Recording in progress.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Welcome to our afternoon session of today's council meeting.

It's Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025.

I'm gonna go ahead and call the meeting to order and pass it to Clementine to do roll call and share announcements with the public.

Uh Councilmember Barber.

President, Councilmember Garcia.

Here.

Council Member Rash here.

Council Member Smith.

Here.

And Mayor Williamson.

Sure.

And public comment and participation information is provided on this meeting's agenda, which is online at Monterey.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.

Okay, thank you, Clementine.

And with that we are gonna go to the first part of our um agenda, which is presentations.

Item number one is to is recognition of defense language institute quarterly joint service award third quarter F by twenty-five.

Um so this is perhaps one of our favorite parts of of the business that we do here.

Um we are a military community and we have so much gratitude towards those that are are serving, and we know that you're here to to learn language so that you can get back out there and continue doing the work.

So gratitude to to all of you for your service.

What I'm gonna do is go ahead and read um the proclamation of the first one.

The language is all the same.

Um relatively the same for all of these.

So this first one up is Lance Corporal Darius Brew.

Did I say that correct, bro?

Bro, um, whereas the Defense Language Institute foreign language center DLI FLC has established the quarterly joint service non-commissioned officer, petty officer, and junior enlisted board.

And whereas a recipient of the board award, Lance Corporal Darius Bro has demonstrated extraordinary personal abilities, leadership skills, and knowledge of the history of the procedure of Monterey in DLI FLC, chain of command, world events, customs and courtesies, first aid code of conduct, uniform code of military justice, military leadership and the armed force armed forces insignia.

And whereas the monterey community is proud of the country's service members as well as its outstanding relationship with DLY FLC.

Now therefore be proclaimed that I Teller Williamson, mayor of the city of Monterey, on behalf of our city council and citizens hereby recognize Lance Corporal Darius Bro, United States Marine Corps for a job well done and thank them for their continuing contributions to the armed services and to our nation.

So please give it up for the Lance Corporal.

And as I understand it, you all have a little bit of something prepared for us.

And y'all in the back can't guess.

So unfortunately, I do not have any special languages.

You have to remember something from French.

Let's hear like a one line, like something.

Um, I pretty much know the basics, obviously, like uh bonjour, bongeny, uh, uh, like, how are you?

Yeah, and um, well, Jemappel is uh my name is I could just said that, but I want you know just give like one-liners.

I wanted to probably come up here and like prepare like a nice sentence, but unfortunately, I can't do that at the time.

No worries.

So are you here for a program for the language program?

I am not, uh sir.

I'm currently uh working as an administrative specialist here.

Awesome in the uh S1 shop.

I provide just administrative um work towards uh the students here at DLI, the officers, and also the um other base uh naval postgraduate school as well, sir.

Awesome, awesome.

Well, I wouldn't say just administrative.

Um, and this is for everybody that does admin work, including myself, and it is never just administrative.

There's a lot that goes by.

I'm gonna call my partner out, and I hope that he never watches this.

So please, nobody um watching this, share this with him.

It was during COVID, and um he saw me working on my computer, and uh he said, I want to do what you do, and it just goes like this.

There's a lot that goes into to admin work, and um and the folks that are learning programs wouldn't be able to do it without folks like you.

So congrats to you and your service.

Why don't you please comment up and kind of receive this proclamation?

I'm saw your reaction.

Congratulations.

Yeah, yeah.

Bro, good to go.

Congratulations.

Okay, do a quick turn for oh yeah.

Oh, you're right.

Okay, whatever.

Yep, of course.

Okay, I think that's how I'll forward.

Awesome.

I would make the picture I'm reminded.

It's okay.

Okay, next up we have Staff Sergeant Lauren Godsi.

Am I saying Godsi?

Good God see.

Okay.

Good afternoon.

All right, the floor is yours.

Salam.

Uh Seman.

Uh Guru Vanegatsi has stem.

Uh at le Ohio, shade Cincinnati has stem.

Uh das Saraske, da art shastam.

The is our turn.

I mean, I guess I can't serve, but he's from Ohio.

And I'm guessing um question.

No, Arabic.

Arabic.

No.

RC.

RC.

Oh, so close.

Hey, you perplexed us.

That's a good that's a that's a win.

Which is why we need people like you.

Okay.

Please, everybody, let's give it up for the staff sergeant.

And why don't you come on up?

Okay.

All right, I'm gonna keep going.

You know, script.

All right.

All right, next up we have Sergeant First Class Jake Walter.

Okay, did I say his last name correctly?

Walter.

Okay, is there somebody here that would receive this on his behalf?

Perfect.

And I can meet you over here.

Thank you.

Okay, please give it up again for our service members, particularly those here present with us today.

Thank you all.

And you're more than welcome to stay and watch us conduct the business of the city, but I know that you all probably have other things to do.

So don't feel like you have to stick around.

Thank you all again for being here.

This is make a transition.

You don't gotta ask me twice.

Oh my gosh.

Y'all look very sharp.

Thank you.

Y'all are great.

Thank you.

All righty.

And with that, we will go to general public comments.

So this is an opportunity for public comments on non-agendized matters.

Um what we do is we open it up for folks that want to speak during public comment.

At the beginning of the public comment period, we identify those folks.

Once those folks are identified, we then close it off, and only those folks will be able to speak.

So we'll check with folks on Zoom to use the raise hand function while you're navigating your way there.

I'll check in the chamber.

Anybody in the chamber wish to speak for non-agenda item agendized items for general public comment.

So we have the one in the chamber.

Anybody else?

Okay, we're gonna go ahead and close it off in the chamber and I'll do a count off for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one.

And there's nobody on Zoom, so we'll give you your three minutes, sir.

Mayor, there was someone who had had their hands up on Zoom and then disconnected, but has now reconnected and she did have her hand up in time.

Okay, let's let's do it.

Are we good?

Hello, Mayor.

Hello, City Council.

Um again, Daniel Mandeir, some artists, local businessmen.

Um speaking on the subject again on the city of Monterey's um street vending permits.

Um it's an ongoing issue that in a couple of days is gonna be taking no effect.

And um taking this last opportunity kind of um this quick here.

Um a few weeks ago, Ed Smith um made a comment that it was his opinion that the cross traffic from one side of the area of the trail to the other was dangerous without any factual basis, just his opinion.

And when you want to talk factual basis ideas, um this subject here, personal gains.

I feel that just it's only business and nothing against the council members, but it's my business that it's affecting and the space I use, the business space I use, um, is currently available.

There's 5,000 square feet available, and it's gonna be reduced by 99.7% plus or minus one-tenth of a percent removal of the space available.

And having such a small space available after the fourth is unfair, it's unreasonable, it's undeveloped process of non-studied non-opinionated ideas that's affecting many businesses and the businesses that this whole subject matter started from um attacking my personal business is unfair again and should not have been considered as a way to uh address or adapt these concerns.

Um once again, the 5,000 square feet being reduced to such a small 30 32 square feet for a single space for me is unacceptable.

I know that the contract or agreement, I don't even know if you want to call it contract of the paperwork is gonna be changed.

I do not and will not agree to this terms.

I I signed a my contract is good for one year.

I have 10 months left, and um a council member offered to pay that off.

I would not accept a payoff of a contract or an agreement.

I would sell it back to the city.

I wouldn't give it back to the city, and um once again, it's very unfair and it's sad that in this opportunity of not allowing people such as this business person to actually be a part of the measurements and be a part of proper formation of a developed plan.

Last time um uh uh Levi said that there's over 500 feet available, it's more like 320 feet, and that's not even entire feet available because the 10 spaces that they chalked out, which looks like um spray paint looks like they're feeding to me, but that space is even less because they painted onto the state property side.

But thank you.

Okay, with that, we'll go to our public commenter on Zoom.

Yes, we have Mira.

Mira, you can go ahead.

Thank you so much, Mayor and City Council.

I appreciate the chance to speak on Zoom once again.

Uh I'm speaking on two things that I've spoken about before.

Uh, one is the ordinance, uh, much like Daniel.

I'm personally affected by this.

My husband and I have been vendors since 2019.

We've always followed all the rules and we're very chagrined by what's going on.

Um, the other one of the things that I wanted to mention was that since the ordinance passed, the planning department has not sent any information to the vendors uh regarding the ordinance, restating the uh the new rules.

The other one of the things that I wanted to mention was that since the ordinance passed, the planning department has not sent any information to the vendors regarding the ordinance, restating the new rules.

There has been no plan.

Myself and several other vendors have tried to go to the planning department, talk to the planning department, ask about enforcement and what's going to happen and if there's a lottery system, etc.

We've been told we might get an email sometime in the next week or so.

But there's been no plan relayed other than we know that there's a code, you know, Officer Rory, who I really hoping had the thick skin because it's going to be a hard job for him.

Um and then on Friday morning, early morning, the planning department came and started marking spots.

Like Daniel said, two of them are somewhat on state boundary.

I'm probably going to be taken away.

And the other thing was that they're right next to planters, they're right next to cement.

Um I don't know, it's like a speed bump, like a big thing sticking out of the ground.

I sent you a picture in my public comment with this.

Um we have spaces that are just in awkward, you know, basically like right in the middle of the pathway.

And I'm very concerned since the whole argument was that this is health and safety, and yet the spaces that have been provided are going to cause even more difficulty.

Um, you know, vendors, if they attempt to use the space, they will put their display in the eight by four, and then there's an umbrella and storage and seating.

Uh the way that the spaces are put, it's just really going to be um challenging for for vendors and for the people.

There's no safety for the vendors for our theme to keep them safe.

And also there's only 10 spots, whereas you guys had made um, you know, you had taken more time to look into things and give us a little bit more um, you know, less space between us to supposedly provide more places, but there's only 10 spots, whereas was pretty sure when you guys voted it in, it was based on 13 to 15 spots.

And when I counted this weekend, the busiest weekend of the year, there were 26 vendors on Sunday and 20 on Monday.

And now there's only 10 spots with you know uh 30% of our original display potential.

I mean, this is catastrophic financially for those of us that are working hard and have been doing this job.

I understand that you guys want safety at heart, but please I urge you to focus on the bike path.

As I've mentioned many times before, you have 23 diameter planters, maybe about 20 of them in that area.

Use those planters, line the bike path.

You can put them 14 and 15 feet apart.

She went past her time.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you.

All right, with that, we'll go ahead and close general public comment.

And just for awareness, we don't engage on topics that are brought up during the general public comment because it's not agendized.

So feel free to follow up back up with us in writing.

I know staff was here taking notes too.

I I understand that there was some follow-up that was being requested there.

So with that, we will go ahead and transition into our public appearance item for this afternoon.

Oh, I'm sorry, I apologize.

Consent agenda.

Um, council, are there any items that you wish to pull from consent?

No.

Okay, I'm not seeing any.

Um, we'll take it out to the public.

Um, and see if there's any items that wish to be pulled by the public.

Check with folks on Zoom to use the raise hand function while you're navigating your way there.

We'll check in the chamber.

Anybody in the chamber wish to pull anything from consent or have any public comment on consent items.

I'm not seeing any in the chamber, so we'll go ahead and cut it off in the chamber and I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one.

There's one, and I think it may be left over from the previous comment.

It's Mira.

Oh, she lowered it.

Okay, perfect.

All right.

So there's no public comment.

We'll go ahead and close general public or go and close the public comment on this item and then bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation.

Make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Any other discussion?

All right.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes unanimously.

With that, we will now go to our public appearance item number nine to receive presentations from selected recruitment firms for the city manager recruitment and a word of contract to select firms.

With that, I'll pass it to Hans for staff presentation.

And I'll also to our HR director Brad Neal.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members.

Um, as you will recall, a few weeks ago, you directed staff to go and um seek RFPs for recruitment firms to do an executive recruitment for Hans Uslar.

So we uh selected the top three.

We had about 14 um respondents.

And without further ado, we have one here in person, and we are expecting two on Zoom, and they're they're there waiting.

Okay.

So first we're going to hear from Valerie Phillips.

She's with Bob Murray and Associates.

And so she's here in person.

So I'd just like to turn it over to her, and you can hear her brief presentation.

Awesome.

Okay.

Thank you, Britt.

Good evening.

Evening.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

I'm Valerie Phillips, um, president and owner of Bob Marie and Associates.

Um, thank you for your time this evening.

Excited to be considered for probably the most important recruitment that um you'll have.

A little bit of background.

Um, I'm the owner of Bob Marion Associates, um, own the firm for about 11 years.

I worked for Bob Murray two years prior to buying it.

So I'm very proud to say Latina owned business.

Um, most recently, we've placed, I think about 40 city managers in the last two years.

So I'd say 90% of the searches that we conduct are for the public sector, whether it's you know, county, city, even state.

Uh the 11 Western states as well as Texas.

Um we have about we're a boutique-sized firm.

There's about maybe about 14 of us.

I'm headquartered out of Roseville.

I'm from the Bay Area originally.

So my husband, my husband and I own the firm together, but technically I'm his boss.

Um, but our background is private sector recruitment.

So I was a head hunter for private sector high tech for almost 20 years, and then it's kind of got into the business of public sector recruitment, which I absolutely love.

My family has a background in public sector.

My sister is an assistant city manager, my brother's a school teacher, my mom worked for the federal government.

I've never worked for the government, but I feel like this is my way of giving back.

I love what we do.

Um, you might ask, okay, what makes you different from other firms?

I think there's a lot of really good firms out there.

Um, but I think we do we do we do it so well because we've taken a lot of our style from private sector recruiting and brought it to the public sector and how we approach candidates, outreach.

We don't just place ads.

Um, we're very aggressive.

We have close to 50,000 followers on LinkedIn.

And I'm really proud of that because when I bought the firm, we had about maybe 1900.

So we've worked really hard.

We've got amazing our team, you know.

I talk a lot about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging um with our firm, and you'll see that on our website.

It's something that's important to me.

And I feel like we took what was great and made it even better.

You know, our firm reflects a lot of what I believe that stands for.

And our recruitments, I the last we did an audit of the last 100 recruitments and 50% were women.

So I'm really proud of that.

That number went up significantly.

And I believe 25% Hispanic, 21% Asian, and I think 19% um African American, and I think it was 1% Native American.

So again, those numbers are very different than what it looked like, you know, 12, 15 years ago.

So that's a little bit about our firm.

If you hire my my firm, it would be me taking the lead on this recruitment.

And most recently, I've placed the city manager in Salinas.

My husband's place, he placed the county manager here in Monterey.

In fact, he's on site right now for public defender interviews.

So we're a husband and wife team, 15 of us.

Um, and that's just a little bit about me and my firm.

Awesome.

Well, thank you for the presentation.

Are there any questions from the council at this time?

Yeah.

I have a couple of questions.

Please thank you for taking the time to come here and meet with us personally.

I know you gave us a comprehensive proposal that included a timeline.

I like to drill down a little bit on the timeline.

I believe yours was at 12 weeks.

Is that correct?

It's anywhere from 12 to 16 weeks.

Yeah.

I know, and I know there's a lot of wiggle room when it gets right down to the end.

Right.

Um, could you give us just a little bit of an overview, especially because we have folks that are watching at home on YouTube on AMP, and they're gonna also want to know this uh answer to the question in terms of how do you see the executive recruiter's role in doing the outreach and stakeholder process.

So I understand having gone through this before, what happens with the council.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts about how we take it to the next level where the community is engaged in the process.

Okay, fantastic.

So every recruitment's a little bit different.

I have some clients, it's just council.

Um, I always recommend, you know, meeting with the leadership team, the executive team, whether that's a group or one-on-one, we offer that up.

I think it's a great way to just get a feel for the culture.

I also do what I call like brown bag lunch or breakfasts, where I we do a drop-in session on Zoom, and that's for all staff to drop in.

And I've done it multiple ways depending on how big an agency is.

I just did this for Eugene, Oregon and for Vancouver.

So just people drop in, kind of share their thoughts, ask questions about process.

And it's about an hour.

And we usually will get, depending on the size of the city, anywhere from 20 to you know, 50 people showing up for that drop in Zoom.

So that's a listening session.

It's just me listening, asking questions.

It's they usually have a lot more input on, you know, or questions about process, I find.

But so you have the executive team, then you've got staff as an option.

Sometimes a survey, we can help facilitate an internal survey as well as an external survey.

Um they're open-ended questions typically.

You can do ABC or D, but we find your kind of pigeonholing folks to pick a pick and answer rather than write their own comments.

Um, I think they're fantastic.

We did a great one for the city of Salinas, and that was um it closed before the search closed, and then we were able to publish that to our website, and the city published it.

So people could go see what everyone said they were looking for in their next city manager.

Um, we also meet with stakeholder groups, whether it's uh nonprofits or chamber or university.

Um, so we can set up one-on-one, whether it's a phone call, Zoom, or group that I take direction from council, I'll lay out all kinds of different ideas, and then you guys will tell me we like that.

Let's do that.

So you can have as much stakeholder input as you'd like.

It just depends on the city.

We've done, you know, town hall style kind of listening sessions, either in person.

Um, we did them Zoom for Laguna Beach.

We did three of them, different times of the day, so that people could drop in.

It seemed to be the same people dropping in for each one, but that's okay.

I mean, it's out there, so no one could really say, hey, I didn't get to have any input.

Well, there's all these different opportunities, survey, listening sessions.

So that's all on the front end.

Also, what you can do, and this depends on council as well, is on the back end when the search closes.

Let's say you receive 30 applicants for the position, and I screen maybe 10 and recommend six, and you guys usually conduct the first round of interviews, one-on-one closed session.

I'm there to facilitate, and maybe you take the list down to the top two or three.

We start references and background checks between the first interview and the next round.

What I recommend for the second round is that the executive leadership team have an opportunity to interview the candidates.

They're not ranking, they're just offering pros, cons.

What they liked, what were maybe some areas of concern.

I facilitate that.

I I summarize that data and provide it to the council before you start your next your final interview.

Um, I've also facilitated panels that have maybe the chamber CEO, you know, business district, you know, someone from the school district sitting on that panel as well.

And again, they're not ranking, they don't get to select this is your hire, but they offer the pros and cons, and I provide that data to you before your final interview.

So there's different ways we can build that that I think is really inclusive, and people feel like they're heard and they feel like you guys are listening, the recruiters listening.

I've, you know, found them, found you guys that unicorn, a couple of them, hopefully, that you know, makes it a tough decision.

So we build the search around kind of what your needs are, and that's where those meetings with me are really important.

So we build the search, we literally lay out a timeline with each milestone.

And I have some clients that will actually kind of post that to their website.

Again, just being transparent to your constituents.

So they know what's happening and when it's happening.

Dates can sometimes change, and that's okay.

It's called a draft timeline for a reason.

But so that's I hope that answers your question, but that's kind of the layout of a recruitment.

Thank you.

And one quick question also, as you see in the back, we have Monterey, Great America, uh, which we are a member of the uh military communities, uh defense communities.

So there's a variety of other cities that also are members in California and outside of California.

Have you placed anyone as a city manager in any of your recruitments that was into a city or region that was a military presence?

I know we have.

I'm trying to think offhand about you.

You got me a good, that's a good question.

I know that we have, I just can't enlist it offhand.

I mean, we've done so many city manager recruitments.

Um I don't know if Salinas is part of that group or not.

I've done a lot of in the same region, sure.

Yes.

Um, the city of Marina, I've um ACM recruitment right now.

I know that's not a city manager, but you know, so uh and I've done some work for um there was a uh a special district, or it was uh it was like a four-door down in Southern California, and I placed the the executive director there.

