'm asking for the public because they've asked me.

The contractors for partnerships and contracts for the cities, the contractors would be cheaper because we aren't worried about health insurance.

We aren't worried about pensions.

Is there any liability there?

No, I guess not to us.

Okay.

All right.

The the labor cost is is uh is is one particular concern, but what you also need to understand is that um we are not then paying for the vacation, we're not paying for the sick time.

Uh we are not paying for the ramp-up costs to get the crews ready at 8 a.m.

and then they roll out of the uh the yard, for instance, and then they come back and clean the tools.

We pay actually then just for the labor delivered on site for a project, and uh that is all baked in in the cost of of a contractor, and you have various contractors.

You have contractors uh from granite construction to dawn shaping to to smaller contractors uh that a health care they have for a 1k plans, etc.

So it does not necessarily mean that you select contractors that are uh not in conformance with the labor laws in the state of California.

Okay.

Um on the parking fee, and probably this is a question down the line.

If we do the parking fees, we could expand really to perhaps a heavily impacted area like Del Monte that has so many uh visitors tying up the traffic there.

So the parking fee is a fee that um uh that we that we suggested for uh imposing on privately managed parking lots, yeah.

And so you you see uh when you drive through Canary Row uh on certain days of the year, uh we just saw a sign parking uh no in and outs a hundred dollars uh uh on Canary Row.

And uh you have other privately operators there that are charging uh fees that are way beyond what we are charging right now, by the way.

Canary row parking garage is I believe 25 dollars on peak during peak times.

Uh so we're talking about 1400 uh uh private parking spaces.

The other theory about the parking strategy was we can also look at areas where we are collecting funds um and where we can expend parking in downtown.

For instance, Kali Principal parking garage.

Uh after 6 p.m., we do not charge, but we have customers probably till 10 p.m.

there.

Uh we can also provide uh mobile parking stations up and down Alvarado, Cali Principal and collect funding for for those as well.

So this is these were two different proposals that um that Nat uh prepared and presented.

Okay.

Well, I I receive from the public the suggestion that we uh charge for parking down in Del Mani, that we have meters on Delmony uh down in Del Mani Beach area where there's so many visitors that that might be an idea.

Yeah, for getting more money.

So there is the little thing called Coastal Commission, and it might be uh a little bit more difficult in certain areas because you need to uh convince the Coastal Commission also of their um of the eligibility of that.

The little part is a joke, right?

Yeah, and uh question I got from the public.

Is there any water bills that we are paying for the military installations?

No, okay, that's it.

Thank you very much.

All right, Dr.

Barber.

Uh yes, uh three questions very quickly.

Um, number 19, that's also dealing with the partnership and contracts.

Yeah.

Um, how would this impact dealing with unions and current staff feels that?

Yeah, it it will require uh generally speaking, a median confer with the bargaining units when you are uh finding ways of of uh uh delegating or changing the the work uh that is assigned to staff, you have to go through a median confer process, and uh once you have completed that process, uh you uh you the council can make that decision.

Okay, thank you.

Uh next, um I had a question dealing with um is there a time limit if we were to do any renewals on the measures P S or G.

Is there a time limit on those?

Uh there are there are currently time limits, and again, we we have to weigh what the public will tell us through our uh research.

Uh for instance, measure PNS, there was a time limit of four years and then of nine years, and uh a research firm will uh uh connect with the voters and will find out what is your appetite for that.

Do you want it for five years for 10 years?

And we should really listen to what the public is telling us what what they they feel they want to do.

Uh with measure G, that was a half cent sales tax as Ned presented, and there was a time limit of uh 10 years, I think.

Nine years, and um uh and uh yeah, I remember exactly why it was nine years, but uh there will be um again uh measure G, I think uh needs to be renewed with no expiration date, but we need to again listen to the public and hear what is their appetite in approving that.

Correct.

Um and there is a timetable for us to have to get that on the ballot, yes, absolutely.

Yes, and that that's one of the uh instruction cards.

Uh I think card number two uh uh explains that.

Okay, and last question here, because that was that was part B, um, is actually dealing with measure G.

So number 24, part number 24 and card number 13 deals with sales tax.

Yeah, how does this work together?

Are those two separate increases?

How does that work?

So I I unfortunately don't know what card number 24 is.

