How do we give us a hug All right.

With that, we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order.

Hello, everybody.

Welcome to our afternoon session of our council meeting today, July seventh, twenty twenty-six.

Council Member Rash.

Here.

Council Member Smith.

Here.

Mayor Williamson?

Here.

And the record will reflect that Council Member Barber is absent today.

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

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

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.

Sorry, that was public works.

I'm I'm mixing it too.

No, it I what I would offer, what I would offer is that it's a healthy competition.

But now the bar has been set.

So with that, I'm just gonna pass it to Dante and let him take it from here.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and thanks uh to the council for recognizing Parks and Recreation Month and its importance.

Um it's really a an opportunity for us to highlight the essential essential roles that parks and recreation play in really providing services to our community and supporting the health and wellness of our community.

Um our parks team works to provide safe spaces and programming that helps strengthen community connections.

Um tonight uh I want to thank all the dedicated staff and volunteers and for their commitment and our our parks and rec team for their commitment and celebrate their positive impact that they make every single day.

Um, and so at this time I'd like to uh bring up the uh director of parks and recreation, Nicole Banks to provide the presentation.

Good afternoon to mayor, council members.

Um, first of all, it was so great to see everybody at the Fourth of July just a few days ago.

What a wonderful community celebration to get to be a part of.

I have to put the readers on for this part.

Yep, okay.

So each year, communities across the nation take time to celebrate the essential role that parks and recreation plays in enhancing our quality of life.

This year's national theme, the power of, reminds us that a true that the true power of parks and recreation is not found in the facilities themselves, but in the people who make them possible.

The parks and recreation department serves our community through three distinct but interconnected areas of service.

Our parks division, our recreation division, and the Monterey Sports Center.

And I want to recognize a lot of our team and my amazing colleagues here in the audience tonight.

While their responsibilities look different from day to day, they are united by one common purpose, caring for our community.

When many people think of parks and recreation, they picture playgrounds, sport fields, beaches, trails, community centers, and special events like we just had.

Those are certainly an important part of what we do, but our responsibilities extend so much further.

As you'll see in the photographs on the screen, our work is carried out by an extraordinary team of professionals who take pride in serving Monterey.

Starting off with our parks division, they work behind the scenes every day to take care of our parks and open spaces, maintain our urban forest, prepare our athletic fields, operate our campground, preserve our natural resources, and maintain our community cemetery with dignity and compassion, helping families through some of life's most difficult moments.

Whether they're repairing irrigation lines in the early morning, pruning trees to improve public safety, preparing a park for a community event, maintaining athletic fields, caring for the cemetery, or responding to unexpected maintenance maintenance issues.

They approach each day with dedication, professionalism, and genuine commitment to public service.

They deliver hundreds of recreation programs throughout the year, organize community events that bring neighbors together, lead youth camps, and create lifelong memories.

They provide enriching opportunities that support active and healthy aging for our older adult community.

Their work extends far beyond logistics and scheduling.

They build relationships, foster inclusion, encourage lifelong learning, and create experiences that strengthen the fabric of our community.

The Monterey Sports Center is another place where we see the power of the power of parks and recreation in action every day.

Open nearly 100 hours each week and serving more than 8,000 members.

The Sports Center is much more than a fitness facility.

It is one of Monterey's premier community gathering places.

Our dedicated staff provide swim lessons that equip children and adults with lifelong water safety skills, very important, with our biggest border being with the Pacific Ocean, lead a wide variety of fitness and wellness classes, organize youth sports leagues that build confidence and teamwork, and partner with the state to train the next generation of certified lifeguards.

The Sports Center also serves as a true community hub.

Earlier this year, we celebrated its birthday by opening our doors for a free community celebration.

And throughout the year, we partner with more than 100 organizations that use the facility to deliver on competitions, meetings, activities, and other activities that enrich the lives of thousands of people.

Whether maintaining a park, leading a camp, teaching a swim lesson, or greeting members at the sports center desk, our employees help create the experiences that define what community truly means.

Their work often goes unnoticed because when parks are clean, facilities are operating smoothly, programs run seamlessly, and community spaces are welcoming.

It simply feels like everything is working as it should.

But that level of service is only possible because of the people behind it.

This year's theme, the power of also reminds us that none of this work happens alone.

The power of Parks and Rec comes from partnership.

It comes from the support of City Council and our city leadership.

It comes from collaboration of our colleagues across the organization.

