Progress.

Good afternoon, everybody.

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

It's November 4th, 2025.

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

Councilmember Barber, present.

Councilmember Garcia.

Here.

Councilmember Rash.

Council Member Smith present and Mayor Williamson.

Here.

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 interf interference with our meeting.

And thank you for participating in your city government.

Thanks, Clementine.

With that, we'll go ahead and start off with our presentations.

Item number one on today's agenda is Defense Language Institute Quarterly Joint Service Awards for fourth quarter FY25.

Um to kick us off here, I just wanted to share that we had the American Defense Communities Conference in town last week, and essentially given the name uh communities that have military installations within uh within their town um participate um as members of of American defense communities.

And so they had a conference here on installations.

Um City of Monterey was proud to host them.

Um I was fortunate fortunate to be able to uh speak on one of the panels, and one of the things that I brought up when asked the question around what does uh what do your communities do to um support uh veterans in the military community, I spoke of of this quarterly award that we do.

And um, albeit a a small thing, hopefully it's meaningful for those that are receiving it, but it's more of a testament um to our dedication and commitment to the military communities that exist within Monterey.

And there's a huge historical um perspective from uh from this as well.

Um particularly as it relates to uh the presidio of Monterey and the role that it played um in transitioning California to be part of the United States.

So um all that to be said, thank you all for your service.

I'm gonna go ahead and read off the first proclamation.

So the first honoree is Sergeant Paul Carnin.

Did I say it correctly?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

You can come on up, whereas the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center has established the quarterly joint service, non-commissioned officer, petty officer, and junior enlisted board.

And whereas as a recipient of the board award, Sergeant Paul Carnin has demonstrated exception extraordinary personal abilities, leadership skills, and knowledge of the history of the Presidio of Monre and 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 forces insignia.

And whereas the Monterey community is proud of the count of the country's service members as well as its a standing relationship with DLI FLC.

Now therefore be it proclaimed that I, Tyler Williamson, mayor of the city of Monterey on behalf of our city council and citizens hereby recognize Sergeant Paul Carnan, United States Marine Corps.

Great job well done, and thank them for their continuing contributions to the armed services and to our nation.

So please give it up for Sergeant Condens.

And as is tradition, um, usually each uh honoree uh says a few words in in perhaps the language that they're learning, so we're all eager to hear what you have to say.

Right.

I wrote this down all right.

Shagali Sharwal, Salamuna Nikki Hill, Urandi Kuam, Zmanu Mangalde, how Shahwa Wokalakiji, trade the summandary as Karpais Pol Khadmat Hidarakwam.

Zap Duazara Shalam Kalki, the Pashtovonkipahis Barriele Farag Shwang Halls, Zadada Faii, Jabi and Satut, Stasumalatar, how Mush Taba Zmoosh Talani, Awaskarita, Yaster, we are how Marasa Shivadi.

Thank you.

Awesome.

All right.

What's what what what say you?

I think it's Arabic, but I'm gonna say Arabic, but any other language within three thousand miles.

Oh my god.

Have we heard it yet?

Uh no, what was your guess, ma'am?

Poshtag.

Yeah, all right.

Give it up to our city attorney.

Why don't you come on up and we'll take a picture with you?

Yeah.

But I I kind of got it with that 3000 mile qualification.

Yes.

All right, next we have Lance Corporal Averroes Quinn.

Yeah, give it up for uh for the Lance Corporal.

Um shape, Lina Shukran.

Okay, Russian, Russian, Arabic, Russian, Prussian.

Okay, okay, Arabic, Arabic, Arabic.

Man, staff is on fire today.

Come on up.

Yes, I think she's looking up the resumes.

Congratulations.

Congratulations.

All right, and then last but not least is Sergeant Leon Zak.

Give it up for Sergeant Zach.

Uh Tim.

Uh the priznania is a podcast in National Institute.

Is a DLI.

That sounds like Russian.

Russian.

Yeah, that's correct.

Okay, all right.

Why don't you come on up?

Kind of weird taking photos up here sometime, by the way.

It's like um it makes me think of like grandma making everybody get in front of the Christmas tree to take a photo during the holidays.

Um what's wrong with that?

You know, to each their own.

Um but well deserved.

Please let's give it up one more time for all of our service members.

And feel free to stay.

Uh we have two more presentations.

You don't have to sit through them all, but you can feel comfortable in transitioning out if you all um so choose.

Our next item.

Oh, I uh I have to go out to public comment.

Is it anybody in the council have anything?

Sorry, I I probably should thank you all.

I did this last time and I will get this right next time.

We're gonna open it up for public comment.

How this process works is we identify those that want to speak during public comment at the beginning of the public comment period.

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

About the uh military awards.

That's correct.

This is the specifically the DLI quarterly joint service awards for fourth quarter of FR25.

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

Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item?

All right, seeing none, go back to Zoom.

I'll do a countdown to five, four, three, two, one.

And we have one person on Zoom.

We'll go ahead and take that caller.

This is our telephone caller with the last three digits.

Uh 837, you can go ahead.

Yes, um, Brian Rosen here.

Last time I spoke on a military topic, the mayor cut me off and he said I was off topic, but I was on topic.

And uh given what our government is doing with the Department of War now, don't think we should be celebrating the military right now.

They're doing some pretty terrible things for Trump, killing people on the high seas, the innocent fishermen, and and not bringing democracy, supporting dictatorships, and going into our cities.

I I just don't think this is the appropriate time.

I wish you would all listen to Martin Luther King's speeches and beyond Vietnam and the three evils of society.

He said the great spirit that uh of liberty that this country spread is we're the enemies of liberty, the United States and the Western world.

I agree, it's gotten even worse.

And this is not the time to be celebrating the military in the military industrial complex.

I know it you know, you get money from it.

It uh butters your bread or whatever, so you're all into it, but I would strongly oppose this at the present time and do some worthwhile resolutions like against ice or the the tyranny and the fascism that's overtaking our country all too quickly.

Uh you're just making a big mistake, and I I think you should really be ashamed of yourself at the present time.

Uh military doesn't when's the last time the military uh fought for freedom, world war two.

What about all the dictators and people we've had assassinated, like Ellende of Chile, and what about the hundred years or so of the killing Indians and Native Americans who are so proud of the military, they're here to protect our freedom.

Tell me when they've protected our freedom after World War II.

You look at their wars.

So what are they doing to protect our freedom?

This is a bunch of crap.

And you're all being buttered by them, and you're getting money from them, but this is a bunch of garbage.

Just be specific.

Where are they protecting our freedom since World War II and World War One?

Thank you very much.

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

Uh I just have to say this moment is about celebrating our service members.

These are people that signed up to volunteer to serve our country, put themselves in harm's way.

You can have a disagreement in regards to the policy direction that the country has taken or has taken over the last several administrations.

Um, but we're not here today to praise the military as a as a body.

We're we're praising the individual service members who have decided to um take that step and protect our country.

So I I am proud of this program.

I'm glad to continue it.

And um, with that, I'm just gonna go ahead and have us move on to the next item on the agenda.

Number two is to recognize November as Native American Heritage Month.

Um, and with that.

I will go ahead and read the proclamation.

Whereas the initial effort to have a day of recognition for Native Americans were first approved in 1915 by the annual Congress of the American Indian Association as directed by its president, Reverend Sherman Coolidge in Aparo Minister.

And whereas in 1976, members of the Cherokee Nation, JC Elliott High Eagle authored the first legislation to proclaim a Native American Awareness Week.

And the resolution was later signed by President Gerald Ford.

In 1990, President George H.W.

Bush designated November as National American Indian Heritage Month after approving a joint resolution.

And whereas the month of November is designated as a time to learn about the original inhabitants of the land that is now the United States of America, from the rich traditions to the languages spoken to the history of persecution and forced removal, the entire story of the indigenous peoples of America should be learned and reckoned with.

And whereas the culture and history of the Native people of all 50 states weave an undeniable thread in the tapestry that is the United States and their stories continue to be an important part of the continued story of this country.

And whereas the Esselin Rumson Holland Castanonian natives live and have lived in Monterey for generations.

The members of these nations work to honor their past and continue to share their culture with the Monterey community through events in the connection with the seasons through artwork that kept time that keeps time honored traditions and practices alive and through the constant reminder that they are active members of the Monterey community.

Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that I Tyler Williamson, mayor of the city of Monterey, by the city council and citizens hereby proclaim the month of November 2025 as Native American Heritage Month.

And just um as a way of reference um something I'm also thankful for the the council and our community.

Um of the work that we've done towards um apologizing towards the the local um native tribes.

Um and we're committed to continuing to do that work.

So um with that, I will open it up to the council.

Any additional comments?

Support it as it's written and look forward to hearing from speakers.

Awesome.

With that, we'll go ahead and open it up to public comment for folks on Zoom.

You can use the raise hand function.

Anyone in the chamber wishes to speak on this item.

All right, seeing none, I will bring it back to Zoom.

We'll do a countdown to five, four, three, two, one.

And there's nobody on Zoom.

So with that, we'll go ahead and move to our next presentation.

Oh, I'm sorry, there's not another presentation.

It's general public comment.

So at this time, we will now take public comment on items that are not on today's agenda.

So if it's on today's agenda, this is not the time to speak on this item.

You can speak on that item when that comes up.

We'll have a separate public comment period for each of those items.

This is for general public comments for non-agendized items.

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

In the meantime, I will check in the chamber.

If you would like to speak on public comment, I just ask that you stand up to the left of the podium.

I see two speakers that are standing.

Anyone still sitting that would like to speak for general public comment?

Okay.

You can do it during public comment.

Um, yep, this is to be the time.

So we have three folks.

Anyone else?

All right, with that, I'll go ahead and close it off in the chamber to those three individuals.

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

We have six, seven, eight, seven on Zoom.

I'm gonna go ahead and cut it off at those seven.

Um, we're gonna go do two minutes, uh, and we'll go ahead and start in the chamber.

Ma'am, please.

Good afternoon, mayor and council members.

My name is Janice Russo.

My family owns a local heating business.

I'm here today to bring attention to an ongoing problem on the 200 block of Ramona Avenue between Del Monte Boulevard and Highway One.

This block is zoned for commercial use and is home to about 14 local businesses.

Our biggest challenge is parking.

There are only 28 marked spots on our block serving all of these businesses.

Deliveries have become increasingly difficult because of congestion.

Trucks are often forced to double or even triple park.

And some delivery drivers now refuse to come down the street.

Many of us have made repeated calls to parking enforcement and even non-emergency police line when unnecessary.

When the people answering the phone already know your name and which block you're calling from, it's a sign that the system isn't working.

We routine retween routinely see six to eight vehicles, including motorhomes parked for weeks or months.

The owners know the 72-hour rule and simply move their vehicles a few feet to avoid citations.

Over the past five years, our block has dealt with gray water being dumped into the storm drains, drug paraphernalia, trash, block sideway walks, vandalism, crime, and suspicious nighttime activity that makes employees feel unsafe.

know your name and which block you're calling from it's a sign that the system isn't working we routine retween routinely see six to eight vehicles including motor homes parked for weeks or months the owners know the 72 hour rule and simply move their vehicles a few feet to avoid citations over the past five years our block has dealt with gray water being dumped into the storm drains drug paraphernalia trash block sideway walks vandalism crime and suspicious nighttime activity that makes employees feel unsafe some businesses have had their water and electrical outlets used without permission we asked the city to consider installing time based parking restrictions nearby streets have been implemented these restrictions successfully and we believe the same approach would make a real difference for Ramona Avenue we thank you for your help we want to be part of the long term solution I'm gonna leave um some handouts and other letters from the local um businesses and I'm also going to be meeting with the traffic engineer department and hopefully we can work together to make this street uh better awesome and then just as a heads up I didn't stop you because I didn't know that it was so tightly connected but we do have an item coming up on today's agenda regarding parking program right so if you'd like to stay for that that might be informative um towards that but by all means please feel free to pass the commercial zoned block not residential okay yep so that's different if you want to pass us a staff and then it sounds like you're connected with staff so um please keep us informed if there's any issues that persist thank you all right we'll go to our next speaker hello uh mayor and council members my name is Noah Daniels I'm the executive director of Access Media Productions otherwise known as AMP this evening I just wanted to give you all some context and history about our organization um and a little bit about what we do here beyond controlling the cameras in this chamber from the small room behind you.

AMP is actually created with help from the city of Monterey in 1997 and we've been proud partners ever since from the start the city understood how important it is for people to be able to see their local government in action and that's really what AMP was built for.

We manage Channel 25 on Comcast where we air city council meetings like the one being broadcast tonight along with other city of Monterey meetings and local programming we've also expanded a lot over the years.

You can now watch meetings live on the city website AMP's website YouTube Roku and other streaming services and also watch those meetings back almost immediately so people can stay informed however and whenever they would like to watch we're more than just a government channel AMP gives community members a place to learn create and share their stories we work with students nonprofits and local creators to help bring their voices to the screen we're really proud of our long history with the city of Monterey and grateful for the partnership that's helped keep local non-commercial media alive and accessible for our community thank you for your time sir did you still want to speak okay you'll speak at that item okay thank you um with that we'll go ahead and go to our Zoom callers first I'll call in my Maya if I'm pronouncing that correctly you can unmute and go ahead please my name is Mala Velasquez and I am commenting today in celebration of SB 515 being passed legislation that was authored by coalition in celebration of SB 515 being passed legislation that was authored by in celebration of I'm not sure what is happening there's like an I'm hearing a really bad echo.

All right it sounds like the echo went away so why don't you just go ahead and pick up where you left off okay let's see okay so um legislation that was authored by the California or the coalition for just in equal California and Senator Laura Richardson this is something very important to me as a black american freedman so though I serve on multiple boards and a commission I am speaking as a private citizen.

SB515 is implemented by local municipalities or is to be implemented by local municipalities in the state of California by January 1st 2027 yet we are asking the cities of Monterey Seaside and Marina to be proactive and to begin implementing the requirement of this law as soon as possible those requirements include the updating of forums and data systems.

This is about invisibility and truth for California communities such as that of my black American freedmen community defined as those descended from American cattle enslavement a community whose needs have often been invisible under the black umbrella in this county and throughout the state this has caused real disparities in housing health income and opportunity that have stayed hidden in Monterey County and throughout the state of California if not the nation the disaggregation of this type of information has proved important time and time again for multiple communities and have uh that have found themselves lacking and being excluded from needed resources this mainly due to being placed under a racial or ethnic umbrella this is why this is important to the black american freedman community by disaggregating this information we can finally understand and act on the specific conditions of our local black freedmen community one that has drastically decreased over multiple decades often due to lack of resources to retain and maintain residency in this county the full implementation of SB 515 will make our county a statewide model for fairness visibility and justice and the coalition for a just in equitable California has offered their assistance in this task I have emailed all of the council members and of course mayor Tyler mayor Tyler so if you need more information you'll have that

By disaggregating this information, we can finally understand and act on the specific conditions of our local Black Freedmen community, one that has drastically decreased over multiple decades, often due to lack of resources to retain and maintain residency in this county.

The full implementation of SB 515 will make our county a statewide model for fairness, visibility, and justice.

And the coalition for just in Equitable California has offered their assistance in this task.

I have emailed all of the council members and of course Mayor Taylor.

Mayor Tyler.

So if you need more information, you'll have that.

Thank you.

Next speaker is LaShan.

And please correct me if I pronounced it wrong.

Go ahead, please.

Oh, thank you.

Oh no, you you did it.

You you corrected it.

Um you pronounced it perfectly.

Thank you so much.

And um, and um good evening and uh good afternoon to everyone.

Um, my name is LaShawn Coleman, and I am also a part of the coalition of adjusting equitable California.

Um, that was my colleague um that just spoke, and I agree with her.

I now also want to to talk about Senate Bill 515, which recently became law.

This law makes sure local governments update their forms and data systems so people can identify as descendants of enslaved black Americans freedom.

So for a long time, our community hasn't been clearly seen in the public data.

When everyone is placed into one big category, it hides what really is going on, the difference in housing, jobs, health, um, the opportunity, um, et cetera, just everyday things.

And so SB 515 helps fix that.

It allows local agencies to collect information that actually shows the real big picture so leaders can make better decisions and create programs that truly meet people's needs.

We've seen how this kind of data helps other groups.

When places like uh San Francisco and Santa Clara County broke down data for Vietnamese, Filipino and Togan residents, they discovered big gaps and were able to respond with language support, better health outreach and targeted uh resources and et cetera.

Doing the same for American freedmen such as myself will make sure programs meant to help black communities actually reach the descendants of those who were enslaved and freed um freed here in the US soil.

Our team CJET is ready to help with training, templates, and guidance uh to make implementation easy uh for the departments and staff.

Um, so we're really looking forward um to seeing SB 515 put into action, and we appreciate your leadership in making sure our community is finally visible in the data and included in the solution.

I want to thank you guys and have a blessed day.

Thank you.

And our next speaker is Tiffany.

Tiffany, you can unmute and you can go ahead, please.

Yes, can you hear me?

Yes, we do.

Good evening, mayor and council members.

My name is Tiffany Quarrels.

I'm with the Coalition for a Just in Equitable California.

Although I was raised in Los Angeles, I was born at Fort Ord in Monterey County.

So it is meaningful to speak with you today.

I'm bringing to your attention the newly signed state law SB 515, authored by Senator Laura Richardson.

This law requires every city and county in California to create a specific category for black Americans who descend from U.S.

chattel slavery within their public employee data systems.

This is a critical step towards accurate data collection and ensuring equity for a distinct lineage community whose ancestors built this nation and whose contributions and barriers must be recognized in public policy.

I am respectfully asking this council to begin implementation of SB 515 and collaborate with CJAC as a partner in this work.

CJEC is the first statewide organization dedicated to lineage-based reparations in California, and we stand ready to support you throughout this process.

Thank you for your time and thank you for your commitment to equity and justice for all Monterey residents.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Chris.

Good afternoon, uh Mayor and Council.

I mean, this is um this is an amazing, amazing day.

And I have to echo the comments and the thoughts and the sentiments of my colleagues who just spoke.

Uh, my name is Chris, of course.

I'm with the coalition for just in equitable California.

We um wrote uh what is now Senate Bill or now the law that was Senate Bill 515.

Um, that does require every city and county, including this amazing uh city and county that that uh you're in to by January 1st, 2027 change the way that you collect data specifically for black Americans um who are public employees.

Uh, specifically, what you're gonna be asked to do is to update your hiring form, so the application forms and the post-hiring forms to add a new category of data collection, um, specifically to allow folks to self-report or self-identify as descendants of people who are enslaved in this country.

Um, that work is built on some work that we've done with the state over the past several years, specifically um uh Senate Bill 5, excuse me, Senate Bill 189 of uh 2022, Section 14 specifically, which requires all state agencies to do this very same thing.

Uh and now this new law, SB 515 requires all cities and counties to do what the state agencies have have already been been doing.

We've already seen lots and lots of great um examples across uh not just the country but here in California too of when cities and counties start to get better information, better targeted, better disaggregated, better delineated data about specific racial and ethnic subgroups that they can design and then do better policies and better solutions that actually reach the people who we're trying to reach.

So um wanted to offer again ourselves up as a resource here.

We're going around from city to city to city.

This is our third city council meeting of the day.

We got two more coming, and we're just offering ourselves up as a resource to help you implement again over the next 15 months.

Uh and with that, I'll give it back to you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Gina.

Um, I would just uh like to make a few comments.

Um, I'm really concerned still about the decisions that the um leadership of Monterey is making about moving forward with um reviewing new products, projects for the NCIP while reviewing existing authorized and funded projects for deletion.

Um I it's it's very concerning that there's um kind of uh uh an agreement that this is a reasonable approach and suggest that the city uh really embrace its obligation to review that program to review the assumptions, the protocols, the commitments that are made, and um begin to reframe it in a manner that will make it workable and of benefit to the community and the people that are involved in bringing forward um projects for funding.

For a second, I just wanted to clarify something.

Are you referring to item number seven on today's agenda?

When I read the agenda, there was no item about NCIP on there.

The item number seven is so I just wanted to make sure, but it sounds like because it sounds uh it sounds like that might be where you're leading to, but if you didn't see that one, then I will let you continue with your general public comment.

Thank you very much.

And I'm actually done.

I was gonna end right now.

So I'm sorry if I broke uh a protocol.

I truly hadn't seen it when I looked at the agenda last week.

No worries.

Thank you for your public comment.

Thank you.

Okay, bye-bye.

Next speaker is Colin Okay.

Uh, this my name's Colin Gallagher, and I wish to speak on a couple items that are not on today's agenda.

Um, let's see.

Um, one of the items, uh, let's see, I was interested to hear about this um 515 that various people have been talking about.

I hadn't really heard too much about it, but while they were talking about it, I took some time and read over the law and found it um interesting about the new data collection that would go into effect in 2027.

I wanted people to be aware that that this had nothing to do with reparations.

There is no reparations requirement associated with this law.

It's simply data collection um initiative.

And I thought it is also noteworthy that in 2020, um, California's proposition 16 uh did fail.

It was a failed California ballot uh proposition that appeared on the November 3, 2020 general election ballot asking California voters to amend the Constitution of California to repeal Prop 209.

I mentioned that in this context because um there was a point at which um this uh basically Prop 209 generally prohibits state and local governments from discriminating against or granting uh certain preferences uh to people on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, education or contracting and uh 209 is still on the books and has not been wiped out by any vote of any kind.

So it is worth uh pointing that out from a legal context.

I also want to use my remainder in time to speak on another issue, and it said I think the city council needs to meet with business owners um individually before it forecloses on the possibility of issuance of or revocation of licenses or licensing uh potential in the future.

And I think I have five seconds left, and that's all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That is on the agenda.

So I was gonna cut you off there, but um, we'll go ahead and go to our next public commenter.

This is the last speaker.

This is um Audrey.

You can go ahead, please.

Thank you.

Thank you so very much.

Good evening, everyone.

Uh Mr.

Mayor, the board or the um city council members.

My name is Audra Walton.