So we were working with different stakeholders as well as folks from board of supervisors, and they had a sunshine where they were the position was going to end, but it was a military base that they were now working to build homes, affordable housing and shopping and all that.

So I've worked with many different types of entities on different types of recruitments.

Okay, great.

Uh Mayor, that's all I had.

All right, awesome.

Any other questions, please?

Thank you, Ms.

Phillips, for uh being here and for the presentation.

Uh I have a couple questions.

Um you mentioned there was a focus on uh 10 Western states.

Is that where you would focus the recruitment?

Uh I'd say uh the 11 Western states are are where we conduct most of our business.

We're a nationwide firm, but that's really where we focus a lot of our business.

It's a nationwide recruitment, all of our searches are.

So we're gonna cast a nationwide net.

Like I said, we have you know over 40,000 followers on LinkedIn, they're all gonna see it.

As well as we have our newsletter that goes out to about 7100 people, most of those government.

And then, you know, we place ads, you know, all the firms are gonna place ads at the same places.

What you should be concerned with is you know, who I call, who I reach out to.

That's more important, but you're gonna get folks nationwide receiving the PDF that we put together, the marketing tool for this advertisement.

And then we're attending a couple of conferences and have booths.

So we would we promote our executive recruitments there as well.

Okay.

And um could you is shifting gears a little bit?

Could you maybe give us a um a sense of what the uh current recruitment environment is like and and especially in this kind of role.

Yes, looking at a national lower, or maybe even locally, since I I see uh a list of, and you've mentioned a list of folks that you've recruited in the region.

What what does that look like?

What are the challenges that kind of I know I've placed folks in Colorado recently, uh Dallas County, um, uh Vancouver, Washington, and right now Eugene, Oregon.

I'm conducting a recruitment.

So it seems to be pretty the same, or you know, whatever state you were in conducting a recruitment, it's tough.

Uh when I started working for Bob 12, 13, 14 years ago, uh, we would receive, you know, 75 to 100 applicants for a city manager recruitment.

Now we receive maybe 30 to 40.

Um, and I really I uh that's tied to the the baby boomers retiring, and that wave continues to retire.

So the candidate pools are smaller.

So you want an aggressive recruiter.

You you need someone who's gonna pick up the phone and call people, reach out to folks on LinkedIn because placing ads isn't gonna cut it, you know, or just calling people who came in second in your last recruitment, that's okay.

There's nothing wrong with that, but you need someone to really cast that wide net and call people.

There's a lot of folks that left California and want to come back.

Uh, there's folks that maybe want to come to the re uh the region because their child goes to school here.

I've had city managers down south apply for Bay Area searches because they're kiddos at Stanford or San Jose State.

So it, you know, it's knowing those things.

I think that's another thing that my husband and I and our recruiters do a really good job in developing relationships.

I have a bazillion council members who text me and call me.

They all have my cell phone number.

You guys would all have it, you know, as good as and bad as that may be.

But I also have a lot of city managers and assistant city managers and folks that are, you know, department has have my number and I have theirs.

So when I take on a recruitment, as soon as I know I'm awarded a search, I'm like texting someone, like, oh, you know what?

We're gonna we're getting the city manager search for blah blah.

Are you interested?

We don't even have any marketing information, but I already know the candidate.

And then once I meet with all my counsel, then I figure out, okay, would this candidate be good for this opportunity?

But I usually can get a sense by watching your council meetings and looking at you know strategic plans and just kind of knowing some of the folks.

But we receive, I'd say on average 30 to 40 applicants for city manager recruitments.

You know, you guys aren't Bay Area, but you kind of are, and so it's the cost of living.

You know, I'm from San Jose, I've seen it.

Um, that's the tough part.

It's we can be a little incestuous, but like I said, we are still getting folks that maybe were California left and want to come back.

Maybe they still have a house here.

I know I know candidates like that.

So I think it helps to have those relationships because it is tough.

And uh my last question, um, you mentioned that um what sets you aside is the fact that you bring skills from private to public.

Can you elaborate on that?

What what exactly is that value that that you're adding with that?

So it's it's using technology.

Like I said, when we when I when I bought the firm from Bob, who I really admired, uh the followers we had were like 1900.

I mean, it was just this minimal number, but all the firms had low numbers of followers, even the really big kind of nationwide East Coast firms.

And I was like, okay, we need to fix that.

It just gives you more of a presence, especially for that next generation who are looking to make a move to city manager or assistant city manager or police chief.

So it gives us access to all those folks.

Um, and so I took a lot of my aggressive recruiting and outreach and networking.

I'm very big on that, and so is my husband.

We both came from high tech.

Um, and things moved much faster when I was a recruiter for you know the private sector.

Um, so that part took me a while.

You know, Bob would tell me slow your roll because cities can't move that fast.

But what I'm noticing now with some of my recruitments, not necessarily city manager, is that some cities have that flexibility to okay, we're gonna leave the search open and I'm gonna do a check-in two weeks once it's open, start interviewing people before it closes.

So it's things like that.

Like if we're talking about trying to shorten this timeline, that's something that I would do.

I've done that for city manager recruitments where we we put language in that's like apply soon because Valerie's gonna start interviewing people before the close date.

So get your paperwork in.

I have them fill out questionnaires that I provide to you that has, you know, will they have to relocate?

Are they looking for assistance?

What are they looking for in compensation?

I can't ask them how much they make, but we can all look on transparent California.

Um, how much notice do they need do they need to give their current employer?

Ask those types of questions so that you guys can see the answers to those on a questionnaire.

I think it's really important to kind of front load you with someone's expectations, especially if they're going to be asking top of pay, you know, you guys need to know that about a candidate.

I don't want to surprise you at the end.

But a lot of those things I learned from the private sector.

So I brought that with me in my approach and applications and I asked the nosy questions because I'm not an HR public sector HR, but I make sure that you guys are fully aware.

So that those are some of the things, just the networking, just aggressive headhunting.

I'm good at it.

And I love it.

And I only hire people that love it because if you don't love it, you're not going to be good at it.

Awesome.

Any other questions, please?

You mentioned that um the council would interview in closed sessions the top candidates.

Would you ever recommend that one of the interviews be open in a forum like this where the public is watching or not?

No, I don't recommend it.

What's that?

I don't recommend it.

Okay.

And I said, but I've Eugene Oregon's going to be that way.

Vancouver was that way, uh, Sparks Nevada that I did, Reno, um, Lewisville.

Uh and the problem, what makes that tough is then I had a candidate who giving an example who applied for Louisville, amazing.

Her council found out and then fired her.

She didn't get the job, she came in second.

And so I think there's that whole thing of confidentiality, and people are afraid to lose their job.

It puts them at risk.

I just had another client ask me this earlier today, and I just don't recommend it.

Um, you can do a meet and greet after, you know, when you land on your top candidate.

I think there's really cool things that you can do.

But um, I think council meeting them and the executive leadership team meeting the finalists is a great start.

Thank you.

That's very helpful.

Dr.

Mark, you have any questions?

Um, I I have one um that wasn't already asked.

I uh you had spoken to starting at Marie and working there for two years before you took over.

Could you describe that experience?

I mean, it seems like a really accelerated uh pathway, just interested in hearing more about that story.

Well, it was always my goal to own a firm.

And when I worked in the Bay Area, I was a vice president for kind of a boutique-sized firm.

Um it was an all boys' club there and white guys and here it was this Latina, and I really worked hard to, but then I had babies and we moved out of the area, and I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.

So I did that and did some consulting on the side.

But once my boys got big enough, I thought I want to do this.

And I met Bob on LinkedIn of all places, and his office was like half a mile from my home.

So I went in and met with him and then when other of his recruiters, and I thought this is an interesting niche, you know, because I knew about these positions through my family, but I just really didn't know much else.

And so I interviewed with Bob and told him I definitely would be interested, but this is how I'm gonna do it, and this is how many hours I'm gonna work.

He's all thank you, but no thank you.

I'm like, okay, it was nice meeting you.

And then he called me the next day and hired me and said, okay, you can do whatever you wanted to.

Yeah.

And so, but I shouted him a lot on city manager recruitments because it's very different.

I was placing CEOs for pre-IPO companies and working placing CFOs for public companies, and it's very different working.

I worked with all the venture capital firms on Sand Hill Road in the Bay Area.

And it was so much fun.

I learned my golf game got real good.

But what I've realized is, you know, boards are very different than councils.

It's just it's just very different.

So usually a board people have that expertise in that what that company does.

And with council, it's just a little bit different.

It's the residents, it's just a different perspective.

So I had to learn that.

I also had to learn that government moves at a different pace.

And you know, but I really just shadowed Bob and then started taking on recruitments and and that's how I learned.

So two years, and then when we bought the firm, we paid him to stay on for two more years, so that my husband could literally be his shadow and shadow him.

So I think Gary's a pretty darn good recruiter.

I still think I'm better, but I think he's still a really great recruiter as well.

He's in Monterey right now and Selinas right now for Monterey County.

So that's kind of the transition.

We found out Bob was thinking of selling.

We're like, we're gonna buy it.

Cause that's what I wanted to do.

And it was hard for me because I wanted something with mining that sounds so egotistical, but you know, wanted to put my stamp on it, Latino owned business.

But we paid a lot of money for Bomb Marine Associates because of the he was already known.

Totally, you know, everyone knew him.

We'd go to meetings and he was like walking in with Bomb Jovi or something, everyone's walking in and aging myself by saying that.

But that's kind of the backstory.

Awesome.

Well, thank you.

And we appreciate you coming and joining us in person today.

So glad to be here.

I had a really good dinner at Montreal.

There you go.

Oh my god, it was so good.

Yeah.

Kind of hard to go wrong here.

Here can I ask one more real easy question for you, sir?

You'll have this question.

We like the timeline, but what happens if you all of a sudden are not available?

Who would your go-to person be that we would be working with other than it'll either be with myself or Gary?

Yeah.

And if you had, you know, all of a sudden something happened and you were out of pocket.

Who's the backup for you?

Gary.

Yeah, my husband, business partner.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

All righty.

All right.

Well, with that, thank you.

We'll go ahead and our next interview.

And then um, we'll have you on standby, maybe if there's any other questions that come up for public.

Thank you so much.

Thank you again, Ms.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, good evening.

Uh Mr.

Mayor, members of the council.

Can you hear me okay?

We sure can.

Okay.

Well, thank you for being flexible with uh the uh Zoom option.

Um, I was hoping to be there in person, but you know, with the holiday weekend, you know, and families, things just got more difficult.

So I appreciate your flexibility of that way.

So just to give you a quick overview of our firm, you know, Ralph Anderson Associates has been around for 40, 50 years, specializing in public sector kind of executive search.

I myself um have been with the firm for about six years.

Um, but prior to that, uh I was a city manager uh for 10 years in Huntington Beach and before that and 10 years in San Bernardino.

So I bring a different perspective to the table in terms of recruiting for city managers because I've been in the business uh for all those years, and since I've joined Ralph Anderson, I've probably handled probably 40 to 50 city manager recruitments primarily in California.

You know, I I bring that kind of unique skill of really knowing kind of who's out there, knowing the candidates are out there and really uh am able to, I think help sift through the candidates and really identify the right candidates that would be the right fit for for your city.

I I think that's that's the skill set that I bring to the table.

You know, our firm has done work all over California on the coast, Bay Area, Southern California, Central California.

So we we bring that kind of mixture to the table.

I was served as the uh lead consultant on this um with assistance from the CEO, Heather Rentchler, who's based based out out of Rockland.

And the approach that we would use is pretty similar to what you've heard, all the same firms will use kind of that approach.

I think I think the real difference again that that I would bring is that you know, I have that skill and ability to really identify quality candidates because of my knowledge of kind of the key players that are out there.

Um so, in terms of the process, you know, I won't go through the whole process other than say, you know, we'll do a lot of what you heard about.

Uh you did someone mentioned something about community outreach, and I think that's also an important tool to consider, you know, as part of the recruitment effort.

Um, in our experience, the more effective approach is really been to do community surveys.

I mean, that that allows the council to really find out on a broader scale, kind of what the level of interest is and really have people give you some feedback rather than just show up at a you know public meeting and give you two minutes of comments about what they're looking for.

So I think there's a kind of a value in it doing that way, if that's the desire.

Uh process wise, I would also propose engaging with the department heads.

I think it's also important to talk to your outgoing city manager.

You know, I see on your agenda you've got some real budget challenges ahead of you.

So any candidate will want to know exactly what's going on, what are the real issues, what are the challenges, and what can he or she expect if they are if they're brought into the organization.

Um mentioned the California recruitment environment, and and I would echo what you just heard.

It's it's a tough environment.

There's a number of vacant positions out there.

I think the unique, the unique thing that you offer is that you're obviously a great location.

And I think uh, you know, good council, obviously you've got some challenges, but I think that alone will draw some quality candidates.

One other thing that we like to do as part of the process is really, you know, get beyond just the candidate, because a few times that we've done recruitments, we've run into the situation where the spouse finally shows up, you know, and looks around and decides hey, this isn't the right fit for me.

So we really kind of pride ourselves on really doing a deeper dive on as much as you can about you know the flexibility of the candidate and their family to really consider a move, especially if it involves uh relocation, you know, because our goal is to find you a quality candidate that really kind of fits the organization, but also someone who's going to be part of the community and really be kind of more engaged uh in the community.

Um so someone touched on uh connections with uh with with defense um kind of facilities.

Uh, one thing I would add is that during my tenure, when I was the actual city manager, uh, I was involved closely with the closure of an Air Force base, which of course isn't your situation, but that experience did help me understand kind of the importance of having that connection with the local stakeholders that are involved in the defense industry.

Um so really I'll kind of leave it there, Mayor.

You know, I won't repeat a lot of things that were said other than then let you know that you know I would be the primary contact and face of the firm, and uh we're ready to proceed if we're selected for this recruitment.

But I'm open to any questions that you may have about our background or approach or anything else that you haven't already covered or you want to just double check on.

Thank you, Mr.

Wilson, for your presentation.

With that, I'll go ahead and open up to questions for the council.

Um please, yeah, if I could.

Fred, thank you very much for uh for joining us.

Um so the same basic questions I I had.

You covered the military question.

Thank you very much on picking up on that.

Um, the question I I'd have for you in terms of your recruitments, um, I noticed that you have several that you've recruited for that are um communities that are hospitality driven, coastal towns, uh and and that's important for any candidate to understand.

But the the curiosity I have is your network having been in the job twice, now as an executive recruiter, how do you see the recruitment for Monterey that's different than a Southern California recruitment?

Being in Northern California, vastly different.

Uh, if you could kind of paint a picture of your approach for how you would work your network, how you would um garner um appropriate candidates to give this council appropriate choices of including diversity of experience and location, but knowing that we are a hospitality town and knowing that we are a community um at the ocean in Northern California with all the California regulations that we deal with.

Yeah, that's kind of a great point.

And you did touch on the fact that you know, knowing the California Coastal Commission, I think is it is going to be a key factor in anyone's success.

And I think I think as you've noted, I've done some work in in Southern and Central California and coastal cities.

And in each of those cities, I think one of the overriding concerns was that look, you know, the council wanted someone who had the ability to kind of work with with coastal commissions, but have the skill sets of understanding, not so much the technical aspects of the job, but really relationships.

And so I think that was an important aspect.

So one thing that I would do is really try to focus on uh coastal cities primarily because of that factor, and also look at cities who have that are you know hospitality-based that have a visitor, convention bureau that have a downtown business district that have someone who has that skill sets that can work with different stakeholder groups that really really um understand the importance of hotels, business improvement district, tourism improvement districts, and uh and coastal community commission related issues.

Uh it's really personal touch, personal outreach, a lot of phone calling, a lot of a lot of one-on-one contact, but I think that's where the focus would be.

And I would spend more time looking for candidates that have, in my opinion, coastal experience, because I think there's a lot of value added because of Europe, a coastal community that has tourism dollars, bed tax dollars, and that's a big factor in your local economy success.

So that's one area that I would focus on.

And I do believe that because of the unique issues in California on coastal areas, you know, we would focus more on coastal communities because that's a unique skill set, and that's I think something something that would help you probably a lot if we find that right candidate.

Hopefully that answers some of your question, uh, council member.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Rilson.

That's all I had.

Thank you, Mayor.

Dr.

Barber.

Um, thank you so much.

So I I was looking at some of your outline and and you talk about outreach and recruiting.

I was curious as if you could go a little bit further into that.

And I know that you are long standing since what 1972.

So you've been in business doing this for a while.

It's my understanding.

Uh but how have you changed as far as the innovation and how do you utilize that in this landscape uh now with the a lot of the new generation and how that how would that look with your outreach and recruiting?

Yeah, so our outreach and recruiting is you know the obvious, which you heard about, but I think it's also a lot of the social media base, you know, where we also look, you know, we're active on LinkedIn, we're also looking at social media.

You know, we try to do a lot of outreach uh to identify candidates that may be looking exclusively in those areas.

Um but I so we try to do that kind of broad focus, and we have folks in our office that really focus on doing that.

But but I think the real value added is someone who can do the personal touch because the best candidates I've discovered are the ones that are good at their jobs that when I call them, they're gonna say, hey, I'm comfortable in my city.

Why would I consider Monterey?

And it's my job to spend time with them as a recruiter saying these are the factors that make the city pretty unique.

This is why you ought to consider the city.

This is what it's going to take.

And so, you know, people will look at a job flyer or see something on LinkedIn and kind of scroll right through it.

But you know, someone like me would go back and say, this is a great opportunity.

Yes, you're comfortable where you're at, but Monterey won't be coming up for a long time.

You're coming up a long-term city manager.

This is why you ought to consider it.

And so my goal is to find you city manager candidates that have that are good at their jobs and and aren't in danger or in transition, ideally, but but are looking for a new opportunity and looking for a unique community like yours.

That's that's that's the real work, I think that makes this recruitment successful, that type of approach.

I mean, we can let people know as we talked about, but really that one-on-one touch is really the key factor in finding good candidates uh for you.

Okay, thank you.

Anybody on this slide?

Okay.

I think that is all the questions we have for now.

So thank you again, Mr.

Wilson.

Um just asking you to stand by as we do this last presentation, and then we'll go out to public comment and bring it back to the council and see if there's any follow-up questions for you.

Gotcha.

Thank you again, Mr.

Mayor.

I'll be standing by.

Yes.

And they're with uh WBCP Incorporated.

So you guys are welcome to begin.

Good evening, Mayor members of the city council.

My name's Terry Nizich, and I'm senior executive recruiter with WBCP.

We do have a PowerPoint that we can show if you'd like, or I can just present uh present this way, whatever you would prefer.

Yeah, whichever is um best for you.

We're we're we're open to it.

Wonderful.

Uh Stephanie, why don't you go ahead and pull up the PowerPoint?

And we'll go through that very quickly.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Well, just uh by way of quick introduction, again, my name is Terry Nessich, senior executive recruiter with WBCP.

I have been with the firm for just over three years, but prior to coming to WBCP, I was with in local government for almost 40 years.

I spent the last 22 years as assistant county executive officer with the county of Santa Barbara, and prior to that, 15 years with the city of Santa Clarita, which is in Los Angeles County.

So a very strong background in both cities and counties over the course of my career, and very much wanted to come into recruiting prior to stepping or following my stepping away from the county as I wanted to be engaged with local agencies and finding individuals to fill these important roles.