From public works, fire, police, community development, finance, human resources, legal services, city clerk's office, information technology, and so many more.

It comes from the Parks and Recreation Commission, our volunteers, our nonprofit partners, coaches, instructors, sponsors, and countless residents who invest their time, talent, and passion into making Monterey a stronger community.

Here in Monterey, we're fortunate to live in a place that people from around the world dream of visiting.

I was one of those people as recently as last year.

Our parks and beaches, our forests, recreation facilities, and public spaces certainly support tourism and contribute to our local economy.

But our focus always begins with the people who call Monterey home.

Our first responsibility is to provide clean parks where families gather, safe places where children can play, recreation programs that enrich our lives, opportunities for older adults to stay active and connected, responsibly manage natural resources, welcoming community spaces, and hosting events where people of every generation can come together.

When we do that well, our residents benefit first, and our visitors benefit as well.

That is the power of parks and recreation, the power to build healthier communities, the power to strengthen neighborhoods, the power to protect the places that make Monterey special, the power to create lifelong memories, the power to bring people together, and above all, the power of dedicated public servants who quietly show up every day, often without recognition, because they believe in serving something larger than themselves.

To every member of our department, including many part-time and seasonal staff who right now are working out in our camps and at the sports center, thank you.

It is a privilege to serve alongside each of you.

I know that we all feel a deep sense of responsibility to our community, and we all love what we do, and it shows.

Together, we are building a stronger, healthier, and more connected Monterey.

I want to say thank you and um respectfully request that the City Council adopt the resolution that I think we have with you tonight, recognizing July as parks and Recreation Month.

Very exciting for us all.

Awesome.

Thank you, Nicole.

Let's give it up for parks and recreation month.

You know, I'll just uh make uh a few quick remarks.

So some mornings um Ivan, my partner and I get up really early before work and we walk to Lovers Point and back home.

Six miles round trip.

Kind of crazy, but you know it's our opportunity to connect with each other before the day gets crazy.

So this morning we we did that, and sure enough, I see parks uh uh park staff out there cleaning um uh San Carlos Beach and making sure that the day is ready for when all of us wake up, have a beautiful city that's presented to us.

So whether it's our park staff, whether it's our Sports Center staff, which I have the pleasure of being able to go to the sports center probably too much, um, or whether it's uh the recreation staff and and uh council McGarcia and I have the pleasure of being able to go out to to see Camp Key and Sabi tomorrow and participate in that, which I'm really excited about.

Um, you all do amazing things for our community from pretty much from cradle to grave for for folks' life.

And the fact that um past residents in the city of Monterey have saw value in investing in in parks and rec um is something that we all as residents get to benefit for.

And I know that not all of our staff are residents of the city of Monterey, but I hope that you all get to appreciate the the fruits of your labor um just as much as as the rest of uh the residents do.

So um on behalf of me as just a citizen, but I I think I can speak for the entire council.

Um thank you so much for all the work that you all do every single day to to Nicole's point.

Oftentimes um a thankless job, but um have tremendous respect for for each and every one of you for for taking care of us.

So um thank you.

Thank you so much for what you do.

Open up to the council, please.

Thank you, Nicole, for uh the uh presentation and um I just I think um mostly just want to express gratitude for all the work that you do and your team.

Um I think it's uh it's just such an amazing institution that we have here in the city of Monterey.

I wasn't fortunate to grow up in Monterey and go through the programming as uh as a youth, and and then into my my adulthood that Parks and Rec uh offers, but I feel very fortunate in um being able to offer that to my kids.

And um they started uh with gymnastics at El Estero at a very young age, and have gone through camps and um now are at that age where they've become employees also of Parks and Regs.

So there they continue that legacy that uh we have here that we hear from a good uh portion of our community that they've done that kind of thing growing up.

So I really appreciate that.

I I uh don't get tired of saying that um, especially as we get into difficult decisions uh around uh budgeting.

Um parks and rec for us shouldn't be looked at as an expense, but rather an investment in our community because you folks do the hard work of making sure that our residents uh stay healthy, mind, body, soul, um, and that's very important.

So thank you so much for the work that you all do.

Appreciate it.

You're bringing back memories.

Um my children grew up in the day when you could climb on the caboose at Dennis the Menace Park, and their children have grown up um not climbing on the caboose.

So it's great.

Um, what I wanted to thank you for is um your team is always smiling.

Um, the 4th of July, everyone seemed happy to be there.

I mean, it was a great day.