And although I'm currently the vice chair of the City of Marina's planning commission, I am calling in this evening as a private citizen and a very proud and very proud to be a part of Black AF.net and the coalition for a just and equitable California.

I am also celebrating the passage of SB 515 and just wanted to echo the comments my colleagues have already made.

My father was born here in 1953 while my grandfather served at former Ford Ord.

And huge shout out to our service members in the audience here today.

Uh, however, over the last few decades, we have seen the Black American freedmen population decline from around 18,000 in 1980 to around 9,000 today.

This bill may be a little too late to change that dramatic drop in population that I grew up around.

However, it could help those of us that remain here uh today be able to stay.

And it may even become a destination area for black American freedmen uh the way it was back in the 60s to the late 80s.

So, like my brothers and sisters have already stated this evening.

CJAC is ready to support you, the city and the county as we move forward.

Uh, please let us know.

Reach out.

I am right around the corner for me.

Thank you.

All righty, thank you to all of our public commenters.

We're gonna go ahead and close public comment, bring it back to the council, and we're gonna move on to consent agenda.

Um, number 11 has been re has been requested to be pulled.

Um, does the council wish to pull anything else?

No, no, we're here.

I'm gonna ask for 10 as well.

So we're looking at 10 and 11.

Um, I'm also gonna make a quick um announcement.

So, due to a financial conflict of interest regarding item number seven, the Larkin Park Swings installation project stemming from the proximity of my personal residence.

I am disqualified from voting on this item because it appears on the consent agenda and is uncontested.

I do not need to recuse myself or leave the room.

However, I will be I will be recorded as disqualified in the minutes.

Um, and with that, we're gonna go ahead and go to public comment on consent items.

For folks on Zoom, you can use a raise hand function.

Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on any of the consent items.

Seeing none in the room, we'll go ahead and cut it off here and I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one.

We have one public speaker.

We'll go ahead and take them.

Mr.

Rosen, you'll need to unmute and then you can speak for the uh public comments on the consent agenda.

Mr.

Rosen, are you there?

We're gonna give you another few seconds here to Hi.

I I'm sorry, I had my hand raised for the last item, and uh somehow it didn't work out.

I either I made a mistake or you made a mistake.

So I'll see you at seven.

Sorry about that.

Just to clarify, you had your hand raised during the general public comment, and you had the opportunity to speak.

So we haven't had anything else for public comment since then.

No, I spoke for the for the presentation, not the general public comment.

Um, but I'll do it later.

Okay, got you.

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

Bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation.

Uh, you're looking for a vote on the consent.

Yep, I just need a motion to approve consent.

Uh motion, motion made for consent tonight.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Any other discussion?

And just to clarify, that's minus items 10 and 11.

And with you recused on item seven.

Um not recused, but disqualified.

That's that's my motion.

That's correct.

Perfect.

Thanks.

Um, all right.

With that, um call the question.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes unanimously.

With that, we will go to item number 10.

And it might help if I just ask my question first.

So general context for everybody.

This is a professional services agreement for storm drain master plan and stormwater utility rate study.

So I'm I'm a little bit confused in regards to the extension of the scope.

Um, I guess I'm a little bit confused on regard specifically regarding like if the intent was to do the rate study.

Um, let me just read some of the language that's in the staff report.

It says amend amendment number one expands the scope of work to include preparing a comprehensive cost of service analysis, conducting a public opinion survey, developing the engineering report, preparing ballot materials, and providing administrative support during the first year of fee collection.

So I think I'm just trying to get clarity in regards to why maybe some of this wasn't included in the initial, particularly the um comprehensive cost of service analysis when that would feed the work that we're doing for the rate study.

So I guess just a little bit of clarity would be helpful.

Sure.

Uh then it's a great question.

When we originally wrote the RFP, uh, we didn't really identify some of these services.

So the the survey, uh, the community outreach that was through the community survey and uh some of the modeling that was included in this amendment wasn't originally considered in the original RFP and agreement.

Uh we did look at potential uh reductions to offset some of the costs for some stuff we can do in-house to to truly uh kind of save some money.

So when we originally scoped this, these were services that we didn't consider.

Okay, and then that was actually my next question, which is I I saw that there was the reduction, but the reduction seems to be more than the cost of the increase, but is the increase more than what's being asked for?

The increase is 11,000 total.

I think there were additional services.

There's a subtotal in there, and maybe that was probably poorly worded, but there was a subtotal for additional tasks uh in task eight.

Uh, but we were it it's a net increase of 111.

Okay, okay.

All right, that was it.

I thank you for for that clarification.

Um the council, yeah.

Just one please one.

Um, when does that come back to staff?

And when will it be in play to help you for the staff work plan?

Um, everything related to sewer collection.

Uh storm what storm driver I'm sorry, storm storm.

Great question.

Uh the survey, I believe, is going to be released on the 14th, and I think would come back to staff within about a month or so.

I'm going off memory, so it could be a little off.

And then we do plan to bring it back to council uh just after the uh uh the new year.

So it'll come back to you.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

I actually have a follow-up.

Um how much is in the budget now for storm the stormwater budget?

Uh I don't have those numbers committed to me.

We're talking about the the storm drain utility fund.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Is there's one more or less?

I it's about 1.21.5 million.

Okay, and and the funding for this is coming out of this that budget that no.

If you if you I don't know where the funding comes from exactly, right?

No, but uh as as under said, what is in the stormwater maintenance fund or what do we spend on stormwater maintenance annually?

It's about 1.2 to 1.5.

So that's what we spend on storm drain maintenance.

So I was responding when you spoke about this.

I don't know uh out of which funding this comes from it's it's coming out of a CIP that has storm drain utility funds in it.

So it is using storm drain utility funds that was appropriate into a CIP.

It is transferring out of, I'm trying to find the exact count, but it is storm drain utility fund.

Okay, I just want to make sure that we're trying I since we're we're we've been talking a lot about the general fund.

I just want to make sure that we're restoring that and not stealing from Peter to pay Paul.

So I guess as long as we clarify that, I think we're good.

I do have it right here.

Is it coming out of the CIP storm drain utility repair and maintenance program account CIP 2312?

Okay, from and not coming out of the general fund, it's from 2023 because the CIP gives it away.

So it's CIP 2312, and uh it comes out of the as a city engineer says storm drain utility repair and maintenance project at call.

So it's a CIP.

I guess just to clarify and make sure that I'm I'm fully tracking um the the cost of the base agreement and and the amendment is being re is being paid for reimbursed by ratepayers, not not the general fund.

I guess that's the part I'm trying to clarify.

Uh so for sure the amendments coming out of the storm drain utility fund.

I don't have it committed to memory where the original base contract is.

I think it did come out of the storm drain fund.

Okay, but I can follow up with you on it.

Okay, all right, I'm good.

Um let's go ahead and thank you for for the presentation.

Let's go ahead and open it up for public comment on this item for folks on Zoom.

You can use a raise hand function.

Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item?

We have one taker.

Anyone else?

All right.

So we're going to cut it off to the one speaker in the chambers, and I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one.

We have nobody on Zoom.

Please, sir.

Uh Mayor, I just uh I'm I'm bringing it up with as I'll be talking about it in 11, but it it appears to me uh that we have a 10 million dollar upside down in the general fund.

Um and I appreciate the fact that you bring it up that it isn't coming out of the general fund, but I'm concerned that all these things that are being done on consent agendas, while we're 10 million dollars upside down, it's shocking to the public that we continue to spend, spend, spin.

And we're not addressing that 10 million dollars.

And I'm thinking you're gonna wait till the very end and say, well, we got no choice but to raise it on the taxpayer.

You guys should be cutting as you go along on things that that uh are repeat and uh and passing on to the general public.

All these costs, keep in mind we keep paying, and then you're gonna be asking us for more money.

I'll hold the other comments on the next time.

Item, thank you.

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

And I'll I'll just quickly respond.

I I understand the concern.

Um, I think staff in the council hear you.

We've been engaged.

The council has been engaged in um a lot of conversation around our deficit.

It's not just easy to cut a program and and just make it happen.

It it's obviously um quite complex and challenging and political, all the things that make any uh government agency uh it make it difficult and challenging to cut, but it's on the table.

We're discussing it at the same time.

We can't stop operating.

There's things that are still going on in the city of Monterey that we've allocated funding for.

And even if it's on the consent, just like we see tonight, we can pull things from the consent agenda so we can have a deeper conversation around that.

So it's trying to find that right balance of continuing the work, but also looking at it with the microscope and appreciate folks like you coming to the council and making sure that we're keeping our uh we're being accountable to our taxpayers.

So I'm open to I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve this item.

Second.

Is there any other discussion?

All right, all those in favor?

Aye, any opposed?

Motion passes unanimously.

With that, move on to item number 11, which is um camera replacement.

Give me one second.

Uh security camera replacement.

So with that, I'll pass it to sorry, let me figure myself out here.

Yeah, I'll pass it to staff to do.

Are we doing a presentation?

Yeah.

We can do a presentation.

I don't know.

Was there there was a member of public Mr.

Vega?

You pulled this one.

Okay.

So I ask uh why don't you just give like a two sentence version of a presentation and then we maybe we can hear from Vega and then hear what what needs answers to.

I'll ask for chief information officer to give uh a two sentence.

Hi, Angie.

Presentation.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Angie Blake.

I'm the chief information officer for the city of Monterey.

I'm here before you today to request funding and approval to uh replace over 300 cameras across the city that we use for safety and security purposes.

The these cameras are used to deter theft, protect public property, promote safety, and support lawful investigations after crimes have been committed.

They're used in our jail and our parking garages, our conference center.

Um, and I have about 13 other locations as well that these cameras are located.

This uh project started out with just replacing cameras one by one, and we quickly realized that this was not a cost effective way to run this project.

And so then we investigated and researched different solutions and determined it was best to do a replacement of all the cameras.

And um, this was done through a piggyback approach.

The city is receiving um over almost 200,000 discount in doing it this way.

And um I'm open to questions for you.

And and I would just uh um clarify one thing if my computer will work.

Um what when I remember looking at the agenda report, it did show a cost savings um to the city associated with this project.

So I just wanted to kind of add that to yours.

I think I saw a hand up over here.

Thanks, Angie.

Um so I know in the world of technology and moving from catalog to digital to cloud services.

We've seen significant improvements in uh cameras.

Um what do you think is the time of the aged system that we have?

I know we've got a variety of cameras that were put in, and then more were put in, and then some broke and more put in.

But generally speaking, the system we currently have, how old is it?

The current system with the cameras are over 10 years old.

Some of them are up to 17 years old.

The cameras are the amount of data is 150 terabytes that are on premise, and this is going to a cloud solution.

The hardware that stores that 150 terabytes plus the cloud backup is all due for replacement as well.

So by going to a cloud solution with the storage of this data is that was my second probing is that we actually save money by going to a cloud rather than having to have a rack with servers that we maintain that then ages.

So, you know, what you're saying is it's a holistic change for the new technology.

And with 17 years, 10 years, even three years, it's light years and changes for technology.

So thank you.

All right, Dr.

Barber.

Uh, and just quickly, um, I believe this is I'm reading it correctly, but I just want to make sure that this it would be coming from the IT account.

It is coming from the IT account, and then also a couple of special funding accounts as well.

Uh, okay.

Um, the contingency fund of the 15% would be included in the project budget.

Is that a part of that amount that's being requested?

The 15% is coming from the the project, the IT project account.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Uh council.

I presume that a big hunk of the um 1.8 is the storage on the cloud and and those kinds of supports and services, but can you just remind us what it breaks down to for the you had mentioned 300 uh cameras?

So what is it per camera?

Just the camera.

Um to fully state what this project is.

It's to replace the cameras across the city.

It's also to store that data.

Um, it's also I want to say off the top of my head, it was oh, I have it written down $630 per camera over the 10-year period.

I thought it was, I thought I saw maintenance on there as well or something.

Like they there's a 10-year warranty on the system, and what this project for is for the first five years and the camera itself will come back to council after five years for that last five years.

Um, Councilman Garcia.

Thank you.

Thank you, Angie.

Uh, good to see you.

So just to confirm uh this is to replace 318 outdated cameras specifically versus replacing and then adding some more.

It's a little bit of both.

Currently, the city has over 340 cameras.

So we're going to 318.

We're some of the new cameras have extra lenses, like the newer technology.

So we don't have to replace as many cameras.

Um, also there was a couple areas where they felt we needed to add a couple and remove some.

So and then I have I have a few.

Um you said you had the list of where they were located.

Could you just go through that list just for everybody's awareness of point point to generalize because these are security cameras?

So just whatever is appropriate to share.

Yeah, an overview.

So uh a cemetery, the harbor docks.

Uh there are um server rooms where we have to track who's coming in and out, a couple at the library, the conference center where they've been very helpful for damage to the building or uh trips and falls.

Uh parking structures, all three of the parking garages have them.

Police department, our jail that we have to man 24-7, and also uh concern concern with making sure everyone's okay.

The property of the police department, uh there are storage rooms up at the presidio, uh Ryan Ranch maintenance yard, the sports center, where we also have um people that get injured.

Uh there's some new ones that are going in for the public safety gates, and then that's it.

Um, and then how many of these 318 cameras um are affiliated with the public safety facility?

Um, not as uh it's they're mainly parking garages, is where hundreds are going.

There's uh 215 in the parking garages.

That's the big chunk.

Um for public safety, we are looking at about 25.

Okay.

Okay, awesome.

Thank you for answering those questions in the in the presentation.

With that, we'll go ahead and open up for public comment for folks on Zoom.

You can use the raise hand function.

Anyone else in the chamber except for Mr.

Vega?

Who's gonna get a chance to speak?

I'm not excluding him.

Anyone else though in the chamber wish that want to speak on this item?

All right, seeing none, we'll go ahead and cut it off to the one public commenter, and I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one.

There's nobody on Zoom, please, sir.

Um, council, I'm not against the cameras.

Okay, I have I have cameras all around my business.

Matter of fact, the police department comes and sometimes asked to look at our cameras.

We actually saw the, I believe it was a murder that was stabbed in downtown that ran across and we caught them on our cameras.

So I understand the cameras.

But I'm understanding what I'm upset about is the structure of how you guys do business here.

You're demanding to uh that you're going to be up 10 million dollars upside down at the end of the year.

And this isn't part of your priority list.

This should be in that list, and you should say we're gonna we're gonna have to get 10 million dollars.

This is a priority.

I understand that, but don't it appears to me that every consent agenda we're spending millions and millions of millions of dollars, and we're gonna wait to the very end and then say, oh, well, we're out of money, and then you're gonna come to the public.

And I'm what I'm asking is for the council to have the courage to say we're not gonna spend this kind of money until we can give the public a full accounting of the money before you ask us for more money, because we have expenses just like you have expenses.

You're you're gonna raise the sewer tax, you're gonna raise the water tax, you're gonna waste every bringing tax in this town to put it upon us, and then you're gonna come back and ask us for more money for the general fund.

And I think that's wrong.

That's not how we do it in a household at home.

We don't do it in a business that way, we don't do it in any other except in government.

And as a taxpayer, I'm just exhausted that you guys don't get the message.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mr.

Vega.

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

Um can I just ask for clarification?

Is this something that's already baked into the budget, or is this going above and beyond what we've already allocated and approved?

Like in for our annual budget.

It's already in the budget.

Okay.

Any uh open for motion deliberation.

Um, I just want to make a comment.

Please sit.

Yeah, I I think um when we look at uh capital improvement for equipment that ages out, um, as we heard from staff, some of the equipment we have is 17 years old and 10 years old.

And we we cannot there's there's a certain part of what we do in our our on our system and in the city is that we have to identify uh essential priorities statutorily required, and and we get through that.

And we've had four or five sessions already where we've we've all been talking about the the deep, you know, areas that we may need to reduce or cut.

Um you certainly would never consider cutting something like this, and I fully support it because actually two or three trips and falls, two or three thefts, one or two crime incidents in the garage.

This pays for the public safety and the wellness uh and health and safety is always my number one priority, and I think it's everybody's priority in the city is that we always look at uh health and safety priorities for the city, and this is exactly in that lane.

So never would I consider modifying or cutting this.

This is all one of those that comes into absolutely essential.

We'll have further meetings where we are actually making hard decisions where we're gonna be talking about many of the things that the last speaker spoke about in terms of setting priorities.

That's for days in the future and the very near future.

Anyone else on this one?

I just I was just please make a motion because um for the same reason I would be supporting it and making a motion to approve.

Um understanding the frustration of the public uh dealing with the deficit that we're dealing with, we're frustrated too, but we're also making hard decisions, and so um I also am uh just reminded that this is already in the budget that we already approved.

Um, so we want to make sure that we are making sound decisions that are gonna be about safety, just like uh my colleague just said.

So with that, I'd like to make a motion to approve.

Second.

So moved and seconded.

Any other comments?

Well, I just want to say that um I think Mr.

Vega has an important point that will drive us to review uh more publicly and more thoroughly, like your question on pulling the other project off and a little bit more scrutiny and a little bit more deeper dive, perhaps on I guess I can only speak for me on my part, so that we are um we are scrutinizing everything with a lot of due diligence.

I think I think that's an important point that he made.

Yeah, yeah.

Council Christie, did you have anything you want to do?

Um, uh I will just add, did is he is he still here?

No.

Oh, he walked out.

Um, well, if somebody could relay this to him, or maybe he'll watch later.

Uh uh at the last council meeting, I I reiterated um something that I asked for in the past, which was to have a budget or finance committee made up of residents that can do this very thing, helping to go through the budget and look through things.

I know it's excruciating, it's painful, but I think it's a helpful and necessary transparent process so that the public can engage more.

Um, because even sitting on the council, it's hard for me to see fully everything that's going on in the city.

There's and there's a lot going on in the city.

Not that I necessarily need to see every little thing, but transparency is important when you're talking about public dollars.

As it relates to this project, um, I can guarantee you if you're the victim of an incident or a crime, and there was a camera there that wasn't working because it's not functioning right now.

I guarantee you'd be pissed at the city for not having functioning camera.

So we need to make sure that we keep that high standard that we expect in the city of Monterey, albeit it's loud and clear.

We need to focus on our on our budget, and that's the process that we're engaging with.

So with that, oh, I do want to throw out one other thing.

And if I could ask maybe staff to just um your thoughts on this.

Um, I had an incident uh with with my vehicle um in in the parking lot um here behind City Hall.

There is no cameras um on City Hall campus.

So I just wonder what your thoughts are as far as potentially incorporating City Hall, particularly when this is probably one of the areas where we see the highest number of residents coming and participating in our city facilities.

So I just kind of wonder your thoughts on that.

You're not the first person that asked me to add more cameras to my project.

So I I to answer your question, I it would need to be another phase two, and there are other places that have asked for cameras.

We didn't have the budget this year to do it.

And so it is definitely something that could be brought forward to discuss further.

Okay, awesome.

I I would love for for for that to uh come back as far as part of phase two.

I know that there is the uh the discount that we get for the agreement.

So appreciate staff's work on this and look forward to seeing this implemented.

With that, I'll go ahead and call the question.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes unanimously.

And it is five o'clock.

We just finished our consent.

And we're gonna go to our public hearing item, and then we have a public appearance item.

So we have two items left.

We're gonna try to get through these by 530.

Um, so with that, item 13, our public hearing item is to adopt the planning commission recommendation and approve first reading of an ordinance amending chapter 38 of Monterey City Code to establish regulations and development standards for firearms and ammunition retail sales uses and amending the home occupation permit procedures.

With that, pass it to Hans for staff presentation.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um will present uh the um planning commission uh recommendation and uh the request to approve the first reading of the this audience.

Thank you, Hans.

Good evening, Mayor, Council.

Uh the item before you is proposed ordinance that would establish regulations and standards for firearms and ammunition sales in the city.

As the mayor mentioned, it would also amend the home occupation permit procedures as it relates to those same uses.

Uh quick refresher on how we got here.

Uh if you recall in February, the city of City Council adopted an urgency ordinance that would suspend uh the establishment and operation of new firearms and ammunition retail sales businesses in the city.

Uh, this was necessary as the municipal code does not currently distinguish the sale of firearms and ammunition from that of general retail sales, meaning that there are no uh specific limitations, restrictions, or location requirements for those uses.

Given that the council uh given that, the council adopted a moratorium for new firearms and ammunition sales establishments under that urgency ordinance and was of course later extended in April for an additional 10 months and 15 days.

So under the proposed ordinance that's before you uh this evening, the city regulations would now prohibit new firearms and ammunition sales within the city, except for sites located in the IR zone, and that's the city's industrial zone.

Uh within the IR zone, firearms sales would uh be allowed with the approval of a use permit, which would involve a separate public hearing than that of tonight.

Uh ammunition sales, however, would be permitted as a principal use without a use permit.

Uh additionally, beyond the use permit requirement, the ordinance would establish location restrictions.

Uh that would require a minimum of 600 foot buffer from various sensitive users like schools, daycares, residential zones, and other uses as noted in the ordinance.

Uh the ordinance would also prohibit firearms and ammunition sales for new home occupations as well.

Uh, if approved, there are four businesses in the city that would be rendered uh non-conforming uses because they engage in the sale of firearms and or ammunition.

Uh all of those businesses would be allowed to continue to operate without expansion under the city's uh non-conforming provisions of the zoning code, with the exception of one business, which is LMB firearms located at 301 Ocean.

Uh in conclusion, staff recommends that the city council approve the first reading of the proposed ordinance.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Levi, for the presentation.

Any questions from the council, please?

Um, Levi, do I understand my one read of the agenda?

But it was around page 99, section seven dash 4.06.

If if the 301 Ocean Um LMB firearms wanted to ask for a longer amount of time or or shorter amount of time, a change in the in the application of the three year period, they could petition the planning commission and then it would come back to us.

Am I reading that right?

There the ordinance does have a provision in there that allows for uh existing businesses to uh appeal or or maybe should let the city attorney and discussion.

Sorry, it's all that um process was inserted into the ordinance to make sure that they can recoup their investment in that amount of time.