Nothing is more important than getting wonderful people into these roles and finding the leaders of the next next generation.

So a little bit about WBCP.

If you can go to the next slide, Stephanie, WBCP has more than 21 years of experience in search services.

Obviously, we work with counties, cities, boards, special districts, and nonprofits.

Of course, our focus really is on cities and counties, and that's what we love.

We are now in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, New York, Nevada, North Dakota, as you can see on our map.

We've been expanding, quite frankly, because of our reputation.

And we do soup to nuts.

I'll talk to you a little bit about our process in terms of running recruitments.

But one of the things that we really focus on, if you go and go to the next slide, Stephanie, is of course getting to those great candidates.

We also are 100% woman-owned business.

Our clients and our HR teams love us and why is that?

We are an extension of HR.

We will handle getting the interviews scheduled.

We will handle doing your all of the stakeholder outreach, which I'll talk to a bit more.

We will assist you in your communications and engagement following your recruitment in terms of doing that critical announcement of your candidate to your community, press releases, et cetera.

So we really work hard to be an extension of you and your staff and make this seamless from the day we walk in the door to the day to the time that your individual is seated in the chair.

Let's go to the next slide.

A little bit about our process, similar to what you heard from some of the other firms, which highly respected firms, of course.

Obviously, we begin with client kickoff.

We start, I start with in-depth conversations with each council member, and then work with you on identifying other critical stakeholders, both within the organization, your department heads, of course, other key individuals, and community engagement.

We, of course, do community surveys, but I find it's very important to also do those one-on-one meetings with individuals to really understand what the community is looking for and that next partner, that next city manager will which will help them frankly achieve many of their goals.

Through those stakeholder engagements, we then develop our competency-based ideal candidate profile and begin developing the marketing materials and through a strategic marketing campaign.

We take great pride in our marketing campaign at WBCP.

Wendy Brown, our founder and president, began in marketing and communication.

So we really believe that our marketing materials and our approach to marketing via social media direct one-on-one, pick up the phone, talking to folks, uh, really sets us apart.

Why frankly, I have direct uh direct uh links to many of the city managers, county executives and assistants that are at work today, because I came up with them as part of that cohort that you saw coming through the profession over the last 20 years.

I will show you a bit of our strategic marketing in just a minute.

Our candidate screening is in-depth.

We phone screen about 20% of the candidate pool and do develop detailed fact sheets or summaries for each of the candidates, which is a spotlight of not only professional experience, but our analysis of their leadership competencies as well as their professional skills, and that is all compiled for you.

Then, of course, we do the interviews and we lead those, as I mentioned previously.

We will set those up, get them scheduled, make sure that everything is calendared.

Obviously, we coordinate with your clerk to make sure that everything is set for Brown Act.

A quick look, next slide at our city manager experience.

We just finished up our most recent city manager role with the city of Santa Monica.

I'm very pleased to note that we had over 242 applicants for that particular role.

Um, others, of course, run in the 60 to 90 candidate range.

If you look at this particular listing as an example, City of Santa Maria, very different here on the Central Coast.

We have about 90 applicants for that.

One of the council members asked a bit about military.

You can see here we do have some experience in that regard with Port Wynem.

Um, and of course, being in Santa Barbara, very familiar with the needs of coastal counties.

We've done quite a bit of work with coastal counties, and of course, that's part part of our background as I already referenced.

Let's go to the next slide.

In terms of timing, we can move very, very quickly.

We again take pride in the fact that we can open within within about 12 weeks in a recruitment, about two weeks to open, two to two to six weeks at weeks of sourcing, meaning we keep something open about a month.

And then we go through our short list exercise with you where I review the candidates.

Interviews are usually in weeks eight to 10 and then 10 to 12 as background and offer.

We can help negotiate and do the actual negotiations with the individual as well, completely pending on what the desires of council and your staff may be at that point in time.

We can move as quickly as you would like.

This is what we usually say we need to complete a recruitment.

But if there's additional stakeholder outreach or additional types of engagement that is needed, this would extend just a bit.

And go to the next slide.

Talked a little bit about our marketing.

We like to brand your city.

We do not brand WBCP.

We make sure that there's a comprehensive advertising and communications campaign, which is of course print, online ads, social media.

We also through Circa have diversity job boards where we are able to reach a number of different individuals that might not otherwise see this type of recruitment.

So we get out and push out to, I believe, over 3,000 additional job boards that, and we have really increased our diversity and inclusion and our diversity candidates.

Next slide.

This is just a quick look at some of our materials again with engagement and outreach with the ideal candidate profile, our stakeholder engagement, our customized ad panel, and our sourcing and outreach strategies.

Another quick look at our marketing materials.

We really, as I said, we try to market the city.

We really want them to understand what you're all about and why they should come to the city of Monterey.

Here's a little bit of our marketing for Santa Monica.

Again, really trying to capture the essence of the city.

Talking about the community, the role, and we really, this is all developed, as I mentioned, through intensive interviews with you, your staff, so that we can really glean what's important and tell the story of what you're looking for in your next city manager, tell the story of your community, understand your challenges and your opportunities and key projects and really trying to communicate that more broadly to our clients so we can have those critical conversations with them about what you are all about and what you're looking for.

This is our city manager for Interventura recruitment.

This slide, and I'll end likely on this slide.

This is just a little bit about our advertising strategy and reach, going to those 600 diversity domains, really reaching into those niche diversity sites to be inclusive.

And this is just a quick look at some of our surveying that we do to understand what's important to you, your community, your employees.

We do employee surveys as well.

I neglected to mention.

We provide you with a diversity and EEO report so you can see the full candidate pool.

We provide this reports from your all of the input that we do.

And then, of course, we also do comprehensive background and reference checks, fiscal, criminal, et cetera, in addition to those 360 reference checks as well at the end.

So I went through that very, very quickly, but I did want to give that opportunity for you to see just a picture of what we do as well, not only not only just some of the background, but I wanted you to see some of the visual visuals.

So I appreciate the opportunity to provide the PowerPoint.

So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Awesome.

Thank you today for the presentation.

Um questions, please, Dr.

Barber.

Thank you so much.

Uh, I had a question, Dylan, with your um outreach portion.

Yes, in weeks 10 and 11, if I'm not mistaken, is that if I'm reading it correctly, um, how would the public outreach be uh viewed there?

Um, it would that be as part of the third interview, or is that before the because it looks like it would be uh part of a third interview as far as staff and or communities discussion.

So I'm just curious as how the outreach is uh planned for um this for this particular problem.

Sure.

Um two components to that.

Uh typically what we'll do in those first couple weeks before we open is when we'll be working um primarily with the city council to understand your needs and developing that recruitment brochure.

And we then be also pretty simultaneously, frankly, uh, we'll begin our stakeholder outreach to those individuals that you've identified for us as being those primary, uh the primary folks that you'd like us to talk to.

So typically, and what I'm doing right now with Santa Cruz County as another example with their county executive officer recruitment.

So typically, and what I'm doing right now with Santa Cruz County as another example with their county executive officer recruitment, we are doing both a community-wide survey, uh, pushing out through their social media.

Um, and then I'm also interviewing various cohorts of the community.

I'm doing I've done a town meeting with their labor, I should mention, um, in addition to business community, in addition to their nonprofit community, and then others, which is their health community.

So depending on the scope that you would like to see, we will likely host a variety of online sessions with the key stakeholders in addition to the community survey, if we want to be very broad.

And then also, as I mentioned, we will also per your direction do employee surveys as well as we always suggest meeting with your department head team, of course.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Uh yeah, one question.

What's the position you're recruiting you're recruiting for Santa Cruz?

County executive office for the county, county executive officer for the county of Santa Cruz.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Um, a little bit more on the timeline.

I appreciate the breaking it down.

And of course, we all know that there's wiggle room.

Yes.

Um, there was a good question earlier from one of the earlier presentations about um the stakeholder outreach and a question of when is the right time to bring um close community groups together to maintain the confidentiality of the applicants.

Uh, do you see a model that works best in your practice for protection of that, but also where the candidate can get vetted by a close circle of community stakeholders?

And is the time um once you've narrowed it down to the top three, or do you prefer opening that up before when you're maybe working with a group of eight or ten?

Yeah, and I do agree.

Thank you for that question.

I do agree with the um prior presenter with the city manager role, it's very tenuous, obviously, because uh once things become public, it's it becomes very difficult for the individuals.

Um, one of the things that we have done as well uh is through the meet and greet process that was mentioned later, which was mentioned earlier, we often encourage those meet and greets at the end of the process.

However, uh, and that can be both from the community side as well.

However, we have also facilitated as part of the second day of the interview panels, once it's down to a smaller cohort, um, when you know it's really about fit.

We have often convened the community and we call it our community advisory panels that sit and provide input to your city council on the candidates.

We do have all of our individuals that serve on panels sign confidentiality agreements, however, we have the conversation if that's decided that that is part of the framework for the interview.

We do make our clients or our candidates, I should say, aware of that from the beginning, that at the end of the process, there will be a time that we do engage a community advisory panel.

We indicate that we do have confidentiality agreements, but if at that point in time they that is when they should begin having some conversations with their councils because there is the likelihood that it may become public.

So again, we let our candidates know what the process is so that they are fully aware before they embark on that.

And one last question in terms of the interview process with a council of five.

Do you anticipate that it's likely a all-day process with the council as they're in as they're doing the questions and uh meeting with the top seven or eight or maybe 10?

Do you see that as a full day?

Yes.

Um, and for a variety of reasons.

We want at least an hour with folks.

Um, and this is perhaps one of the most, well, I would say it is the most important hire you're going to make to help lead your organization.

So we would really like a full day with the council to do those interviews.

Absolutely.

Great.

Thank you, Mayor.

That's all I had.

Absolutely.

Anybody else have questions?

I'm not seeing any.

So again, Terry, thank you for your presentation.

Um, and at this time, we're going to go ahead and open it up for public comment and then we'll bring it back to the council afterwards.

So I'll do a check with folks on Zoom.

If you can navigate your way to the raise hand function.

Um, and in the meantime, um we'll check with folks in the chamber.

Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item?

I'm not seeing any.

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

And we have nobody on Zoom, so we'll bring it back to the council.

What I suggest is does everybody have a sense of maybe where they're leaning towards.

I do.

Okay.

So why don't we just go around and identify the firm that you're leaning towards?

And then if there's a discrepancy or a difference of opinion, we can we can talk it through afterwards.

So who wants to start?

All right.

Uh Dr.

Barbara.

I don't mind to start.

Um I think all three firms were have were wonderful.

Um I really uh enjoy reading about them and and um really thank the accolades of what they've done and what they continue to do is wonderful.

I I really am tossed between two.

Um and so maybe hearing more from my colleagues, that'll get me to be able to see where where I'm leaning on that.

Dr.

Robert, can I apologize for one second?

I meant to ask staff a question before so before you disclose, let me just get some clarification from staff just to make this fair for everybody on the council.

Um I'm wondering, so so just for awareness for everybody, um, staff had released the RFP, the request for proposals, and there was 14, I believe there was 14 responses.

Staff selected the top three, and that's what we're reviewing today.

So my question for staff is what was the ranking for the top three?

What was the ranking criteria?

And any other thoughts as it relates to the three that we're considering.

Um so I will give you some of the criteria.

We had a it's a larger spreadsheet, and I was unable to print that for today.

Uh we looked at experience, um, specifically with city manager recruitments, uh, timeline costs.

We looked at uh the diversity outreach uh and public engagement.

Um a lot were close.

They were, I mean, a lot of the firms that responded, they um I won't say they were similar, but they all had their strengths.

And so it really did come down to picking the top three.

And um what I looked at and kind of where we landed was like I said, with the experience with the city manager specifically, and then you know, there's some that have a ton of others, but just looking at city managers, the timelines were all pretty close.

The costs were all within about 10,000.

Um, the diversity outreach kind of moved people to the top to do something a little different.

Um, and of course, public engagement.

Uh knowing that I think uh any other firms, of course, would do what council requests, they would respond to council's direction for public engagement.

I hope that answers yeah, and then was there a ranking for the top three from from staff's uh looking at the criteria that we used for the selection process.

Um was there a ranking from staff's perspective in regards to like scores that we did?

Yes, we did.

Is that something that you could share?

Um, no.

I don't have them with me.

I don't I didn't bring our ranking and our sheet.

I just was following the direction of council to bring the top three.

And that's okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

That was that was it.

Okay.

Come back.

Yes.

Sorry about that.

Okay.

Thank you, Brett.

No worries, no worries.

Um, so um, so I'm I so I don't want to prolong this, but for me, it's two that I'm looking at uh and really for a lot of what um Fred just mentioned, dealing with the experience, diversity timeline, the city and staff community outreach piece and engagement, and that is uh Bob Murray Murray and uh WBCP.

Is there one that is at top for you right now out of the two?

Uh at top right now is Bob Murray.

Okay, but I still have like I said, I want to hear more conversation um dealing with W B C P.

But right now it's between those two, but it's tough right now is Bob Murray.

Okay, and if we could just shout it out here, because if we have to get in deeper discussion, I want to make sure that we can wrap this up relatively soon.

So um who wants to jump in next, please.

So I'll just list them in my order of priority.

Number one, Bob Murray, two WBP, W B C P and third Ralph Anderson.

Thank you.

Who wants to go next?

My favorite was Bob Murray.

I appreciated the diversity of candidates.

Was easy to read, which meant something to me.

And I um appreciate the very uh um uh context.

I also checked references, and I was stunned with the references that people gave me.

Um they weren't good, they were beyond belief.

I'm not it it was very impressive.

So um that's what I have to say.

And and thank you so much, Brett.

You brought three fabulous firms to us, and I really appreciate that because I hope it's a lot easier choosing the city manager than it is the firm.

And um, thank you so much.

Excellent.

Thank you, Council Rush.

All right, Councilman Smith.

Uh so tough choice.

Um, very impressed with all three.

Um all three are women-owned, but as you look through um the about us and all of their websites, they are all three built uh with everything they need to do effective recruitments, whether it's for general uh city manager, CAO, police chief, fire chief, and all the way down.

So and I and I know several of them that work for all of the companies, uh, not on a personal level, just from their the professional side.

I did a phone call to uh two people that have um previously gone through recent recruitments and currently going through recruitments and asked the general question if you had these three, what would you say about the three?

And they both said those three are the best.

Those three are very good, and the all three will serve you well.

But what I was looking for was public engagement strategy, the confidentiality that was expressed by Bob Murray, as well as all the other two, and looking at the recruitments that have been going on recently that align with some similarity to Monterey.

So my choices are one uh Bob Murray, and two um the WBCP, and three Anderson.

And it's uh very close to all of those.

I lean towards uh Bob Murray because of their current local connection of recruitment, Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District, Santa Cruz, Salinas, Monterey, as well as when you look at their vast number of recruitments that they have been recently doing.

I thought she did a great job as her presentation.

Um, you know, she covered all of the basics, she answered questions well, and she's in San Jose, so I I nodded to the local her presence, but also some of their current recruitments have a little bit more connections to Monterey.

And I liked her answer.

I liked a lot of the other answers.

I like all three of them, but we we can only have one.

So my number one is the Bob Murray group.

Awesome.

Thank you for it.

Um it happens to be my number one as well.

Um the in-person presence obviously I think makes it a huge difference in and for you to take your time to come out um not knowing how this was going to turn out means a lot.

Um the fact that you're the one leading your organization in your organization has made the conclusion that the city of Monterey deserves the the head of the organization taking on the recruitment um uh means a lot.

I think the focus on the DEI um uh was an important aspect for me.

And I've also um reached out to references and um had some outstanding feedback.

And and similarly, it was um great firms all around.

Um so with that, I am going to go ahead and make a motion to um make a selection of Bob Murray and associates.

Second second.

It's a moved and seconded and anybody else want to second it.

Um yeah, I don't know how that works.

Um and I also just want to um give gratitude and appreciation for Fred and Terry coming out and giving the presentation.

Yeah.

Um in some magical way, would love to like have everybody work together on making this happen because that's how important the recruitment process is for us in in selecting uh our next city manager.

Um but just uh much gratitude for for you taking your time um to come and present today.

Yes, please.

Going through the profiles of the people that work for these firms was really it was fun for me because I have run across several people that work there and all three of them have selected outstanding support team and not just recruiters, but you can really see the graphics, the flyers, uh their their answers.

All three companies were spot on.

And if another city called me tomorrow and said, What do you think who you know we're considering it's like I mean, this is an easy reference to be able to say that we're in the business where we can say there's clear three clear groups that a city could turn to.

So I just want to say kudos to the professionalism of all three, and thank you for the time of the three that did their presentations.

Um it's and it's exciting to see that they have, even though some of them are now retired and doing this, they still have passion for public service work and for putting a city manager in Monterey.

It's exceedingly important, and they recognize that.

And to pick an agency uh like Bob Murray that's willing to help us find uh the next leader.

We appreciate what we're gonna go down in the path to to get us there.

Well said.

Uh and I'll do one last thank you again to staff.

Um I know Steph is working hard behind the scenes to try to make this all happen.

So thank you for taking the time um uh to do this and for the uh navigating between council and and the firm to make this happen.

So stand by.

All righty.

With that, we'll go ahead and call for the vote.

All those in favor, aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes unanimously.

Congratulations.

Now go to dinner somewhere.

Spend, spend, spend.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Um okay, with that, we're gonna be going into closed session, but there's one thing that I want to ask um staff if it's doable.

Kind of if we could have council give the cards now since we're in open session, so that when we come back into the evening session, we could be good to go to do the exercise without having to wait for a lag in the evening.

Okay.

For the agenda item.

Okay, okay.

All right, with that, I will go ahead and um open it up for public comment on closed session agenda items.

There are um are two items.

Close session item 10 is closed session conference with real property negotiators pursuant to government codes section five four nine five six tac eight.

And closed session item 11 is conference at legal council existing litigation pursuant to government code section five four nine five six tac nine d one.

Anybody on Zoom, you can use a raise hand function.

Anybody in the chamber wishes to speak on either of these items.

All right, seeing none in the chamber, we'll go ahead and do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one.

And there's nobody on Zoom, so with that, we'll go ahead and recess to close session.

Thank you, everybody.

Hello, everybody.

Welcome to our evening session of today's council meeting.

It is Tuesday, September second, twenty twenty-five.

Right on.

I pledge through the plan of the United States of America.

Underground indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

individuals that want to speak during public comment at the beginning of the pop public comment period once those folks are identified we close it off and then only those folks will be able to speak so if you raise your hand or try to be identified after that cutoff period occurs you won't be able to speak so I'm going to start with folks on Zoom if you're on Zoom you can use the raise hand function again this is for non-agendized items while they're navigating their way there I'll check in the chamber anybody in the chamber wishes to speak on any non-agendized items if you wouldn't mind doing me a favor and staying up to the left of the podium if you prefer to remain seated just hold tight for a second while everybody else adjusts here I see the three four five six folks one two three four five six folks standing anybody else in the chamber wish to speak on general public comments all right I'm not seeing any so we're going to close it off to the six and I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five four three two one we have one and then there's someone else with our hand raised who already spoke in the afternoon so she will not be able to speak perfect okay we're gonna go ahead and give three minutes so please we're going to start in the chamber good evening mayor Williamson council members oh good that's much more comfortable long time uh resident of Monterey and I'm here tonight to speak in opposition to the housing element IJ uh ordinance that you passed if uh last week um specifically about the six units on R1 lots um when I read uh Gene Rash's report a few days ago about the passing of this bill and I was I I was and I read about the R1 changes I was shocked I I didn't know anything about it but I started speaking talking to my neighbors about it and nobody seemed to know anything about it and some of them were pretty uh outraged and they and they and they even challenged me to go oh no six on one lot that that can't be true you know you got something wrong so I went to the website and I downloaded both volumes and I started to look for information on R1 zoning and I I couldn't find it.