We all did have fun, but you know, Shannon was happy and Phil was happy, and everybody was happy, and and they were doing their jobs, and um, it was just a lot of fun.

And when I go to the gym, I no longer go at 5:30, but I used to when I worked.

Um, everybody is smiling and greeting people, and um, that's always appreciated, and it helps everybody get through their workout.

So thank you.

Uh spectacular day yesterday.

Uh Monterey just shines, and Monterey Shines because of the efforts of the people that work in our various city departments, and especially uh, you know, the the key the key celebrations July 4th, and that really is where Parks and Recreation has to step up with lots and lots of planning.

So kudos to you all.

It was a great day.

Uh lots of comments from the public.

Uh, a very, very happy day.

And for anybody that was looking for some way to get through the road closures early in the morning, and if they yell at you, we're sorry.

That always happens every year where there's the frustration.

But I think that um if there was a way to check the polts in this community and those that drive in and visit for a day like July 4th, I would say it's a 99.9%, and shame on the one one-tenth of one percent that can't find happiness.

But it's a great day.

Everything looked great.

And the city has so many parks that a lot of folks don't have a concept of all those places that are taken care of by your staff and done so well.

One of the things that comes out in almost all surveys that we do when we ask the question, condition of parks and what do you enjoy the most?

I think our parks are top-rated, and they continue to come in in the surveys as exceptionally important for the community, and also uh the recognition is that they are well, they're well cared for, and it's because of all of what you've done.

Um I too have two children that grew up here and went to all the programs and uh, you know, fell out of the trees and fell off the train.

And and uh I I actually have a treasured photograph that's on my wall at home.

That's me and my older brother.

Uh my younger brother came along later, and we're sitting on top of the uh locomotive at Dennis Minnesota Park.

And I think I'm about six years old, and so that's kind of a treasure.

But um lots of memories here, and I know that memories were created here in Camp Hugo Sabi that is in what the third week or second week.

Third week, okay.

And I know that that is uh one of those spectacular camps that kids get to make memories, and they they learn a lot about how to take care of themselves, and that's really important that they can actually get to do chores and clean up after themselves and learn how to be respectful with other people.

So, as I say, it takes a village, and you're part of that village where you're helping to raise our community.

But thank you very much for everything that you do.

Awesome.

Let's give it up to our parks and rec team one more time.

All right, I normally have everybody come up and take a photo, but before we do that, I am going to go to public comment.

Um so I'm gonna share with everybody the process and how we conduct public comment.

We identify those individuals at the beginning of the public comment period.

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

So everybody has a chance to speak, but you have to identify yourself at the beginning of the public comment period.

If you try to identify yourself afterwards, unfortunately you won't be able to speak.

So I'll start with folks on Zoom.

You can use the raise hand function.

Anybody in the chamber wishes to speak on this item specifically.

Parks and rec.

Okay, we have one.

Why don't we come up to the to the podium?

Anybody else in the chamber wishes to speak on this item?

All right, so we'll cut it off to the one in the chamber.

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

And we have two on Zoom.

We'll go ahead and start in the chamber.

Absolutely.

My name is Kathy Boya, and I am a Monterey resident and also um on the commission for the board uh for the Parker Wreck Commission.

And I just want to say what an honor it has been to sit and work with this group.

They are very cohesive, they're very active.

It's been so fun to watch um all of the initiatives they take.

They're at like I said, they're very active.

And I'm excited that it was dedicated this month as Parker Rex.

So thank you again for supporting our parks.

Thank you, Kathy.

Thank you for your service to the city.

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

Calling on Esther.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Obviously we there's a lot of love uh in the room and everywhere for um parks uh staff in general I've been involved with um parks staff in two different ways as a neighborhood representative and as a resident and um I wanted to as a resident specifically call out some um people from the sports center that I've known for many many years that have done a lot of great work and have been there a long time and help a lot of us um stay fit so I'd like to start out giving a shout out to um front desk people like Leslie and Jana um the yoga instructors that I see weekly Gina and um Marcia there's another Mark there are three Marcias so all three of them and to Lori who's been at the helm of that sports center for so long I I don't I personally don't know it without her so I don't know if uh I think some of these people have been there since day one um and then uh I wanted to say thanks to the workers in the parks division that are out here uh in the trenches dealing with bad weather bad personalities um you know wildlife all kinds of things and so um I want to give a shout out to Tys Norton to Anthony and to Santos who both have been um involved in making Laguna Grande uh park look as good as it never has before and for maintaining it and um helping us as a neighborhood to keep it beautiful and uh hopefully continue to serve the residents of of not only our neighborhood but the whole peninsula since it is the largest park on the peninsula and other than that uh just everything well deserved thank you.