So um, if they feel that that's not an appropriate amount of time, they can petition and present evidence of the amount of their lease, how much did they put in improvements into the facility and things like that?

So um that analysis can be done.

Otherwise, we're working from an assumption based on the length of the um firearm large license that three years is sufficient.

Okay, all right.

Could I ask a follow up question to this?

Sure.

Um, so LMB on Ocean.

Um at what point, like if they submitted their lease, the lease payments that they made, up to what date would those lease payments be considered?

Would it be the entire three year period if they stuck with that, or would it be up until the finalization of this ordinance?

I I think it's gonna depend on a lot of factors outlined in the code.

Um maybe they have a 10-year lease.

We don't know that offhand.

Um, and so we would look at what is the cost of the lease, what has been the cost of the improvements, their inventory, things like that to make sure it's amortized sufficiently over a reasonable period of time.

Okay.

Which may be shorter than three years, or it may be longer than three years, or it may be precisely three years.

Okay.

Did you have anything else?

No, okay.

Um question on the side.

Um, yeah, Levi What's the zone that um the address of L and B firearms is at?

Is that just purely residential?

But then there's also some multi-speakers.

No, that's a it's actually zone and neighborhood commercial zone.

Okay.

So it is actually commercially zoned.

However, it's one of our less intense commercial zones.

So it's our C1, which is our neighborhood commercial.

So it currently is neighborhood commercial.

And we are not doing anything to change that zoning.

That's correct.

We're just changing the permitted uses with throughout the zoning districts in the city.

But you're correct, the zoning won't be changing.

Okay.

Um, also with um the L and B firearms, uh, what have they been issued from the city when they originally made their application up to this point?

Refresh the the audience and the council.

What have they done so far to apply, comply, and uh be issued permits?

Sure.

So they they submitted an application with the city for a business license that was subsequently uh issued because it did it was classified as general retail sales at that time because an ordinance like this wasn't in effect at that time.

Uh, do you believe they've also applied for building permits to uh complete tenant improvements as well?

I may be incorrect about that, but I do believe they intend on doing tenant improvements to as far as you know for sure, a business license.

Definitely a business license, correct?

Okay.

And then under pre-emergency ordinance, there would have been no requirement of a use permit for that business.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay.

Um, and if there is, I'll just pull a business and pick on one.

If it's a liquor store, if it's a bar, they now are required to have a use permit.

Is that correct?

I I'm sorry.

If are you asking about it?

So if there was a bar, if there was a uh a liquor store, that application in our city ordinance would require a process and we would do we would have a use permit for that business.

That's correct.

It depends on how it's classified under a restaurant or bar, but yes, typically alcoholic beverage outlets would would require some type of use permit for a new establishment.

Okay.

If you're asking, are you asked?

But that's what you're asking, not if a firearms or ammunition was locating.

Well, the my next question is do we require a use permit for any firearms sales anywhere in the city?

Not currently, no.

Okay.

And this ordinance does not require a use permit for any of those other businesses as well.

This this ordinance would require a use permit for a firearm sales business in the IR IR zone.

Okay.

But doesn't change the process for any other businesses beyond firearms and ammunition sales.

Okay.

So I guess the question is if we have an IR zone currently, and there is a gun store in an IR zone, and they are currently working existing, hold a business license.

What do we do with them?

So that's that's uh great question.

So that's actually is applicable to one of the operating businesses.

So they are operating as a firearms and ammunition sales business.

They are in an IR district, but they don't have a use permit currently because it wasn't required.

They will be rendered non-conforming if this ordinance is approved and adopted because they don't have that use permit.

They would be allowed to continue to operate as is, but if they were looking to expand or move or anything like that, they'd be required to obtain a use permit at that time.

Okay, so what will that process be?

How much time are they provided?

So we've reached out to those businesses and they did not indicate any uh intentions of expanding.

Uh they were uh communicated what was in this ordinance.

So as far as so if that were to still happen in the future, they would apply for a use permit from the planning division that would get reviewed and go to the planning commission for approval at that point.

Okay, so when we give uh a business that's non-conforming, that doesn't trigger a timeline for them to apply and become compliant.

No, not in the same way as it would for say the LMB firearms location.

Okay, thanks.

That's the only questions I have.

Okay.

Um other questions from the council this time.

Um I asked Nat if um we can pull up the city zoning map and hopefully we can just kind of show the public kind of have a visual understanding of if this passes the council, where where are they restricted to?

So we can just talk through this a little bit.

Sure, there's actually a pretty limited amount of industrial zones in the city.

So the industrial zone is that dark shade of purple that you'll see there.

So it's primarily the north and south side of Garden Road.

Uh, and then also as you see, the bigger area to the uh bottom right-hand corner is the Ryan Ranch area.

And then there's a few parcels between the Fenton and Keller site on 68 and the Monterey Motor Sports Park site on that north side of highway.

Can you uh Nat, could you just kind of uh use your cursor to show folks where that's at?

Yes, yeah, deep shade of purple there.

Perfect.

Yeah, awesome.

Thank you for that.

Um follow-up to that.

Yeah.

Was there one in the middle of the city or is that pink?

No, there is over off specific.

No, that's actually a deeper kind of a magenta color.

Uh, it does kind of look similar, but that's our it's a commercial zone.

Okay, sure.

Um given the fact that we are we have already did uh have done a um um what is it, the zone overlay for garden road, at least the south side of garden road.

Um how is that impacted since it's now kind of be more of a residential sure?

So the ordinance actually includes one of the buffers is 600 feet from any residential zone that includes our multifamily overlay, which is the south side of Garden Road.

So 600 feet from that, you know, garden road.

I don't know that don't know the exact width, but it's gonna eliminate a large portion of the garden road area based on that.

Okay.

Um and then um so I saw the language regarding 600 feet, and I appreciate staff including that in there, kind of marries our um ordinance as it relates to cannabis.

Um, and when I was comparing that language, there were some other elements that were included in the cannabis one that I didn't see here.

So I just wanted to read this the language, um, establishments shall not be located within 600 feet a foot radius of a school providing institution instruction in kindergarten or any grades one through 12 preschool daycare center, use center, playground, or educational institution that is in existence at the time of the license issued.

So I saw the language included school, daycare center, and playground, but those other elements, I'm just wondering if we can just do small tweaks to that language to make sure that it's consistent.

Can I ask a clarifying question?

You're saying that language was in the cannabis ordinance, but not in this ordinance.

That's correct.

I will double check, but I went through painstaking effort to not duplicate state law because we can't.

And state law very aggressively regulates firearm retail sales.

So if it already prohibits that, we don't duplicate that in our city code, but I don't have that um chart comparison right now.

Well, maybe what I could ask is when we get to it, maybe in the motion, if we can just have staff look at that and if there's space to add something we can.

If it's duplicative, then we don't need to add it.

Right.

Um, okay, perfect.

Thank you for that, Chrissy.

Yeah.

And then um the last question I have is I'm wondering why we took a direction of saying that firearms would require the use permit or in essence require a public hearing where ammunition would be um the principally permitted yeah.

So there's just different licensing requirements for those two.

So there's different licensing requirements for businesses that sell firearms and ammunition, and there's different licensing requirements, a lesser licensing requirement for those who just sell ammunition.

Um, so we do have businesses in the city that are more sporting goods uh uh oriented that do happen to sell ammunition but don't sell firearms.

So it just seemed like it was more compatible and in line with the federal licensing process.

Okay, okay.

Thank you for that.

All right, with that, we'll go ahead and open up for public comment.

For folks on Zoom, you can use a raise hand function.

If you're in the chamber, I ask that you stand to the left of the podium.

And if you prefer to remain seated, feel free to do so.

I will ask for your hands in a second once we get a group to stand.

We have two folks.

Anyone else that's still seating that wants to speak on this item?

So we'll go ahead and cut it off to those two in the chamber.

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

We have two.

Did you want to speak as well?

Okay, so we're going to cut it off to the three in the chamber, and we have two on Zoom.

All right, we'll go ahead and start in the chamber.

I would like to speak against the adoption of this resolution, and I'll tell you why.

I remember a few weeks back when this was initiated.

There were several members from the Oak Grove neighborhood committee that came and asked the council to prevent the store going into 301 Ocean Avenue.

The reasons they gave that I heard was that it would attract CD people, and it would devaluate the property.

They gave no evidence of these comments.

For CD, I think they're talking about felons.

A felon doesn't go to a retail store because that merchant can check the background very quickly on a computer.

And that fella knows he won't get that gun.

Someone that would be adjudicated mentally incapable of having a gun knows that also.

So I don't know who they referred to by CD or shady people.

The type of people that will go to that organization are sportsmen primarily, people who shoot competitively, firearms like shotguns for skeet or trap rifles for target shooting at 100 and 200 yards, handguns for 25 and 50 yards.

We have an organization in the Carmel Valley, the Carmel Associated Sportsmen that have been in business for what over 70 years now.

There are a hundred members, they would go to that store too.

There would be people who would go there to buy a weapon for home protection, or maybe for concealed carry.

There would be hunters, those are the type of people that'll go to a retail store of that nature.

I was reading the comment here, some of the restrictions that this ordinance would put forth.

I looked at where it said there should be a 600-foot setback, and they named the preschool.

And I'd bring to your attention that there's a preschool on the corner of fourth and slote in Oak Grove, that very area.

It's only two sidewalks in the street away from the naval school.

People that are very friendly to weapons.

There's never been a negative incident with that preschool.

My point is that people who don't want a retail firearm business are not operating on facts, they're operating on fears.

They have no way of justifying the passage of this ordinance.

Now I'd like to speak just a little bit about 301 ocean and the tenants that signed a lease.

They signed a lease for three years.

And this ordinance would restrict them to that three year term.

Sir, sorry, I have to cut you off there just to be fair for everybody.

You get your three minutes.

So if you have additional comments that you want to provide, you can send them in to us.

But your time is unfortunately ended.

All I wanted to tell you is that there were three two water.

Sorry, sir.

I can't I can't let you do that.

Because if I do that for you, I have to do that for everybody else.

So I apologize.

Thank you so much for your public comment.

Go ahead and take the next speaker, please.

My name is Rebecca Sumner is the federal firearm license holder alongside my husband, Larry for 301 Ocean Avenue.

I have heard the concerns of residents, and many of those same concerns had crossed my mind as well when it came to this business.

We put a lot of thought into this and obviously would have not jumped in if we did not see how this could serve the community of Monterey and serve safely.

As you mentioned, uh safety was your guys' number one concern as well.

Um if you guys choose to pass to force us to move in three years to the IR district, um we would no longer be surrounded by three to four fire or law enforcement agencies at any given time at Ocean Avenue.

We are Monterey Seaside, NSA at Naval Postgraduate School, and Monday through Friday is the sheriff's office at the Monterey County.

Monterey County courthouse.

Um I'm just asking you to consider those and uh maybe not pass this tonight and consider some other options, some other places for us to go, even I really don't want to move from 301 Ocean Avenue, but I really don't think the IR district is the best place for us to be either.

Um it puts us on a highway, it puts us near no law enforcement help if we do get in any safety issues.

I don't foresee any.

There's never been any with any firearms stores in Monterey before.

Um, we do plan on working very closely with local law enforcement as well, uh, to ensure that the safety of the residents and everyone else is taken seriously.

Um but I also think that there are different solutions that we can come up with.

Um in my mind, you guys are pushing us to the outside, and I will end with this quote here.

Um we push mar we we push what we fear to the margins, hoping distance will silence it.

The silence is not resolution.

I don't know who's at it, but I found it online and I thought it.

I liked it.

So thank you guys.

Thank you.

Particularly because as a gentleman before me mentioned, I am uh uh I previously an avid hunter, um, target shooter, uh, and my um uh personal life, and I'm a fairly new resident to Monterey, and I have found that it is difficult to find uh firearms and ammunition uh within this community for those with legitimate uh reasons uh to use those those items.

I also work for a particular organization in which um sometimes we do purchase our own um our own ammunition to hone those skills for our I don't want to mention the organization because I do not want to present any bias.

Um, but uh it has been a challenge, uh living Monterey uh to try and keep those skills sharp uh for for the profession.

Um and I just want to make sure those concerns are are kind of put out there if uh if nobody else is considering them.

Um not to say that I am for or against this ordinance, um, but I just want to make um kind of make those those concerns known because I think that sometimes people aren't connected to that particular profession to know that that's a challenge that we do face um is trying to keep um our tools of that profession in in stock so that we can keep those skills sharp.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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

Yes, first I'll call on Colin.

Uh yes, hi.

Uh my name is Colin Gallagher, and uh just for the record, um, I'm the owner and uh manager of Gallagher Ammunition.

Um, which I basically maintain is kind of a side gig, but um sort of it's my thing.

And uh I wanted to start this off my comment just by saying uh kind of those of us who have been monitoring this whole process with what the city has been doing, have known how it started.

Um this started when um Mayor uh Tyler uh got upset uh because he noticed that that lo and behold, um L and B had had been permitted and and you know it didn't take uh you know a whole lot.

Uh that's the way it should be.

Things should be permissive, and you should let businesses do business in Monterey.

But unfortunately, the city of Monterey has taken attack of reacting in shrill and and noisome tones and having a very bad reaction to business people being able to do business, and as a consequence, the city has a 10 million dollar structural deficit, and here we are today about to adopt an ordinance, which is not only wrong, but which I would argue is unconstitutional, and which will probably eventually um result in um being it being overturned some point a few years down the road when when you have court cases like Road versus Vesera eventually come to their to their proper conclusion.

Um, this is something where I think the city needs to really take a look at what is actually happening um with cases like Road Sarah, Road versus Bonta, which has to do with the ammunition front, but but also with respect to just treating L and B firearms um and then other and other businesses like it properly and treating all businesses in the city properly and saying, Look, what we're doing is wrong, treating businesses the way is wrong.

We need to be welcoming businesses, not rejecting them, and you need to be looking at what you can do for people instead of shutting them down and not letting people apply for licenses, which is what the city is about to do.

In the realistic consequence of you saying you're not gonna, you're you're gonna take a whole swath of the city and shut it down and not let people apply for licenses across most of the city um for this kind of business class.

Is that the city isn't gonna make a lot of money?

Uh that's that's the that's the actual truth.

Um, so the city is taking a an anti-business position, and it will continue to do so, and that's highly unfortunate for the city and for everybody that lives in it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And we also have Laurie as a speaker.

Laura, you can unmute and you can go ahead.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

Um, I wasn't planning on speaking on this topic tonight, but after listening and knowing seeing the situation as an outsider, I just feel to um compelled to speak in support of L and B firearms and its owner.

And I want to share it's important to know that I do not own a gun, never have owned a gun, and probably never will.

I come from Colorado, where I lost friends in the Columbine shooting.

I coached there, so I'm personally I'm not a big gun person, but I've handled rifles um only to buy LT DART and tag whales.

Um, so I'm no stranger to the safety of guns.

But I just feel like this is unfair to LMB firearms and its owner because they did everything right under the law and followed city procedures.

Um the business applied properly, obtained its federal and state licenses, passed background checks, met security requirements, and received a valid city business license.

So there was no violation of any city ordinance in effect at that time.

I think that's really important here.

Um now after the fact, because the neighborhood complained and political pressure, the city's now retroactively trying to zone them out, forcing closure within three years, and that's just not fairness.

Um they're being punished, and these are members of our community, and he's sitting there with a child on his lap.

So these are clearly good, responsible people, and I just think it's unfair.

The agenda report makes it clear that the ordinance isn't about violations or safety incidents, that it's about the location preferences and neighborhood pressure.

A single business owner who followed the rules should not have to bear the cost of the city changing its mind.

If the council wants to tighten zoning for future applications, fine, I'm fine with that.

And I think that's fair, but existing lawful businesses deserve to be grandfathered in permanently, not amortized out like a nuisance.

The planning commission was divided on this, if I remember right, two commissioner vote two commissioners voted against it of this recommendation, explicitly warning that it would unfairly harm legitimate small businesses.

And I think those concerns are valid.

This ordinance sets a dangerous precedent if political pressure can erase a lawful business today.

It can happen to any business tomorrow.

Please respect the rights of those who complied with the rules in good faith.

L and B firearms earned its place under the city's existing code and should be allowed to continue operating without an expiration date.

Thank you.

And I really hope you'll consider my comments and some of the others.

And L and B firearms and the owners.

I think they only deserve to be grandfathered in.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

With that, we'll go ahead and close public comment on this item, bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation.

Wants to start us off.

Yeah.

Um, I I think that it's uh it's one of those difficult dilemmas that uh L and B got caught in a situation where they had applied under the circumstances and you know didn't do anything wrong.

So they were issued a business permit or business license.

Um I understand the sentiments of the neighborhood, and I understand the reasonings in the findings that the planning commission has come up with and that the staff recommends here today.

But I I take a different slight on the timing of making this application.

Uh L and B obtained a business license.

They've already expended certainly some investment in their uh pursuit of their business.

They had plans for the business model.

And if this were to pass tonight, it's it puts a business owner in a situation where they would really have to think hard about investing another dime in the business today if they know there's a really strong likelihood that in three years they're they're not going to be able to hold on to the license and the investment because of the nature of the way it's outlined when we look at all of the the reasons for the qualifications.

It would be a great risk for someone to go into business with the likelihood that they know in three years they're going to be not granted the rights to stay.

Um the the reasonings that are listed in here with the staff report, the planning commission shall consider and may recommend to the city council the complete termination of the nonconformant use within a shorter or longer amount of time based on facts applicable to the business, including but not limited to.

So there's a lot of variabilities there, and that would be the planning commission.

And then, of course, the city council could take the matter up and completely reverse the recommendations of the planning commission.

But what's included in here is the total cost of improvements, the duration of the lease, the length of time the use has existed, adaptability of the land and improvements to a currently permitted use.

And by the way, I would add that it's currently a permitted zone of neighborhood and commercial.

Another one is listed as the cost of moving and re-establishing the use elsewhere, whether the use is significantly non-conforming, and if this passes tonight, it would be significantly non-conforming.

Um, compatibility with the existing land use patterns and densities of the surrounding neighborhood, the expiration date of the federal firearms license, and the possible threat to public health, safety, or welfare and any other relevant factors.

That stacks it against a business.

But if the nature of the business is very selective in terms of what gun sales they're making, and by the way, in California, it's exceedingly difficult to purchase guns from their manufacturers because California's state law and the and the drop list and the ability to buy guns and sell guns is extremely reduced in California.

I could not purchase a well-known gun of a particular caliber in moderate county, and several guns that I wanted to purchase, could not purchase in California.

I purchased a gun in Southern California, went through a gun dealer.

It was a real pain in the neck.

The application, the waiting period, the fee, the permit, the computer, the clearance, and I'm an ex-cop.

It didn't matter.

I was viewed just like any other customer.

And that's okay.

That system works.

I think a business like this would certainly comply.

I'm going to guess the majority of their business is going to be sales of ammo and gun repairs.

Um, probably not going to have that much inventory to sell in guns because a small store has a hard time getting the inventory.

When they have the inventory, it's not just sitting in a counter when they lock up and go home at night.

Everything is very highly regulated and secured and locked down.

Um probably better than any bank.

So I I just have a hard time agreeing with the staff recommendation uh to invent a system that prevents L and B from being successful for a longer period of time uh beyond the three years, because I think that they come they complied with the law at the time.

Uh they did the right thing within the zoning that we still have there.

And I think that because it's zoned commercial as well as neighborhood, I think it's um it should be permitted, and we should not move on this such a restricted with a three-year time frame.

I don't know how we carve it out, but I think that LB L and B should be grandfathered in, and I would be comfortable with there were no others that this was a one of a kind because they applied when it was legally permitted.

And I'd be more comfortable if we said that L and B would be the one and only store that would be permitted in that zone because it is commercial.

I'm not comfortable with saying that they would be denied to continue beyond the three years.

Okay.

Who would like to go next?

Anyone please I I agree with um uh council member Smith's uh comment about this being uh a difficult uh conversation to have at this point, given that the business owners um did everything right um based on the policy and the ordinance that that was in place at that time.

Um so there's uh I think for me, there's no question uh about that.

Um what I also need to make sure that, and and for me personally that I consider as I make a decision is um also um all the other uh public comment that uh we've heard uh throughout the process.

And I think it um it community has spoken in and quite loudly about their concerns uh about uh this business.

Um I mean, personally, I I don't necessarily uh in terms of a business, don't necessarily um lean either way.

Um I do have my own personal opinions uh about guns in general, but I'm trying to leave that aside because it's not about me, it's about um what uh our community sees as important and is and as a priority in terms of uh either uh building or continuing uh to maintain the character of their uh community.

So I and I think uh council is trying to do the best that we can in terms of finding finding a balance um in also trying to identify other areas that could potentially work uh for the business owners for and uh for the business business owners.

So for uh those reasons, I am gonna support uh the uh staff recommendation.

Okay, who'd like to go next?

Please.

Um well, council member Garcia said it quite quite well for me, and I apologize to the Summer family because they didn't do anything wrong.

Um the trouble is our constituents are vocal strongly about this, and um they do have an idea of their neighborhood, and I my platform has always been that the residents are are first.

So I apologize to you that that I will support this.

Um I sorry, you got caught in the middle.

And and so for me, um I've I've look at this in a lot of uh in a balanced way, kind of similar to uh what's been stated between um uh council member Garcia and Smith.

Um, it's about balance.

And for me, the the business they get caught in the middle of this, and and that is not something that we wish would have happened, that's for sure.

Um you didn't do anything wrong.

Um, but we are trying to correct some things uh as far as when we look at it from totality from the residents, because this is an area that is industrial and residential.

And so when you have industrial and residential um in the same space, that can cause some um concerns and issues.

Um, so and I believe when if I'm recalling it correctly, um, it was safety issues that were brought up by the neighbors.

Um, and and maybe with some other comments that were talked about as one of the um public commenters talked about, but I remember one of the main pieces where was about safety.

Um, the naval school and a store selling firearms are two different things.

They're they're two different accesses, two different um controls, just very different.