I mean I know it's in there but it's I couldn't I couldn't even find it um everybody here knows that it was agendized under housing element and not an amended amendment for our R1 zoning but under California government code 65090 65094 zoning changes require proper notice and an opportunity for public input and this falls right in line with part parliamentary procedure any action that significantly affects a member's rights we requires advanced notice so that members aren't ambushed and there's precedence horn versus ventura environmental defense project versus yellow the courts have struck down zoning changes when notice when a notice is inadequate does that mean I have how many moments on uh okay I'll just jump forward um so on the grounds of inadequate public notice and lack of transparency I'm asking you to reconsider the ordinance and and open back up our one the R1 zoning for public review thank you for your time and and you you're just you are described having trouble finding some of the information and if you want you can leave your contact information with staff and connect with them and they can help you point in the right direction.

Okay considering that we've been left out so sorry yeah okay I I I want to be careful not to give you extra time because then everybody else will be but if you want to connect with staff we can get you the information that you you need you're welcome sir all right and I apologize there's supposed to be five folks left and there's six folks standing okay okay okay please see this I have to move the mic down that's why we have it on a swivel my name is Elaine Ramos and I've been a resident of Kona for over 30 years and as you all may know that there's been some issues out there but with the fairgrounds and our neighborhood complaining and we knew when we bought our property out there that we were going to be living next to the fairgrounds next to the airport and there would be noise issues but over the 30 years we've enjoyed our time there until recently the fairgrounds has expanded the types of events that they have over there and most recently Cali Roots has been a big one there's been a lot of mitigations that's made that a little bit better of an event however last week a couple of weeks ago when the motorsport event came it brought a whole different dynamics of people here to the peninsula it didn't just affect our neighborhood but it affected the entire peninsula and I think our first responders and our staff everybody was overwhelmed by it can you imagine what our tiny little neighborhood how we were overwhelmed over there and when we try to voice our opinions we were shut down saying you're just a handful of people we've got a greater a neighborhood here of more residents who enjoy the events that are happening at the neighborhood they enjoy these events at the fair crowd springs and the revenue that it brings we do too we enjoy these events

And I think our first responders and our staff, everybody was overwhelmed by it.

Can you imagine what our tiny little neighborhood, how we were overwhelmed over there?

And when we try to voice our opinions, we were shut down saying, you're just a handful of people.

We've got a greater neighborhood here of more residents who enjoy the events that are happening at the neighborhood.

They enjoy these events that the fairgrounds brings in the revenue that it brings.

We do too.

We enjoy these events.

We've we've treasure the revenue that these people are bringing here.

But there has to be some mitigation for the impacts that it brings to our neighborhood when these crowds come and we don't have the resources to stop the traffic, the violence, the noise.

And so when I spoke to the fairground CEO, she advised me that there's not an ordinance between the city and the fairgrounds that guides the fairgrounds on what they can and cannot do.

I know they are a state agency.

And so I re had the city research, and we don't have anything.

We don't have an MOU, we don't have an ordinance.

But CODA itself had an agreement, a written agreement with the fairgrounds that would eliminate motorcycle races.

Of course, this agreement was back in 1989, but it still said eliminate motorcycle races.

And yet, next month there's going to be a motorcycle race there.

It'll be the first one in over 30 years.

You don't know what those motorcycle races, the noise, the dust, the crowds, the impacts that that's going to bring to our neighborhood and as well as the rest of the peninsula.

The motorsport event had drag racing, it had the dragster, it had the donut burnouts.

And so the crowds that came from the Bay Area that enjoy side shows are the types of people that came.

We're going to have the same kind of crowds coming once again.

So I'm imploring the council and the city to reconsider and have an ordinance that the fairgrounds can use and mitigate the issues that impact us.

Thank you, Lynn.

Thank you.

You want me to go?

Sure.

Okay.

All right.

As a permit holding insurance carrying sidewalk vendor down at the wharf, even though every permit holder has a registered email, neither the planning staff nor the city has issued any instructions about the implementation of the new sidewalk ordinance.

With city code, cities usually want voluntary compliance.

But it is obvious that Monterey wants to inflict as much hardship on vendors as possible.

Going over the council meeting in which bike rental permit restrictions were lifted, Ed Smith repeatedly made the point that safety on the bike path justified a study.

And it was agreed by the majority of the council that it was the high-speed e-bikes that were the real threat to health and safety.

Tyler said he suspected the high speeders were all locals, and it was they who were causing the wreck trail to be unsafe, not tourists on bikes.

Okay.

So it was proposed that there be a speed limit like Pacific Grove had done and some bike speed enforcement be done by the but the mayor said the police department did not have the resources.

So where are the financial resources coming from to enforce vending regulations?

We talked to the harbor master.

He said he has no interest in enforcing land use codes on vendors.

That's not his jurisdiction.

Okay.

So it was agreed by the majority of the council that it was the high-speed e-bikes.

Tyler suspected was high-speeders.

It was proposed that the speed limit like Pacific Grove be passed.

It's been heard that Chris Shake is volunteering to pay for the city's cost of enforcement.

And this was supposed to be a decision made because of health and safety.

And that's showing some serious economic animus that he's saying, look, if it's going to cost more than the city can afford, I'll pay for it, you know.

And that show, and he's a WORF business association.

So we know what's really going on here.

So I recommend that you put off the enforcement of the latest ordinance, uh, and you um enforce it starting January 1st, 2026.

You know, what's the hurry?

The season's over, there's less vendors showing up, there's less tourists coming here.

There's no health and safety standards.

It's obviously just the wharf businesses lined up against us.

I'm a documentary filmmaker.

So it's fair, it's great because all your city councils are fair use.

And so I just go over the whole history of how I do a history of 946.

I do a history of sidewalk vending throughout history, the agora, all that.

I get everybody to love sidewalk vendors, and then we get to see what you guys do to us.

So know that this is not just this contained in this area.

It is going to be for a greater audience, and how you go forward will be documented and will be known.

That's good evening, Miss Council Mayor.

She's gonna go next and then and then beg your pardon.

No problem.

Okay.

So uh I have a photograph here of all the vendors that we needed regulation today.

Yeah.

So these are all the vendors that required uh strict regulation today.

There was zero.

Um here is the new ordinance maximum vendor spise, and that's the tomb the city has given me for my business to be buried in.

There are total now of 10 vendor spots available.

Two of them have been mismeasured and are in state property, so that will leave eight once they clarify that measuring mistake.

This has uh been called a dysfunctional amount of space, and I would have to agree.

Um we had a sidewalk vendor.

Speaking of tombs, we had a sidewalk vendor die this last month in between all of the votes.

Um, and I'm not gonna say that the stress of these proceedings killed him, but I will say that he was in very poor health, and it was it was hard to survive with his health problems in his heart issues.

It was a tough time for him and his family.

Um, I just wanted to take a moment to say that he was a veteran, he was a father.

Him and his son started the sidewalk business together.

Um and one of the last conversations I had with him was him expressing that he just hoped that the council would reconsider.

And um, I'd like to yield the rest of my time for a moment of silence for Matt Sr.

and his service to this country.

Thank you.

Again, good evening.

Good evening.

Mike Brasfield, I'm here as a vice president of Cona.

Uh after the previous event at the fairgrounds, and after living there for 50 years and understanding what it will be when we get motorcycles.

I hope that the city is also gearing up to handle street issues similar to the last event, but with motorcycles, which is a little harder to enforce traffic issues on because they get away pretty fast.

But I I'm here at the request of our president, Richard Rusillo, to say that we hope that the city pays very close attention after meeting with Mr.

Garcia.

I appreciate that we will be paying attention to what happens there this coming event.

But I wanted to sustain the support that we're getting from our neighborhood to make sure that we're covered by the city on issues at this next event.

Thank you.

Okay, with that, we will go to our callers on Zoom.

Yes, we have Richard and Richard.

You can go ahead, please.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

Uh Richard Russell, I know president.

Uh, what I want to talk to you about is my concern.

Uh the lost jobs in the city of Monterey, the closing businesses, and how that affects the financial stability of our city.

Um thrifty dress closed, hardweight, uh, MS Lumber, uh Monterey Mercedes, one of the largest employers in the area.

They're leaving for marina.

Uh, and on top of that, uh, we have the bankruptcy of CVFs and law greens, and literally hundreds of jobs lost.

Now MIIS.

528 students, mostly not from this area.

They're living in apartments and houses.

563 employees.

These are huge numbers of lost jobs, either lost now or coming in the near future.

And I want to get our focus of our city back to creating jobs and financial stability.

Garden Road was created as a light industrial area.

Manufacturing.

That is new money coming in to Monterey, not service money, regurgitated it going back and forth like doctors.

Ryan Range was created as a light industrial area.

And now it's almost totally service.

So what I'm saying is to refocus the direction of the city of Monterey.

Trying to emulate marina with Jovi Aviation and 600 new paying jobs.

That is really changing the city of Marina.

Marina and Seaside now exceed us in population.

Monterey's leadership is fading into the future.

And my concern is focus.

Start to concentrate on bringing us back to a financial stability.

Thank you.

Is that the only one?

All right.

With that, we'll go ahead and close general public comments and we'll ask for announcements from closed session, please.

On the first closed session item number 10 conference with real property negotiators pursuant to government code section 54956.8 pertaining to 30 Fisherman's Wharf on a unanimous roll call vote, confidential direction was given to real property negotiators.

On closed session item 11, subsection one, Richard Rosendale, there was no reportable action.

On item number two, Pacific Western Bank versus the city, there was no reportable action.

On a unanimous roll call vote, there's confidential direction given to legal counsel.

On item number four, stronghold engineering versus the city of Monterey in the Riverside Superior Court.

On a unanimous roll call vote, there was confidential direction given to legal counsel.

And on the last matter, Morales versus the City of Monterey, there was no reportable action.

Thank you, Chrissy.

With that, we'll go to our presentation for the evening session, item 12 to receive a presentation on the use of naloxone or narcan for opioid and fentanyl overdoses.

Um Casey Reb here.

Oh, they're both here.

What a treat.

So while they're making their way up, I will share that um September is recovery, is known as recovery month for drug and alcohol um recovery.

And so um I met Reb in Casey during uh uh eight H no, I'm getting my acronyms mixed up.

Health and hum health, what is the Health and Human Services?

No, the JPA.

Oh, JPA CHS, thank you.

I've been like doing federal acronyms all day today.

HDS um is what I was thinking of.

But um, anyways, they they were hosting uh an event and they did a representation of how to appropriately um provide the medication.

Um and it's important.

And I and I asked them to to come out to do it in front of a council meeting.

So I appreciate you both being here today and the work that you all do.

So I'll pass the mic to you all and feel free to give out your presentation with us today.

Which direction do we face?

Um, you'll face this way, and that way the camera, everybody will be able to see you because the camera's okay.

That camera's looking at you.

All right, so thank you.

Thank you.

You're good.

Thank you for having us here.

Thank you for um being willing to learn information about what we can do to save people in our community.

I'm very grateful.

Thank you for our Monterey PD for actually having a Narcan box um over on their site.

We also have one down at Lake Alistero and by the transit center.

You can literally just walk up and grab anarchan.

No problem.

There's no question.

There's nothing.

You open the door, you grab the Narcan, you walk away.

Nothing to it.

And the reason this is important is it's life-saving.

And truly, you know, with what's going on in the community here and in other communities across the nation, we need to save lives so we can get people into treatment.

We can make sure that our loved ones, their friends and family members are safe.

And people will say oftentimes, you know, I don't need Narcan.

I I don't um use substances, I don't have opiates opioids in my home.

The reality is is the last time I used Narcan was when I was driving to uh where the county was opening the Narcan bending machine in um the Salinas Transit Center.

And as we were driving up, there was somebody slumped over on the sidewalk, somebody standing over them holding a cell phone.

And so we pulled over, I grabbed my narcan and went over.

And the gentleman on the cell phone's like, I don't know what to do.

And ironically, I said, I do.

I got this.

And so we were able to get that patient taken care of and getting him get into medical care.

So it's one of those things.

If you're in the community and you're ready to save a life, that's what this is all about.

Okay.

So we'll make it quick.

We'll make it easy.

We should probably introduce ourselves.

Okay.

You can do that.

You get this.

Okay.

So I again sorry about the awkward direction here.

So my name's Casey Grover.

Uh, I was born at Chomp, long time resident of Monterey.

Uh, used to be an ER doc.

Now I do addiction medicine.

Dr.

Reb Close, we've been married for 18 years.

Um, and between the two of us, I think it's 34 years in the Chomp emergency department taking care of the community.

Dr.

Close also now practices uh addiction medicine as well.

I spent all day today trying to get people off of fentanyl, off of alcohol, off of cannabis, and off of meth among other drugs.

And the reason we're here today is the drug supply gets worse every year.

And uh, if we all carry this medicine called naloxone, we can all save a life.

And what I can tell you is we are desperately trying to get more addiction doctors to come to this community.

We have not one but two, but three addiction doctors that are joining us in our practice down by the wharf uh in about the last month.

And when people have addiction, the best way to describe it is they lose the ability to make good decisions.

I call it their executive functioning, keeping a calendar, managing a schedule, deciding what's a good decision, what's a bad decision.

That's the part that's diseased in addiction.

And when they die of an overdose, we never get another chance to treat them.

So that's why this matters.

So, Dr.

Close, would you like to teach us how to use Narcan?

I can do that.

I can do that.

So the quickest way to think about it is when would I need to use Narcan?

Of course.

Yes.

Um if I may ask though, it makes it easier if you're at the camera because there's a lot of folks online, and then everybody in the chamber can see the screen.

So when you're doing the demonstration, if you if you could just do it that way, so that way everybody could see.

I know it's kind of it's kind of awkward with the good idea.

Okay.

Um, yes.

So the most important thing is identifying an overdose.

Okay.

So they're basically two things to look for.

Someone is unresponsive and poorly breathing.

That's it.

Okay.

So if you come across someone just like I did on the street the other day, where someone was unresponsive and poorly breathing, it's time for narcane.

If that person is having an emergency associated with diabetes, or if they're having a stroke or if they're having a heart attack, you even if you give them narcan, there's no change in the other thing that's happening.

Okay.

But that's why we call 911.

Right?

If somebody's unresponsive and poorly breathing, the paramedics, you need our first responders and you need their help.

So call 911, grab your narcan.

That's what we did.

Okay.

So unresponsive, poorly breathing.

You've got your narcan.

You open the box.

Open one in parallel.

Oh, we'll go front and back.

And inside it, there are two doses of naloxone or narcan.

Okay.

And this way, there's two doses inside.

I'm going this way.

18 years of marriage.

We got doctors.

Yeah, doctors.

Settle down.

And if it has you take out your dose of Narcan, okay, and you'll open it up inside the dose.

There are instructions, which in this circumstance you will not have time to read.

Okay.

But in there, here's your Narcan.

Okay.

So you put your two fingers on the side, you put your thumb on the bottom.

Okay.

It's a nasal spray.

You got it up here, Grover.

Come on.

Vanis.

You got that?

You can read it.

It's a nasal spray.

I'm going to put it against my black shirt so you can see what it looks like as it goes off.

Okay.

When you push that button.

Okay, it's a minute.

The other part of it is there's no needle.

It's not sharp.

You can't get hurt with this thing.

Okay.

It's just a mist.

And so literally, you go up to someone and you check on them.

You're like, hey, are you okay?

Are you okay?

Unresponsive and poorly breathing, right?

He is.

Are you okay?

No.

So he's unresponsive and poorly breathing.

I open my narcisson.

And literally how you administer this is you put it in the nose until your fingers touch the nose.

Okay.

So my fingers are touching the outside of his nose, and you push the button.

And you've just administered Narcan.

Better been wondering.

That was real narcane.

Yeah.

Of course.

Are you okay?

We do this all the time.

We're professionals.

Yeah.

Beautiful question.

It's one per spray.

Okay.

That's the full dose.

And you push it until it goes in.

Don't push it gently.

There's no point.

You're giving the whole dose.

Yeah.

And you literally just put it in until your fingers touch.

You don't need to, this isn't a brain biopsy.

This is just getting it inside the nose.

Okay.

The other thing is, and I get asked this all the time.

Well, the patient's not breathing.

How do they sniff the Narcan?

They don't.

You saw that big mist, right?

That showed up on my shirt.

It gets absorbed into the mucous membranes.

It just gets absorbed.

They don't have to be breathing.

And literally, I've been in the tromp parking lot underneath somebody administering Narcan that was slumped over in a car.

So they can be sitting, they can be standing, they can be laying down, they can be any position, but unresponsive and poorly breathing.

And if you're wondering the way it works, is it basically takes whatever opioid is in their body and just makes it stop working.

Um so it really doesn't do anything else except reverse the effect of opioids, but that's how it works.

Um our patients try so hard.

Many of them have been wholly traumatized as children and they don't know what to do and they turn to drugs.

And we are doing our best to try to help.

So on behalf of our patients, if any of you want to carry one, thank you to Monterey PD for having a box where they can go get some for free.

Thanks, Chief.

Several boxes.

So you literally can just walk over next door and grab some.

Um, if anybody feels like they urgently need some, we brought some.

Y'all heard we're married, and we debated the whole drive over how many doses to bring, and I clearly lost the argument because we only brought 24.

But moderate PD has more.

The visitor center down by Lake El Estero has a box.

And then there's one also by the transit center where you can get it for free.

Yes, sir.

If you give it to somebody and they didn't need it, will it hurt them?

I should look around.

Did it hurt?

It did not hurt.

Can you repeat the question just for folks on the yes?

If you give someone a dose of naloxin and they didn't need it, will it hurt them?

The answer is no.

It doesn't do anything except reverse opioids.

So if you don't have opioids in your body, it does nothing.

Tastes a little bit bitter.

I've had hundreds of these over the years of training.

I'm not kidding.

And it's a little bitter.

Sorry, sorry.

We're gonna do public comments in a second.

And there's a real formal process that we have to follow just to make sure that everything is done fairly, but we are rookies, sorry.

But it's not you.

I just want to let folks in the audience know we're gonna do public comment on this.

So if anybody has questions, we'll open it up for the public to jump up on the mic and ask your question on the mic, and we'll go through that process.

Yes, uh, last thing is um it does have an expiration date.

It still works after the expiration date, so you can give it.

Um, and it also says you can't take it in a really hot or cold environment.

The good news we live in Monterey, it's always 65.

But just in case you go to King City and it's hot, if it gets too hot, it won't damage it.

It still works, it's just slightly less effective.

And to clarify, you give that first dose because there's two in the box, right?

You give that first dose, and if that person is still unresponsive and poorly breathing, you give the second dose, and you tend to give it in the other nostril if you have that wherewithal during the event.

If you give them both in the same nostril, it's okay.

You're still saving a life.

And if they're still not breathing, you might call 911, so help us on the way.

Yep.

Yeah, and that's why there's the two doses is you go one right after the other.

Um, and supposed to be a couple of minutes, two to five.

I'm not gonna ask you to look at a clock.

Absolutely not.

You're in the middle of a situation that's very stressful, and you're doing something to save someone.