Mr Mayor I believe the other person uh may have been intending to do general public comment because they lowered their hands all right with that we'll bring it back to the council thank you again why don't we have our parks and rec team come up and let's take a photo yeah that's the actual I would get rolling it maybe a good group so um and Kate are coming as well that's awesome.

I mean all of the amazing I would love to be a good time all right everybody here we go with this here we go.

Perfect all right to take you I took a picture of the thing oh thank you and do you thank you guys so I'm it's just uh it's all washed out I don't know if there's and I have no idea I just want to all righty and with that we're gonna go ahead and start general public comment.

So for folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function while you're navigating your way there.

I'm gonna ask for folks in the chamber.

This is for items that are not on today's agenda.

So general public comment.

This is your opportunity to speak um during the public portion of their meeting.

If you would like to speak in the chamber, I ask that you stand up to the left of the podium, or if easier, you can stay seated and you can just raise your hand.

Um but first let me just try to gather those who are standing, and then I'll I'll loop back around.

So we have four folks standing by a show of hands.

Anybody else that wants to speak?

Anybody else that's sitting that wants to speak for general public comment?

I have one taker.

All right.

So we have five, six, uh, four, five, six in the chamber.

We're gonna cut it off to the six.

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

We have one on Zoom and leave it to two minutes.

We'll go ahead and start in the chamber.

Hello, my name is Sabrina Lee McPherson.

I don't like to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm being held hostage by the California Medical Board and Education Board.

I can name 164 of my children.

Every time I contact the police department, they tell me good luck or toss me in a mental facility.

I don't like the situation I'm in.

I've tried to make calls.

I'm currently in interim receiving counseling also at Monterey Peninsula College with the counselor there.

I tried behavior or health.

But the lady Lillian Perez, her real name is Lillian Guobabel Husan who married uh Sebastian Johan Kaepernick.

She kidnapped me when I was eight years old.

It's a conflict of interest for her to be a psychiatrist in my life.

Her grandson is my son.

She murdered three of my boys.

One of them is still alive.

I don't know what to do.

I scream my head off and ask for help.

People laugh at me and tell me to prove it.

DNA is indisputable.

There have been surrogates, women in my life.

Like Teresa Price, she's surrogate one of my eggs with Christopher Emanuel Panetta, the daughter, her name is Christina.

I call her Navi.

I don't know what to do.

I've called the Panetta Institute.

I've called the commissioner.

I scream and yell at the parking division.

And then the parking division, it states that I have to pay to be handicapped to park someplace.

But the department of motor vehicles states a handicapped individual is required not to pay in metered area.

Why do I have a parking ticket?

Why is this happening to me?

You can contact, sorry, MPC about this helmet.

This is the great American hero award.

Osha.

I apologize.

That's your time.

Thank you so much.

We'll go ahead and take the next public comment here.

Have a great day, folks.

I'm sorry to be the bearer.

Ma'am, ma'am.

Thank you.

Good day, Mayor.

Good afternoon.

My name is Demetrius Calcross.

I've been a homeowner here in Monterey with my wife for 34 years.

And I'm proud to identify as a retired fire chief.

I haven't worked in the Monterey Fire Department for 26 years and then the Mel Petis Fire Department for several years.

As a battalion chief, and as a acting chief of the department for a time.

One of the most proud of to identify as I'm in America.

And Americans, we have many rights enshrined in our constitution in California law.

And as an American, so we not only have sorry, apologies.

Is your mind on?

I'm not sure.

Okay.

Okay.

So I hang on just one second.

We're gonna loud enough for people to tell me to shut up.

So I'm no, you're fine.

I think just get you're good.

Just get close to it.

Okay, all right.

Okay.

Would you may I start over or please?

Okay.

Um, I'm pleased to identify as a homeowner in Monterey where my wife and I have lived here for 34 years.

Um, the proud to identify as a retired fire chief, having worked for the Monterey Fire Department for 26 years, and then the Mount Peters Fire Department as a battalion chief and is even acting chief of the department for some time.

But what I'm most proud of to identify is I'm an American, and we have rights enshrined in our constitution and California law.