So 13 is dealing with the increase of the sales tax, and then uh 24, I believe is uh measure G.

Yeah, so G G, not for this uh Dr.

Barber, sales tax measures are general sales tax.

Uh it would go towards the general fund.

Uh they're just on different timelines.

Measure G would be on uh track that expires in June on June 30th, 2029.

Uh this new uh.375% sales tax.

Let's say council decides to place it on the ballot in June, it would be on a separate track uh and either be in perpetuity or whatever council decides in the funds.

Two separate ones.

That's correct.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh two questions here.

Starting with uh Mills Act, could you describe to me the equation again that brings us to the $50,000 value?

Yes, uh, and then that's that's a great question because this are just the annual uh staff time that we are saving.

The property taxes is already in our coffers right now of the uh of the properties we will not use for for mills act, and so we cannot double count that.

So that that is a very uh astute observation.

So the $50,000 is is just the annual staff time cost avoided.

Uh and the property tax that we are not losing will remain in the property tax.

And so it does not uh increase our structural deficit, but if we lose it, it will increase uh it will not decrease the structural deficit, but if we're losing the property tax, it would then uh increase the structural deficit.

The 50,000 though are just the cost of staffing.

Got it, thank you.

Um if I could uh uh council member Garcia, and that based on our analysis, if all of the current Mills Act properties were to fall off the uh the current agreements, we would regain 160,000 in property tax loss.

But those wouldn't be realized until after all of the existing contracts expire.

That's on top of the uh the staff time that Hans mentioned.

And this will be in 10 plus years.

So that's nothing happening.

And recognizing that we have 61 properties that are still eligible for mills act, but haven't taken advantage of that.

If all of those properties were to go to a Mills Act, we would lose an additional 250,000 in general fund revenue in the future.

Okay, yeah, that's very helpful.

Thank you.

Um NCIP, I think it would be helpful for me to um get um maybe annual either estimates or actuals of the uh the amount spent spent on projects for maybe the past five, 10 years, just to kind of get in my mind maybe an average figure.

Um so I guess maybe that's that's a request.

I'll pose it as a question if it's possible to get that.

Um to attrition.

So I think I saw on the uh card that there are 70 openings currently, more or less.

Um, let's say um there was interest in reducing that number by 20.

How and and just maybe a general idea of how these 20 positions would be identified across all departments.

Um, so if you use attrition and then you say 15 to 20, I'm I'm very sure we uh you will uh identify them by uh their willingness to leave the city for another job or by being promoted somewhere else.

This these are not positions we would say, we would just use what it is attrition, uh, which is people are leaving on a voluntary basis.

These are not terminations, and so we would uh, but but you are you're touching actually the core question of that is also well, what if this position is is uh is uh trading, and what are we doing uh if we really need that position back?

You cannot uh have attrition in in certain positions that are actually uh in a way not replaceable by this immediately, or that are not replaceable.

So again, those 15 to 20 will happen probably over the course of a year or so, and and that that is a that could be that that could be a path forward.

In addition to that, uh, we we are not contemplating termination or layoffs here.

Um, we are just discussing okay, if we use attrition as a model that will cause problems, of course, for the departments.

Let's just say we have three park maintenance workers retiring.

Uh the parks will be still there.

So what are we doing?

We would basically come up with a model to tell neighbors your your neighborhood park will not be serviced as much as it was in previous years.

We might not mow it uh every two weeks, or we might not do litter control on a weekly basis, etc.

etc.

So again, um if six park maintenance worker retire or move on to other uh places, you have to replace at one time because you cannot play the attrition card over and over again, but attrition is happening as we speak, and uh that would be a way of increasing it to say 15 or 20 positions.

Okay.

All right.

Gives me something to think about.

Uh that's all I have.

Thank you.

Um when we look at the potential cost savings associated with say taking a public position and making it private, um what are what numbers are we looking at to make that determination?

Is it based solely on the cost of the position?

Um, including salary and benefits from the public position versus how much the contract is.

Um yeah, yeah.

So um also excellent question.

We would look at functions.

Uh so I wouldn't look at a single position.

I would suggest you look at a certain service that is provided by by a group of employees, and you would say, okay, what what do uh uh what does the market pay uh what do we have to pay the market for this type of service?

I give you an example.