Okay, I think we'll stop there.

Thank you.

Could I just ask you to take maybe another two or three minutes and just describe a little bit more of the work that you all are doing outside of going around to events like this and sharing uh narcan demonstrations.

Since you grinned enormously, do you want to go first?

I can.

I can.

Um, I mean, the reality is is the ripple effect of addiction.

The friends, the family, the children.

We're trying to bring the people together to get someone into treatment so that ripple effect becomes positive.

Right?

So we want to get people into care, want to get people into treatment um so we can help their friends, their families and their children.

Yeah, I mean, I think the best way to say it is in America, it's easier to get high than help.

And um, yeah, so Dr.

Close and I both went to UCLA for medical school.

I did residency at Stanford, Dr.

Close did residency at UCLA.

15 years of medical education between the two of us.

We got a single hour of training on addiction.

You ask most doctors what do I do?

And they have no idea.

So uh thank you to Montage Health for supporting us in becoming doctors in addiction medicine specifically.

Um, and so yes, we are trying to make it easy enough that you can just walk in and we'll get help.

So uh our office is in the old Monterey Bay Urgent Care down at 245 Washington, with our new physician starting in about two weeks, we should be able to see anybody pretty much the same day.

We take almost any insurance.

The name of our practice is Pacific Rehabilitation and Pain.

Kudos to our boss, Dr.

Del Dar for making a lot of this possible.

And then, yeah, the transitions are amazing.

Um, one of my patients today, uh, she was so proud she doesn't need me anymore.

She's 15 months sober and she has a bunny breeding business, and she's all smiles as she's a nanny, and we got her off a fentanyl, and she's a wonderful, really nice person.

Our patients are some of the nicest people.

They struggle, most of them have been traumatized.

Um, we go to a lot of schools.

Uh, we have an event coming up, I believe it's on September the 20th at Monterey High School where we'll be doing some education for parents of MPUSD.

Um, I was at a marina middle school this week giving education to the students.

Um just we're trying to get as much good information out there as we can.

Um, what I miss.

Oh, yes, go ahead.

Um, on the 20th as well is the recovery run.

Um, it's gonna be in marina, and it's literally just celebrating people that are in recovery, families that are affected, and the community as a whole, just trying to bring awareness, destigmatize this disease so we can get people into care and dream.

Sorry, broke uh still darts.

Sorry, just careful with questions, folks.

I know I appreciate it.

It's all good, it's all good.

You're good, you're good.

Yeah, um, thank you both.

Thank you, Dr.

Costang, Dr.

Grover.

Please let's give them a round of applause for coming.

And they have extra Narcans.

So if anybody wants to take them with them at this point, um actually let me turn to the council.

Does council have any questions for them?

Please.

Thank you for the demo.

I just want to further acknowledge the awesome work that you're both doing.

I attended the uh Sun Street Symposium down in Soledad uh a few weeks back, and I think you were doing the presentation there.

Uh great work to a room full of uh folks and also the information one was in Spanish.

So really appreciated that.

So great work that you're doing throughout the region, not just in our city.

So thank you.

Um Council Mr.

Smith.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Uh Deb, it's good to see you again.

Um, I just wanted to answer answer the ask the question for the public because after the administration has has been given to the individual and they revive what is a typical response because if they're giving treatment untrained, what can they expect as the person is reviving themselves?

Yeah, that's a wonderful question.

And thank you.

So as if someone is not dependent on opioids, they will wake up from this overdose event, and there's basically no symptoms or no issues.

If someone is dependent and tolerant, like their body needs opioids to feel normal, there can be some withdrawal symptoms.

The beautiful part of the nasal spray in comparison to what I did as an ER doc for 20 years of giving it IV is it's slow, and it's very it's much more gentle where people come to, so to speak.

And it's usually when the medics are arriving that people start coming around um more legitimately.

So you may notice that somebody's confused, they might be uncomfortable, they don't know what's happened to them.

Reassurance, reassurance, reassurance.

You know, I was worried about you, we're in an overdose situation.

I gave you some Narcan, the medics are on their way.

You know, that's what I and I I read every Narcan administration in Monterey San Cruz and San Benito County.

And that's that's the typical response as people start coming around as the medics get there.

Oftentimes the medics need to give more with the supply we have right now.

They're oftentimes needing to give significantly more Narcan, but it is, it's much more gradual.

Just reassure.

Yeah.

And I think the follow-up with that is don't expect that there's going to be a violent reaction when they come out of it.

It's just you're there to make sure that they get it, and you've called 911 and you stand by until 911 gets there, and you tell 911 paramedics everything you've seen, and they'll take it from there.

But it's so basic, and it's it's so ABC, and everyone should get one of these and have it in their car.

And everyone should get one of these and have it in their car, have their go bag, have it in their office.

Absolutely.

Thank you for everything you're doing.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for having us.

And thank you for your 10 talk.

All right, we have uh counsel barash who's gonna jump on the mic now.

Thank you.

I I took the training at the conference center, and I've got my naloxone in um my car, and we got it through the neighborhood uh Monterey Vista Neighborhood Association, and our president has it in his car, and I think we have a couple more uh board members of the neighborhood association that keep it in their car.

So we're ready, we're with you.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

And with that, we'll go ahead and open up for public comments.

So we'll have we'll invite folks up.

So for folks that are on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function.

Um, and then in the meantime, I'll check with the chamber.

Anybody in the chamber wishes to speak on this item, just ask you stayed up to the left of the podium.

Anyone, anybody questions?

Two over here.

Any comments on this?

So we just have the one in the chamber.

Okay, so we'll cut it off in the chamber.

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

And we have nobody on Zoom.

So we'll take this one public commenter and she'll come up to the mic here.

I I just have a detailed question.

Like, what kinds of drugs um does it react against?

You know, like you'd say opioids tiling all of coating, alcohol.

I mean, I don't know.

If you're having a party at your house and someone is unresponsive, this is something you distribute or or no, or does it matter?

So it's a really good question.

The answer is is really none of our patients know it's in their drugs.

It's one of really funny.

One of my patients was like, Dr.

Grover, my drug dealer's so unreliable.

And I was like, So, yes.

So, the amount of fentanyl that would fit in the sugar packets enough to kill 2,000 people.

And unfortunately, anything bought off the street may have fentanyl in it.

So, drugs used to have their lanes.

Opioids were one type of drug, cannabis was another, uppers were another.

It's all a big mess right now.

Some of our patients who only want drug A get exposed to fentanyl.

So if somebody's going down, we don't know, just give Narcan.

But it technically only works on opioids, but minus it being a little bitter, it didn't hurt me, and it won't hurt anyone you give it to.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Awesome.

There's a great question.

So thank you for it.

All right, with that, we'll go ahead and close public comment, bring it back to the council.

Any last minute comments?

No, thank you for your education and outreach, and please continue.

And you know how to get a hold of our professionals, anything you need.

Appreciate it.

And it looks like there's one box left.

So there's anybody that wants one on the way out.

It is all your name on it.

So question before you leave.

How do we best have some helps the the kids?

The adolescents.

When when we don't know what they're taking, they don't know what they're taking.

What's your advice?

Which adolescents?

So Dr.

Close takes care of patients in juvenile hall that are getting trafficked.

Those kids don't have a fair chance.

Yeah.

One of my patients um has a family member who's in prison for 120 years for what he did to her as a child.

Those kids don't get a fair chance.

Almost all of my patients have post-traumatic stress disorder from something that's some something bad that happened to them in their lives, and many of them lots of it.

And I think they're really the question is resources for kids to understand what they're feeling and safe things for them to do after school.

These kids are super savvy.

I go, and every time I go to a school, I learn about some new drug.

Galaxy gas, I didn't know that was until I went to a middle school last year.

It's nitrous oxide, which can be misused.

So I have to say thank you to Montage for supporting Reb and I and going to as many schools as will have us.

I think I went to 27 schools in 2024 and spoke to over 5,000 children.

And they're getting the message and they're savvy.

They know.

I think just the question is is what hurts is to see these kids that are really struggling with what they're going through.

And we help them try to pick up the pieces.

I don't know if you want to add anything.

We did that with our daughter.

You know, when she was literally, you know, four or five, we're talking about what are drugs and where you get them from and what makes something safe and what can be dangerous.

You know, that education started when she was, you know, what preschool, right?

And so primary prevention can start today, tomorrow, right?

And then as we move on, you know, we do.

We have Casey and I both have a roster full of kids that are experimenting with cannabis and with alcohol.

And I mean, I think those conversations have to start.

Casey was referencing the kids that are really struggling, and those we tease, those are mine.

Those are the kids that I try to get them safe, reconnected with whether it's family, whether it's foster care, wherever they need to go to have a safe home or a safe place.

So there's various levels, but I think what we can all do as a community is talk about it.

You know, if we pretend like it's going away and we hide from it, our kids will find it.

So we need to talk with them.

We need to make sure that my kid has this in her backpack.

No doubt about it.

She knows how to use it and why.

So just have those conversations.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I'm gonna ask one last question.

Um when I was going through grade school, it was like dare say no to drugs.

And I think that there can be a lot of perceptions from parents that you just try not to talk about it and try to shy away from it.

So um I mean, kind of expanding on that a little bit, like what's the best approach for a parent to address that conversation.

You were saying you started talking to your daughter about it when she was four or five, right?

So how do we make parents more comfortable with having those conversations?

To make a point, I'm just gonna see if I can buy fentanyl online while we're talking, because it's that easy to do.

Yeah.

Fentanyl.

Don't give me in trouble, Chief.

Please take notes from an international company.

Okay, so I found it in one Google search that I can buy some form of fentanyl online.

So the issue is is that with the advent of the internet, let's remember that we are not giving our children access to the internet.

We are giving the internet access to our children.

So if we don't talk about it, they can find it.

And unfortunately, most of my teens that use either alcohol, cannabis, or nicotine have an adult targeting them on social media to deal with them.

So, yes, I'm 41 years old.

This was not a problem when I was in elementary school.

It is now something that our children face.

And when I go to the schools, I apologize to those kids that they have a different, tougher world than I did.

Well, thank you both again for coming.

This is clearly why we uh invited them.

Um thank you for all the work that you're doing for our community.

And um, until next time.

You all okay.

All right.

With that, we will get to our public appearance item number 13 on the agenda is to select strategies to use to reduce the to reduce the city's 10 million dollar structural annual budget deficit.

Um with that, I'll pass to Hans for staff presentation.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Mayor and Council.

This is a continuation of our study session that we had last week, Wednesday, when we introduced um various deficit reduction strategies.

As we pointed out, the city is facing a 10 million dollar deficit uh or has faced a 10 million deficit uh this fiscal year, fiscal year 2526.

Uh we we we shared with you that we had the um uh yeah, I apologize.

I was okay, good.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Uh so I we shared with the council uh last time that we have um a 10 million dollar deficit and that for this fiscal year FY2526.

We um had some um strategies in place that helped us balance the budget, but uh we cannot continue using those uh safety measures that we applied this year on and forward on ongoing basis and going forward.

Um we need some directions.

Council during the budget process discussed um a few of those measures uh that we have to launch um uh sooner than later.

And I speak specifically here about the tax measures that uh that council uh discussed in June and also briefly last week, Wednesday, uh, because there are uh certain processes and procedures we have to follow.

So tonight I hope that we get some direction and clarity about um uh some of them measure PS is one of them that is on the forefront of my mind right now to get directions on that.

And um we we ask council to uh take uh homework assignment with them and um all the different budget deficit reduction strategy we had put into uh an index card format, and and we ask you to uh take them home, work with them, and please come back with a reduction strategies that is at least 10 million dollars for us to work with and find out more.

We received also a good deal of public comments uh over the past couple of days.

Um, and I I was uh um uh looking at all of them, and I was pleasantly surprised how um the community is is understanding uh the the challenge and then is embracing um this um task ahead and uh coming up also with various um suggestions and statements about various uh items that that we bring forward.

So tonight it's it's it's a continuation to to hear what the council wants staff to further explore.

It's not really um a big uh decision-making night where we all decide what we want to do and that's it for today.

It it's it's it's continues to be basically a starting point.

But as we wrote in the uh agenda report, the runway for some of those measures, uh especially potentially tax measures, is rather short, and then we would really hear from you and also from the community what uh what uh what you think about um some of those.

Um tonight we we have a very very uh condensed uh presentation.

We're not going over all the index cards again because we we did this uh just a week ago, and they are also part of the agenda package.

And uh, but what we are doing is we are we are um going in in uh into details with you and uh want to hear from the public as well about how we should progress.

And I think we also have uh uh a very rudimentary vision about the next steps after tonight's session.

And so with that, I lead I give it back to our assistant city manager Ned Roshanasatira to continue with the briefing for tonight.

Great.

Thank you very much, Hans.

Uh good evening, Mayor and Council.

We wanted to, as Hans mentioned, uh, we will go through the strategies very briefly, just uh share one slide that lists all the reduction strategies.

Uh then uh we will also provide some highlights on their questions as well as some of the additional ideas that were provided by members of the public at our meeting last week on Wednesday, August 27th.

Uh, what we'll then do is uh gather additional public comment tonight so that you'll have an opportunity to hear from members of the public.

Perhaps adjust uh your yes, no, and maybe piles if you so wish, and then uh we'll take a monitor five, take a brief break, collect your cards, we'll tally them up and then present uh the results uh to all of you.

This will be an opportunity for us to gather the feedback and then uh go through each of the items and we'll identify what's what are the yes strategies that we can move forward and at least start the process to begin implementation, which ones may need additional discussion through the maybe pile strategies, the no's, and then uh, and then we'll talk about what what's to come.

So uh that's what we're planning to outline.

As we look at the strategies, and just a brief recap because we won't go through each of the cards, but um the first set of green cards that directly impact our budget and is a direct strategy to reduce the 10 million dollar structural deficit.

The first one is to reappropriate NCIP funds to the general fund that has a six million dollar up to six million dollar valuation.

Use existing attrition for salary savings is card number six.

Creating the first responder fee program is card number seven.

Optimizing the veterans park campground is card number nine.

Changing government access providers is card number 10.

Reducing property maintenance costs is card number 11.

Discontinuing act approvals is card number 12.

Increasing the sales tax by 0.375% is card number 13.

Admissions tax is card number 14 vacancy tax is card number 15.

Parking tax is card number 16, streaming tax is card number 17.

Updating the rural property transfer tax is card number 18.

Partnerships and contracts for service is card number 19.

Payments in lieu of taxes, also known as pilots is card number 20.

We now move on to the yellow cards, and these are strategies that indirectly address the 10 million dollar deficit, but also have a benefit to the city financially.

And that starts with card number 21.

This is the central public safety building bond measure.

Card number 22, renewing measure P and S.

Card number 23, selling underutilized city properties.

Card number 24, renewing measure G.

Card number 25, updating stormwater fees.

Card number 26, implementing the parking fee strategy.

Card number 27, adjusting rent on the aquarium lease.

Card 28, defunding non-priority NCIP projects.

Card number 29, charter amendment for the visitor accommodation facilities.

So those are the cards.

Some of the public comments and suggestions from last week that aren't listed here as part of your cart exercise.

Member of the public suggested increasing transient occupancy tax, also known as hotel tax.

That would generate $2.975 million per year based on each 1% increase.

Another suggestion was to generate TOT revenue, hotel tax revenue by allowing short-term rentals, also known as STRs.

And that exact revenue would depend on the number and the locations of STRs.

We reached out to our friends in the city of Pacific Grove, and their regulated STRs generate generate approximately 1.36 million dollars, just as a frame of reference.

There was one suggestion to focus on economic growth and strategies in the North Fremont business corridor.

And we like to point out to council and remind council that we presented the draft economic development strategy in March and specifically address prioritizing economic growth in all of our business districts and corridors, including the North Fremont Business District.

There was another suggestion to increase parking revenues in twist heavy areas while providing resident parking discounts.

And this is part of parking strategies card number 26.

Another suggestion was to prioritize the sale of city property to entities that would generate taxes.

And this would be part of the sell underutilized property card number 23.

And then last but not least, uh, there was a public comment or suggestion on limiting retiree health benefits to the minimum required by law.

And uh to remind council, the city of Monray does not provide retiree health benefits to employees.

There were a couple of questions that were outstanding from all of you as our council members.

Uh there was a question about what are the annual estimates on NCIP spending.

And this chart shows you what the gap is between funding and then our ability to deliver projects.

We talked a little bit last week about the challenge with hiring of engineers and being able to deliver projects given the sheer volume of projects that are needed to be completed.

We can zoom in a little bit and see the uh fiscal years 2010 through 2015.

The funding slightly exceeded expenditures.

And then you can ignore fiscal year 2020, that was in 2021, that was the COVID uh year, so that was uh a fluke where we had uh drop in NCIP funding and uh and revenues uh came in, and then we reappropriated that.

Uh but you can see the last five years, we've had a significant gap, and the gap continues to grow between our ability to deliver projects and uh the funding that we receive.

So that that's uh to answer one question from one of our council members.

There were other questions.

How would uh attrition work?

What positions would not be filled?

The short answer is that it depends.

It depends on the position, depends on who would leave the organization based on attrition.

We would then identify whether that's a position that could be filled in another way with existing staff, or is there another option for us to be able to deliver that service or modify that service delivery?

There was another question about how much general fund revenues would come in from or currently come in from visitors compared to locals.

And when you look at the direct revenue from non-residents, it's mainly TOT as well as the majority of uh more than more than half of uh sales tax revenue.

And when we account for both of those combined, it's about 35% of our general fund budget.

As a reminder, that does not include the neighborhood and community improvement program, NCIP, which technically comes to the city and then is separated into two different funds.

One is general fund, and then the 16% of TOT goes into the NCIP fund separately from general fund.

So the 35% does not include the 16% of TOT.

And then uh the other question was is there a list of city properties that could be sold?

And and for purposes of this exercise, uh, one to let you know also the full list is being refined.

But for this exercise, card number 11 and number 23, it includes estimates from Vasquez Adobe, includes uh Gordon House, Casanova Oakmill Park Center, Archer Center, Ketchum House, the Harbor Yard, and as well as the first French consulate for purposes of the exercise.

So those were the remaining questions from last week that we received from all of you.

And for the remainder of the evening, as a reminder, we'll uh we suggest to council uh to take public comment, then we'll receive uh feedback or receive the cards from all of you after that, take a break, and then identify what is in the yes, what's in the maybe, what's in the no pile.

We're then also able to identify what are short-term, midterm, and long-term strategies so that we can see where they all fall in and what's in the yes, what might be in the yes and maybe for more information for discussion, and it'll be an iterative process for us tonight.

Awesome.

Thank you, Nat and Hans for the presentation.

Um, if council's good with it, we'll let's just go out to the public.

Um, let's hear from them.

We can do the card exercise, and then we can get into some of the specifics around the policies from there.

What about our questions, though?

Well, when we come back after the card exercise.

Does that work?

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

So with that, we'll go ahead and open it up for public comment.

So for folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function.

In the meantime, we'll check in the chamber.

Anybody in the chamber wishes speak on this item, just ask that you stand up to the left of the podium.

If you want to remain seated, just hold tight for a second.

I'll ask for hands here once everybody gets situated.

So you don't need to keep your hand up right now if you if you want to remain seated.

Almost got a card system we can hand out.

I know.

We had cards we can hand out, then they could just sit down and we could sort of, you know, big cards.

That'd be nice, and like a group of five.

You're next up, your next uh that might be too confusing there for right now.