And so for me, uh when I look at this, I look at the three years being the time period that staff is saying that the business could be able to recoup the amount that has been invested in the business, is my understanding.

And so of that, I think that's that's possible, but it may not be the case because with business in itself, you don't know exactly how much that is.

And that's those aren't the hard numbers I have.

So my thinking is in terms of whether we can give them instead of three years, whether we could give them six years.

I don't see it being grandfathered in, but being able to extend a little bit of the time, but being able to continue to support the this proposal.

I agree with that because I think we need to correct what should have not have been in the first place.

So I think that balance does need to come forward with some sort of structure with this uh policy uh tonight.

But then I'd like to see what what that would look like and being able to put L and um B at least close to uh recouping uh their investment.

Okay.

Um I'm inclined to support um the planning commission's um approval of the ordinance.

Um this is a hard conversation.

And um I I would take a little offense to the fact that we're not a business friendly community.

Um I mean our our communities our revenue for our city depends on our business community being successful, particularly hospitality.

Um, we've had conversations throughout the year around creating an economic development manager position and looking at ways to diversify our economy.

This isn't about being anti-business.

Um, I think the conversation here comes up around what I think we can all agree, whether we're regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum on the issue, that guns are a politically charged topic in this country.

There's no removing that from the conversation.

So I think if we can all recognize that um that obviously has manifested itself within our community, and I agree with Council Mr Rash and Councilman Garcia in regards to the community has spoken, and we've heard from a lot of people within that uh within that neighborhood.

And and frankly, um, for me, it's not just about their voice.

I felt it the same way.

And I wish that we could have had this conversation before a business went down the path and made these investments.

Um, and unfortunately, that's not the circumstance.

But what we did do is that as soon as the city found out about it, we acted swiftly.

And I don't know if our action as it relates to this topic had any impact on LMB and what's happened over the last several months, which doesn't seem to be very much as it relates to progressing the business at the location.

But I think that our swift action and trying to find a timeline to get this resolved as soon as possible.

This isn't an attack on any one business.

Um the first public commenter alluded to um comments that were made by some of the folks from the neighborhood around safety, security.

And there's actually many studies, many studies that show um that the more gun stores that you have in a community, uh statistically it increases the um odds of suicide, homicide.

Um, and I'll just read a little bit from the Rockefeller Institute of Government.

But it is not just about across access to the firearms in the home.

Research shows that greater availability of guns throughout local neighborhoods and cities like Detroit and Newark corresponds to higher rates of firearm deaths, especially in communities suffering from concentrated economic disadvantage.

And those economic disadvantaged communities exist within Monterey, believe it or not.

And across cities, legal access to guns via federally licensed dealers and the availability of stolen guns, it results in higher fire firearm homicide rates at the county level, more access to guns with it within and surrounding counties equates to more gun deaths across states.

Researchers found that more guns equal more gun deaths, looking at all 50 states in the country from 1981 to 2010.

This finding has been replicated in numerous other studies.

Importantly, states with both lax gun laws and greater access to guns have higher rates of mass shootings.

I completely hear the concerns around those that are hunting, those that are recreational.

I I can appreciate that.

Um I grew up Boy Scouts.

I'm an Eagle Scout.

I shot many firearms growing up.

I was in the Navy.

I shot firearms when I was in the Navy.

Um this isn't an anti-gun effort.

It's about um pro-life, keep saving people in our community, making people feel safe, welcome, accepted.

Um, and to me, frankly, having a gun store in the middle of a beautiful residential community um in the center of our town just doesn't it doesn't when I walk by and I look at it, it doesn't feel like it's the right location.

Um, so again, it's unfortunate that this business ended up in the crosshairs of this political discussion.

Um, but for those reasons, I'm gonna go ahead and make a motion to approve um the ordinance.

Um, can I make a comment before we do the orders?

Well, there's a motion on the table, so let's get a second and then we can go to you.

All right, second.

All right, move and seconded, please, council member Smith.

Yeah, I wouldn't I wanted to go back to uh something that Dr.

Barber mentioned that um when you mentioned something like a six-year period of time.

Were you thinking that we would carve out an exception for L and B for that location for a period of time?

Or a period, not grandfathered.

Yeah, so a period of time that would be longer than three years.

Okay.

Um so I'd like to make a substitute motion to see if we can uh get there.

You okay, Mayor?

I do that.

Yeah, you have a motion on the table.

Is there a second?

We so the motion that I would make is that we would um carve out the ability for L and B to execute their permit that they have pulled for the business at the location on ocean uh for a period of uh five years, and at that time, then it would revert to a no ability to operate a gun store because it's in the wrong zone.

Okay, and so moved and seconded.

Any other discussion on the motion?

All right, I'm gonna go ahead and vote.

All those in favor uh on the substitute motion to motion.

Okay.

All those all those in favor.

So oh, I missed I missed the call to say something because you ask if there's any discussion on the motion.

Okay, okay.

So just a real quick piece.

Um I just think there's it's difficult in public policy to correct things, and we have some limitations, but this is a zoning question.

But also because it was legally zoned at the time of the application.

I feel like we we need to be able to answer the the re the reason of the business and give this particular business an opportunity to be successful in five years.

I think would give them that that ability to then find a more successful location that would probably be a bigger location that they're gonna need.

So I I think it's uh it's a compromise.

Um, but after five years, then there would be no gun store allowed in that neighborhood.

Okay.

Anybody else have comment on this one?

Well, whether the substitute motion passes or not, the gun owner, uh gun shop owner can still apply to the planning commission for an adjustment, then whatever the planning commission decides can be the council.

I think would have to, I think it says it has to go to council back to the council.

So we may get another bite at the apple.

Um, which to me would allow more public participation in the whole process, you know, a little bit more agony for everybody, but um it it doesn't, it's not precluded tonight.

It doesn't stop tonight.

Um I just want to say that.

Yeah, I guess the only thing it would do is signal signal the council's tolerance to the planning commission and this applicant that five years would be a business opportunity.

Sorry, may I um just seek some clarification on the motion because the way it's drafted right now, it does have a three-year sort of presumpted period for amortization.

If I'm understanding the motion correctly, that three-year period would be presumptively five.

Um, and depending on how you want it to be worded, you might be saying it it can't be decreased from five.

You would like it to be at least five.

Maybe it gets longer if it were to go um to the planning commission.

That's sort of how I'm reading your motion.

No, ask for clarity to because um what I heard you share earlier as it relates to the three years that's currently in the ordinance is that it wouldn't necessarily be three years, it could be less than three years, it could be more than three years.

Correct.

So what I'm sensing from your response now is that changing it to five doesn't really make much of a difference because it's the amortization of the cost.

It it changes it insofar as maybe they accept five years and don't um petition for review of that.

I'm confused.

I that's why I'm saying I was reading from council member Smith's request that it not be less than five years, and so it could be rewarded the language of the ordinance to say you any existing businesses, whether it's this one or any others, presumptively can operate for five years.

Um, and at which time they must stop operating, unless if they go to planning commission and say we need longer than five years based on our income expenses, investment into the property and into the business and and that whole showing that they can do.

So let me clarify.

So that's not okay.

Um so my my intent was five years that they would have to go back to the planning commission and apply for the the use permit for compliance of conditions on that site.

They would be granted the five years up to five years, and if they violated the condition, then it would be less than five years, but the conditions of an application to get them five years, and then after that five years, no business that's a gun store would be permitted unless it's in the industrial area.

So this applicant would need to apply at the planning commission, where the planning commission would set conditions for the business.

I'm confused.

Yes, Chrissy.

Could you could you help maybe summarize it?

Did something change from what you previously said in regards to what you just shared now?

I'm I'm not sure.

Okay.

Let me ask this question to clarify.

Um if the council tonight said uh they don't want to restrict it until five years, is it required that it would go back to the planning commission for a use permit?

It would no longer be allowed to operate there at all after five years, they would have to relocate.

No, I understand.

And then it would be subject to a use permit, correct?

If they petitioned for a longer period of time than five years, but we're saying they can't have a I'm saying it can't go past five years.

Understood.

Um, it could be re I could draft it to match that intention.

That's not what it says right now.

Okay.

So if if in the way I'm intending this is that they get five years to operate, and after that they have to move, they can't be there, it has to be in an industrial zone.

That's the incentive my motion.

The um the issue with that, and I'll just state this is um we don't want to be taking property from people that um are lawfully operating.

And so we need to make sure that they're being have um they're able to amortize the expenses that they put into their business.

And so if they were able to show, for example, that really they need 10 years based on their lease, their lack of revenue, uh, a bunch of other factors.

Um, and we put a hard line on it without allowing an evidentiary showing that I wouldn't recommend that course.

Okay, but in three years, you want even what yeah.

So sitting here, the council staff, we don't have individualized financial information to make a judgment call on this.

We want to make sure the business recoupes their investment.

So you're asking we're estimating and we're saying uh firearms license is three years, and so it might be reasonable to expect that it it maybe your license doesn't get renewed for X, Y, and Z reason.

Um, but we're allowing the business to say no, we need more time than three years to recoup our investment and make that showing before the planning commission.

The planning commission can say, yes, this looks like it's a seven-year tenure.

I don't know what they might say.

And then it comes to the city council to agree or disagree with that because we do want to be fair to this business and the investment backed expectation of operating there.

So that that actually thank you that follow up email.

Correct.

Correct.

It's a due process issue.

Right, right.

Okay.

So the there's a substitute motion on the floor.

Does somebody else want to second it?

All right.

Seeing none, we're back to our original motion, um, which was made by me and seconded by councilman Garcia to approve the ordinance as is.

Any other comments?

So I just want to uh ask the questions so we can have because I know the public is watching and they're hearing legal interpretations in our discussion with the motion passing tonight.

What does that mean for L and B firearms?

So there's it as written in the staff report, LMB firearms is located at 301 Ocean, not currently open, which is not in an IR zone, an industrial zone.

The proposed ordinance would amortize the existence of the business for a period of three years.

The property owner and or the operator of the non-conforming firearm retail sales business may apply to the planning commission to review the reasonableness of the three-year amortization period within 10 days of the ordinance adoption.

Ultimately, the ordinance's goal is to limit firearm retail sales only in the IR district with the minimum 600 setback from schools, daycare, playground residential zones, multi-family overlay zones, store the cell liquor bar, other firearm and ammunition retailers or cannabis businesses.

Okay, so 10 days checking with city.

Yeah, so that you can figure out if you want to change it beyond the three years that we're providing.

Okay.

Um, and the planning commission's uh vote was in favor of this process, and then what you're saying is that the applicant can apply within 10 days, then it would go to the planning commission, and the planning commission would give them their approval for the business based on the criteria that's listed here.

Yes, so they would make their recommendation to the council.

I'm assuming in regards to the evidence that they've submitted to justify why longer than three years might be needed.

Okay.

So I need clarity here because the it's already gone to the planning commission.

So the ordinance has gone to the planning commission or not there, not a request from them.

So the applicant would apply would go to the planning commission.

They would make a recommendation to this council, and what's this council likely to do with an applicant that's trying to apply in a non-conforming neighborhood?

I would like to see the evidence.

So it would be great to see the evidence so that we can have a public transparent process.

And I think it kind of is in alignment with what Councilman Barash was saying, it just creates more transparency around the process.

So I'm I wouldn't sit here today and say what I'm gonna do later without having the evidence in front of me to be able to make that decision.

Yeah, and if it went to the planning commission on an application, there would be a business plan, there'd be photographs, there'd be sketches, 100%.

There'd be a business model.

I just wanted to get that out there so the record knows.

Okay, all right.

With that, I'm gonna go ahead and call the question.

All those in favor of the motion.

Aye.

Any opposed?

No.

Motion passes for one.

All right.

Does staff have any heartburn if we continue on a 14?

I think we we need to get to the closed session.

And uh I would I I have heartburn and I suggest we continue it into the evening.

Okay, all right.

So I'll go ahead and do we need to make a motion on that.

Should we ask if there's anybody here for that item?

Yeah, but are we gonna open up public comment twice on this?

No, couldn't we take public comment?

Is there anybody here on the residential parking program that has issue with coming back in the evening session?

You have you have issue coming back in evening session.

Well, I'll just offer this.

This agenda item, we're not finalizing anything.

Um, so there's gonna be more opportunity for conversation.

So with that, let's go ahead and continue it to the evening session.

Hopefully, you might be able to squeeze some time to make it back in, but otherwise, this will come back around for potentially more discussion.

And it'll be the first one.

That's right.

It'll be the first reading agenda item.

Okay, all right.

And with that, um, we'll take public comments on closed session items.

We'll take public comments on closed session items.

There's closed session fifteen conference of legal counsel existing litigation pursuant to government code section five, four, nine, five, six point nine two.

There's two cases, Ashley, El Cessor versus City of Monterey, and Ronald Ro Rogers versus City of Monterey.

And closed session item sixteen is public employment employment pursuant to government code section five four nine five seven B one unrepresented employee city manager recruitment.

I just asked folks to keep it down for a second.

Anybody in the chamber wishes to speak on this item?

Closed session items.

So if you have comments specifically on those closed session items, we'll take those.

And I'm gonna ask Dr.

Barber to kick us off with a pledge of legions, please.

Thank you, Dr.

Barber.

Um with that we will continue general public comments.

Um these are for non-agendized items.

So if it's on the agenda tonight, this is not the time to speak.

If you're here to speak on a specific item, that item will have its own public comment period.

So again, non-agendized items.

Um for folks on oh, let me back up.

For folks that made this may be their first meeting or it's been a while, what we do is we identify folks for public comment at the beginning of the public comment period.

After that after that period where we identify folks, we cut it off, and then only those folks will be able to speak.

So you have to identify yourself at the beginning in order to speak on public comment.

So I will check with folks on Zoom.

You can use the raise hand function.

In the meantime, I will check in the chamber.

Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on general public comment.

We have one.

All right, so we have the one in the chamber.

I'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.

We have three Colin Gallagher um already spoke in general public comment though, I believe.

So actually just two.

Okay.

Okay.

So we have the two on Zoom, we'll go and close it off on Zoom.

And um, just to keep it consistent with the afternoon session general public comment, we'll leave it to two minutes.

So we'll go ahead and start in the chamber.

Um there was a district for a community meeting a few weeks ago at the Kona Community Center.

There were several speakers there.

One of them was the um fairground CEO, Kelly Violini.

And I spoke to her after the meeting, and she said that the city mo city of Monterey has missed revenue from the fairgrounds.

The city should be collecting the TOT for the RV park.

And they don't.

And I'm asking that this source of revenue to be researched and implemented.

And every bit helps.

These things do add up.

If some of the recent public comment commenting of the various suggestions for unexplored avenues of revenue were looked into, then maybe you would have been able to take less money from the sorry, I'm a nervous speaker, so my voice starts to crack and I can't control it.

So anyway, um if some of the recent public commentary and the various for unexplored um avenues of re revenue were looked into, then maybe you would have been able to take less money from the NCIP program or none at all.

Um, this TOT from the RB park is just one example of many that have been publicly suggested.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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

All right, we have Mr.

Rosen.

Hello, City Council members.

I just wanted to get a chance because I made a mistake to comment on the Native American thing.

And I it just seems so much recognition going on, but that doesn't really help Native Americans that much.

Why don't you give them some land back?

This was all their land.

It was funny.

Now if they're sleeping in their cars or whatever, I guess they're gonna get a warning and then find and if they keep doing it, they're gonna get arrested on their own land.

You know, public land that was stolen by a bunch of immigrants that came and took it away from them.

We're gonna pause here for a second.

You're speaking to an item that was on the agenda.

This is for non-agendized items.

Okay, okay, okay.

All right.

I just wanted I I wanted to bring up the um I I think you need to revise your attitude on the military.

There when's the when we do these agenda items in the military is in moderate, and I know it's your bread and butter, but um, you know that they haven't really fought for our freedom since World War II, and there's a hundred years of killing Indians and so forth, and you don't bring that up.

Um, but I would why don't you do some exhibits around town about the real history?

Look, I'm not saying there weren't a lot of good people, all different kinds and colors there always are.

Okay, so let's talk about a resolution.

There's some very brave mayors out there that and DAs that are telling saying that if ice breaks the law, they're gonna be held accountable.

And Philadelphia, they're uh switching license plates for Illinois, which is completely illegal, and they're making ice-free zones on public property, and there's plenty of people who need protection from ice.

And mayor uh uh Robinson, you said that we're a full service um uh city when I suggested prioritizing the poor and the vulnerable, but they really should be prioritized.

I understand the military and the wealthy have a lot of influence, but you need to prioritize the poor.

We're the richest country in the world.

There's lots of money out there.

If we get our priorities right, it's shameful that there are so many veterans out on the streets.

You're gonna celebrate them all day and the Native Americans, but you need action.

Thank you.

And our next uh speaker is a telephone caller with the last three digits 705.

Yes, can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Yes, uh good evening, Mayor and City Council members, Lorna Moffat here.

I want to bring to your attention the color of the sea.

It's perpetually brown nowadays.

I've lived on my boat for 35 years and never have I seen it this color for so long.

Each year it lasts longer, and on days it's clearer, it's green with algae.

So it's either brown with a red tide or pea green with the algae.

I've asked this council to consider planting eucalyptus, thousands of them and cypress trees along our coastline to cool down the sanctuary, but I am met with scoffing disapproval.

Why eucalyptus and cypress?

Because eucalyptus is one of the most fast-growing trees on earth and they tolerate salt water.

But because it's condemned as an invasive species, it's forbidden to help us ward off the coming hurricanes and cyclones like the one that hit Scots Valley last winter.

Where has the invasive species rhetoric come from?

It was born and developed by Dr.

Nelroy Jackson, public relations man from Monsanto to sell Roundup.

We Americans have been brainwashed to the extreme to the point they would rather risk cancer from these chemicals than allow the beautiful trees to help us ward off the coming global catastrophes we are now beginning to face in our town.

Please reconsider and start planting the Cypress and Eucalyptus along our coastline.

Thank you.

Okay.

With that, we will go ahead and close general public comment.

Thank you for all those that provided some public comments.

Um we continued an item from the afternoon session.

Um it's a public appearance item number 14.

So we're going to take that first before we get to our evening session items.

Um 14 is to adopt the residential parking permit program framework, including updates to special permit areas and approve the proposed fee structure effective January 1, 2026.

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

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh, this agenda item will be presented by our parking superintendent.

But uh Christy is also accompanied by Julie Dixon, who is um a parking um expert and parking consultant.

And um, if you ever are in the presence of Julie, uh she can explain all the parking theories to you in very good simple words.

Um, so um I'm I'm very, very happy that Julie is personally here because over the years um I have learned uh that parking is actually a very exciting science, and uh a lot of things uh can be uh learned from uh applying the the science in the correct way.

So tonight, again, we are in the presence of Julie Dixon, and I want the council to enjoy that as well.

So, with that, uh Christy, if you can start us off, please.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, good evening, Mayor and members of the council.

My name is Christy Steffi, and I serve as the parking superintendent for the city's parking division.

And I'm excited to be here today to discuss the proposed improvements to our city's residential parking permit program.

Our program was originally established in 1985 and over time has expanded to 18 zones, where while the program has served the community for many years, it has become outdated and administratively challenging, and in many cases is no longer effectively addressing the parking challenges and neighborhood different neighborhood dynamics.

To support this effort, the city has engaged with Dixon Resources Unlimited, a professional parking consulting organization specializing in municipal parking and mobility solutions.

Over the past year, we have worked closely with the Dixon team to evaluate the existing RPP program and review the best practices, gather community community feedback to help shape a modernized, more user-friendly program that will serve our residents.

With that, I would like to introduce Julie Dixon formally from the City Resources Unlimited, who will walk us through the recommended program updates and the framework recommended for council approval today.

Thank you, and thank you for that introduction from you both.

Um again, we're here to talk about residential parking, and we appreciate the opportunity.

We know that you have a busy schedule, and so we will be efficient in this presentation.

As Christy mentioned, the residential parking permit program, what I'll call RPP, was established in 1985.

And it's important to understand kind of the hodgepodge of what's been put together over many decades and the fact that we have over 1,500 participating addresses currently and throughout the city with about an average of 1.5 parking permits per household.

And the one thing that's really important to recognize is that the current residential parking permit program is free to our residents.

And I really appreciated Han's introduction because the one thing I hope that everyone will take away from today is there is no such thing as a free parking space.

And I think that's very important when we talk about parking management moving forward.

And I also want to call to attention two items as we jump into this conversation about residential parking permits.

Is that number one, in 2018, uh the state attorney general published an opinion?

It is only an opinion that we can't differentiate between multifamily and single-family housing when it comes to residential parking passes.

And that's really important because historically, when RPP really came into fruition throughout the United States, it was created as a result of single-family neighborhoods trying to prevent multifamily dwellings from being able to park in those neighborhoods.

And it's something that has evolved over the years, but this was a really important reason why that opinion is so relevant to how we manage parking moving forward, especially in our residential neighborhoods.

I also want to call attention to California proposition 26.

Proposition 26 specifically calls out residential parking permits and it recognizes that cities cannot treat a parking permit as another sales tax, but that programs need to be designed to be sustainable, where the program needs to be designed to pay for itself, and that the cities need to be sure that they're right size, right pricing parking permits.

So it's one of the things I wanted to be sure and kind of lay out as a preface as we get into some of the recommendations talking about this project.

Yes, sir.

What did the opinion say?

It basically said that cities cannot differentiate between multifamily and single family housing because that's what has historically been done here in California.

And so many, many municipalities really started to revamp their residential parking permit programs because historically they have eliminated or not allowed multifamily apartments in particular and condominiums from participating in residential parking permit programs.

Not to say that that's what's happening here in Monterey.

I just like to lay the groundwork so everybody kind of understands the tools that we're working with.

So as Christy mentioned, um, we've actually been working on this project for several years, but really over this last year in particular, it's really been full steam ahead because we did a lot of data gathering over the years.

And this year in particular, we'll talk about the online survey that was um put out.