Uh the city uh of Monterey uh at one time had three different tree crews, uh, about 12 employees that that were doing the tree trimming.

And uh when we hit the Great Recession in 2008, 2009, uh, we looked at various options.

And one of the options uh that was considered by the council and ultimately approved by the city council was to get out of the business of uh tree maintenance.

And we did this um uh in in 2009-2010, and have since then just used private contractors for tree maintenance.

And what we saved were were not just the labor cost, but we also saved the the very equipment intense cost to operate aerial lift trucks.

We had three area lift trucks at the time, the chippers, the the the chipper trucks, etc.

So um you we would look at function by function uh and uh do a cost comparison.

And uh as we as we found out with with our um the tree crews, we we didn't miss a beat, if I might say that.

I um I I would just maybe share with this uh and if if possible, how we can look at this from the perspective of um incorporating true costs.

Um what is the potential impact of um um the quality of the service?

Um maybe not our work, but some of the work you're giving trees.

So I'm imagining those folks would be local, but some of the work could be sent out of the area.

So what is the loss of revenue associated with the taxes that come in from that individual that might be living here locally?

So I just want to have us make sure that we're looking at all the different um elements associated with that.

Um then in regards to how much tax revenue we're getting from visitors.

I know we talked about this previously.

We we estimate that 100% of our TOT comes from um visitors, it's not from locals, and 62% of our sales tax comes from um visitors, but is there a way that we can look at those numbers to see how much of our general funds more or less are coming from visitors versus locals?

Um, I think would be just a helpful thing to look at.

I'm not sure if that's something that we have or something that we can do.

Yeah, we uh we can do it in our heads right now because we know what the sale annual sales tax is times 0.62, and we know TOT is 36 million.

So if we take 12 million dollars of annual sales tax, right?

Normal sales tax and 62, 7.

Well, and maybe too, this would be helpful to just include in our in our budget books moving forward, just to kind of help show some of those numbers.

I I think making a little bit more transparent there.

And then the last question, um, please tell me exactly again what you want to say in a budget book.

How you want to say ideally, if we can estimate how much of our revenues based off of visitors versus locals, I imagine that can be a little bit difficult.

One of the things that I think of is parking.

How do we determine?

And I'm sure there's a way that we can probably estimate that.

Um I was just basing it off of TOT and sales tax.

Um, but if we can expand beyond that, yeah, I I welcome that.

Um, and then the last question is um the list that was provided.

I don't remember what card number it was, but for the sell of underutilized properties, I wonder if it's possible to include a list of all the properties um in the city so that way we can get feedback from the public on maybe other properties that they may find or the council may find that are appropriate for sale.

All right, that's it for me.

Let's take it out to the public.

We might limit time just depending on how many folks speak.

So I just kind of want to give a precursor for folks.

Oh, for folks that may not be aware, what we do is we identify the individuals that want to speak during public comment at the beginning of the public comment period.

And then once we identify those folks, we cut it off, and only those folks get to speak.

So I'm going to ask folks to identify themselves at the beginning, and then only those folks will be able to speak.

So I'm going to check with folks on Zoom if you can use the raise hand function while you're navigating your way there.

I'm going to check in the chamber.

Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item?

So what I'll do is I'll ask you to step up to the left of the podium.

And then if you want to remain seated, just hold tight.

I'll ask for hands here in a second.

I don't want to have you have to keep your hand raised while we're having folks adjust here.

Bob, you want to come to the front?

You want to come to the front, Bob?

You're good.

Okay.

Um, yeah, why don't you just come up first?

Um okay.

Is there anybody still seated that wants to speak on this item?

Anyone that's seated other than Bob that wants to speak on this item.

I don't see any hands up.

So if you're not standing, you're not speaking in the chamber.

Just want to make sure we got this all clear.

Okay.

So go ahead and cut it off to the chamber to the two, four, six.

Wait, my math.

Two, four, six, eight, nine, ten.

I have counted 10.

So we'll cut it off to the 10 in the chamber.

And I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one.

And we have three on Zoom.

So I'm gonna do two minutes.

Um, and I'm just gonna remind folks, we're gonna be discussing this again at our council meeting on Tuesday.

So if you have additional um input, you can email the council, you can um participate in our meeting next Tuesday.

So we'll go ahead and Bob, why don't you start us off um in the chamber?