Big things.

Well, we we could we could actually could we do that?

Yeah, that might make it easier.

The first six stand up and everybody else sit down.

You want to give them.

Yeah, bigger.

Probably five or six, let's see how many we have on time.

Yes, and it's not through Cal.

At least let me do a count first, then I'll ask the council.

No, I know no, no, no, for sure.

Anybody okay?

So if I count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, and then folks that are still sitting still, 24, 25, 26, 27.

I got 27 in the chamber.

Somebody verify that for me.

I got 26, but we're pretty close.

Marco is the last one and sending as the night.

Uh uh.

And you're the last one.

Mark will be the last speaker.

Okay.

There you go.

All right, I got 26 after I did my recount.

Um, so are we remembering the folks that are sitting?

Just want to make sure we got that.

Okay.

All right.

So we'll go ahead and cut it off for folks in the chamber, and then we'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one.

Eleven.

We have 11 on Zoom, so that's 37.

Council, how long do you think?

Um, I I'm okay with two minutes.

Yeah, I'm okay.

Two minutes per minutes.

Okay.

So we'll do two minutes per speaker.

It seems like we have a consensus from the council.

Are we ready to go?

Yeah.

Perfect.

All right, we'll start in the chamber.

Very easy.

Good evening.

I'm here to encourage you to dismiss the possibility of eliminating the Mills Act.

The Mills Act helps protect Monterey's cultural heritage and contributes to tourism, neighborhood revitalization, and community pride.

When properties are properly maintained and rehabilitated according to preservation standards, it maintains the city's character and rich history for future generations.

These properties enhance the charm and historical integrity that attracts visitors, which are a major source of Monterey income, and home buyers who are willing to make a commitment to preserve the unique landmark communities of our beautiful city.

Elimination of this worthwhile program would only result in a 0.2% change in the budget.

Why not instead you focus on revenue sources, such as renting the long empty and deteriorating OCO Theater property, the Portola Plaza property, empty wharf property, and the Ford Ord property.

There are many ways to economize in a budget of 17.3 million dollars without chancing the loss of our irreplaceable historic homes.

Thank you.

Hi.

I'm Tamara Chavez, and I'm a 30-year retired veteran.

And I moved here about 10 years ago.

There's a lot of reasons I moved here, and the community was a big one.

I like my community.

I know my neighbors, I'm in Kona.

So when I heard about the community park on the chopping block, potentially, uh resource center for kids, a meeting place for the community.

What is the value of our community versus other things in the community and the city?

We're at Monterey is less than nine square miles with 28,000 population.

I find it difficult to believe that with our strong history, we cannot come up with reasonable solutions that places more value on one thing than the other.

Secondly, the impact of the uh fairgrounds parking on all communities.

Uh revenue source could potentially be using um working revenue, building a parking structure.

I know that's money out, but it's also money in long term.

Also decreases the impact on our communities, all surrounding uh our neighborhood.

So I guess really that's all I have to say, and I want to thank you for giving us the time to speak.

Thank you.

My comments tonight pretty much fall in line with uh people who've already spoken this evening.

As you weighed difficult budget decisions, I ask you to pause and recognize that many of the proposed deficit reduction strategies disproportionately affect parks and recreation.

At least four, maybe five strategies are directly tied to parks and recreation services, including veterans park campground, pausing youth and senior programs, reappropriating NCIP funds, and even closing community buildings.

These reductions would shrink capacity at pre at precisely the time when residents are asking for more opportunities to reconnect after the pandemic.

As a father who has utilized parks and recreation facilities and programs for my children, and as someone who's parks and recreation programs in my youth, parks and recreation is not an extra.

It is essential to communities.

Families depend on safe spaces, seniors rely on social programs, and our youth needs positive outlets and programs.

We are fortunate to have parks within walking distance of nearly every home, but facilities that were utilized or that are utilized and overdue for repair before COVID are still waiting.

And now they're on the chopping block.

Families want to participate in programs, but often the offerings and communication don't align with the demand.

That is not a reason to cut.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's uh okay.

The top part's more important than the bottom.

Okay.

I don't know if you can see that or not.

But um, so uh the I I'm a realtor.

My name is Genie Ferrara, I work for Cobble Banker.

Um, the median price of a single family home in Monterey County is a million dollars.

Uh property taxes are 1.1% of the purchase price.

So on an average uh median home uh of one million, that's 11,000 in property taxes.

MPUSD gets 61% of those property taxes.

That's $6,710.

Add measure uh I of 110 million, measure P of 213 million, add measure A of 340 million, and that is that adds an annual uh 1,016.

Um so MPUSD annual income for property taxes on one single family residential home is $7,726.

Most homeowners uh don't have children attending K through 12 grades, but we have to pay it anyway.

People retire here.

Um this doesn't include the 2024 Prop 2 statewide 8.5 billion.

The City of Monterey gets 6% of property taxes annually, $660.

What is wrong with this picture?

Can't you guys get some of that money?

Uh okay.

So um please, please do not cut NCIP uh funds.

Uh this past year we use them for fuel reduction and undergrounding.

Um as a realtor, I've been a realtor for 20 years.

We already have 1.1% county transfer tax.

There is no city transfer tax.

So I don't know where you're getting the point 275 figure.

Um, please don't increase sale tax and a five percent increase on the admission tax of the aquarium.

I don't think it will hurt them at all.

I think that's all I have to say.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you.

Council, Mr.

Mayor, quickly, Mike Brashville again, Cona.

We ask that we get support from particularly from Mr.

Garcia to keep the Connor Center.

The last five and a half years, the city has disenfranchised our center.

We've only had to use it, I got to use it a couple of times.

But now we have a lady that wants to come in and rent it to do a business there, and you guys want to pull it.

We ask that you reconsider that.

That has been a center created by the sweat of the neighbors for our center and for our support for CERT.

To do away with it is gonna really hurt us bad.

I understand that budget time is a difficult prospect for all of us.

Trying to figure out what we can do and what we can't do, and save enough money to run the is a business.

And I don't believe this is going to be a one-year 10 million dollars.

You also have a lot of principal costs or facilities you got an impossible situation that's tough.

I understand that.

But we ask Mr.

Garcia to lead the fight to keep our center.

We are hurting already because we haven't had it.

We used to give away food in barbecues and other events that was us, that was Kona.

That wasn't the city of Monterey.

It was the help of Mr.

Smith.

But we can't do that anymore.

And now you're taking away the option.

It was also used for a lot of events that even people of this council used in the past.

So we asked for that support.

And I know it's it's just one item, but that's what we asked for as the lowest economic portion of the we don't see a medium cost of a million dollars for our homes.

Thank you.

First of all, I want to thank all of you.

It's not easy to be on a board.

I've been on a few of them.

You got to do a lot of listening and a lot of studying, and you've got to have a lot of patience and you want to make the best decision.

So I thank each and every one of you for doing this difficult work.

Um I have lived in the Casanova Oaknoll um neighborhood for 24 years.

I raised two children there, and I had the fortunate profession of working for MPUSD and teaching for 35 years on this peninsula.

I have gone over all those strategies to reduce the 10 million dollar deficit.

I looked at the green and the yellow index cards, yes, like and babies.

And I am also speaking out about number 23.

Um our community center.

Um the city requested that, oh dear, requested that community center 40 years ago, and it was to bring our community together since COVID.

It has been closed.

It was a preschool, it was an after school program.

It was a meeting place, it had barbecues, it had films, it had picnics, it is the place of our community emergent emergency response team.

And I and many of us are trying to get things going again in our neighborhood, and this is part of it.

And I just beg you to be helpful to us about that.

Um, you know, so many people are lonely, and we need to connect to people.

Um, Laguna Grande, Via Del Monte, uh, Del Monte, um, the neighborhoods around us, they don't have a community center.

We're the community center there.

So let's let's please support us in building community again where we are.

And there are a lot of students.

There are 9,000 students in MPUSD, and we can help them there.

And I hope Gino, you you are listening.

Thank you.

Good evening, uh Cheslinovska.

Also I'm sorry, real quick.

Okay, I'll probably just reset.

So I've just asked for folks not to shout out during um public comment.

So let's just be respectful for the folks that are coming up and speaking at the mic.

Just want to make sure that everything is fair.

Because if we allow one person to do it, then anybody else can do it.

So I just want to make sure that we're staying consistent.

So we'll go ahead and go back to our public speaker.

Great.

Chelsea Linovska, uh resident of the Casanova Oaknell neighborhood association.

Uh, first of all, thank you to the staff for putting the other presentation.

It was very thorough with all the cards.

There's a lot of good options here that I think for pros that the council consider.

On one of the major cons, you've heard it a couple of times, and I'll just reiterate it here.

Card number 23, selling underutilized property.

The unutilized property uh term that already is coined there is kind of an interesting one in itself.

One of the locations noted, not even our own park center in Casanova Oaknell is Archer Center, right?

Which we know first night Monterey operates out of.

And we also know that that is a program that the city council is considering not supporting um funding for future years.

I think that that would be a disservice to all of Monterey.

So besides our park center in Casanova Oaknell, which yes, it has been quote, underutilized in recent years, but that does not necessarily say what the future for that center could be.

You also have a place that is being used and then supports the entire community at a lively event that we get people coming in, not just residents that have a cohesion cohesiveness, but also outsiders that come to our first night event.

Earlier today, I thought it was actually really interesting because we had a presentation on Narcon Narcan, right?

And how one of the things our youth need is safe spaces and things to do after school.

Our park centers that exist can become that.

We know that there is a dearth in our community of those spaces because we had a presentation from our parks commission about opening a potential Montecito Park Center.

Great idea, but we have a park center currently.

I understand it's smaller.

I understand parking and restriction.

But if we have an opportunity where entities like Boys and Girls Club are willing to, you know, put in resources for a new property in space.

Is there an opportunity similarly for some of these other properties?

Are there more creative ways where we're not just getting a short influx of cash by selling the property, but by entering public-private partnerships, um, leasing, you know, these spaces under terms allocated and put forth by the city so that we can utilize them to their best hopeful future while also still getting a long-term influx of cash.

I think there's more creative options here than just selling things and saying they're underutilized, they're blighted, let them go.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor, Council members, city staff, Kevin Ellis uh here speaking on behalf of the Monterey County Hospitality Association, but I also uh run the Hyatt Regency Monterey.

And I want to just uh speak to uh the transient occupancy tax increase and any proposed increase with that tax.

And I know this group is well aware of the revenue it generates for the city and some of the benefits that it does bring.

It would be difficult for me to speak today on behalf of my ability to gauge any business impact on raising that transient occupancy tax when it comes to our leisure guests.

I can tell you with my advantage when it comes to group business, specifically in the first and fourth quarters, that is a real disadvantage for us as a destination and the importance of that group business coming in, filling facilities like the conference center, the hotels downtown, the hotels of Monterey, and the benefits that it brings to us year round, not just necessarily in the summer months.

So again, I hope um I hope that'll be considered when we're making these decisions.

I know it's an impossible position that seemingly we're in, but we're based on the crowd today, obviously, a lot of community support and finding the right answer, but I share that as a precautionary tale as somebody who sees firsthand some of the challenges we have as a destination as far as attracting group business to this market in January, February, March, November, and onwards.

So thank you very much for your time.

Good evening, Mayor and Senior Council members.

My name is John Turner.

I'm general manager of the Intercontinental on Canary Row, but I also chair the Conference Center Advisory Board and the Tourism Improvement District Advisory Board as well.

And I'm going to echo some of what Kevin already said.

It's counterintuitive, but raising the TOT is actually going to backfire.

And in particular, the properties that are really going to be impacted and will be at the biggest competitive disadvantage are the two properties that are adjacent to the conference center, because they are already paying a higher percentage because the CCFD, which I can get into more details if people would like.

Well, there's going to be well over a thousand new room nights that are going to be, I'm sorry, a thousand new rooms, excuse me, that are going to be coming in very soon in the next couple of years.

And if we don't play our cards right, you're going to hear the sucking sound of revenue and tax go to other destinations.

And that will not enable us to be competitive in the future.

So thank you for considering that.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor Council members, thank you for having the public forum like this.

Uh Ron Beck.

We'll let Mike right real close to your dog.

I'm uh my name's Ron Beck.

I'm a local resident.

I've worked for the last six, seven, eight years with uh first night Monterey.

It's uh I'm here saying that's one event that shouldn't be cut.

The uh the expenditure on that is well, in the realm of city stuff, fairly minor.

But I would think that the revenue that it brings in from hotels, uh restaurants, just people coming in and just having a good time.

Uh, first time I attended a uh first night was in Boston, and it was it was kind of amazing.

Everybody's out in the street, they're having a good time, there's stuff going on.

And when I first got involved here in Monterey, this is a great thing.

The streets are packed with people.

There's I haven't seen there be any problems.

Uh it's getting people out of the out of their houses.

It's bringing people in because I've spoken to people from the Bay Area.

So they're coming in, they spend the night, they have you know their food.

Uh same thing in the morning, get some some breakfast and head back out.

It's just culturally, it's it's a good thing.

It's I don't know how to put it.

It's just bringing people together.

I think that's what Monterey is about.

Thank you.

Good evening, uh Mayor Williamson, City Council people.

Um, I have some comments to make about the list of 24 items.

Some of them are impersonal and don't directly affect people.

People in the council chambers, people who are employees of the city, people who volunteer in civic volunteer positions.

Of the impersonal ones, the sales tax, admission tax, and vacancy tax, total 10 million dollars.

Yay.

Of the personal impact ones, I'm going out on a limb and say this is a real public relations disaster.

Um, the NCIP, the neighborhood improvement program is the lifeblood of Monterey.

This is the eyes and ears on every neighborhood.

They know everything that's going on and everything that could be done.

And I think most of them are here tonight.

Um why would you choose them to be impacted?

Uh the Mills Act.

This is a contract that people who have agreed to uphold the historicity of the city, um, have signed for, signed up for, and to rescind it at this point is well, changing the rules in the middle of the game.

But the other one that really bothers me on a personal level is the personal attract personnel attrition, the reduced budget position.

It's difficult to hire people in Monterey.

This is not a city, this is full of 30 to 50 year olds who are earning a living.

This is a city where most of the people, half of the people are either retired or they're transient.

They're here for three years and then they move out.

So getting good employees to come here and stay, it's difficult.

So, right away, this impacts the staff and the people who work here.

These three personal items, I think are public relations uh disaster.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Williamson and City Council members.

Thank you all so much for your leadership and this opportunity to speak to you today.

My name is Palette Mench, and I'm here today as the founder and first executive director of First Night Monterey.

And I'm so grateful to some of the previous speakers who addressed that as well.

So today I ask you to approve their current request to help cover some of the production costs this year.

In 1983, I came to Monterey from Boston, where First Night was founded and still flourishes today.

Over the years, I was more and more enthralled by their triple impact.

People of all ages excited to participate.

And many of you have seen that in action.

Communities connecting who may not have any other frame of reference together, connecting with greater appreciation for each other as they move through the whole celebration.

And everyone starting their next year with great joy and even greater hope.

By 1992, I became obsessed with bringing that magic to Monterey, a city with just the right elements for success, the rich cultural heritage, a compact footprints, the array of talented artists, they're all here.

And they're still here today, and still uh doing great things for our communities all over the Central Coast.

When my husband Ken Peterson and I began to establish First Night here, we realized we had everything that we needed here to make it a great success.

The talent, the ideas, the expertise, determination, all here.

Great venues, beautifully placed uh around the central city core and generous donors.

But most critical of all, we had the full support of the city of Monterey right from the start.

We wouldn't have started at all if we couldn't.

So as a Monterey resident and taxpaying taxpaying homeowner, I just ask you and urge you to approve First Night Monterey's current budget request this year.

Thank you.

Mayor, Council membersman Ken Peterson, as Paulette mentioned.

I'm one of the co-founders of First Night started in our back bedroom in the Aguajito Oaks neighborhood.

Um I want to ask you as you're looking at all the choices in front of you to prioritize things that connect us as a community, bring us closer together at a time.

And there's so many forces in society from an online culture to the political environment that are pulling us apart.

First night has been one of the events that has reinforced the identity of Monterey as the place people come together and celebrate and deepen their connections with one another.

It makes us not just a place to live, but a community.

And city support has been essential to this success, so that this small nonprofit organization, volunteer run for the most part, has been able to deliver transformative experiences for three decades that have changed people's lives.

I can't tell you how many people over the years have told me that the reason they stayed in Monterey or came to Monterey was to celebrate first night, a family celebration, not centering alcohol, it's alcohol-free.

You heard about the problems with the substance abuse uh earlier.

Um, they come back year after year because of that good feeling.

Your predecessors on the council reflected on how Monterey has always been the place people come together for major events.

And I know I've seen many of you there over the years.

You've helped First Night with that steadfast support.

The allocation of 35,000 per year that's in the pause category amounts to 35 100ths of a percent of the overall city budget and one-third of a percent of the deficit you're trying to close.

Maintaining the support for first night will have an outsize impact on the organization on its ability to deliver an experience, and I encourage you to continue to support things that build us up as a community, not isolate us.

Thank you.

And my wife Anna McDowell and I have volunteer for over 20 years for First Night.

And the impact of this event in our community is so special.

It's so personal.

Watching people from all generations from different uh age groups, uh, ethnic persuasions to come together is really magnificent.

It really defines who we are.

Many venues that offer music, dance, hands-on experiences for the attendance.

It gives them abundance of choices that would enrich their experience.

The city funding for first night Monterey is an important and vital component of his annual budget.

Events like this take funding from many sources.

The city support is critical.

The event will start here in Monterey 33 years ago.

I have about 30 of those of the buttons on.

And it and even more good contribution for the city was as earlier just described.

I implore you to keep this tradition.

It really defines who we are.

It highlights how good we are.

Thank you.

The real question is which one is your favorite?

No comment.

He loves all his children.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council members, city manager, assistant, city manager, and staff.

My name's Ellen Martin, and I'm the executive director at First Night Monterey for almost 20 years.

I can't believe it.

Every year I say never again.

And then the celebration starts, the joy, the happiness, the families that are together.

I'm a big concert, event, festival person, and I have never experienced in my lifetime what I experienced at first night with families together, happy, joyful.

And you know, every year that when we start selling the buttons, it's out of the country that usually has been waiting to buy those buttons.

Um, but I want to begin by recognizing that there it's very serious, your 10 million dollar deficit that you're facing, and that these are challenging times.

What?

One minute.

Okay.

One minute is a started.

Anyway, I'm here to urge you not to pause and not to stop funding first night.

Um, you know, when you fund us, others fund us, others donate to us.

And I just wonder what would happen if they don't see the confidence of the city uh funding us.

Um and you know, the city support isn't a one-way street.

First night pays the city for the conference center, the police, the public works, traffic management.

So that 35,000, it's comes back in 15, 20, 25,000.

And First Night has a great uh media campaign.

We promote Monterey to the fullest all over.

And we see people coming from the Bay Area.

Um, you know, we pay our artists, we contribute to the cultural economy.

We celebrate our diversity, we showcase our cultural practices, and we thank you for your past support.

That's it.

Happy New Year.

Sorry about that.

Thank you.

Hello, Mayor and uh council members.

Um, Bob Buluth, I'm a Monterey resident.

And I'd like you to really, when you're rocking and stacking, think about what we need to put on the ballot initiatives.

I mean, that's coming up really quick.

And so measure S, Measure B, decide sales tax or uh increasing um like or starting a new occupancy tax or increasing the um tax for property transfers.