We dedicated a page on have your say Monterey.

We also drafted on the action plan, which we're presenting tonight for adoption.

We also held several community town hall meetings, uh, discussed the resources and the data and the information that came back, and also met individually with the Kona, Oak Grove, and Cannery Row neighborhoods as well.

And then ultimately are here today to present those recommendations to all of you.

A couple of details that came out of the survey that we think are really important.

We had about 280 responses.

And what we found from the responses is that we have an average of about two cars per household and an average of about one to two off-street spaces on average per household.

So that's very important when we start to talk about vehicle management and some of the recommendations that we'll talk about upcoming.

Evening turns out to be the most challenging time to find on street parking.

And most of the respondents asked for and appreciated supporting what we call a digital residential parking permit program.

This is something that communities across the United States are transitioning to.

Your license plate is a unique identifier for your car, and basically your license plate can become your parking permit.

So you no longer need a hang tag, you no longer need something on your dashboard.

Your license plate basically becomes your permit.

And many of you are already familiar with the fact that the city has already been leveraging license plate recognition technology or LPR technology.

This becomes not only a more efficient way for us to manage the residential parking permit program more efficiently and cover more ground and provide more consistent coverage, but it also provides a convenience to our residents where they can actually self-manage their parking permit needs online and they can still come into the office if they prefer to be able to acquire their parking permits, but it's just another convenience for our community to be able to manage their parking needs online.

So when we talk about the program's intent moving forward, um I think we're all aware that there are a lot of legislative changes happening in Sacramento, especially as it relates to parking reform and especially with the housing crisis.

And this is something that we know will continue to impact residential parking demands in the future.

And so something that we've been working towards is transitioning residential parking demand based on what we call mitigating external factors.

And here, what we're describing is what we really have are three primary categories of what really justifies the need for a residential parking permit program.

One of which is your neighborhood is adjacent to a commercial or business district.

So you might have spillover from said business district.

Another one is where you're adjacent to a neighboring city, where you might have spillover from one of the neighboring cities into your neighborhood.

And the third is what we call a venue impact.

A venue impact could be anything from a high school, a city hall facility, a fairground, a concert venue, a tourist destination.

And those are really kind of the three mitigating factors that as we start to talk about curb management and curb demand, that we really try to really centralize that impact.

And it's one of the reasons why when we talk about re-justification of existing residential parking zones, this is one of the things that we want to bring into that process is to make sure that for future residential parking permit requests is that we consider these external impacts for any future requests for new parking zones.

And we'll talk about the existing zones here in just a moment.

But we really wanted to make sure that everybody understood that the strategies and recommendations that we've outlined here today are based on the community feedback, the survey results, industry best practices, and also the input that we've received to you over on the last several years as well.

So when we talk about the establishment of a new residential parking permit zone, and I want to highlight this is for a new request, not for existing zones.

We'll talk about those in a moment.

There's several basic rules that we want to bring into play so that for those folks that want to establish a new residential parking permit zone, you would need to basically gather four contiguous blocks in your neighborhood and ultimately bring forward a petition that has an 80% threshold in that.

Now, a lot of folks think that that's a really high number, and you're saying 80% of my neighbors, you mean I got to go knock on 80% of the doors.

This is a really important factor because there is a proposed cost associated with this.

And anybody that lives in a residential parking permit zone can appreciate their rules.

You have to manage your guest parking and a lot of factors that start to tie into maybe your quality of life choices.

So you need to make sure that the majority of your neighborhood is on board.

And this is something that's really important because you can't have the city force a residential parking permit on a neighborhood.

You have to have a want for that residential parking permit, and you need to have the majority of your neighborhood on board.

If in a new request you have 80% of that majority of the neighborhood on board through the petitioning process, then the city conducts an occupancy study to determine that we have at least a 70% average occupancy on average in that neighborhood to demonstrate the impact on parking availability.

And then after all of those factors are met, then at that point, if it is approved and moving forward, 50% plus one of the neighborhood has to purchase a parking permit in order for the signs to go up and for the program to be live.

These are really important details as you talk about moving this program forward because this is a heavy lift.

There's an administrative burden associated with this.

And we also start to talk about the impact on the neighborhood.

You've got to really make sure that all of these boxes are checked to ensure that this is going to be something that is going to be sustainable and successful in that neighborhood.

So as I mentioned earlier, when we talked about transitioning to an online platform, some folks call it virtual permits.

Um, I like to say permit by plate, but this transition for any of the permit programs moving forward is proposed again to take it online to allow us to leverage the license plate recognition technology so that we can be as efficient as possible with the management of the program moving forward.

And then when we talk about the permit program moving forward, and this will also become relevant for existing and future zones, we're making the suggestion that the permits should be driven by licensed drivers.

I use this as an example because if I live by myself, but I own four cars, I would only be eligible for one parking permit because I am one licensed driver that lives in that household.

Now, if I have Christy as a roommate and she's a licensed driver, she would also be eligible for a parking permit with a maximum of four permits per household.

And that's something that we have seen has had a really big impact in communities when it comes to helping mitigate access to the curb.

We'd also like to reinforce that oversized vehicles would not be eligible for the parking permit program.

And if there were any auxiliary permits, like we call them caretaker permits, maybe I have a nurse that comes into my home or a nanny or a babysitter, I can apply for one of those auxiliary permits, but that would count for one of my four parking passes.

And it's important to recognize the fact that there are exceptions, obviously, for those types of passes, and that's something that the parking division basically helps to mitigate and manage.

Now let's talk for a minute about costs and fees.

We're suggesting with this revamp of the program that we would initiate the fee at $5.

You can see by the examples of some of our neighboring communities, that's right there in the median of the overall pricing that's out there.

And we are suggesting that this is our starting place based on our forecasts of expenses and expenses can include everything from the digital parking permit system, our staff time, the enforcement resources, the signage, basically all of those costs when we talk about the design of a sustainable solution is really ultimately where after the first year of the program, we would anticipate coming back to you to be able to report out on the actual expenses.

That price could be modified down, could be modified slightly up.

But we think that this pricing is really really on the mark and it's something that we would monitor very closely.

Now, another factor would be guest passes.

Basically, all of the addresses in a residential parking permit zone would be eligible for guest passes.

The first 25 one-time use 24-hour passes would be free.

And then incrementally for every additional 25 up to 100, you'd have that additional price.

So that ultimately, if I acquired 100 guest passes for the year, the price is about 150 dollars.

And so that's basically a buck 50 a day.

And that's really ultimately, again, to cover the administrative aspect of the program.

And again, those would be 24 hour passes.

And again, if I wanted to have Christy over as my house guest, she would still be subject to our street sweeping rules and to our 72-hour rules and all of the same rules that apply by our vehicle code and municipal code, but I could still issue to my guest my passes and for 100 days for that matter, Christy.

We might get sick of each other by then, but we'd figure that out.

Now let's talk about the existing zones.

What you can actually see here, and if you look at our older maps, you would see a hodgepodge of colors where we basically have different block faces adjacent to each other that are different zones.

What we're basically proposing here is to simplify and to collaborate and to unify our parking permit program.

And ultimately, what we are suggesting is that each of these zones would end up re-qualifying and we would work with the community throughout this process to make sure everybody understands through mailers and town hall meetings to go through this requalification process.

And what we've done is we've actually lowered that threshold that we said for new zones, and we've actually lowered it down to 50% plus one.

So basically, in one of those five zones, you'd have to collaborate with your neighborhood and get 50% plus one of the addresses to say, I want to continue with this program.

Now, some of you may say, well, why wouldn't I want to continue with this program?

Today the program is free.

And if you're going to offer me something for free, sure, why not?

I would take that.

But now if I have to start to talk about the rules associated with managing a parking permit, and now I actually have to pay for it, it's only $25, but you know, it's not really of interest to me.

That's something that the community and the neighborhood ultimately has to decide upon.

And we're suggesting it 50% plus one.

That's up to the neighborhood in order for us to have that program move forward.

If we achieve that through the petitioning process, then again, when we get to the place of going live and active, 50% of the households have to have to purchase at least one parking permit in order for the program to go live.

Now, some folks may say, why is that last rule important?

Is because we have found in other communities that what has happened is the neighborhoods have gotten together and basically they have plenty of off-street parking, but what they wanted to do was prohibit in this case, sometimes multifamily housing from parking on their streets.

So they basically got the petitioning process, got the permit program, the signs went up, and then nobody ever purchased a parking permit.

And so it really has caused congestion mitigations in other communities.

Not to say that that would happen here, but it's very important when we talk about the administration of the program and the cost that we again we want to ensure that we have a sustainable solution.

So that's the reason why 50% of the households have to acquire a parking permit.

Now let's talk about a couple of the very specific neighborhoods because this is one for Oak Grove.

If the Oak Grove residential parking permit program moves forward, we also wanted to suggest that we would introduce an Oak Grove employee parking program.

This is important because we want to ensure that there are parking for our commercial district.

And we're suggesting that we would use the same fee structure for our employee parking permits in the lighthouse district that currently allows Lighthouse District employees to park on street.

And so we're suggesting a very similar model that would authorize our employees in Oak Grove to be able to park on the south side of 10th and also expand the permit area to the south side of 9th as well as Slote Avenue, because we want to ensure that we have those opportunities.

We've also spent some time working with public work public works about 9th Street.

We might be able to do some adaptations on ninth street that could also potentially provide some additional employee parking.

And that's really important when we talk about the sustainability for those businesses is we want to make sure that there's adequate commercial parking for our customers to be able to visit all of those stores and shops as well.

And if there's one thing that I want to reinforce when we talk about parking, this will not be the last time you talk about parking.

I'm sorry for that, but I like to say this because it's important that we assess the program on an annual basis and that we modify and adjust accordingly.

One of the best things that we have as a result of the license plate recognition technology is that we have the data resources now so that we can come forward to all of you with recommendations or modifications to the program that can either modify down or modify up, depending upon what the occupancy numbers are.

So really allowing data to drive the decisions.

Now for our cannery row resident parking program, this is one where I want to highlight we have about 50 addresses in this location.

About 50% of them have two or more parking spaces.

And we currently have about 109 parking permits in Canary Row.

What we're suggesting moving forward for this program is that only residents that are currently registered at that 109 would remain eligible for on-street parking permits and that off-street parking spaces will be applied for a maximum of four.

So knowing that we have those roughly 50 addresses, we would actually evaluate those properties to look at how many off-street spaces are currently eligible to ultimately determine how many on-street space parking permits that they would be eligible for.

And very importantly, there on that third bullet is that future residential developments would not be eligible in the cannery row location.

And then again, we know that we would need to conduct annual reviews to make sure if we need to make any refinements or adaptations.

And we are suggesting the similar pricing structure of what we described for the other neighborhoods.

And we had a lot of residents that expressed grave concern because we did talk about how much a parking pass is in the garage.

And I know that we might have startled a few residents and we talked about those dollars and figures, but we know to initiate this program, it was important that we have that continuity of the program.

And that's why we're suggesting again the similar or same pricing program that we would introduce in the other neighborhoods.

The one qualifier is to the unique design is that guest permits would not be allowed to park in the on-street um parking spaces.

And that again, with the availability of off-street spaces, that would be the one um acclamation that we'd have to make for our cannery row program.

Now, for the Kona neighborhood, this is important to also recognize is that this is an existing program that is very unique with the fairgrounds, especially due to the special events.

So what we're suggesting is that we're not proposing any revisions at this time, especially based on the feedback that we've had from the neighborhood and also the most recent town hall meeting where the fairgrounds participated.

We know that we need to do more analysis, and we also need to actively engage the fairground in the conversation as well, um, especially when we talk about the number of events that are happening and what are qualifying events.

So there needs to be more discussion about this so that in the current proposed RPP framework, if it's adopted, Kona will have an opportunity to opt in at a later date.

And we're just suggesting that we'll bring that back to you because we need to roll our sleeves up higher so that we really can come up with a conducive plan that's gonna work for everyone.

And so the plan will be for staff to return with very specific recommendations in the near future, but it allows us to really focus on all of the other neighborhoods, knowing that this is a very unique location with the fairground impact.

We're not forgetting about the Kona neighborhood.

We just need to do a little bit more work and we need to bring some other stakeholders to the table so that we can come forward with a very um sustainable solution for that location.

And so the recommendations tonight are to approve and adopt the residential parking permit program framework with the updated guidelines as presented to approve the proposed annual permit fee structure that would be effective January 1st, 2026, and direct staff to update the city's master fee schedule accordingly and to approve the recommendation updates to the Oak Grove and Canary Row of special permit areas.

And I believe that's our last slide.

Beautiful.

Awesome.

Thank you for the presentation.

I'll open up to the council for questions.

Please.

Uh thank you very much.

Um, in your last presentation, when you were talking about the cannery row uh parking area, you said that for residents that you mentioned something about parking lot off-site or garage parking, but you didn't talk about a fee for the residents.

So I know there is a city garage.

There's also in the 100 lot or 100 cannery row city parking lot.

So was your intention that we would create a fee for resident parking if they're living in Canary Row where they could get a monthly fee at a parking lot or a garage?

When we were in our public meeting, we debated and discussed the fees associated with mark monthly parking in the public parking structure locations, and that was a very high fee.

Um, what I was saying is that the 25 for the on-street with the offset of the off-street spaces in those households, but for guest passes for guest parking, your guests would be subject to all of the posted regulations in Cantery Row.

So whether it be the on-street regulations and having to potentially pay at a parking meter or having to buy a pass in either a public or private parking location.

We're just saying that cannery row would be the exception on guest passes.

Okay.

Yes.

And thank you for that clarification.

On uh packet page 115, where you have the list, which is talking under the cannery row residents on-street parking permits, uh, you outline only addresses currently registered in the existing RPP program will remain eligible.

So that means if someone vacates and there's a new tenant, what do they do?

They are not eligible for the program.

It would only be your grandfathered existing residents.

And so that's something that would have to be a disclosure in whatever rental or sale in terms of that location.

And it's one of the challenges that we have is that so many of the addresses have existing off-street spaces.

And so I think that this is absolutely a unique design, but your opportunity to allow the grandfathered locations to eventually be eliminated.

Ideally, there would be no residential parking on street in cannery row by by design, because of the fact that it is that commercial district in terms of the revenue structure that we have with our paid parking program.

Okay.

And did the survey go to the depth where they were able to determine, I think you said there's 109 current permit holders.

Yep.

For about 50 addresses.

For 50 addresses.

So are any of those 50 addresses without a driveway?

I believe I'm going to defer to Christy if about 50% of them just to make sure what the number was.

So of the 50 addresses, about 25 of them do not have off-street parking.

Okay.

So if I'm renting a location and I'm one of those 25 and I'm on does foam street get included there?

Or just Canary Canary goes up to foam street.

Okay, below lighthouse.

So what would that resident do to unload their groceries, unload their stroller, unload their trunk and go into their home.

So subject to all of the same rules that exist today, just like right now, I'm not guaranteed the parking space in front of my house.

And the fact is is that if a visitor or a guest or anyone coming to the cannery row area parks in any of those spaces, they're allowed to park in those spaces based on the posted regulations.

So there's honestly no guarantee that I can even get the parking space near my household.

And it's something that we encourage throughout California is anytime you're going to live somewhere, be sure that you understand what parking provisions are provided, especially as we talk about some of the legislative changes and now with new developments that there's no parking being provided.

So this is a real cautionary tale to everyone out there that you need to really understand what parking options are available to you.

And that's something that's really important when anyone is buying or renting a home.

Okay.

And I think with this list of demands in the cannery row area, the intent is really to at some point in the future not have a program.

It'll take a while for us to get there because again, we have long-term residents that live there, but ideally any new resident would not be eligible.

It's very similar to the current legislation where uh developments that are within a half mile of a transit stop are not required to provide parking.

And so you see a lot of cities trying to implement policies that make those new developments exempt from residential parking permit programs, because the whole intent of those developments is supposed to be you know transit-oriented development.

So I'm not supposed to have a car.

And so ideally, this is something that's supposed to influence folks' personal choices about where they have a car or the expense and management of having that car.

And it should not be the city's burden to provide public space for me to park my car.

That's the reason why I wanted to make sure everybody understands there's no such thing as free parking.

And the reality of your program is that folks for many decades have received a true benefit from the city when the city should at least be covering the cost.

Yeah.

But it does open up a dilemma for somebody who lives on Hawthorne or up the streets, because then they're going to have the suffered limited parking space shared with Canary Row.

So that's a great question.

And that's why we tried to outline the rules associated with new residential parking zone requests.

Is that what you would have to do is basically work with your four contiguous block neighborhood to apply for said program and ultimately go through that list of items that we described, and for those to be considered moving forward in the longer term.

If I looked in my parking crystal ball, especially as laws are changing in California, residential parking programs will become smaller and smaller and smaller over the years to come.

And that's the reason why we wanted to highlight the external impacts is that we really need to drive these policy decisions based on limiting what makes a zone eligible.

And so knowing that we do have those mitigating factors, using those mitigating factors, programs need to be designed around those mitigating factors.

So, like an example I use was the high school.

A residential parking permit program around a high school, for example, has hours that are more like 9 a.m.

to 2 p.m., right?

It's not a 24-7 parking permit program.

And so that's why those external impacts are so relevant when we talk about a program moving forward.

So even in the location that you described, if they can meet those requirements, you custom design the rules so that it meets the need of that community as well.

Thank you, Mayor.

Dr.

Barber.

Um so yeah, I I have a lot of concerns about some of these pieces, especially in the um cannery row area.

Um, very similar to what uh my colleague brought up as well.

Um, I did have a question.

Is there another map?

Because I know even in the agenda, I can't even see what the map looks like the existing um in consolidated proposal.

Is there a bigger one that we could be able to see that you could send to us?

I'd appreciate that.

Um, my other question is you had a on Europe for uh the different um from PG and other cities and what they were charging.

What does Seaside and Marina charge?

Because I didn't see them on there.

I'd have to go back and confirm.

I don't have that information at hand, but we can definitely come back to you.

I'd be curious about that because they're they're part of our um peninsula as well.

Um, because I I saw other um places like Santa Cruz, which is a lot larger than us and wanted to be able to look at those things as well.

Um also um uh I was trying to understand about the guest permits, uh they aren't allowed.

And then also the 50% that you were just talking about a minute ago, that's of the current.

Currently, you have 109 permits in Canary Row.

I'm sorry, say that you have 109 permits in Cantery Road today, and that's for 50 addresses.

Uh-huh.

And so for 50 addresses, they don't have off-street parking.

Is that correct?

Um, so we're saying of the 50 addresses, 25 of those addresses do not have off-street parking.

50% is correct.

Okay.

And so um I'm I'm trying to see because what I didn't know, and that's why I was glad he asked the question is that it doesn't carry over the current ones that actually have it of that 109.

If someone moves out, that that impacts housing as well because people have cars and they have to travel.

So everybody doesn't live in the community or work in the community that live in that area.

So I'm looking at how it's even impacting the housing as well.

Well, this is where our state legislators are changing laws to basically try to address transit-oriented development.

And that's something that I absolutely appreciate what you're describing.

And that's why we're trying to write size fitness to recognize the fact that using the example of myself, if I own four cars, this is also something to try to mitigate that issue because it should not be the city's burden to store my other three cars.

It's my responsibility for those other three cars, like definitely that one permit for my particular household.

But this is absolutely a decision that the city has to make when it comes to how to manage the parking in the future.

And I think that that's something that again, our state legislator are approving policies that are trying to mitigate transit-oriented development.

So the elimination or mitigation of vehicle parking.

And I can I can appreciate that.

Um, and what you're saying and what they're trying to do, but I also look at how it also impacts right now too.

I mean, yeah, you you go from free to to this, but then in those cases, you're talking about the the residents that are able to have four and two cannery royal where they can't even have one.

And so I'm not seeing the balance and the equity there.

So I'm I'm just having a question and some concerns about that.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, please, come for Garcia.

Thank you, Julie, for the uh presentation.

I I I want to start off by um acknowledging the um the flavors that you add to the conversation.

Uh it's definitely been uh uh learning experience, listening to uh what you're offering for our city.

Uh and also um I had the opportunity um uh sit in on your presentation in Long Beach as well, and that brought additional context what with what you were sharing um based on your experiences in other cities throughout the state.

So thank you so much for all the work you do.

Um I have a few questions.

Um I'll start with uh a confirmation of a detail that I think I heard.

Um, in terms of folks who are not necessarily excited about the the technology aspect of uh parking programs.

Did I hear correctly that those folks would still have the opportunity to come to our department and get physical parking permits?

Absolutely during our open business hours, they can still come to the counter and see our amazing parking staff and engage with them.

We just like to be able to provide the convenience of the person that wants to sit at their computer at whatever hour of the day or night to be able to self-manage their permit.

Sorry again.

Yeah, no more physical permits.

Thank you, Christy.

Is that again, everything was still be plate-based?

So when you did come into the office, you would bring your vehicle registration and you would no longer get a physical decal or any kind of hang tag or anything like that, no sticker, your license plate becomes your parking permit.

Got it.

Yeah.

Anyone who may be technology adverse or just I don't want to bother with that process.

Right.

But I will share with you with the existing vendor system that you currently utilize for your parking management program.

Um if your vehicle is registered to your address, fulfillment can take literally 30 seconds because they have a direct connection to DMV that validates the address.

So I don't even have to submit a utility bill or any kind of proof of uh ownership or any kind of you know rental agreement.

If my vehicle is registered to that address, the permit can actually be fulfilled like as soon as payment is made.

So it's a really nice convenience, but we can also do that at the counter for any customer that wants to come in as well.

So just uh as a follow-up, um, I'm trying to think an instance where the vehicle would not be registered to that address.

You'd bring in an electric bill or a rental agreement, um, anything that shows proof of residency ultimately.

It's how you do it currently.

Um, but the nice thing about you being able to do that online, about 90% nearly of vehicles are registered to the home.

There's exceptions for every other car.

Um, but that's why fulfillment is so easily managed online.

It's a really nice convenience for those that want to self-fulfill for themselves.