My name's Bob Evans.

I'm the old cripple guy from New Monterey.

Uh I just want to suggest, if you haven't already done it, that the public have available all these nice cards to make comments on and maybe send them back in to you ahead of the meeting next time.

I don't know whether that's possible.

Maybe you can put them up in the web or uh tell us to come down and pick them up at the uh city manager's office or whatever.

Okay.

Thank you for it.

All right, no.

Okay, why don't we take the next speaker?

See if I can get through this in two minutes.

Um I want to thank uh Hans and the team for creating the card system.

I think it worked out very nicely and looking at the options.

Uh on the larger scale, uh, the overall budgetary shortfall in private business.

This would be a revenue shortfall from the expenditures, and that causes your gross margin to go down.

And in public businesses, we do price increases.

People are doing that for tariffs and everything else right now.

So it's uh not a big surprise in governments, it's a tax increase.

And I think that's pretty much where we need to go as the move forward.

Um CIP uh under new management has taken a different look of the program has been there for 40 years and is funded many uh council approved uh benefits to the community.

I wanted to get a list of those, but unfortunately, we don't have the history.

Um things like the EOC, window on the bay, etc.

are all NCIP projects um that have been done.

Uh NCIP has been hailed as the most ground-up democratic process in America and is the ideal way to engage the public and local government.

And it has created a lot of interest in local government uh from the population.

I would like to not see NCIP's current allocation hit because NCIP with its new leadership will likely be guiding uh the committee to approve only 10 to 15 projects.

Many of those projects will be related to supporting Monterey Fire Department, Monterey Police Department, Parks and Recs and Forestry, ADA improvements, and public safety.

Uh we don't want projects that add to the backlog.

We want projects that can get built.

And that is what we're headed for.

We all need to keep in mind that this is as the city looks and performs our tourism is what brings back, brings them back, and the TOT.

Leave it there.

You can finish your sentence.

Um basically my comment was that the TOT is the golden goose that helps us all, both the city and NCIP, and NCIP is a partner in helping to make the city the best it can be.

Thank you, Dennis.

Good afternoon.

My name is Demetrius Capitalist.

My wife and I have lived in Monterey for over 30 years.

One of the things that we talk about is we want to increase taxes in a lot of areas here.

What about the transient occupancy tax, the hotel tax?

I understand that that's 12%.

There's a lot of areas like San Francisco and the Bay Area that charge 14 or more.

Um during this last car week is an example.

The Motel 6 on North Fremont was selling their last rooms for a thousand dollars a night.

I really don't think some guy who's paying a thousand dollars a night is going to go, you know, I'll pay a thousand dollars for this room, but if it's a thousand dollars and 10 bucks, no, I'm not gonna pay it.

So I don't think that 1% is really going to discourage a lot.

And if you're you know, there's all these things here about asking citizens on sales tax and property tax to we should increase the transient occupancy tax.

And look at that.

Even if we do it again with a with a grandfather clause, or that we do it during certain times of the year.

Another area, if we're gonna sell city properties, let's sell them to entities that are going to generate revenue in the future.

We have to rethink this.

We don't want any more hotels business.

If they're done tastefully, if they're done, you know, aesthetically.

If we're gonna sell a city property, let's sell it to let's not sell it to some guy who's gonna put a five-acre estate on the property for himself.

Let's sell it to something that's gonna generate revenue, whether that revenue is through transient occupancy tax or some other method.

Where we can we can generate sales tax.

Again, if it's done aesthetically, even though we're not thinking about that.

So let's be careful who we're selling those properties to.

Let's before we do anything that raises taxes on the citizens.

Let's get let's buy ourselves a little time here, too, because really we're already, as Californians, paying some of the highest taxes in the country.

Before we just say, Oh, let's fix this by raising taxes.

The attrition thing is a really good thing.

Um, I'll have some other ideas for you about using interim positions to save money.

Thanks very much.

Thanks, Demetrius.

Good afternoon.

My name's Robert Walker.

I'm a Monterey citizen since 1972.

And I feel that there is uh encouragement when I've heard about the possible modification of the VAF uh situation.

And um I think the very lucrative for the city way to do that and beneficial to the citizens of uh Monterey would be to back up Airbnb for private citizens to do that in their homes for a variety of reasons.

