The Monterey City Council met on June 16, 2026, in a session that began at approximately 2:53 PM and continued into the evening. Key actions included adoption of the FY2026-27 operating budget with a $25,000 surplus achieved through one-time measures, a vote to proceed with a temporary patriotic crosswalk for the 250th anniversary, and direction to staff on the Madison/Herman/Larkin intersection safety project after community outreach concerns. The council also approved annual levies for business improvement districts and maintenance districts, and recognized multiple city employees for 20+ years of service.
How do we give us a hug Okay. There you go. Don't smudge. No smudge. All right, thank you, Jeremy. Thank you. All righty, we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order, and we'll pass it to Clementine to do roll call and to share announcements with the public. Council Member Barber present. Council Member Rash here. Council Member Smith. Mayor Williamson. And the record will reflect that Council Member Gino Garcia is absent. Public comment and participation information for this meeting is provided on its agenda, which is online at Monterey.gov slash agendas. In person attendees, could you keep your electronic devices muted, please to prevent audio interference with our meeting and consistent with the First Amendment and the Brown Act, individuals have the right to speak at public meetings, which includes the right to criticize or support city policies or actions. And I think the council gets to hear a little bit more often than the general public does. Um, but it's always just nice to hear the work that's being done behind the scenes um and recognizing the the great work that's being done that allows the city uh to continue to function and provide the great services that we have. So with that, I'll pass it to Dante for uh staff presentation. Thank you, Mayor, and I echo everything that you said. Um it's um been amazing for me as um I'm meeting with every department and every every employee, and the number of times where I hear people have been here for 20 years, 30 years, um, it is quite unusual. I I would say, you see, in a lot of the cities and municipalities that I've served, you see people move around, but people stay put here. Um, and so I think it's important for us to really recognize uh tonight. We have several uh employees with uh 20 year milestones, um, and then we have a retirement, uh, upcoming retirement with 21 years of service. And so what I'd like to do is um let our department heads uh come up, uh, talk a little bit about um the employees that are receiving this honor and and maybe saying a few words, um, and then after that, like to take some pictures and give uh some certificates. Um the three departments, and I'll call them up. I think we have several represented um in our fire department, um, one in our finance department, uh, one in libraries, and then the last is public works. So um let me call up fire first and they can start the presentation. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Council. Um, thank you for allowing us to do this today. This is one of the more enjoyable things I get to do. So, you know, it seems like I've been doing this a lot lately, and I think even I take it for granted at times. Kind of brought me back down to earth as Dante is saying is that introducing him to our fire employees. He says, Seems like we have a lot of tenured employees in our in our department. And and I said, Yeah, it is, and I think it's a testament to not only our community, our city, and our department. I think it's something we could all be proud of and be uh excited about. So with that, um, there's five members of the fire department we're gonna recognize today. Um, three were supposed to be here, but I don't see the third one, but two of them um are not. So I'm just gonna start briefly with them. So the first one we're gonna recognize is Captain uh Adam Rust, who's 20 years of service within the department. He was hired as a firefighter in 2006, promoted engineer in 2017, and then promoted captain in 2020. He's currently assigned to medic engine 15, which is our engine in Carmel. Um, he resides here in Monterey a couple blocks up the street with his wife Jen, two sons, Sullivan, and Gideon. One thing I just want to recognize about Adam is something I just learned recently is that he's gonna be awarded a community service award from our police department. Something I had no idea that he was even involved with. Chief Hover called me and said, Hey, do you know when you're firefighters? He has award, I said, No, I I didn't. But what happened was in December, um, he lives up, like I said, around the street, he backs to an apartment complex, and he heard a lady calling for help. So he looked over his fence and saw that there had been a man that had grabbed the lady and was threatening her with a hammer and had her um in his grouse. So he jumped over the fence with another citizen, separated the two, and kept them separated until police could come and resolve the situation. I think it says a lot about Adam one is that he actually did it, like decided to intervene, and then two that he didn't tell anybody.