These are things that we need to think about how we're gonna sell to the voters and put a cohesive plan together to make progress on those ideas first.

Because if we don't, we're not gonna be able to act on them in time to help uh solve some of the budget issues.

Um, I think that's an issue to look at.

There's been a number of comments made on it, and trying to think of something I can add is only that there's about 63 homes, but think of all the effort that went into those uh Mills Act and H2 status projects for those homes.

I mean, you've got uh each uh you have HBC meeting, you have uh architect, uh you have a planning commission meeting, city council meeting.

It's like 180 meetings of people's time to put into coming up with why we wanted to go ahead and put that process ahead.

And I'm sure that the city had a great idea going back 25 years to make that process, something that was going to be important for the city.

So I think that deserves some historical perspective on why it's an important part of uh why Monterey is Monterey and how it's a historic uh city and deserves the recognition that we can give any part of the properties to uh have tourists look at them and participate in our city.

Thank you.

Good evening, council.

I'm here tonight to talk about something um look to look at the problem, the financial problems here from a slightly different point of view, and that is looking at the overall health health of the city by using a an index that's called uh social capital.

I met a guy up at Veterans Park who studied this from Denmark, and obviously the Scandinavian countries rate very high, and basically social capital is um rated by how well people in a in a neighborhood in a town, city, or state, or even in a country, how well they collaborate, how well they respect and trust each other, and how well um they they get people involved towards the well being of the social well being of the whole community.

And I think that's something that we should really, when making these decisions, we really need to look at is how well our community as a whole works together.

And that's where I think things like first night, but also NCIP really comes in.

This is where I think a lot of people are involved.

It's these people that if you cancel programs like we did during COVID, all these people start not trusting anymore, start not believing.

If you cancel existing existing projects uh without really discussing with people, it's breaking down the social capital.

And this is an index we should really keep our eye on and keep make sure our decisions raise the social capital, get us involved, get us working together rather than um as was pointed out, tearing us apart.

So please think about those involvements as you're making your financial decisions, raising the number social capital, and there's a lot of research you can do online on looking at that index.

Thank you very much.

Hi, I'm Nancy Soule.

And uh I I echo what Hans just said about the social capital.

It's an interesting concept, but I see it so much how important Monterey is our cultural heritage, our historic heritage.

It's what draws people here.

We came from the Bay Area.

Gary and I worked in there in mortgages in the Bay Area for 35 years, and every weekend everybody's comparing notes.

What are we doing?

We're all going to the Monterey Peninsula.

What are we going to do?

And it's our cultural traditions, it's our historical uh part.

It's these we always have the who are we gonna accept for our our our people to come to first night or all these other things.

But I also want to speak to the Mills Act.

Um, we are in the historic district.

We in Old Town actually put together a an old town historic walking tour.

It's online, it connects to the path of history, the city's historic path.

And we often get people because each mills act home has a plaque, which gives in a few words the importance of the people who lived there or the architecture to the cultural context of our city.

Uh, but they look at that, and I often will come out and say, Oh, are you aware that we also have this online?

And you can get a lot more information about these interesting people.

See pictures of who lived here, see what they did, see how important they were.

And it's these kinds of things that bring people back to Monterey instead of going traditionally to Carmel for the weekend.

We want them to stay here.

And we have seen people take our, it's a it's an actual loop connects to the loop of the cities.

It's important to keep the Mills Act and to keep people to have the means.

It's a much more expensive rehabilitation process to take a house and make it Mills Act.

But it's important to the city, it's important to the community.

Thank you.

Hello, mayor, city council staff.

My name is Monica Lalal.

Uh I'm speaking on behalf of the Monterey Peninsula Chamber of Commerce.

I also am a resident and homeowner in the city of Monterey and a lifelong uh resident here.

Uh, thank you for the difficult work of looking at the fiscal um future for Monterey in a in a long-term serious way.

Uh, you're exploring difficult options and presenting different ideas.

Uh, it's hard to look at things that have been untouchable, uh, but it's the responsible thing, in our opinion, even though it's challenging and we respect that you're hearing voices in opposition.

Um, and for uh I we have looked at um number 29.

That's a new option to uh look at the charter to possibly look at economic development uh as much as we want to have um and maintain the culture of the city.

There are areas of opportunity, and we appreciate exploring these because we need economic development and economic vibrancy.

We would like to see our vision is of young families here, jobs, support for public schools.

Having grown up here, it was a full economy.

Things leave, but if we don't create opportunities with the plan, it will become a retirement community, and that is not our vision.

So thank you for your time.

She's you know.

Hi, my name is Tuppman's Cabot.

I live in the Kona area.

And that is setting us back.

To then take away our center, also is to double attack us.

There has to be another answer.

I understand your budget, I understand your problems, and I haven't given as much thought as I should, and we all should, but taking away the community center, we'll never get another one.

And one of the joys of living in Monterey is the NICP, which does wonderful work around the city and has accomplished things that others would not have done.

That's important.

That's important to all of us.

To go to a center, I came from I hate to say this in public.

So before that, I lived in Montecito.

I grew up in Montecito, so a little detour there.

But this place has um other people have all spoken more than I could about the joys of being in Monterey.

And one of the things is the ambience and the feeling that you come here and you're part of something.

That's important.

You take away our community center.

We'll never get another one.

But after you take ours, what do you do?

Take one every couple years.

That can't be the answer.

The answer has to lie somewhere else.

I'm curious about the MIIS property.

I don't know if they rent it, if the city owns it, or who owns it, but I think that could be an interesting project right there because I read on my iPad that they're leaving.

So that property is going to be available.

Again, I don't know the background of the property and who owns it.

That's about all I have to say.

Um, it's a joy to live here in Monterey, and um I appreciate all of you, appreciate everyone.

Thank you.

So thank you very much for this opportunity, Mike.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for paying attention and listening to all these public comments.

It's a busy night.

And you can hear me, okay, right?

Okay.

Well, a lot of the debt reduction strategies have been proposed.

I'm glad we're still in the deciding phase rather than the final decisions.

The city has a spending problem, and I don't believe selling any city properties are a long-term solution.

I am all for supporting um nonprofit organizations, but when you are this much over budget, we have to think about if we can afford all of the city's charitable charitable efforts.

Your citizens should come first.

Um I learned that the Archer Center, it's a community center, it's been closed for 20 years.

Why isn't that on the list for being sold?

I understand that we get a dollar a year for first night storage, nothing against first night.

I love first night, but we um that is underutilized completely, and we're not getting any money for that.

I understand that we're not getting property taxes for the aquarium for a lot of nonprofit organizations, montage and stuff.

Why can't we get some taxes from them?

Um if you were to pull the neighbors in the Casanova Okno neighborhood, which Gino's a member of that.

95% of those people would say, please don't sell our community center.

It's very important that we keep it.

It's the only center that's on the North Fremont side of the city.

I know that by taking some NCIP funds, they want to open another center, but let's keep ours open instead.

We um one monterey neighborhood has three centers.

We need this on the other side of North Green.

Excuse me, I'm a nervous speaker, so I start to get a rattly voice.

We've had barbecues, movie nights, preschool, after school programs.

We the rec department even had a meeting trying to find out what we could do to have more activities.

It was a great meeting, and they only came up with senior bingo that nobody came to.

We can do better than that.

So thank you very much.

This thing gonna reach me.

I've been here six years now, and it's uh it's gone by pretty quickly.

Uh when I did arrive, uh Monterey County itself was a destination that was around 75%.

Uh, we're really pushing hard today to get back to 65%.

Um we uh, as Kevin mentioned earlier today, um uh I would really like to speak out and and ask you not to consider raising any TOT.

It creates more uh competition for us in our own community.

Uh we have competition opening in Pacific Grove.

We have competition opening in Seaside.

Uh we have competition.

I'm sorry, in San City.

Uh there's a property slated for um marina.

Uh this is real competition.

We don't need to create it within um that 10% we're gonna go after.

We're gonna continue to battle, as you all know on the councils that you sit on, we battle for that uh with group business.

Uh we could do that together collaboratively uh with C Monterey.

Um we can do that to to to make that fill that gap.

And if we fill that gap, that's where we're gonna be able to produce um more uh revenue for the city.

And it's not going to come through increasing uh the TOT, which will only uh create um more of a uh a deficit for us.

Thank you.

Chris back down again.

Tall short, tall short.

Uh good evening.

My name is Carol Travajan.

I am a Monterey resident and business owner.

Um, I'd like to address two things.

Number one, measure S.

I strongly support.

I think you know that this the renewal of measure S.

It will not only reduce but basically eliminate the need for work on street storm grains and sidewalks.

And I reiterate what I said.

I think in March is I invite you, I would be happy to sponsor a tour, Brown Act, acceptable that of the city for you to see the city segments that still need a lot of work, and that um we don't want to have to be responsible for.

I mean, that again lately.

Aguajito Road.

Oh my God.

I mean, I'm surprised we haven't had people with flat tires.

It's so bad.

Um, second is the um TOT.

I heard from the study session that someone had said, well, they got a thousand, they heard that they got a thousand dollars a night for the um motel six on North Fremont.

So we should put the TOT up.

That was for what two nights or three nights.

After that, it goes back to the $99 room that it was.

And what good is A, what good is that going to do us?

We won't get any more money.

363 days a year.

B we will make ourselves so uncompetitive in the group market.

Um, again, if you look, look at the numbers you see on your sales tax quarterly.

There is hotel and restaurant, is a big uh segment of that, the majority of it.

That's coming again, the majority of it is from groups because it's for rentals, AV, it's for food and beverage, it's for people buying out wonderful pistaches, bought out the sardine factory.

Do you know how much sales tax?

I'm sure the city derived a lot of sales tax from that.

That is something we will absolutely in our comp set make ourselves totally uncompetitive.

And we'll actually, you know, as I say, I said that great Chinese expression.

You pick up a rock to throw at somebody only to drop it on your own foot, and we will crush ourselves.

Thank you so much.

Hello, I'm Jeryl and Crivello.

I've been a homeowner, enjoyed living in Monterey for the last 19 and a half years.

And I'm I'm happy to see so many people out for all of these important issues.

I see also a lot of volunteers and potential volunteers in Monterey that might be able to help us with some of the shortfalls in in ways that we can as volunteers.

So consider asking the community to step up a little bit.

I think we might be able to help save some programs with our own time.

I'm hoping that we don't cut programs that make Monterey beautiful and well known and draw tourists.

I'm I am, of course, in support of the Mills Act.

And I also think if we have to cut programs like that, let's not cut them.

Let's just suspend them for a short time, hoping that we can bring them back.

I think um cutting sounds pretty pretty hard.

Is that the sound this one more minute?

I have one more minute.

Okay, thank you.

And so I also think we shouldn't punish successful um business owners on the wharf.

Those people bring in a lot of tourism.

They've worked hard to learn how to how to be successful.

And we've had a uh property vacant for how five, six years now.

And why?

You know, I think mistakes have been made in the past in terms of racing costs for people who are successful just because maybe they they look like they're doing a good job, and don't we want them to do a good job?

I think they are successful, and I I want to encourage that.

So think about maybe um encouraging some of us to to help and think about uh suspending rather than cutting and hopefully don't start any new programs.

I know you want to do something to help people that maybe have shared their personal concerns with you, perhaps in terms of rent, less control, and I guess that means that will thank you.

Uh mayor council.

Um, I like to uh go back history because you have to go back to see where you started because this was a very prosperous city when Coach Albert, I call him Coach Albert, Mayor Albert was here.

Very prosperous city, and we have been going steadily going on a decline with higher and higher and higher taxes, TOT, whatever it may be.

So let me give you some insight.

The first thing, in my opinion, that the city council should do is go back with your city manager and pull 50% of that through the attrition and the employees first.

The pension funds haven't even been fixed yet.

And you're asking these small businesses, these small little guys to come up and cut them out.

They're the heart of this heart of this community.

Leave these people alone, leave first night alone, leave all these other people alone, leave the TOT tax alone because those that 16% was a promise that was made to the people for all the inconveniences that we have that that money should go back to those districts.

You should not touch that money.

Okay.

Should be rented.

The wharf is a disgrace.

When you compare it with commercial guys are getting on properties on the coast, and what you're getting, you guys should be fired as managers of the wharf.

Hire competent people that can get things done so that you're having properties producing income.

North Fremont, take that fence that you've gotten in between that has just created a disraction for anybody creating a business up there.

I see one, two, three bikes maybe in a month.

Isn't that path?

That was a total waste of money and it distracted from people from going across the street, etc.

That's what is causing the vacancy up there, and you're gonna have that until you fix that problem.

Give the people in this area a better uh I'll I'll come back again.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Vegas.

I think Mark might be the last one.

Mark Mark.

Was there anybody else that was sitting that had their hand raised?

Less.

Yeah, I think that's it.

Mark.

So, Mark, you're then we'll go to our callers on Zoom.

Good evening.

When your name is spelled Mark Kelly with a C and two E's, you're always misspelled and many times last.

I appreciate being here this evening.

The first thing I want to do is talk about the presentation on this.

Uh a buddy of mine just recently lost a 13-year-old grandson to fentanyl.

Um it's it's really devastating.

And uh, Chief.

Well, I forgot my challenge coin tonight.

And I'm sorry, I'll put a small seal on this and it's gonna go in my pocket.

And I'll probably care obviously one in my car, but it's really amazing what this could potentially do if you're in the right spot at the right second at the right time.

So to all of you, um, Mr.

Mayor, you're the leader.

So we'll start with you and the council.

Thank you for doing this tonight.

Uh, it might if it might say one life, that's a whole lot of lives as far as I'm concerned.

Second reason I'm here uh very quickly is as a citizen on behalf of the TOT.

It's no secret I serve for four years on the hospitality board, but I don't anymore.

You know, I go out to uh Bayonett and Black Horse because I love golf, and the footprint of the Grand Hyatt out there is frightening if you think about it in terms of our community.

It's not only gonna have a massive number of rooms, it has a huge conference center all on its own, adjacent to two world-class golf horses.

And I think uh our responsibility is to be a great partner for the hospitality association and making sure they sustain themselves as a leader.

And there also is also three significant hills going in in Salinas, which we think is over in the lettuce world.

It's only 18 miles away.

It's very easy to transport people over to Monterey.

So I want us to be very careful in thinking about the world that's caving in on us, not Nampa, not San Luis Obispo, not San Francisco, but Seaside, San City, Marina, and Salinas.

I mean there's competition coming.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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

All right, first we'll hear from Adam.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members, staff, and members of the public.

Adam Pinterest on behalf of the Monterey County Association of Realtors.

And I really don't envy the council members because you've got a really difficult task ahead of you.

You've got to sort out this budget issue.

And you know, no matter what you do, and and people have demonstrated this already, no matter which direction you go, people are not going to be happy with it.

So you know, my sympathies uh with you on that.

Um, I I would also urge you to just recognize that many of these uh strategies on these cards uh involve a tax, right?

It it ultimately isn't even up to you, and ultimately many of these approaches are up to the voters, as it should be, right?

So the voters are going to get to weigh in and to that end and and to make this you know as um harmonious and and neighborly a process as possible.

I would really urge the city to do a lot more work on like town halls and outreach and public meetings so that more people can be heard on this.

Uh uh, you know, the the turnout tonight clearly demonstrates the the interest, and uh as is seen in the staff presentation, you have until March before you would even need to put anything on the ballot.

So I think you have ample time and opportunity uh to let the public be heard, and that way it can be a decision that that they're all bought in on.

The last thing I'll add, and and I I ultimately want to see the staff grow, especially in the community service and planning departments, right?

I ultimately want our rental assistance program to grow and thrive.

Um, but much like the county of Monterey, it's pretty clear um that some kind of selective hiring freeze uh is going to be a necessary component of getting to a balanced budget.

So uh thank you all for this.

What I think is the beginning of this conversation.

Have a great night.

Next speaker is Kurt.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members, Kurt Tipton.

I just want to reiterate what I said last week that in my neighborhood there is uh support, extreme support for the sales tax measure, but there is high opposition to a bond issue.

I also want to say if the council decides to put the sales tax issue on the ballot, but I personally will help try to get that passed, because I think that's the easiest and the one thing that has the least impact to the citizens of Monterey.

I also mentioned about the NCIP, and I hope all of you looked at the projects that the NCIT committee has this year, and of those the safety and some of the park and rack and libraries funding that they need.

I hope you do not define the NCIP.

And then the other issue as far as the um reduction of city staff or not reduction, but the attrition of city staff.

There was in my neighborhood opposition to that, that if it is done, that it is done just as a temporary measure for a year or less until the city gets back on its feet.

So again, thank you.

And I appreciate everything that you do.

Our next speaker is Esther.

Good evening, everybody.

I just wanted to point out that just for perspective, this is not just a problem Monterey has.

Almost every jurisdiction has it.

But a reminder is that our surrounding cities got a lot of money during COVID, and we we got six million when Salinas, Seaside, and others got 50 million.

So this is you know, a problem that we have because partially because we don't have we didn't have access to the kind of money that they did, and yet they these other jurisdictions also have budget problems.

So it's not just us.

And it wouldn't matter if Coach Dan was still up there or anybody else, because in this century, everything has changed and everything is more expensive.

So this city council is challenged just like anybody sitting up there would be.

And the other thing I want to bring up is we just got over car week.

We don't get enough out of car week as a city.

The hospitality industry gets some, the nonprofits get some.

We've got to get more creative because when every one of those vehicles are sold in our city after we put up with all of that, our city itself doesn't get a penny of sales tax.

We don't get anything else other than these side gigs from it.

We've got to get more creative because if we do, Car Week isn't going anywhere, and we need more money from all of those rich people.

Our next speaker speaker is Richard.

Um good evening.

Richard Rossello, president of the Casanova Okno Neighborhood Association.

What I'd like to do is focus on the word underutilized.

The Kona, the park center was closed with COVID.

So for five and a half years, we have not been offered regular programming.

Before COVID, we had successful programming.

But how do you call it underutilized when we have no control of opening the center?

I want to talk about the event that I'm most proud of.

Doing movie in the park.

I talked to Consulman Smith.

He got the Canberra Rotary to voluntarily pay for hot dogs for the entire movie in the park.

Kona supplied eight gallons of lemonade.

We had 12 volunteers that fixed all that food professionally, expertly, and we gave it away free.

Nine hundred people were on our little park lawn.

Please don't call it underutilized if you won't let us in.

And that's the problem.

There are many other creative ways to make up this deficit.

I urge you to follow what your citizens are telling you.

Our next speaker is Shelly.

Hi, councilmember, council members and Mayor Williamson.

My name is Shelley Schmidt.

I am the NCIP representative for Casa Casanova Oaknolls.

But NCIP has historically contributed funds to help with city maintenance and upkeep.

So NCIP is already contributing funds towards well would have come out of the general fund.

And that brings me into my second topic, which is the park center at Casanova Oaknals Park.

NCIP actually helped fund the building of the park center, and the city operates and maintains it.

I am curious to know what those costs particularly are.

As Richard said, the term underutilized is accurate, but it's also misleading.

It's underutilized because there are no programs offered there that our neighbors want to participate in.

The adult program was as someone stated, adult bingo.

And the second program for the kids.

It's zoned O, which is open space with residents maintain access to the park.

It's only a park on this side of North Fremont, and it's the only park center on this side of town.

So a potential lease to a uh organization that would still allow us to use the park and possibly the park center would be a great possible.

Our next speaker is Laurie.