One with that with some regulation on it, which eliminated pretty much the only complaint I had ever heard, which was there were a few fully leased out homes where people would come in and have a big party and would disturb the neighborhood and not allow that.

That the that the owner of the property was doing the Airbnb would either need to reside within that same property at the time it's being leased, or within a hundred, maybe say 300 feet of that property.

So they're there.

This would increase TOT.

The cost to the visitor would increase, which a lot of cities tourist cities have seen now a big decline in visitorship not so much a car week but overall in general and do this it lowers the cost of people families to come to Monterey because they can house themselves for a few days at a much lower cost difference in cost to go out and visit the aquarium go to restaurants enjoy their vacation and be here.

So they're spending money in town doing the uh parking and all of that but I think that would be a significant increase we could be uh licensing fees for the Airbnb property and then a TOT tax on the usage.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good evening mayor council members and staff uh thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is Noah Daniels and I serve as the executive director of AMP the public access television station currently recording and broadcasting this meeting.

I know the city is facing a very real and very difficult budget deficit every dollar matters right now and I don't envy the tough choices before you.

AMP was founded in partnership with the city of Monterey in 1997 and since then it has grown into more than just a contract line item AMP is a public institution that this community helped create for nearly three decades AMP has provided government transparency a voice for local nonprofits schools and cultural groups as well as a platform for civic engagement that no outside provider can fully replicate the current proposal proposal suggests a saving of a hundred and eighteen thousand dollars by replacing AMP.

That figure represents just over one percent of the deficit but in exchange the community risks losing local jobs decades of institutional knowledge and a trusted civic resource that belongs to Monterey residents I am not here to simply defend the status quo.

We are ready to work with you to find creative solutions restructuring diversifying our funding and doing all we can to reduce costs so that the city can choose can achieve budget relief while still preserving this vital community service while 11800 may be a small number in the context of a 10 million dollar challenge the impact of this loss for AMP would be large and potentially irreversible I my hope is that we can work together on a path forward that maintains transparency access and a strong local voice for Monterey thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Good afternoon I'm Hans Yanish and I'm on or the other Hans as some people call me I am part of NCIP and want to just say a few things I think it is important that we don't repeat what we did in uh during COVID which was totally shut NCIP down.

I think the committee has worked really well and is totally willing to work with the city and my recommendation would be not first of all not to cancel all the past projects or many of the past projects let NCIP knowing what's happening go through the projects and identify projects that may not have the value that they were initially they initially had when they were voted in because many were voted in long time ago and second is please don't cut all of the money uh for us I think there may be some new real critical safety projects that the city would also would otherwise need to do that we can vote in we can keep the process going we have many new members they can uh use these years to learn and uh the process and keep keep NCIP going even if it's on a reduced basis if and if you let's say take five million of the dollars one idea would be take five million of the dollars leave us with somewhere a little less than a million, and then you're halfway there, and we can go through and decide what we want to find.

And if we don't use all the money, we can just decide to give some of that back as well in remaining balance.

So just want you to think about the continuation of NCIP and the importance of it to the city, the residents, and the disappointments that they had uh during COVID, and that we try not to repeat that if we can.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Kurt Tipton, I sent you all emails.

Hopefully, you read them.

And Hans was saying almost exactly what I wanted to say, but I want to start with my neighborhood and talking about the neighbors and the tax initiatives.

I have a really concerned very conservative neighbor and a very liberal neighbor.

And they both agreed that the sales tax is probably an excellent way to go to help fund this issue that we have.

And they both agreed that the bond measure should probably not be done this year, or I mean next this next election.

Maybe you can put it off.

As far as funding or defunding NCIP this year, the fire chief left, but I'm sure he was hoping that NCIP is going to vote to finish refurbishment at the fire station.

NCIP is always, always 800,000 to a million dollars for forest management.

We don't need another configuration coming up.

So all that money needs to be there.

So when you talk about defunding, think about some of the city projects and some of the safety issue projects.

Hopefully, you've all looked at these all the projects that we have and kind of make a determination if you really are going to defund it.

What would that number be?

So thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Uwe from New Monterey.

I've uh two items I want to just uh bring to your attention.

First, uh about uh staff you're about to hire, and from here on forward, uh, and about their retirement health coverage.

Um under call person's retired city employees to remain eligible for health benefits.