Got it.

Thank you.

And um back to the uh thresholds.

So for new parking programs, you went through the various thresholds of 80%, 70%, I think.

Right?

Yeah, yeah.

So for revising um uh parking program, would that be the same as requalifying?

So for a revised program, so for I I want to say Kona is definitely the exception because theirs is a very unique uh special event driven activity.

So that's why we anticipate bringing back specialized rules for their location.

But for any existing program, basically the requalification process would be that threshold down to that 50% number and no uh occupancy requirements.

I think that's another important one kind of talk about grandfathering in, is that we don't have to go out and do the roadside evaluation process.

Basically, if you get 50% of your neighborhood involved in the process, that's the requirement to basically be able to re-qualify and move forward.

Okay.

Yeah, and and thank you for bringing it up specifically regarding Kona, because that's where I was headed.

And and I really appreciate the uh uh the the outreach done to uh to our community there and the willingness to roll up sleeves even higher, right?

To really identify what what is the the best solution with with our uh community's feedback.

Um and this is uh maybe uh a little bit unrelated, related to Kona, definitely, but maybe more for staff.

And and I'm just gonna go into share it um as a question, uh, if maybe there's something that we can do in the in the interim to maybe think about a more I or a different way of um uh uh of uh announcing right that events are coming.

Currently, we use the uh the sandwich boards or the barricades, whatever that's would whatever you want to call them.

Um but I see it happen um during events where we have staff uh with a packed trailer coming through airport road and putting those things down, and then at the end of the event picking them up.

I I wonder if there's a better way and maybe uh uh something that also addresses aesthetics while we're at it, right?

In terms of that in the interim, or if it has to be part of a parking program, but I'll just leave that there.

Um could you also define what an oversized vehicle is in the context of this parking program?

Sure.

And this is something too that as we dig into the municipal code in terms of defining that moving forward, most agencies have a vehicle width and a vehicle height and also a vehicle weight associated, and it can be and or when it comes to those types of requirements.

Um the challenge that we truly run into when it comes to residential parking permit programs is the introduction of the sprinter van, because the sprinter van just falls just shy of a lot of those requirements.

And so that's something often we've been able to tackle through vehicle height.

And so oftentimes it can be vehicles in uh at length exceeding 20 feet or vehicles in height um over eight feet.

Those are very much standards.

I'll just look to uh Christy to see if you currently have anything in your municipal code defining oversize as it stands today.

Part of the revisions.

Thank you, Christy.

So yes.

So would you say that it's safe to assume that any vehicle larger than a sprinter van is probably an oversized?

I would say that's a pretty safe bet when you start to get into box vans, trucks, and trailers, factors like that.

Yes, that's really when you start to get into oversize RVs, things like that.

Right.

Yeah, that's a good uh frame of reference there.

Thank you.

And and one last question here um in terms of 10th Street and Oak Grove, uh, could you share a little bit of what the uh community reaction has been to the uh proposal we're seeing tonight?

So so far we've heard from the businesses, and we know that there's definitely um concern about you know where I need to park and the fact that we want to make sure that we have available customer parking.

That's obviously a priority.

But what we really need to do is see how the oak grove residents respond and whether or not there's an interest in having a parking permit program because right now it's very much holistic.

And when you look at the history, um, you know, with the Naval Academy and the location of why that permit program likely started decades ago.

And so I think that the evolution of that demand, the program might go away for a while until demand rebuilds, and then you might see a petitioning process come back.

And I think that that's likely to happen.

We've kind of speculated on Oak Grove because right now it's a very large um swatch, and it's very likely that it might break up into segments, but it might end up potentially going away first and then have the demand rebuild.

I think that's one of the things that's important when we look at a program as old as yours, is that we really need to look at what is the true need today.

And in some cases, you might have neighborhoods that don't want the program to continue, but it might be in six months to a year, a portion of that previous zone would end up coming forward potentially to petition.

And I would anticipate with Oak Grove that that is what could happen.

And that's why I would anticipate what happens for the business district will be reflected on what happens in the neighborhood first, because with the rules as they stand today, the business district is not eligible to park in the neighborhood.

And if that program did happen to go away, that would change the rules.

So that's where it's really got to be what happens with the neighborhood to ultimately determine what happens with the commercial district.

So it's a kind of the chicken or the egg aspect of it.

But that's why in some cases you do have to let demand rebuild in order to ultimately make the best decision for the neighborhood.

And in some cases, the program might go away, but then it might come back in a different form at a later time.

And that's what I would anticipate will happen with some of the zones, not all of them, but potentially some of them.

Um, I applaud also taking time with Kona.

It's a unique neighborhood.

And I'm I'm I hear, I don't know why I hear, but I hear a lot from Kona.

And um they want to take the time.

Yeah.

So that's great.

Um, to council member Garcia's questions about people who want to walk in and register.

Um, would they be required to have their driver's license input it into an electronic system?

So all you'll have to do is basically show proof.

And ultimately, again, if I bring in my lease or utility bill, when you're coming into the counter, ultimately I'm showing it to the clerk or the front person at the front desk.

So it's a very simplified process.

Um, but for those that don't want to do it online, it's just a convenience for them to be able to bring the documents in and show them.

Right.

I'm I'm just thinking it's so highly identifying personal um ID now.

Sure.

That people are sensitive about that.

Okay, we'll reinforce though, just so everybody understands with the rules and regulations associated with California DMV and the city's handling of such documents and records.

Um, all of the personnel associated with the parking department are subject to those policies and such.

So I just want to really reinforce that's information is handled in a way that is per the requirements of CAD and V as well.

Good to know.

And just out of curiosity, why it wasn't real clear to me why you were recommending that the petition not be kept online but be requested by an interested neighbor/slash neighborhood.

So when you say not being online, meaning that I can't as a neighbor go on to a website and sign it.

So this really comes download it and begin the process.

Oh no, you honestly, it's whatever the city's process for any kind of petitioning is it's just really whatever the city protocols are for the petitioning, whether it be online being able to download it, ultimately for any petitioning process in a neighborhood, the signatures have to be able to be verified and vetted by the city to ensure they're accurate.

But um, whatever methodologies that the city allows, especially for convenience of the neighborhood, we do want to make this easy for the neighborhoods.

Absolutely, it's really just a matter of, and I and I I can't emphasize this enough.

The neighborhood has to have a want for the program.

The city cannot force a residential parking permit program on the neighborhood.

That's really the core of the process.

Okay.

And we received one letter from Mr.

Arganbright, um, the asking that an existing zone not have to re-qualify.

Would you would you just I know you've addressed it, but would you repeat that?

Absolutely.

So it's very important that now that there's going to ideally be a fee associated with the program.

It's really important that you allow the neighborhood to opt back into the program.

We're changing the parameters around the program, and we want to make sure that everybody gets a fair shot at being able to participate and to make sure that they understand what they're committing themselves to.

And so that's the reason why we've also lowered the thresholds so that you can really make it easy for the neighborhoods to be able to come back into the program.

But again, a program that was historically free for a long time.

We're now suggesting again a modest fee just to cover the cost of the program.

But it's very important that we have to give the neighborhood the opportunity to opt in or to opt out.

Okay, great.

That makes sense.

Thank you.

Is it my turn?

Okay.

Um there any staffing changes proposed with this in the short term or long term.

Um it seems like we're creating efficiencies in the system.

So how does that benefit us from a financial standpoint?

I guess is part of my question.

So great question.

And right now we're not proposing any staffing changes at this time.

And in fact, one of the things that we've heard from the community loud and clear, and I know this is gonna surprise you, but the want for more consistent parking enforcement.

Currently, our resources are covered and stretched across the city.

And so one of the things with the technology and the optimization of the program recommendations that we're talking about is we should be able to cover more ground more effectively.

And so what we're hoping for is that we'll really be able to be more efficient and more adaptable with our existing resources.

And this is something that as we talk about moving forward, it really takes our you know, customer first approach, you know, towards our parking ambassador model to make sure that we're really focused on customer service and also responding to those calls where maybe we have vehicle abatement calls or calls for block driveways.

These are things that when we talk about the service list that we have today, we are extended um across the entire city.

And so we're really looking forward to being able to bring those resources back to you through some of the data drivers to be able to demonstrate to you how much more effective we can be with the resources moving forward.

Okay, thank you for that.

Um I have a big question as it relates to this, the cost.

And I know that I I appreciate you starting the conversation off by recognizing that there's no such thing as free parking.

So I I I appreciate that.

Um, it would be helpful to see the numbers.

And I don't know if that's something that's um available today to look at, but it'd be interesting to see um the expenses associated with managing these programs versus the actual revenue that we anticipate bringing in from it.

And I know that we outlined the estimated approximate $70,000, depending on participation, but like how does that align with the expenses associated with the program?

So I think it'd be helpful to see that.

Sure.

Um we've done all the financial modeling, and that's how we've basically landed on the $25 is the starting point.

And again, a lot of this will depend on how many programs, how many neighborhoods opt in, how many people buy permits.

So this is why when we talk about really ensuring that we come back to you as well, it's going to be very important that we monitor this closely to ensure that we are close to the mark.

Um, we do need to make additional investments in parking infrastructure in the future.

And so this is also something that we know that if there was an upside in the revenue, we have infrastructure that we need to buy.

We're talking about covering the basic expenses associated with the program today.

We need to revamp some signs.

So that low that threshold of 70,000 is really what I'm gonna say that covers the basics.

And I think that one of the things that you'll see, especially when you look at the cost comparisons is that $25 for an annual parking permit is very reasonable when you really start to talk about even some other cities throughout California as well.

But our ability to accurately report on those numbers is something that we can absolutely bring those performance measures moving forward.

Having done this for many other cities, um, those numbers are really, really on the mark when it comes to that structure.

And I also want to reinforce, and this was included in the report.

We are also proposing a low income option as well.

So that for the first parking permit for those that have the you know the proof of you know low income status is that you first parking permit would be free as well.

So that was another important factor when we talk about equitability in the program too.

Nope.

Thank you for for sharing that.

Um you had also discussed the idea of focusing the permit based off of the driver license as opposed to the plate.

And the example that you gave was if you had four vehicles.

Um in my mind, if my partner and I, we have two vehicles.

In that scenario, I would just put both of the vehicles under mine and not have them under his.

So then it would just be the one permit that would transfer the transfer plates because I have two cars.

So in your case, using that as the example, if you have two licensed drivers in your household, your household would be eligible for two parking permits.

And I think my point is like, why would I need two parking permits?

If you had two cars, so that's the but the scenario that you gave was saying if it's based off of the driver's license and you had four vehicles.

I would want to be eligible.

So all four license plates would be considered one permit.

No, like that's a great question.

So I would in my household, if I own four cars, I would only be eligible based on me being the only licensed driver, I would only be eligible to permit one of those vehicles.

And that's really important.

We talk about mitigating the curb side.

Okay.

Is that yeah, and I helps a lot.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And I want to think like, why would I give somebody uh if you have four vehicles, you could probably pay for well again.

I think that's an important factor to recognize, but I also want to highlight that cities of Cerritos and San Mateo have had this licensed driver program in place for I think more than three decades.

And it has really had an impact.

And it's something that we've been rolling out on probably for the last six years progressively.

And I gotta tell you it's a game changer.

And it really again, so I I can't highlight enough, it's not the city's burden for me to park my three extra cars.

And that's something that does become an issue in a lot of neighborhoods.

Um, last question for you.

Um we talk about the cannery row program.

Um, any new residents would require wouldn't be eligible.

They wouldn't they wouldn't continue that grandfathered opportunity that the 50 or so have now.

Um it made me think of like Prop 13.

And if somebody inherits a property, they kind of are still grandfathered in.

So is would that work the same way here?

Or if they if the property is acquired by um a child of a deceased, um, would they continue to carry that parking space too?

Or would they be considered a new resident?

So, really great questions.

Ultimately, business rules that are set up by the city.

I do want to reinforce something that didn't highlight earlier today.

Many cannery row residents currently purchase cannery row garage permits.

So I do want to highlight that today that many of them have parking permits to park in the parking garage.

So I just want to call that out.

But as we talk about moving forward, ultimately, that becomes a city policy decision.

But it's the reason why I wanted to bring up the legislative changes when we talk about the track the TOD oriented development, um, is that it's something that is going to impact cities across California as we talk about how we mitigate the curb moving forward because we are building without providing parking.

And as the council member said, people still have cars.

Where are they gonna go?

And so I think that that's one of the reasons why we need to be cognizant of that as we're making these policy decisions moving forward.

So I know that's not a direct answer to you, but I would just say ultimately it's the city's decision.

We're suggesting, especially for in this area where you have your paid parking zone, it is not um to the city's advantage for you to continue to give away parking, especially in your metered parking areas.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Thank you for that.

Um and I'm gonna transition here to public comment.

Um, but before I do so, I'm just gonna make a quick statement in that obviously this is a really hard, difficult conversation.

It makes people uncomfortable, it's a lot of change.

Um, but what I appreciate about the presentation and uh I I think the direction that staff is trying to take us here is by moving in this direction, it helps us to stay on top of our how we want to transition what's likely to happen at at the federal at the state um legislature level.

So um something for us to all keep in mind.

Really appreciate the presentation.

With that, I'll open it up public comment for those on Zoom.

You can use the raise hand function.

Anyone in the chamber wishes to speak on this item.

If you could do me a favor and just stand up to the left of the podium.

Um, if you'd like to remain seated, feel free to do so.

Just identify yourself by raising your hand.

So I see seven folks standing in the chamber.

Anyone else that's still seating that wants to speak to this one?

All right, so we'll cut it off to the seven here, and then I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one.

We have five online.

We're gonna bring it to two minutes.

We're gonna go ahead and start in the chamber.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor Council and Citizen.

And uh, first of all, I did think it was a good presentation, and I also appreciate the comments of council.

A couple of the issues.

Number one, there's a lot of vehicles, and I'm talking about specifically the Kona Pro program, and I understand we're gonna study it, but there's some other issues that overlap, so I'll address them.

A lot of vehicles have commercial plates, and the commercial plates are there for a reason by state mandate, not local.

And that they have certain privileges of parking when they're doing jobs, etc.

You also have utility companies that have commercial plates, and they park in our neighborhoods because they're on call.

To get to get a guest pass every night that a guy has to be on call would be unreasonable for public safety, nothing else.

I think that's an issue that needs to be just addressed.

The other issue I would I will address really quickly is uh if you have workers come to your house and it's related, but they may not have commercial plates for a remodel or a fire in your house, you're gonna be paying a daily guest pass to have workers there, four or five cars sometimes.

I'll leave it at that.

Than um my name's Rich Wilson.

Um apartment building at 320 foam street.

And uh I called uh learned about this not that long ago, and I called the city parking and just had a good talk with, I'm not sure I spoke to there, but what it was explained to me was um sort of like what I heard tonight.

Um, but even a little worse, where it sounded like the tenants were not gonna be allowed to park on the street right away, you know, immediately we weren't gonna be able to grandfather in the current uh uh renters.

Um so my thoughts are that you might consider uh if a tenant moves out, uh I've had the building maybe 30 years, and there's a retired school teacher and families there and they love the neighborhood, it's a neighborhood, it's not a commercial, you know, just a commercial neighborhood.

And so um my point is if if parking is taken away from parking right in front of the apartment, there's always parking available at our block.

Uh, if it's taken away, you're really uh discriminated against elderly people that can't walk that far to a parking garage.

You're making a dangerous walk for women and probably anybody at night to walk from the parking garage to our apartment building.

So I think it's I truly believe that we should always have our parking spaces.

Uh purchased a building, like I said 30 years ago, and with the vested interest in having parking in front.

You know, we can park there, and we're we're fine with paying for the permit, but I I just hope you consider allowing the the residents that live in Canary Road to continue to live there with their parking spaces.

Thank you.

Good evening, um, Mayor Williamson and members of the city council Luis Osorio, um former planning commissioner.

I reside uh 25 Delmonte Avenue, which is between Pacifica Street and Van Buren.

It's an interesting street because you have Portola Vista, which is a senior citizen housing unit, housing development, and there's Troyas, and there's uh a couple of uh buildings across the street.

Um it's been mentioned that there is no free parking.

This street has uh at least 10 parking streets that are for free.

There's no parking limitation there other than the 72-hour uh time limit where you have to move your car.

So I don't know if this has been looked at, but um there's always um fighting for parking spaces on this street.

This is one of the areas where there's a spill over from downtown.

There's a lot of people that park there that work downtown that don't want to use the parking structure.

And I think it needs to be revisited.

It needs to be um thought through uh without us having to make a petition to change the regulations.

Um, because if we do, uh, I don't know what the definition of neighborhood is.

If we make a petition to change the regulations so that there is residential parking only, uh, how many people we will have to get on the petition, because there's the senior citizens on Portola Vista and there's us on the other side, which is just a house and three apartment and three um apartments.

So I think I don't know for the consultant, she did a great presentation.

Uh haven't seen a presentation that good in a long time.

A lot of information.

I don't know if it's been looked at, but I think I want we need to ask her whether that's been looked at because it is free parking, and she said there's no such a thing.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, city council and residents.

Um I just want to tell you um who I am.

I'm Dan Garrett, I'm owner of Bay Service Automotive at 1201 10th Street.

Um I'm the second generation and working for me now is my son is gonna be a third generation.

So we've been there a long time and hopefully we'll be there a long time.

Um I had a great meeting, by the way, nice presentation.

Um, and I appreciate you, Mr.

Garcia, for the question about 10th Street, because it answered a lot of questions for me that I didn't have the answers to.

So um with that being said, I just uh yes, we do have some issues that need to resolve me.

I just asked that the city and everybody involved just have open dialogue with us business owners that are on 10th Street and keep that open.

If it means coming to the shop or the business and talking to us about it and what needs are are that we need or concerns, that would be really helpful.

So um, with that being said, I appreciate your guys' time and listening to what my comments are.

Thank you.

My name is Pete D.

Maria.

I also have an interest in 10th Street, but I'm not gonna go into that right now because we've had a meeting earlier on, and uh I'm pretty happy with what it's going on.

We have an understanding on that.

Uh, but I do have a concern about Casanova.

I've lived in Casanova between Fremont and Del Monte for 56 years.

And uh are we talking about that area here at all?

Okay.

I've called several times.

Ever since I've been retired, I'm kind of like go out and drink my coffee in the yard.

I live in a corner.

And uh the traffic coming off the freeway onto English Street, okay.

Uh they don't stop there.

They especially after work, you know, they blow through there trying to get ahead of the traffic.

So they'll cut through Montecito and they'll go up English, cut the Montecito.

There's a stop sign there, four-way stop.

And I can see that corner from my corner.

Nobody ever stops there.

I got a driveway on Montecito.

So I'm gonna do something wrong.

Oh, okay.

I'm trying to back when I try to back out, uh, it gets kind of hectic when you're halfway out and somebody just blows through the stop side.

Also on the other side, uh, we have a lot of big trucks over eight feet wide, trailers, uh, motor homes.

Uh and I've called several times.

Uh the corner we live on, when the fairgrounds are going on, they park right to the edge, right to the handicapped spot, actually into the handicapped spot.

So when I pull out of my driveway on Montecito, the other driveway, because I'm on a corner, uh, especially my wife.

You got to pull out, you gotta pull out, you gotta pull out.

And then by the time you're halfway out, the guy's blasting the horn because he didn't stop.

So he's you know, he's you know, it's it's really hectic.

But I got concerns about that.

I think we should be included in that.

And I think I think the motorhomes on Fremont Street with their generators and a five-gallon gas can on the street, uh, is concerning, especially the big one that parks in front of Slapper's Bowl.

Uh is concerning, especially the big one that parks in front of Slapper's Bowl.

Somebody's gonna rear in that thing.

And it's just a matter of time.

And that's just something I think should be added to that area.

I don't know why you don't add that with the rest of Casanova.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Monique Caldi, resident of the city of Monterey.

Pardon me if this comes out a little bit disjointed.

I hadn't prepared to speak on parking tonight, but there were a few things that caught my attention.

So it seems like we put the cart before the horse again.

This would have been a great presentation to have had before the downtown parking requirements were removed to accommodate higher density developments.

It's very concerning that we're stripping our property owners of their parking on the street.

And I sincerely disagree.

The city is responsible for providing parking.

Why?

We pay property taxes that go into infrastructure improvements.

That's why we live here.

We don't live in Santa Cruz.

We don't live in Long Beach.

This is Monterey.

We don't have the kind of mass transit that those larger cities support.

And we cannot get our residents from their homes to the airport to mass transit to up to San Jose to the doctor.

We don't have any real, as you know, safe bicycle routes.

Our pedestrian routes are busy, they're dangerous.

Walking on lighthouses sketchy.

We need to take more consideration.

Overall, residential passes should not phase out upon change of ownership or tenancy.

And if that's going to happen, then why are we even talking about implementing a costly new program?

Just let it all phase out.

So please consider these things.

We all own properties.

We all pay property taxes, and we do have a right to park in our city.

Thank you.

Hello.

Hopefully, hopefully my voice won't crack again.

It already is.

The uh Comona Kona Community Center had a district for community meeting, as I mentioned before a few weeks ago.

The parking program was discussed.

I understand that the staff will be doing additional separate outreach and discussion regarding the Kona program.

However, I want to let you know that I'm here to advocate for the event-based Kona parking program and for it to continue as it is currently.

I think you will find that the majority of the Kona residents will support a continuation and will not want to transition into the citywide residential parking program.

After that community meeting, I did have the opportunity to speak with the with the fairground CEO, Kelly Violini, and she pointed out that the city of Monterey is missing out on revenue from the fairgrounds.

This revenue would support the city's management of our program through the vendors and admission fees.

That would help the parking program to get out of the red and actually increase the enforcement during the entire event period.

And that speaks to the bottom line of our event-based parking program.

And that is the fairgrounds causes the problem.

Also, I would like to know why when people violate the parking restrictions all day, that there is only a maximum of two tickets that can be given.

Is this a city or a state law?

If it's city, I would ask for someone to look into changing that for revenue purposes.