Good evening, uh Mayor, council members, staff, and public are speaking tonight.

Thanks to all my constituents for speaking.

I've enjoyed listening to everybody.

Um last week was about learning the options and tonight's about starting to decide them.

The choices you make will determine whether Monterey addresses this deficit in ways that are fair, sustainable, and supported by the community.

So I urge you to keep the three basic principles in mind.

Public trust, fairness, and sustainability.

First, public trust.

Rating or defunding NCIP, the funds voter specifically dedicated to neighborhoods would break faith with the community, as you've heard tonight and last week.

And one time gimmicks like selling city property or canceling projects may plug a hole, but they don't solve a structural deficit.

They're short-term fixes, and that leaves us weaker in the long run.

Second to fairness, visitors should shoulder more of the burden, not the residents.

But like everything within balance.

Tools like the TOT and admissions tax and targeted parking strategies and tourism zones, spread the costs in a way that protects the neighborhoods and preserves the services that you've all heard tonight, people want to keep.

Third is the sustainability.

Tonight's decisions aren't just about balancing numbers on paper.

They're about whether Monterey chooses durable, equitable strategies that can build consensus, the kind of solutions our community that will support at the ballot box and beyond.

Lastly, um, my last letter and public comments from last week's stand, but I want to note, and it was brought up tonight also.

I didn't hear the staff address one of my main strategies.

Um, and I'm wondering why.

Um, and if it's considered completely off the table, and if so, why?

I'm referring to a pilot strategy of negotiating with major organizations, big money organizations like Montage and the Aquarium, who currently don't pay property property tax and only token rent.

Is there a way to negotiate something with them to fill that 10 million dollar gap?

Thank you.

Next speaker is Rick.

Good evening.

It's uh Rick Oldinger.

I'm the current chair of the Measure P and S Citizens Oversight Committee.

Um the original measure P and follow-up measure S were created specifically to address the poor condition of our city streets, sidewalks, and storm drains.

And while a lot of work has been done in these areas, there's still more to be done as many streets have not received the attention they need yet.

And additionally, the the streets that first benefited from Measure P funds are now due for follow-up maintenance in order to prevent them from deteriorating back into disrepair.

If we don't want our streets to return to the poor condition they were in prior to measures PNS, we must continue to maintain them on an ongoing basis.

If we redirect PNS revenues to other needs, our streets will return to that poor condition.

If we renew these valuable measures, uh we must continue to prioritize the original intent of restoring and maintaining our city streets, sidewalks, and storm drains.

And now speaking on behalf of hospitality, uh I do agree with previous speakers when it comes to the possibility of raising TOT.

If we as a city do everything we can to support the hospitality industry and keep Monterey as competitive as possible, we'll all reap the financial benefits as stated and as stated previously, raising TOT would be counter to this goal.

Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is a telephone caller with the last three digits, four, three, six.

So to unmute, you'll need to dial star six.

So good evening.

This is Ellie Shim calling.

And um, although I don't live in Monterey, I did work for MPUSD for many years.

And um I think that increasing the short-term rental to offset the deficit is a bad idea because after a long process in Monterey County of limiting the short-term rentals.

Um with a permit process, uh I think that it shows that for instance, one man on the news from Big Sur said that he was glad because the area has many empty mansions, and that takes away from the housing stock, which all the cities in Monterey County are experiencing experiencing a housing shortage.

So I don't think um having more short short-term rentals is the answer.

And also I want to say that I think the Mills Act is important for preserving all the historic buildings, which are increasing as time goes by.

And I recently went to the Redman, Hirahara, Queen Anne Victorian and Watkinville.

And if the Mills Act had been implemented, it would not have been delisted from the national registry.

So I think the um is important.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

And our next speaker is Suzanne.

Hi, I'm Suzanne with Carmel Area Reservation Service.

I've been working with the local hotels for inbound travel for over 20 years, and I work with the Monterey Plaza and the Hyatt and the Intercontinental and many hotels in Carmel by the sea as well.

And what I want to say is that as a tourist destination, uh, we're that's our top industry.

As our income for the city, that's 40% of our income if or more, depending on the spin-off business for food and beverage and retail sales.

So to take away uh first night Monterey, which a lot of people don't know, that's a celebration of the arts with um dozens of stages, thousands of participants that's gone on for um multiple decades, and it comes at a time when the city um and the whole area tourism drops off like a rock.

It drops off like a rock around Halloween in November 1st.

So here you have this event coming in on the 31st of December, and we need it.

Our occupancy is down.

Don't shoot yourself in the foot by taking away things and raising occupancy tax because the way to offset a 10 million dollar deficit is to bring in more money.

And the way that we bring in more money is to make Monterey an attractive tourist um destination.

So we have the car event, we have the Monterey Jazz Festival that brings people in.

So does first night Monterey.

And the other point is what do we want to be known for?

We're a city of culture, art, music, entertainment, theater, and it goes on and on in history.

Don't shoot ourselves in the foot and become a side show where we have violence and the Monterey County Fair being shut down with riots and riots on um at In and Out Burger.

We need to build up the culture, and that's part of our integrity.

That'll break keep you going.

And our last speaker is Sherry.

Thank you.

I've just unmuted.

Thank you for listening, Mayor, City Council, staffers, and general public who's still around.

I'm here primarily to speak on behalf of First Night Monterey, which I have been a volunteer for many, many years.

It's a program that we absolutely need to keep.

It brings in people to our city.

It shows a family-oriented way to celebrate the new year, which for most people that is not what they see.

If we take it away, what will that do to our city on New Year's Eve?

Will that involve more police?

You know, etc.

I mean, I've watched kids, I do the hat station, and I've watched kids grow up year after year after year, and they come back and then they come volunteer.

They love it.

It's important to them.

The arts and the culture, we really need to instill in our young people so that they keep it moving forward.

I mean, the Archer building, and it's been used for camps, youth programs, summer camps, right?

We can't take that away.

We need our youth.

We voted for Prop 28.

Right?

It's important to the community.

I implore us to keep it going.

And as attack on the T the extra tax on occupancy, I totally agree.

We need people to come into our city, not to want to come and do it.

Thank you for listening.

Okay.

With that, we will um go and close public comment.

Thank you, everybody, for sharing your public comments.

Um I just kind of wanted to do a check-in with the council.

So at this point, what we're gonna do is give each council member's gonna give their information to Nat, who's gonna track it in a spreadsheet that he has.

We're gonna see where everybody on the council is at with yes, no, maybe.

Um, but I just wanted to offer the council an opportunity to ask any clarifying questions that might help move a card.

If it's not gonna move a card for you, if you've already if you're already set, then this is not the time to ask that question.

We'll come back to general questions as we go through each item.

But is everybody set with where their cards are, or is some is there a potential impact to where your card sits now that might be changed by answer asking a question, please.

Catch my rush.

Can we break up the seven properties that were suggested for sale or no longer maintaining so that we could we could do whatever we want?

Save what I would suggest, and this is what I did.

I put that in my maybe pile so that way we could have that deeper discussion.

Thank you.

Yep.

Any other questions from the council?

I'd like to clarify uh MILS Act.

Um because it wasn't very clear in the card if the intent here is to um eliminate the uh tax incentive or or eliminate it, eliminate that and the requirement to upkeep historical properties.

Can I can I add something to that?

That I'm not sure if this is what you were asking, but an additional aspect to it, which is if folks have already received Mills Act approval that has allowed the decrease in property tax.

Do they lose that by the policy that's currently being proposed by staff?

Yeah, so so um to answer uh councilman's case of your question first is MILS Act is nothing more than a tax savings mechanism, nothing else.

So uh the city's ordinance uh protects the historic character, but that's a separate ordinance.

So the MILS Act by itself is nothing more, nothing less than just a mechanism for the property owners to save taxes.

Uh all the obligations to maintain the property uh uh in the correct historic way, all the standards set by by the Secretary of the Interior on how to maintain historic properties are still in place.

So when we hear um uh concerns raised by residents who are thinking that we will neglect um uh our historic properties, uh, that is a total different chapter all proper city ordinances and uh MILS Act by itself just uh allows the property owners to save taxes on the property taxes, and that's what we are proposing to uh uh end that program.

Uh, because again, as one of the speakers pointed out, uh, we are already receiving just six cents of every dollar paid in property tax.

And um, if we continue um uh managing that program, we would save about $50,000 annually and save and and and uh and tax, and we would not lose additional property tax to go to the mayor's question is uh what we are proposing is to end the MILS Act privilege and it would run out uh after 10 years uh for those who are using uh the MILS Act right now.

Uh I think there is a led as a legislative requirement that this has to take its course for uh for another 10 years, but we also so at that time then after 10 years, the the tax benefits would cease to exist and uh the MILTS Act property owners will pay again uh the uh uh actually uh property tax that everyone else pays.

loose additional property tax to go to the mayor's question is uh what we are proposing is to end the MILTS Act privilege and it would run out uh after 10 years uh for those who are using uh the MILTS Act right now uh I think there's a led as a legislative requirement that this has to take its course for uh for another 10 years but we also so at that time then up to 10 years the the tax benefits would cease to exist and uh the MILTS Act property owners will pay again uh the uh uh uh actually uh property tax that everyone else pays and um also it would uh end immediately the uh uh adding additional properties which are about 60 to 65 additional properties to the to the MILTS Act uh collection of properties so if we suspend that program you say 50,000 annually in staff time you're not depleting the property tax and you are returning up to 10 years uh the uh then property tax being paid uh by the current mills act back into the city coppers yeah um but that's what's being proposed by staff we could change it right so there's an effort to address the MILS Act program and this came up over a year ago when we did the pause and I can't remember how the length of the period I think it was a year we paused the Mills Act and now that pause has been lifted and the whole purpose of doing that was to look at different ways that we can change it.

So uh the changes that you were just articulated it doesn't have to be exactly that way we could have a deeper conversation about how best to make that work.

Okay.

Absolutely thank you for that all right Dr.

Barber uh just clarification.

So one of the speakers um spoke to uh there not being a transfer tax property transfer tax right and I just want to get clarification yeah for the public on that that's that that's a good card for now to answer.

Yes so uh there actually so there is a property transfer tax that currently exists and it is uh for both the city and the county combined uh it is uh 55 cents per 500 of property value which is the same as a dollar 10 per 1000 dollar property value uh the way it works as a standard statewide is that uh that amount is split half with the city and half with the county because we are a charter city we have the option of having an additional uh upping our amount our charter amount uh and uh doing so could double the revenue that we receive having said that it there's a little a bit of a complication because if we do increase that the county then actually retains the full amount of the base so it would not only increase our amount of uh uh of the real property transfer tax but it would also therefore increase the county's amount as well so taxes would go up uh twofold uh one one for us one for one for the county so there's the public to understand the big picture that's right so understand there is a transfer tax because someone said that there wasn't this one and it isn't this code it is in our city code uh it's also in the county separately um and and there is a collection both from the county and the city uh and uh to make sure about that and then the clarification on the attrition because I I know we talked about it during the study session but just for clarification for this purpose again can you go over what that means as far as jobs being lost because I think a lot of times a lot of our community is thinking that off the that that it's just firing people as opposed to some of the things we talked about during the last session which was dealing with early retirement or retirement or such things is that can you give some clarification to the attrition please absolutely Dr.

Barber attrition is a way to save on salary costs without implementing layoffs of existing staff.

So the idea is that once uh members of our city staff decide to leave either they uh get a job elsewhere they retire then we would make a decision on whether or not to fill that position and that may have impacts uh likely on service delivery on uh what other uh positions or contract rules potentially could uh fill those roles uh the positive thing is it doesn't uh directly uh cause uh major impact on the individual because they've voluntarily left the organization uh and uh and we still can gain salary savings as a result but we would look at each position uniquely because not necessarily every position uh that is vacant based on someone leaving is a position that we can always consider for to not fill right i understand that i appreciate the clarification and last one um uh about the Kona uh uh uh uh I think it's the recreation center the uh rental question I I just wanted some more information on that is that could that could we come back to that one okay is it that's not going to change your card let's come back to that well I think there's gonna be a broader conversation because that kind of goes into to Jean's oh that just goes it goes into Gene's question earlier which is we don't have to do that we could do other properties that are on that we don't have to do them all so I think we can break all these down a little bit let's go ahead and start um Jean if you so I think how we'll do this is say your yes first or now tell us how you want to receive it we we can receive it as uh as you like if you have the yes maybe a no piles if you could share what's on your yes pile maybe pile and no pile

I I just wanted some more information on that is that could that could we come back to that one okay is it that's not going to change your card let's come back to that well I think there's going to be a broader conversation because that kind of goes into to Gene's oh that just goes it goes into Gene's question earlier which is we don't have to do that we could do other properties that are on that we don't have to do them all so I think we can break all these down a little bit let's go ahead and start um Jean if you so I think how we'll do this is say your yes first or not tell us how you want to receive it we we can receive it as uh as you like if you have the yes maybe and no piles if you could share what's on your yes pile maybe pile and no pile do it fairly slowly that I can input it into the Excel spreadsheet and then we'll tell yes and just for folks's awareness after we do this we're gonna give this to him and then we're gonna take a monitor five so we're not gonna be discussing or debating until after the break so if you guys want to look it up and stretch your legs feel free to do so but yes yes first right yes renew measure g okay and if you could it would be very if you could identify the card number it'll make it a little faster for me as well 24 yes renew measure g card 25 yes update stormwater fees thank you card 26 yes implement parking fee strategy okay card 27 yes adjust rent on aquarium lease card 20 payment in lieu of taxes yes that's card 20 card 19 partnerships and contracts for services yes optimize excuse me card nine optimized veterans camp park campground card 22 renew measure ps card 22 card seven first responder fee program yes card six use existing attrition for salary savings card 13 sales tax increase of 0.375 percent and i think we should do that that at the primary uh card 14 admission tax yes card 15 vacancy tax yes card 16 parking tax card 17 streaming tax card 18 update real property transfer tax maybe maybe charter amendment for the va uh vAs i think we need a deep dive on that uh maybe central public safety building bond measure we need it we just need a deep dive on how to do it and if we see how the rest of the uh taxes do uh um card 23 sell underutilized city properties maybe if we protect kona center cards 10 card 10 change government access providers maybe i'd like to see amp have the opportunity to bring down their offer card 11 reduce property maintenance costs and again if we exempt cona hard no ready ready okay card five hard no to reappropriating nc ip funds hard no to card 28 defund non priority nc ip projects card eight pause or eliminate programs card no to discontinue mills act approvals thank you thank you council member okay let me just adjust the note here really quick ready whenever you are good we're ready so card six and these are yeses attrition 13 sales tax 14 admissions tax 15 vacancy and then 16 parking sorry so let me repeat again just for the benefit of everyone so card six attrition 13 is uh sales card 14 admissions 15 is vacancy and 16 parking and uh maybe i'll start with five and c ip seven first responder 10 change government access uh 12 discontinue mills 17 streaming tax 18 update um property tax 19 partnerships and contracts and 20 paying loop taxes okay and

And uh maybe I'll start with five NCIP, seven, first responder, ten, change government access, uh 12, discontinue mills, 17, streaming tax, 18 update, um property tax, 19 partnerships and contracts, and 20 paying loop taxes.

Okay, and I'm just gonna say the rest, Nat are maybe as well.

Okay.

Um, yeah, I just have more uh points to share about that.

Those are those are cards uh eight, nine, and eleven.

Eight, nine, eleven, twenty.

Oh yeah.

Twenty three twenty-three.

Okay.

Why do I have a twenty-three?

And then on your yellow cards.

Uh oh, yes.

So all those maybe.

All those maybe, yep.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Council Member Smith, you want to jump in?

You bet.

Uh so we're gonna start with yeses.

Um card uh six, uh, attritional and salary savings.

I I obviously need more info on that with recommended list of what we're talking about, but we'll we'll go into that uh further.

But I that seems to be the number one priority in terms of we have too much employment group.

We need to realign there.

Um number seven is the first responder fee.

That's a yes.

Uh card eight, pause or eliminate programs.

There's a variety of listed there, rental assistance program.

I say yes, special events support program.

I say no, renew that each year.

First night, I say yes.

Council Mr.

Smith, sorry, sorry for interrupting.

If we could just try to do the yes, no, maybe, and then we'll put that as well.

And then we'll come through it more afterwards.

Okay, yep.

Um, and I've just got one more in that partnerships with nonprofits for senior and youth.

Uh so there's a lot a lot to talk about.

That was card eight.

Uh card nine, optimize veterans park campgrounds, yes.

Let's do that.

Card 10, change government access providers, yes.

Uh, and that's a a new a new bidd process.

Card 11, um, reduce property maintenance costs, yes, but with a caveat that that's connected with several other cards.

So we need to get back to that.

Uh card 13, sales tax increase of the 0.375%, yes.

Card 14, admissions tax in some form.

I don't know how, but yes, I think we should move ahead with that.

Card 17, streaming tax, yes, but I need some more information a little bit there.

Um, card 18, update real property transfer tax, yes, but there's some variations and choices there.

Card 19 is a yes, that's partnerships and contracts for services, where it can save us money.

Uh card 27, which is not affecting direct costs, but is for later indirect structural adjust rent on the aquarium lease.

That's uh when appropriate.

Card 26, implement parking fee strategy.

I need more, but I'm in support of that.

That's a yes.

Card 24, renew measure G, that's a strong yes.

Um card 23, sell underutilized city properties.

That's a yes, but we need to go through the list because several little properties will be a no.

Card 22 is a renew of measure PS, P and S.

So we're gonna renew measure S.

That's a strong yes.

On my no stack, card 29, uh charter amendment for VAF.

No, although I'm gonna stick this as a I can be convinced if it goes to maybe, depending on how the discussion goes.

Um card 12, discontinue mills act again.

That's a maybe.

Uh I'm sorry, that's a no, but I'm open depending on how that shakes out with some conditions because there's some other options there.

Card 15, vacancy tax.

That's a no.

My maybe stack.

Are you ready?

Ready?

Card five, uh, reappropriate NCIP funds to uh the general fund.

That depends on how and in what format NCIP can help us.

Uh, and I want to talk more about that.

Okay, for clarification, that's a maybe card.

Card five.

Maybe that was a card five.

Okay.

Maybe.

Card 16.

Parking tax.

Need more information.

Card 20.

Payments in lieu of taxes, the pilots.

I'm open to it, but I need more info.

Card 21.

Uh central public safety building bond measure.

That's a big maybe.

I need lots more information.

I'm so sorry, just to be for clarification.

Yeah, you mentioned we know that vacancy tax is no parking tax is a maybe.

Is that correct?

40 the card uh 16.

Okay, so go back.

Um parking tax 16 is a maybe.

Okay.

I need more information.

And then uh pilots, card 20 was a maybe as well.

That's a maybe.

Okay, excellent.

Okay, and we're at 21.

Okay, card 21, central public safety building bond measure.

Lots to talk about there.

Um maybe is that a maybe that's a maybe.

I'm in my whole maybe stack now.

I've already done my yes and I've already done my no's.

Perfect.

Uh card 25, update stormwater fees.

That's a maybe, depends on how we do it and how much.

Card 28 is um defund non-priority NCIP projects.

That's a maybe depends on the process and our work with NCIP.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you, Council Smith.

Dr.

Barber.

All right, my yes.

Card number nine, optimize veterans park campground.

Card number 11, reduce property maintenance cost.

Card number 13, sales tax increase.

Card number 15, vacancy tax.

Card number 22, renew measure P and S.