The private sector doesn't have that, as far as I know.

The city's required by law to contribute the minimum employee health premium, currently 157 per month for retaree in 2025.

But beyond that minimum, the city is not required to pay more.

I asked council to confirm that no additional amounts above this minimum is being paid today and from here on forward.

Other cities have already reduced and eliminated additional subsidies for new employees while still honoring commitments for current staff.

The second item is the parking revenues, and I'm really talking about the wharf parking parking, and uh you can include the parking garages with it.

Right now, Monterey Wharf parking is $1.75 an hour or $12 maximum per day compared to Santa Cruz, which has a $3 an hour and 24 daily maximum, almost twice as much as Monterey.

Locals with annual passes should not be impacted, but tourist rates can be adjusted.

If we merge the parking fund into the general fund and raise tourist fees by 50% to see generate millions of additional revenues, our urge staff to calculate exactly what that number would be given last year's parking revenues.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon.

My name's Shay, and I am the chairman for the General Employees of Monterey.

A couple things I wanted to point out with um one of the statistics I found interesting.

There was the 84, 85 thing.

It listed the amount of employees and it was streets, was it like a 5.4 or something.

I would like to know the statistics for all those departments.

Police fire management.

Let's see if all those have kept with that same pattern.

I think it's worth asking questions.

Um, in terms of uh the attrition and the elimination of the vacant um positions, that's nothing new.

We've always had large numbers of positions that have been vacant.

And I it's a little frustrating that it's admitted to now because typically it turns into a budget surplus every time we're we every other year.

So I just like to acknowledge the fact that those positions are always there and they always turn to a budget surplus at some point.

Um and then lastly, uh contracting things out.

Um, I'm not sure how contracting things out is presented and how it's executed.

Because, you know, currently we last time I think I spoke was in regards to um having all of our fire maintenance contracted out, and there was a company that was doing it without a meeting confer process through the general employees.

Well, we thought we settled that issue, but currently you guys aren't doing any in-house fire mechanic.

It's all being contracted out again.

So I'm not sure where the cost savings is when you have people standing by in mechanical who are certified to do the work and you're simply contracting it out.

Uh, it doesn't make any financial sense.

You're paying the people anyway, might as well have them do the job.

And I don't have faith in that contracting issue, or excuse me, that contracting process.

It seems seems to me that if you're going to contract it out, it should go to the employees first.

Because if they're standing there waiting for the work, or if they're certified to do it, it should be done in-house.

That's it, thank you.

Kevin Dayton, government affairs liaison for the Monterey Peninsula Chamber of Commerce.

Uh, first the uh chamber wants to praise the mayor, city council and staff because you're being fiscally responsible and addressing the structural budget deficit now before it becomes an emergency.

So the chamber has a long-standing policy manual that used when it considered positions on past tax measures that uh were proposed here, such as the transient occupancy tax increase in November 2020 and the sales tax increase measure G in March 2020.

And here's where it says the chamber understands the importance of maintaining the balance between a viable economic climate for local business and public agencies' reliance on tax revenue.

The policy manual also says this.

The chamber does not support new or increased taxes assessments or fees that negatively affect the business environment unless there is a reasonable long-term benefit to the business community.

So, what does this mean in practice?

Well, I think some uh chamber members, when interpreting this statement, are going to ask about the potential of whittling down some of the budget deficit through economic growth, encouraging creation of new businesses and expansion of existing businesses.

And I think some of them are going to point for to, for example, a very obvious one, the North Fremont Street uh business corridor.

Uh what a lot of potential there.

Uh, you could get some tax revenue by uh turning some of those boarded up buildings and vacant parcels into places that people want to visit and spend money at.

So please think about this as you proceed with your decision making.

Thank you.

All right, with that, we'll go to our callers on Zoom.

And our first speaker is Tom.

Thank you.

Uh keep this brief.

Uh, I noticed that Wharf 2 hasn't been part of the discussion.

Was that intentional?

I know it's in the time lens, but you also brought up tide lens leases.

So I'm just curious about that.

Um, vacancy tax.

I'm generally in favor of that, but uh I recently have experienced uh what I think is probably an unintended consequence, as you many of you know, we have a junior accessory dwelling unit in our house, which is being used by my wife and myself.