Thank you.

But that will go to our callers on Zoom.

Yes, our first speaker will be Marta.

Good evening.

I would like to thank Christy Steffi and staff for the work they have done to revamp the residential parking permit within the city.

I understand the need for this program to be financially viable as well as enforceable.

I have concerns over the new 80% threshold for participation, as this higher level could deter residents from applying for permits in areas that have consistent parking challenges due to the application process.

I helped my neighbors apply for residential permit parking for just one single block adjacent to Monterey High School.

The residential permit parking application was onerous.

First, I needed to contact all my neighbors, some of whom I know, others I do not.

I need to look on the city's GIS maps to get all their addresses and to send a letter addressed to dear neighbor to explain the application.

Then with the help of my neighbors, had to get all the neighbors to sign the same application.

One single document.

There was no way for individual neighbors to sign the petition online.

So we had to reach out and arrange to meet each neighbors for a signature.

This involved time and effort of individuals, and this application only involves a single block.

I am hopeful that the city will help residents with the application process and provide names and addresses of residents in the application area, as well as allow residents to sign an online petition.

Without the city's help in identifying residents and applying for a permit, the 80% threshold appears to be put to put an increased burden on applicants and is not helpful for residents who deal who must deal with parking challenges daily.

Although I can't speak for Oak Grove, Canary Row or Kona, I do know that the streets around that surround Monterey High School are severely impacted.

Many of my neighbors do not have access to any on-street parking for workers or guests.

There's a small number of spaces available or occupied by students, office forcing residents to park blocks from their homes.

I am hopeful the city is mindful of these hardships and will prioritize parking access for all residents.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And our next speaker is Lori Good evening, uh Council and Male.

Um I'm going to talk about the Del Monte Beach neighborhood.

I'm not sure if folks can answer any questions, but I appreciate the parking uh presentation.

And I understand that we could maybe have somebody come to the neighborhood.

Um ours is uh sort of a mixed bag.

Many people would like a parking permit program.

Others maybe not, might be I know there's ups and downs um to both of them.

But um wondering if uh Del Monty Beach is one of those uh one-offs because the local coastal plan is not done.

So I don't I know well many of us filled out the parking survey, but none of us got anything back from it.

Um it's not the sleepy neighborhood it used to be.

There are up to four people living in units that one person used to be able to afford here.

So up to four cars per unit.

Everyone around me has four cars.

I have one parking spot and one parking spot in front of my house that no one ever gets to park in because somebody else is always parked there.

Um we have surf trucks that run businesses out of our neighborhood that store their vehicles here.

Uh we we kind of have a joke here.

We call it surfway storage.

Uh we have a number of folks that live in that some of the residents are just as bad.

Eight to ten cars, and they store them here.

They just wipe off the chalk mark.

We have not yet seen the video um new trucks that we hear that they're going to be ticketing with.

That would be great.

Um, but there's also possibility for revenue that we could get on Tide Avenue.

Um, we have RVs, mobile homes, they come, they run generators, they park here.

We we're like a free RV parking lot a lot of times because nobody has to pay.

So there's a revenue opportunity here as well.

Um, I'm out of my time, but um, thank you.

And maybe you could direct me to someone who could come.

Next speaker is Colin.

Um, hi, I just have a I guess it's a few uh observations I'll make, and maybe they'll they'll transform into questions you can answer later.

Um, one of them is um, will these will this petition process have to occur across the entire city?

Will residents have to will all residents have to participate in this petition process?

Like, for example, um, I live up on Alice, which is off of David, and and it's pretty parking impacted.

Like my son has a car, drives to the university to see a CMB.

Um, you know, my wife drives to to work at WIC and so on, and I have a car too, and there's only one designated parking space uh where we live, and the other one is used as a guest parking spot, so there's always somebody parking on the street.

Um, another thing that comes up is that there's some military people that live in our complex, and uh and uh you know it is the case that they aren't necessarily residents of the area because sometimes they're new because they arrive from somewhere else.

So, how would they prove their residency and they're not necessarily required to disclose their details?

Um, so then that occurred to me as I was listening to the presentation.

Um, you know, this whole residency proof thing that that doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of like the military.

And then, like uh a whole nother thing is um uh you know the the business thing that that somebody else brought up.

Um, you don't want businesses to have to to show uh proof and all this, and then um uh Monique Caldy brought up some really good points.

Uh we should we pay our taxes and and uh we shouldn't have to uh necessarily be uh paying again if we're already paying our taxes.

So what's up with that?

Um so uh these are kind of observations I make that are taking the form of questions, and I think that um the council and staff should should not object to these observations I make, but get back to these questions I have, and then and then others um have others have pointed out as well.

So I'd like to have these questions answered.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Tom.

Thank you.

Uh at the top of the presentation, uh statement was made that we can't discriminate between single and multifamily neighborhoods per state law.

Yet if you look at uh the map of New Monterey, I think it's designated as zone H.

You couldn't red line a multi-family portion of the city any better than this yellow zone.

That's predominantly multi-family zone, yet they're being burdened with this program.

People like me who live further up the hill, or the city manager who lives in another part of the neighborhood, we're not part of this.

So that to me does seem to be discriminatory.

It's it's unfairly burdening the people in the multifamily neighborhoods.

The statement about no such thing as as being free parking.

I understand the statement.

I was in public works for many years.

The parking lane costs money to maintain, but again, it's a matter of when why aren't people in the upper part of the neighborhood or anywhere in the city?

Why aren't we part of a parking permit program and having to pay the same parking fees?

Um, and then I have a kind of a mechanical question, which is what happens if you get less than 50% of the people initially buying the permits.

Do the people who bought the permits get refunded then if it falls short of the 50% plus one, and then what happens if years down the road it falls under that threshold?

Do you all of a sudden then just cold turkey tell people sorry that the program's ending?

And I know of at least one person down on uh near Wave Street who owns multiple cars, and it seems kind of brutal to just drop the hammer on them and say, sorry, buddy, you don't get a permit because uh you have too many cars.

So I just think this thing needs to be thought out a little bit better before it it gets initiated.

Thank you.

And our last speaker is Richard.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Um, I have a couple questions, maybe you can answer.

One, um I'm worried about the city budget and the deficit.

How much have we expended in the survey, the consultance fee?

And as we ramp up a public education program, because as you can see by your audience, few people know about this.

Um part of the revenue expenses that are not considered are citations of a 48 dollar parking citation.

How much does the city get of that?

Because I know it's farmed out, and that's part of the revenue that nobody's discussing.

The other thing that concerns me the most is the city deficit of 10 million dollars a year from now on.

And we have to have some tax measures.

Speaking is somebody that ran any tax measure campaigns.

The thing I worry about the most is negatives.

And when we get people with multiple cars, and they can only keep one, they're gonna get angry, and I fear they will vote no on taxes.

If so, I fear for the city of Monterey.

So that needs to be considered the measure of trust that is being sent to the community, the measure of anger, you're gonna get a return.

And is this the right time?

Let's get measure S and G and the increase in the sales tax done.

And those are my concerns because the future of Monterey.

Thank you.

Okay, we have a few questions, then we're gonna try to work through um commercial plates.

And then I'm gonna tie something else with that one too, which was the construction on private property, how that might be handled.

So a contractor's permit is very common in a city when we talk about one of the permit options.

And typically, if I have a contractor coming to work at my home or if I work in the city as a contractor, those are permit opportunities that are things that work really well in many cities.

So a contractor's permit is very commonplace.

The reality in a residential parking permit zone is that there are also time limits posted.

So that if I am coming to work in a household, the fact is there's time limits on street.

But what most communities do is that I, as a resident, again, my car, I have a parking permit, I simply park on the street so that my contractor can park in my driveway.

And so there's things that you have to do to adapt and modify to ensure that you can accommodate.

But I will also say if you're doing major renovations and you're bringing in 10 contracting vehicles, that's something that in most communities, you identify how many of those contractor vehicles are going to park in the neighborhood and how many need to park off site.

I know this is a different way of thinking for a lot of folks, but the reality is that's an impact on your neighborhood.

And again, I can purchase guest passes and I can leverage the guest pass program that we described, you know, for most of the neighborhoods.

But the reality is uh you need to plan for your use of the curb, and that's an important factor when you talk about the use of contractors.

So and then the commercial plates.

So commercial plates, I was really interested in what the fellow brought up.

I mean, when we talk about commercial plates, especially in loading zones, that's really what's applicable.

But my ability to park in a neighborhood that has a residential parking permit program, I'm still eligible for based on the posted regulations.

So a commercial parking uh license plate, excuse me, a commercial license plate doesn't give me exemption to the rules as posted.

So I'm not quite sure what that speaker was referring to, but again, I am subject to the same rules as posted.

Again, my eligibility in a loading zone is really where commercial plates become relevant.

Okay, thank you for that.

And then um, there was a comment, and I know you spoke to this in your presentation, but around um that parking kind of more close to the complex, I think it was the um owner of the complex um and cannery row um on Wave Street.

Um is specifically referred to seniors and women, but I think if I were to reiterate what you shared earlier, there's it's a public parking space, so there's no guarantee that they would get that parking space right in the front, as is as the program currently is.

That that's correct.

It's just like the curb in front of my house does not belong to me.

And if Christy parks in front of my house and she's eligible to park there, she can technically park there for as long as the vehicle code or the municipal code allows.

And so the reality, there's no guarantee of those parking spaces as they stand today.

So um there was a couple of people that commented on their street or block or neighborhood specific um around the idea of they're not currently being a uh program and Luis, you were one of them that spoke to this.

Um but my assumption is is that if you're not currently included in a program that you can work with your neighborhood to um elevate that and have go through the process of getting the whatever the threshold is that the council ends up deciding to move forward on.

I think specifically for Luis is though, he's on Del Monte above Pacific.

And if I recall correctly, can we pull up the map?

Um if I re call correct, it's cut above Kaip.

But his but it sounds like his street isn't included.

So I'm wondering if it's an adjacent street to what's currently identified as the new condensed um models.

Is there a way for those to petition in?

Yeah, absolutely.

And in fact, the way that you design a model is so that contiguous block faces can actually petition in.

And if there's one thing I can highlight about the re-qualification process, uh we didn't go into all the details here today, but what will be very important is that we would take each of those zones and very specifically mailers would be received by zone to all of the households.

We would have an orientation meeting, instructions would be provided so that every eligible address in said zone would understand the timeline and the process of what they have to do in order to retain that process.

So um, I know that the petitioning process sounds quite onerous, but I can assure you of the fact that the intention is to very much work with the neighborhoods so that they can make sure that they can have that information, know what addresses and make sure everybody's a part of the discussion.

So and also the time frame.

So I think that's really an important part of the communication process.

This is not going to happen overnight.

And if this is approved to move forward, this is something that would happen incrementally through each of the zones, so that we would be able to work with each of those neighborhoods and be able to work through the process to ensure that if they want to retain the program and go through the process with them as well.

Just a quick follow-up question to this.

Um when we're talking about sending it to the addresses, is it just the residential addresses, or is it also property assessment addresses like the property owner, the landlord?

So ultimately it goes to the owners and in some cases the renters, and that's very much the addresses that are on file, basically with the city.

Okay.

And so in some cases, if I, as a renter receive said notice, it highlights in that letter to please be sure to also inform property owner as well.

So you know, we'll do every best effort to get the information, and that's just the mailer.

Obviously, social media posts, everything that we have to do to get the information out there.

Um, definitely from shouting it from as many rooftops as possible, so that everybody understands, like if you live in this impacted zone, you need to be a part of the process.

So okay.

And this might be a question for Christy.

Um, there was a question around the max two ticket threshold.

And so just want to maybe get some clarity in regards to that's that question.

I don't think it's on that is specific to that neighborhood for that.

Could you speak to is that a city policy city code?

Correct.

It's in yeah, it's part of that program in that neighborhood for it is a double site double double site zone.

Is that something that we could change that allows greater flex?

I think with the intent of the question was to allow for more than just the up to two tickets.

Yeah, and then in the Kona program, that's one of the considerations is defining what is the um what is an event, and then also it could be a special event citation rate, even.

So, yes, it is subject to something that could be looked at.

Okay.

Okay, so I I'm I'm hearing that there's flexibility there.

Um there was an interesting question from Laurie that came up around uh the Del Monte Beach neighborhood and it being in the coastal zone, and does that change it does implementation of our parking program?

And that I'm glad that she brought up the LCP because that is definitely something that is one thing for the rest of the permit program.

We didn't have to address the coastal zone, but for that specific neighborhood, that would be subject to coastal commission approvals.

And so the LCB L CP, I don't know if you want to speak about the status of the LCP, but that is a part of that process.

I yeah, I think I I think the plan is to get through the local coastal plan by sometime next year.

Um, so we're working our way there, Lori and Del Monte neighborhood.

Um, and I'm assuming staff is tracking that and we'll work that back into the work plan when the time is right.

Yep, we know it's an impacted area.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Um, all residents have to participate in petition process.

And um, I think I think I might be able to answer that in saying no, it's only for the zones that are identified, or if there is interest within a neighborhood to go through the process of transitioning your block neighborhood into a residential parking program.

And you know, the one thing, sir, that I wanted to be sure to mention too when we talk about that 50% number, and I appreciate the question that came up.

Well, what if nobody buys a permit the second year?

Then is there truly a need for a parking permit program?

And I think that that's really what gets to the core root of this whole effort is is there still a need for a parking permit program?

That's why we brought up the external impacts and what we should really be thinking about is what is the impact in your neighborhood and if there is a true need for the administration of the program.

So I there was two questions, or there was kind of three questions embedded in that I'm appreciative.

I glad that you brought that one up.

So it was what if you get less than 50% for those that purchased, do they get a refund?

Yes.

And in fact, having done this in several other cities, um, you basically set up a time frame.

For example, if they meet the 50% requirement on the petitioning, then you set the clock that basically says, let's just say starting today, day one, you have 60 days or sooner if you hit 50% plus one.

And um, if basically at 61 days, we don't have that 50% number, any monies would be basically held in escrow and ultimately would be refunded.

Okay.

And then the subsequent question was what you were getting to, which is subsequent years.

Yep.

Um, so as the program currently is proposed, does it end?

Does the pro does the zone basically go away if it doesn't maintain the 50% plus one, or is it just the requirement for the first year?

So it's the requirement for the first year.

And I have to be honest with you.

Nobody's brought up this issue of year two and year three, because if that does become an issue, the fact is, how are we getting past the mark in the first place?

So I will say that that's going to be something that we will have to consider on because the reality of this methodology of what we're talking about, it hasn't become an issue.

And in fact, in most communities, we've seen in some cases a 75% decrease in the number of permits requested in communities, because traditionally when permits are free and I can have them at my will.

When we started to charge and started to mitigate and manage, we've seen programs literally go away and only where they have those external impacts.

And so we've seen that really kind of community after community.

So it's a really great question.

I can't tell you I have the answer to that one, but it's something that we can definitely address in future policies.

And maybe as we talk about those annual reviews to bring that moving forward, because ideally, as we talk about this program, we would only end up with those programs that truly have an impact and truly have a need, but that's something we could definitely bring back in the annual review if we see that type of impact happening.

The benefit that we have is that we have the ongoing data collection.

So not only will we know the number of permits purchased, we'll know the number of cars parking and all of those other factors.

So the ability to have that data analytics opportunity is something that really can allow you all to make very informed decisions.

What I'm sensing is that it's probably a higher threshold harder hill to climb to get that to even happen in the first place versus having issues and subsequently.

Yeah, that's why I'm actually surprised that I haven't had that question yet, because we haven't, it's really about getting it off the mark first.

And then once we get off the starting line, being able to modify and adapt accordingly, it really I like as I was mentioning with Oak Grove.

I would anticipate that the program will likely become reduced based on the size of the program today, and that there would be some modified version of that current neighborhood program.

But again, that's just kind of gut check of what we anticipate happening.

Um there was the question around um more transient communities like the military personnel.

Let's say they just moved here from their last duty duty station and they're trying to get settled into their home.

I guess how is that situation maybe handled?

How do we help support families that are starting off new here?

Oh, absolutely.

It's no different than when I have to get the lights turned on in my building.

You know, I mean, you have your requirements for what you have to do to get your electric turned on, very much the same for that factor.

You know, you bring in your orders or any of that documentation.

This is not meant to be a punitive process.

It's again about accommodating neighborhood access.

So there's plenty of opportunities and options.

And again, if anyone has challenges, they can come into the parking office and you know, we'll work with them to make sure that they're accommodated.

Um there was another question in regards to why don't we all just pay even in non-permitted locations?

My assumption is that we're collecting the fees to bear the cost of the program.

So if you're not living within those zones, then there would be no need to charge those customers or those residents.

That's right.

And this is one of the reasons why I'm going to anticipate that many of those 1500 plus parking permits that many of them will likely diminish because we're now starting to charge for a service that folks have received complimentary.

So I would anticipate now that folks will start to value their parking experience maybe a little bit differently.

And um, I think that that's important to again recognize this is designed to be a sustainable solution.

This is not a money grab on behalf of the city.

I appreciate all the comments that folks made, but this is truly intended to address an external impact in a neighborhood so that we can ensure that our residents have access to parking.

And then um there was two more questions that I have here from that last speaker, and I can't fully read my handwriting, but it was asking for something about expenses of the 48 dollars on the parking citation.

No, it was the consultants' fees, the education program, and there was something.

Oh, the survey was asking, and and I don't know if we have that available tonight, but again, I think I think just having some line items around budgetary items associated with this might be helpful in the future.

Sure.

Um, and then the last one was yeah, citation.

How does how much does city get?

Yes, that was the question.

You're right.

So um $12, I believe is the is that for you for the county and state holdback on 1350.

Thank you, Christy.

It varies by county.

So of the monies that are on the penalty, there's a $13 and 50 cent, I'll call it holdback that goes to county and state fees.

And otherwise, the um monies associated with those penalties go into the parking fund or the general fund, Christy.

It goes into the parking fund, 10% goes into the general fund.

Thank you.

Perfect.

I those are all the questions that I gathered.

I was scribbling away frantically trying to capture them all.

So if I miss them, I'm sure one of my colleagues will fill me in here.

But and there's also the cost of the third party who collects the money for us.

So just want to let you know.

Okay.

Up to 48 dollars.

That's a little so opening it up to the council for motion and deliberation.

Oh, please, Dr.

Barber.

Go ahead.

So um I can appreciate the the foundation and the concept of of what your goal is here about ensuring that all residents have access to parking.

But I think we're missing um some gaps here.

Um, because specifically with Canary Row, that's not going to be the case.

If someone moves out, then that resident that moves in is not going to have access to parking that as part of the goal, this particular goal, if I'm understanding it correctly.

Um, the other pieces of the 50% plus one, possibly something that uh could work, but there are some glitches there as well for me at least.

Um a few things uh about the guest pass.

I was trying to make sure I understood where it was saying that you could actually get guest passes for your contractors, but would that eat into the number of guest passes you have per year?

So there's two types there's your guest pass, which for your hundred that you can acquire a year, you can use those for your contractors, guests, visitors, but there's also a contractor permit that as a business in Monterey, I can also be eligible for that allows you to be exempt during oftentimes business hours.

Okay, so you can park in the neighborhood.

So you wouldn't have to particularly use your gifts passing.

That's it.

That's correct.

It's definitely a nice feature.

Okay.

So um, you know, what's before us tonight of what the recommendation was of approving the the program framework, I think we still need some more research on that.

Um, as far as the the actual permit fee approving the proposed permit fee.

Um I still need some more data on that, wanting the expenses and also wanting the seaside and marina um dollar amounts that I had asked for earlier.

So um, and then lastly, approving recommended updates to the Oak Grove and Canary Row special permit areas.

I couldn't uh support because of what I just talked about earlier about um the equity and and a resident leaving and then that and then somebody else coming that same um apartment and not having that same type of access that we're talking about that this program is supposed to be ensuring all residents have access to parking.

So for that reason, I won't be able to support it.

Okay, I think I saw customer Smith's hands up next.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Um, and tonight what we're doing is establishing a framework so you can kind of go back and adjust and and take our input.

So I wanted to give you some input in terms of as I read this and I read through it yesterday and again today, and then glanced at it for my reading eyes, just trying to determine what a resident with a second, third or fourth car is gonna have to pay.

I've extracted it's $25 per car for each licensed driver in a household, yeah.

So if someone is husband, wife, two kids, and God bless them, they've got two children that are driving.

They're buying four permits for four cars, correct?

Straightforward.

Is there a cap on the cars?

So you would be eligible to register four vehicles, one vehicle per licensed driver.

So there's a cap of four cars, yes.

So if you have husband and wife, and he has two hobby cars, he's one driver and he has three cars, and that's not permitted then, or I'd have to park it in my garage or driveway.

Right.

Okay, so I just I think that we have we need to we need to afford the conversation about second cars, one might be an electric car that they plug in that they use for their long drive and commute, and then maybe they have a recreational vehicle that's their pickup truck that they go hunting with, and motorcycles is not an issue that you you can park that almost anywhere.

Um, so I think that there's some I think I'm okay with four cars as a max.

Um, but I think that we need to have a provision for a driver should be able to have two permits for two of his cars.

And why is the city responsible for that second car?

Well, the responsibility is debatable, it's an objective conversation.

I think state of California might disagree with you, but go ahead.

Well, state of California frequently screws us, so I'm not even going to open up that can of worms.

But let me let me just focus on our duty and responsibility as a council member to a resident who votes for me.

Sure.

They have a house, they rent it or they buy it, they pay taxes, they go to work, they put their kids in schools, they drive on our streets, we take care of the streets, they pay for a lot of things for services.

I think they're entitled to some privileges of being able to at least participate in street.

Now, if it's a high rise and there's one-way streets and there's no parking, and they choose to live in that apartment, that's a different circumstance.

We've got residential neighborhoods, wide streets, places to park, but they're impacted because of the overflow from a commercial area or an event area.

But I think that we do kind of have a nod and a wink responsibility to take care of our residents.