And I don't want that to be construed as a vacant uh vacant unit because it's not, it's she and I live in this house, and we use this room like another uh another part of the house.

Um, when it comes to the NCIP, I think I heard Han say that the there'd be projects that could be deappropriate and that money going to the general fund.

I'm curious about that because I believe the way the charter reads is that the money stays in the NIP fund, it doesn't go back into the general fund.

Um, with regard to parking revenue increases, I see this as being uh a really good idea, and an idea that should be delicately managed.

And I in my written uh comments to you, I pointed out that in the cannery row area in particular, I think that's where we should concentrate on this, because that would discourage people from parking in the lighthouse canter row area and thus encourage them to park on the other side of the tunnel.

So it have a beneficial impact on traffic and congestion in this part of the city, and it would raise revenue rather than just blanket the entire city with uh one uh sort of a tax or a charge, whatever you want to call it.

Uh the first responder fee, I'm curious about that because it seems like it could be more than what's being said.

But anyhow, thank you very much.

Next speaker is Lori.

Good evening, everyone, the mayor, mayor, and council members.

Um, you'll find my letter in the comments folder and hopefully your email before this, and look forward to next week as well.

Um, thanks for giving the community a voice in this important discussion, and thank you for the color-coded cards.

They make a very complex issue easier to follow.

So thanks, staff for doing that.

Um, I want to begin with what I don't support, and that is rating or defunding the NCIP, uh, whether reallocating funds, using them as collateral or canceling projects, it just breaks the face faith of the voters who dedicated these dollars for neighborhoods.

For me, that's a hard no.

And I agree with Dennis who spoke earlier.

The community loves this unique program, and a lot of good projects in four decades have been completed from it, including in my neighborhood undergrounding, which I'm very appreciative of.

Um, so this must remain intact.

I'm also opposed to risky charter amendments like the VAF proposal.

Um, I see that as a poison pill that could loosen zoning restrictions and weaken community control um and one-time gimmicks like selling off city property.

We really want to think about that because that's I see that as the equivalent of selling your house to buy groceries.

They don't solve a structural problem and only make future years harder.

Um now, what I do support are trimming the fat, definitely reducing the vacant staff positions or pausing or shifting the non-core programs that nonprofits could provide more efficiently.

Um, second, um, I definitely the pilot program, as you'll see by my letter and my chart that I delivered, um, the aquarium and some of those big money places.

Uh and I'd really for next week, I have a question because I don't really fully comprehend why the aquarium montage and all the others are kind of off limits and have a sweetheart deals that others don't.

So if you could help others like myself in the meeting next week, understand that better, I would really appreciate that.

Um, so thank you very much.

Our last speaker is Esther.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I wanted to thank staff for this presentation.

It was really easy to follow and understand.

And it's not an easy subject to have to swallow.

So they made it a little bit more understandable to the average uh resident, I think.

Um I also wanted to point out that the funds that we do have set aside, um, are a credit to the mayor that we have now.

Because I think it's something like 34 million that wouldn't even be there if he hadn't started pushing for that a couple of years ago.

So um I wanted to clarify uh the property taxes that uh homeowners pay, the huge bulk of it goes to the county.

So if we increase it here in our city, does it stay here or how much does the county get on it?

I don't know if there's a way to separate those two.

So I'm I'm curious um to get an answer to that.

Um, as far as something that will be a big amount of money that will help, I think this deal that Montage has, considering that, you know, they if you look at what their board of directors are paid, and that it's supposedly a nonprofit, I don't see why they should get on top of you know whatever they are making and getting uh you know a giant amount of money that would help our our budget deficit and and it would be a big dent.

Um, and lastly, you know, we can't attract new businesses here because we don't have housing.

So, you know, and in North Fremont, it's private property, so the city can't tell them what to do with it.

But ideally, if we do have some new housing, we could diversify our portfolio of businesses and things and not have to rely so heavily on just taxes and tourism.

Thank you.

All right, with that, we're going to close public comment.

And I'm going to ask Clementine to keep the timer up if we can.

Um, because I'm gonna give council two minutes each.

Um, it's we're gonna go a little over six o'clock.

Um, so council gets two minutes each, and we're gonna go ahead and close it out and we'll pick the conversation back up next week.

So who wants to start us off?

You're good?

Okay, you're good?

No, I've got a question or two.

Please, please.

Okay.

Question related to adjusting the rent in the aquarium.

Um, I would like to know more about that in terms of the timing.

Um, when is the agreement expire?

And are we obligated in the statutorial negotiation processes?

Because uh the list says city council approval required.

So I'd like to know about the timeline of that because I'm very interested in adjusting that.

Um question on the admissions tax.

Um, if there is an emissions tax that is passed, if that was something that this council wanted to do, and the voters approved of that.

And let me just say it's a 2.5%, and it includes all those that are listed here.

Does that conflict with the tide lands agreement for the aquarium?

Because could that potentially put us in a conflict where the money collected from the aquarium would wind up going to the tide lands anyway?

Or is that a question of how we write the ballot measure so that we could prevail in a admissions tax, or do we come um in conflict with the Thailands because the aquarium is in the Thailands?

So those are some areas that I need some clarity on uh next week.

And then also we talked about the uh charter amendments for a VAF.

Um I would like to know more on specific properties or a little bit more in terms of understanding exactly what staff's thinking is on any VAF adjustment.

Um, and how are we doing on my two minutes?

Yeah, 15 seconds.

Anything you want to share with the public, because you can check out the thank you to the public for uh the emails, the phone calls and the information to help support us in the process.

Thank you very much for you being engaged.

Stand by, no decisions tonight, and those are coming.

Thank you.

Thanks, Councilmember Smith.

Who wants to go next?

You're good.

That's right.

Um I wanted to thank the staff too.

This is the perfect use of a special session as well noticed.

We knew it was coming, people are here.

We aren't making decisions, we're gonna continue to think, we're gonna continue to take feedback.

We're this is perfect.

So continue to dialogue with us.

I was really interested that um the parking uh increasing the parking fees seems to be exciting.

It's probably not a lot of money, but I think we should look at that.

I also caution um the any possible intrusions on NCIP.

It's somewhat it's very illusory to think there's any savings when more than 50% of NCIP projects are maintenance.

Um, I mean, what are we gonna do?

We're gonna take back the three million that we we are doing for the fire stations.

I any defunding of any projects should be decided by NCIP.

It takes years to do these projects.

Any decision to stop the project, really should be footballed back to punted back to NCIP for them to oversee it.

Um it's it's very painful.

It was exceedingly painful when all the projects were pulled, then put back on, and then some of them made it each year.

Um it's it's very um is so stressful on the on the especially the reps to walk these projects through the proponents and get them going and then have the intrusion from even the council and CIP can figure this out.

Um thank you.

Okay, thank you, Councilman Rush.

Um, I I'll close this out.

Um as a precursor for where I'm at going into next week for everybody.

Um to me, all cards figuratively speaking are on the table.

So to me, when staff comes to the council and says we need to have a yes, maybe in a no pile.

To me, nothing is in the no pile.

I want to look at yes, maybe, and the maybe to me means how can we shift something in a way to make it work better?

Um, but the problems that we're facing are significant.

And how it's being presented to us here is talking about a 10 million dollar structural deficit, but we can't look at it from just that narrow perspective because as a couple of folks brought up in public comments, there are things that aren't even being considered as it relates to the funding needs that exist within the city of Monterey.

So we have the over $300 million capital improvement improvement plan.

Um we have the potential for adding a new fire station to cover the highway 68 corridor.

We have updating our library, we have Wharf two, which was brought up during public comment.

We have um the deferred maintenance of our city's parking garages.

We have um city taking over.

There's been this idea of the city taking over managing and maintaining our sidewalks in the city as opposed to the adjacent property owner.

All these ideas are coming out that cost money.

And so um I appreciate Hans starting us off here by saying we need to look at at least the 10 million, but um it should go beyond there.

And I appreciate the fact that we're looking at revenues and expenditures.

I think one thing that I'm excited about is the um onboarding of our economic development manager um and that helping to potentially live within our means and find ways of helping to support folks that either want to start a business or are already currently in business.

Um so I really look forward to this conversation next week.

This is probably one of the um, I got the alarm.

This is probably one of the highest turnout study sessions that we've had, at least in a while.

So I appreciate everybody's engagement on this, and I look forward to the continue discussion.

Hopefully, you all can attend our meeting next week.

And with that, we'll go ahead and adjourn.

Thank you, everybody.