So I wouldn't be too flippant about that.

Oh, I'm not, I'm not, I don't intend to be flippant.

It's really about the issue of there are only so many parking spaces.

And I think that that's part of the challenge of why we talk about licensed drivers is trying to ensure that for those people that do need to drive to get to work, get to school, is ensuring that there are parking spaces for those uses.

And I think that that's why when we start to talk about recreational vehicles or you know, the hobby cars and factors like that, when we're starting to talk about those limited parking spaces, that's truly where the impact is.

And that's the reason why when we have a limited curb space, why we're starting to talk about regulating it and using the high rise as an example.

I'll use it as simple as your apartment buildings.

When you start to get into the neighborhoods that have so many multifamily buildings, you're also talking about the housing impacts that exist today are very different from you know when I grew up.

And what is a two-bedroom apartment, maybe that could have traditionally had two, maybe three adults in it.

That's a much different footprint today.

And many of those adults in that household have cars, multiple jobs, et cetera.

And so when we start to talk about the impact on the curb, that's the reality of what we're talking about.

So I think that, and I don't mean to be flippant, it's the reality of there is only so much curb space, and the reality that people need their cars to survive and to be able to work, and I think that that's the reason why we're talking about these type of regulatory opportunities of how to ensure that we have space for those people that need their cars for work and for school.

Yeah, and I think all it's not black and white because we know we have a variety of circumstances.

Absolutely.

Uh, I want to drill down into something that was really important, and that was um the thresholds.

So the staff recommends on new areas of significance where they would go out petition for contiguous uh blocks, I think is what the terminology was.

Um, and the staff recommends an 80% threshold surveying to get a program together, and then 50% must purchase, and then after a year or two, you would survey to see if there's at least 70% uh average occupancy.

So you you want to monitor that.

So I I think that there's um a problem I have with is the 80% threshold.

Um let's take the high school as an example, heavily impacted.

The speaker tonight talked about her block in the entrance of Monterey High School on Larkin Street.

If she were going to and her neighbors went forward and wanted to have a program, as this current staff recommendation reads, they would require uh a four-block reach, and eighty percent of those four blocks would have to agree.

I know they're impacted, and there's all day parking on one side of the street and hourly parking on the other.

And so maybe one of the other ways that we as a city should be better at is that we designate two hours parking spaces to eliminate the possibility of students or staff parking all day in a residence, so that's on us.

So that's on us.

But two hours with a permit exemption is what that neighborhood is seeking because they want to be able to park in their neighborhood for the day.

So I appreciate what you're describing absolutely to try to regulate and mitigate the impact of what I've called the transient parker.

But for that neighborhood, what they're specifically seeking, the time limit is great, but then they would want a resident exemption to be able to park in those spaces.

Not be limited to two hours and not be committed to the two hours.

Yeah.

And I think we have to acknowledge that some of the architecture of our community is built around no driveway, no garage.

Right.

And the residents have no other choice.

Right.

But they so this is neighborhood by neighborhood.

They could petition to do so.

Yeah.

And I and that's where the heart of this is I think 80%'s too high for me.

I I just I don't know what the right number is, but I just think that makes it really onerous for residents in those four blocks to solve a problem.

We previously had 50% compliance.

So I haven't heard a compelling argument to increase that to 80.

So just my comments, I just think that 80 is too high.

I think a 60% is more doable for me and more understandable.

Um the contiguous blocks, I don't know that it uses the word contiguous, but it says four blocks.

So is that a block north, a block east, a block south?

What how do we define those four blocks?

Basically adjacent.

So it's you just don't want breaks in it so that you're the intention is so that you're not discriminating against uh block face or household, so that you want to make sure that they're adjacent blocks.

So from a contiguous standpoint, can I ask a uh clarifying question to that?

Because I I kind of have the same thing.

Um I live on Franklin.

So if I wanted to do that with my neighbors up the hill, I live on one side of Franklin.

That that's considered one block, is is the other side of the street also part of that block, or is that considered a second block?

So a block face is basically the side of the street that you live on, and then basically both sides of the block, excuse me, both sides of the street are a block, ideally.

Okay.

I do want to highlight that something that the council member said too is that sometimes there are geographic roundaries that are the exception.

So when we talk about four contiguous blocks, especially over by the high school, that would be something that would be presented to you all for that exception.

And so obviously you don't want to manage a program based on exceptions because then why have a program?

But ideally, the majority of the program is based on those four contiguous blocks, but in some cases, especially by the high school, that may not be by geographic design, but that would be something that would be an exception of when that is presented to you, that would be explained as well.

Yeah, and and I think that's important to cover because there may be uh a taut lot in the middle of that lot that doesn't really have any parking on that side.

But that's right.

I I just think that there's um nuances to the blocks.

Um and I think that I think the answer was there, but I don't know that it was clear for the speaker.

But the form that they need to take is downloadable on the computer at the website, right?

They can print it, and then they can add additional pages and get additional signatures, and so we're not trying to make this very bureaucratic, it's pretty easy, right?

And I don't think that this new framework is changing that process by no means.

We want to make it easy for the neighborhoods and to be able to work with city staff.

We're just saying that we can't force the permit program on a neighborhood, they have to have a want for the program because you don't want to instill the requirements on a neighborhood that doesn't want it.

Yeah, and one other passing comment, and then I'll get out of the way.

The Cantery Row area is particularly vulnerable, and I'm sensitive to uh just basically retiring in and ending parking for residents that are there.

I just think it's a unique neighborhood commercial um and historical, and I'm not in favor of completely eliminating it.

I did the math, 109 properties, I believe you said, and then 109 permits for 50 addresses.

Okay, so we have 50 addresses, let's call it two permits per household.

We're talking about 2500 a year.

I just don't think it's worth doing that to those residents.

I I would like to see it continue as an available parking program for residents in the Canary Row area to service 50 uh properties for a fee for the 25 or the yeah, okay.

So I'm sure thank you.

No, I think that there should be a fee.

But I just don't think that we should just eliminate a program for them.

Um, Hans.

I just want to offer a quick quick thought to uh to council number Smith and and others when we talk about the 80%.

Um, because I think we we if we want to look at a different percentage number, which which I think is a totally legit uh ask, um we need to think through the the rest of the numbers, which is um 80% is is the th threshold right now to cut community consensus in that neighborhood.

But then uh when it comes to the implementation of that, uh there has to be 50% plus one neighbors buying actually a parking permit.

So if you start with 50% plus one, uh you can easily uh sign the petition, but but when it comes to okay, no, please pay the pay pay the 25, you will have a certain amount of attrition, shall I say?

Well, though I I I think so again, look up sorry.

So I I I think the the 80 percent sounds very high, and and and I agree with that.

Uh so there's something we can work on, but we have to look also at the feasibility then of implementing that.

And so if if we uh if we have the attrition or the shrinkage, then by actually the folks who actually then participate and purchase uh the program, the program may not take off if you do not have a solid base before you petition.

So uh just a thought.

Well, and the idea is that the people that are voting that are making a yes or no decision and the petition isn't necessarily a direct correlation with how many permits would be purchased with all the folks that live in there.

So you could have 50% or 30% of the people actually participate in the vote, and then when it gets implemented, you have the expectation of having 50% plus one of them actually have to purchase it.

Um real people.

So I I think we can get back to this conversation around a percentage.

Um let me but let me answer that.

And I think that's a valid point.

I'm all I'm not thinking just the one way.

I'm thinking, yes, there needs to be a threshold of both sides.

I'm thinking like 60, 65 percent.

I'm I mean, I'm open.

It's just 80 percent just seems too high.

So if it's 60 percent, we should have 50 percent have to buy.

And if you're not successful, you don't get 51 plus one, and they don't go for it, they don't buy, it's not a program.

And so I agree.

The the other side of that is that there's got to be a commitment with a check for the 25 per car.

Because I think 60 percent is a little bit closer.

Because then the city is going to be engaging in that process for it to then fail.

So I think I appreciate the burden because part of it is setting us up for success.

Yeah, it's cost recovery.

And and just a clarifying question, just to be um um clear.

So, what we are talking about here would apply to Canary Row in the process of re-qualifying.

Requalifying, yes.

Okay.

Um that being the case, uh, I I mean, we're deciding on a framework.

So I'm gonna go ahead and support um the recommendation.

Um, because I think there's opportunity here, as uh we're saying, to see if uh it'll even launch, right?

And then if it does, there'll be annual reviews as well to see if this allows us to begin to work with each of the neighborhood zones and really get into the weeds and be able to bring those program recommendations forward for you all because ultimately you have to approve each of these zones ultimately.

So I think that this really gives us the opportunity to begin to work with the neighborhoods and really figure out what this is going to become and how many people are going to participate.

Exactly.

Yeah, and and I'll offer also a little bit more of context in terms of why I'm leaning in this direction.

Um I I'm sensitive to the point where it specifically with with neighborhoods where we see more uh working families who uh might have uh a greater need for multiple vehicles, right?

Um, but I also um having worked in in communities, and actually we see some of those neighborhoods here in our city.

Um I I would say also that we have more uh prominent uh neighborhoods or or neighborhoods that exhibit this uh symptom, right?

Of of what lack of parking programs do for our neighborhoods in our surrounding um communities through the region.

And I see the uh the other side of this is that with no parking program, you have neighborhoods that no matter what uh time of day it is, you're walking through there and there are no parking spaces because they're all occupied.

And that does something to the um character of the neighborhood.

And it also does a lot to the uh the safety of the neighborhood.

I've worked in neighborhoods uh that are like that with vehicles parked at any time of the day near, for example, elementary schools where you're driving through and you have to be really cautious because kids are density going in between cars and you can't really see them because again, the street is just filled with cars.

So I think this is an opportunity for us as a city to look into the future and and try to mitigate those issues become before they become uh much more difficult to address.

Um and in that, I think I'm also trying to highlight right the fact that what we're doing here and and what uh the power parking department is trying to do here is um really um come up with solutions for very specific neighborhoods in an effort to continue to um increase and improve the quality of life of our our residents.

That's really it.

It's not about taking away parking or taking a bit away uh rights um to um you know put your cars either um on the street or or wherever.

You know, it's just it's uh it's uh another approach towards improving the quality of life of our residents.

Um and and I like how um Julie, you you put it.

It's uh it's a way to address the external impact on neighborhoods so that our residents can really enjoy uh the space that we have.

So uh I'm gonna go ahead and support it.

That's from Barash.

I'm fine with it.

Uh District 3 doesn't have quite the impacts that the other commercial, more commercial areas have, but I'm very aware of the impacts that you folks have.

And I think it's you did a fine job.

I enjoyed it when you presented, I think it was a year ago, probably.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you've done a lot of work.

And um, I I think there's the intention to have it be um organic and growing and not set so that that the neighborhoods can work with you and and you're attentive to the Kona issues, which are probably the most sensitive.

So I'm all for it.

It's a living document.

It's gonna that's right.

We're not we're not parking as a living process.

That's right.

That's right.

So uh Mayor can I ask a question?

If I could just jump in with my thoughts real quick and then um we can bring it back around.

Um two things that I heard from concerns um from Dr.

Barber and Council Member Smith um relate to the threshold and specifically cannery row.

Um I just want to make sure I'm capturing what I hear the concerns are.

Is that generally accurate?

Yeah.

Um so I don't know what there is for us, like what does a mitigating circumstance?

I guess I'm asking um what is a mitigating circumstance look like for you all as it relates to Canary Row.

Um actually let me ask Julie.

Let me let me just pose this to you real quick.

So let's say we decide to carve that recommendation out.

What does that look like for the neighborhood and potential impact for residents?

So I think if you all acknowledge and say that we retain the 50 eligible addresses today and say that we want to continue those forward.

And if you want to stipulate grandfathering them in, my suggestion would be is that we simply say subject to annual review.

And I think that that's something that that way we don't know the future.

We don't know what the impact is going to be, but I would just suggest that it allows you the opportunity to understand what that impact could be.

And honestly, you know, again, that value of the curb space and you know what is going to happen in the future with developments.

So that opportunity for you to say the fact that those addresses can remain eligible regardless of ownership or rental, whatever the case may be.

Um, I do think that the opportunity for us to be cognizant of the eligibility of off-street parking in those addresses is something I think should remain a stipulation because again, these are very valuable parking spaces for the city as well.

Um, when we talk about the resident or the res the revenue drivers too for the paid parking zones.

So I think that um the opportunity to have it be grandfathered and reviewed annually, I think would be um a reasonable consideration for the future, because again, we all don't know what is going to happen.

So that would be the suggestion that I would suggest as a way to mitigate this moving forward, is to understand that we don't want to penalize those if there's a change or again inheritance or whatever happens with a property transfer.

Um, but I would just say say that it should be subject to annual review, just like the rest of the program.

I feel like that creates some flexibility for us.

Right.

Um, and then uh regarding the threshold, what does staff feel um regarding a low number at place?

I would suggest um to the city manager's point, I would suggest the starting place of 70% only because of the fact that it's that attrition rate that we were talking about is that there is a significant administrative burden that the city is going to bear to get us to the place of being able to establish a new zone.

And so I would suggest that a starting place would be 70%.

And then that can also be something that can be subject to review and consideration because I think it's a bit of a compromise between you know where you were and kind of the original number, and that's a solid number.

I will say that um in California, that number does vary.

Um, and I think 70% is a solid number that allows us to make sure that you have enough of the neighborhood participating so that to achieve that 51%.

You don't want to get everybody involved and invested and then have the program fail because if it's something that everybody wants to be involved in, and again, with the amount of you know, customer support that I know Christie's team will provide, I would suggest a starting point of 70.

And I think that that would be a reasonable number to achieve that balance.

And again, it can be something, it's a living process that can be modified, and that's something that you all can absolutely consider in the future as well.

All right.

Uh I'm I'm being a little bit cautious of time.

We've been talking about this for two and a half hours, which is nothing I've ever expected.

Um I'm gonna I'm gonna make a motion and then let's see where the conversation goes from there.

But I'm I'm truly trying to move us on because we have some other items on the agenda.

Um, so my motion is to approve staff recommendation with a change to the threshold to 50 uh 70 percent and um to allow for an annual review of the cannery row grandfather spaces.

Second, yeah.

So moved and seconded.

Any other discussion?

I know uh council member Smith, you had some thoughts there.

Yeah, I just I think uh 70% is still too high.

We've I've heard from residents who try to get neighborhoods uh to get them to respond to get the petition signed.

They struggled with that uh even at 50.

Um so I I think set I I don't see a big difference between 60 and 70.

I mean, you know, if you get 60 that say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm down for it.

The really important factor is do the checks come in and is it 51%?

So I mean, I don't want to make this so onerous where people have a problem, but they they just aren't gonna even try and solve the problem because they're looking at 70% of their residents, and it's a lot of work for these residents to go out and knock on the doors to get it to work.

Um, so I just I'm a lower threshold for this.

I'm a 60.

Okay.

Sorry, good clarification.

Um when you said um for the um annual review for cannery rope or grandfather, then what specifically are you talking about grandfather then?

I just want to make sure it's clear.

Yeah, so the idea is that we would still um we would grandfather in those that have it now.

Um, and the idea is that as new residents come in that they wouldn't, but we would review that on an annual basis to see if we need to make a shift or a change to that policy.

Okay, so the if if somebody leaves and a new resident comes in, they would still be eligible for the program.

My understanding, no, they wouldn't, but subject to review by during their annual review process.

So let's say we pass this today and it's it's fully implementable.

I don't know how the dates work here, but let's say it starts today.

If somebody moves in November 1st of 2026, somebody moved out, some new person moved in, they would not get that grandfathered in permit.

But come November 4th or whatever that Tuesday is in 2026, if the council says, hey, we're hearing concerns around people not having that parking, we could have that conversation and allow it at that time if we so choose.

Okay, so it's not automatic, like everybody else is automatic.

That's correct.

Where they get it, but Canary Row is the only one that's not automatic.

That's correct.

Okay.

So put us motion.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Any other comments?

All right.

I'm gonna I'm gonna call the question.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

No.

No.

Motion passes three, two.

And with that, I appreciate all of you that are here for this next item.

I'm I'm so sorry that it took this long.

Um, but at least you're watching policy making in motion.

Um there's no making this sound nice.

So I apologize.

Uh, public hearing item 17 uphold plan commission's decision to deny use permit application for a daycare general use at 2400 Garden Road, application AP 250236 use permit application UP 25013 appellant, Henry Runky, Wald Runky, and those architects, LLP property owner, WR LLC, Industrial Administration and Research Religious Assembly Overlay, Emergency Shelter Overlay, multifamily residential overlay.

It's an IR 130 RAES MF1 zoning district, employment general plan designation.

Woo, that's a lot.

Uh and with that, I'll pass it to Hans for Wait.

Sorry, also to our city attorney.

You want to say uh announcements from closed session.

Oh, did I skip that?

We did.

I sure did.

It's a long night.

Um, I'll just do them very quickly.

Please, yes.

Okay.

The first item was um conference with legal counsel, existing litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9 subsection two.

Ashley L.

Chesser versus the city of Monterey, there was no reportable action.

The next item was Ronald Rogers versus the City of Monterey.

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

The next item was the public employment pursuant to the government code for unrepresented city manager recruitment, unrepresented employee, and there was uh no reportable action.

Thank you, Chrissy.

Um, okay.

So I'm gonna request with the council.

Um, if anybody has had ex parte contacts.

Um, to disclose them now.

So I don't know if it qualifies, but several friends of friends that said I really hope it passes, but they're not principals, they're not the applicant, they're not even parents.

Hope it hope that it can move forward.

But they yeah, they hope it hopes they hope that it will go forward and they'll be successful, but they're not related, they're not the applicant, they don't even have children in the school.

Okay, that's relevant.

Um, anybody else?

Why is that relevant?

If it's not it's um information relevant to decision through contact with the parties or the public.

Or the public.

Okay.

Um we talked about it in the Monterey Vista Neighborhood Association meetings last night, and there was one question about the then there was one question that a non-involved person asked, which was um why was the same question I had.

Why would an apartment complex be allowing children as basically as close as the daycare site?

And it, you know, I didn't have an answer, but that's a question out in public.

I don't even think that qualifies the text parted, but it's there.

It's there, it's there in a stop just in case.

Um that's it.

Everybody else is good.

All right, I'll pass it to Hans for staff presentation.

Yeah, uh you just send it over to Levine.

Thank you, Hans.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

The item before you uh at this point is an appeal to the planning commission's denial of use permit application UP 250013, requesting to establish a daycare general use at the property at 2400 Garden Road.

Uh staff is recommending that the city council adopt a resolution denying the appeal and upholding the planning commission decision.

So I'm gonna walk through the background of this application and explain how we got to this point.

Uh, I'll try to be brief, uh, given the time and night and focus my presentation on the elements of the project that were found to be uh more concerning to the planning commission.

Uh, but we're happy to dig into any details as needed.

Um, I'm also joined this evening by senior associate planner Chris Schmidt, who worked closely on the project as well.

So, as stated earlier, the project applicant requested approval of a use permit to establish a daycare general use at 2400 Garden Road.

Uh, the project would involve the conversion of an existing structure into a daycare use that would have a maximum enrollment of 104 children.

And the facility would be proposed to operate Monday through Friday, 7 a.m.

to 6 p.m.

Excuse me, uh Levi.

Now, could you close that door, please?

We've got some external voice.

Or ask them just scooting further away.

Yeah, either way.

So, in reviewing the application for a consistency with the city's general plan and zoning uh code required by the findings for the use permit.

Uh staff received correspondence from the Monterey Regional Airport staff, noting that the subject property lies within the airport influence area zone seven and that they oppose the use citing provisions of the airport land use compatibility plan.

Uh airport staff specifically noted that the site is within 1400 feet of the active runway and the the compatibility plan strongly discourages the introduction of vulnerable occupants uh within 6,000 feet of the runway due to an elevated risk.

Uh vulnerable occupants is defined within the plan uh to include children, elderly, and people with disabilities.

Concurrent with the letter from the airport staff, the city also received confirmation from the Monterey County planning staff that confirmed that the project would be required to uh be referred to the airport land use commission.

Uh and the purpose of that is for them to make a determination on the consistency with the airport land use compatibility plan.

In July of this year, the item was considered by the LUC and was unanimously found to be inconsistent with the compatibility plan, specifically citing the discouragement of the introduction introduction of vulnerable occupants uh in the vicinity of the airport.

There are sections of the state law uh that set forth a process for the city to override decisions of the ALUC.

Uh however, only the city council has the authority to do so.

And there's a specific uh process required uh under a separate action for that.

Uh as noted in the agenda report, the city has overridden decisions of the ALUC in the past, most recently in 2019, with the adoption of the city's ADU ordinance.

Uh I'll note that the airport uh land use commission adopted a new ALUC P in 2019.

So we that is the adoption of the new plan of 2019.

Um, as required by the city code, the item was considered by the planning commission to determine whether or not the required findings for use permit could be made.

Upon evaluation of the project and receiving public comment, the commission concluded that the findings related to public safety could not be made and ultimately voted to deny the use permit.

As recorded in the planning commission findings, uh the project, uh, and this is a citation from the planning commission's findings.

The project introduces a high number of vulnerable individuals into an area with documented aircraft arrival and departure risk.

This potential impact to public safety cannot be mitigated through operational conditions alone, and thus the project is considered detrimental to the general welfare of the city and the safety of potential vulnerable occupants.

The final vote of that meeting was four to zero to deny.

The applicant subsequently uh subsequently filed an application to appeal the decision of the planning commission, uh, citing that the commission considered liability issues that extended beyond its purview, and that the commission considered uh ALUC and Caltrans Department of Aeronautics recommendations out uh which they should not have.

The appellant is here to uh is here as well, so I'll let them provide some additional detail in regards to the basis of the appeal.

Um, in regard to appeals, the Monterey City Code states that upon hearing an appeal, the city council shall consider the record and such additional evidence and shall find whether, in its opinion, error was made in the decision.

The council may affirm, reverse or modify an action appealed as it deems just and equitable.