But with those rights, come an obligation to be involved in our local politics, um, take a part, serve an active role.

Ladies and gentlemen, you know, it's time for us to act here in Monterey.

The two most recent tax initiatives that we attempted to pass, both failed.

So we have to start making some decisions.

It's time for ending conversation and to get on to our action.

One of the things we've not really wanted to do is talk about the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

It's a fine facility, but the aquarium pays no property tax, and they had a reported $35 million annual profit after expenses in the last published budget year.

A small admissions tax is not going to affect them one bit by not paying property tax or not doing that part.

And they also are purchasing additional properties on Cantery Row, which then become tax exempt, further eroding our tax base.

Um and we built their parking garage, which they didn't pay for, maintain or anything like that.

So it's been a good public-private partnership.

At the October budget meeting, Ed questioned why were we hiring a community development director when we can't afford the workforce we already have?

That was a really good point.

We need to continue that kind of hard attitude about our spending habits because passing new tax increases isn't gonna work.

There's an initiative on the November ballot that's pretty much going to make it much more difficult with a two-thirds majority required to pass tax initiatives, and we couldn't pass the last two with only simple majorities.

So we need to start balancing the checkbook.

And while I have a few seconds here, bring back the 1285.

That's the locomotive at Dennis Cementis.

I played on it, my son played on it.

Let's bring it back.

Good evening, council.

How are we doing?

Uh my name's Tom Barrera.

I'm with Easy Drains Plumbing and representing Monterey residents as well.

I spoke in this council meeting uh three weeks ago or four weeks ago about uh increase in permit costs, and uh talked to the city manager a few times and pretty much anyone else that'll listen.

Um, I'm currently paying $594 for an encroachment permit and on property permit, and that fee has been raised as of January July 1st to $2,690, almost a 500% increase.

Um now you guys did a study in uh October 2024 that was due.

February 2025, um, and I have the breakdown of everything.

They have an hour of admin.

Uh I personally go in and do my own permit fee permit uh setup, and it's about 20 minutes.

It takes me not an hour uh from them to process it for me to fill it out everything.

The biggest one that jumps out is you have four hours of uh bill of um building uh inspector fee that's Jeff Ray, four hours per each inspection.

He's out there for 20 minutes.

I talked to him today.

He's never heard of this survey that was done.

This study that was done, Jeff Ray should have got this.

He never saw this one time.

He's never had four hours per job.

Um you have four hours or you have two hours per inspection for building.

That's uh Kevin Morgan.

Um there's 20 inspections on average that he does a day.

So if it's two hours per, he'd only be able to get to four inspections a day.

How does he get done with 20?

So the city's billing out for 80 hours for Kevin Morgan a day.

We know he's only working 80 hours, and sorry to use his name, but uh that's the building inspector.

Uh, this really needs to be looked at.

Please look at this.

Please look at this.

I want to talk to you guys.

Oh, please, guys.

This is huge.

This is a six thousand dollar a week increase in bills in my life that were getting pushed on to homeowners in Monterey.

Please look at this.

I'm available to talk anytime you want.

Please look at this.

I would like on.

I would recommend connecting with city staff to maybe sit down and go through that a little bit more to see if there could be a better understanding of how they came up with the numbers.

So, I can't get a sit down with anybody.

Okay.

I cannot, I don't know where to go with this, but this is not something that was supposed to be in income.

You guys are not it's not a source of revenue.

I'm sorry to run up my time.

I was factual, I'm sorry, but this is not such a source of revenue.

So sorry, sorry, I want to be careful because we're leading into a space where I'm giving you more public time to speak, and I don't want to be careful to be respectful of everybody else.

But um recommend getting contact with the city manager's office, suggest that Monterey.org.

So connect with the city manager's office.

If you have an issue with that, let's let's pick up the conversation from there.

Sorry, I have to be careful not to do too much more public comment.

All right, let's go to the next public commenter, please.

Well, that's okay because I'm gonna riff off of what he just said.

It just so happens uh I decided to come to this meeting today because I had a permit to pick up.

I'm gonna be uh taking out a part of the sidewalk in front of my house.

And part of the reason why I got the permit when I did was because I knew the permit fees were gonna go up.

So right now I paid 438 dollars for this permit.

I'm gonna do the work myself.

I know you can't believe that with this strong body you see in front of you, but I will do the work myself.

Um, and it's gonna cost me about fifteen hundred dollars to do the work.

So right now I'm paying roughly a third again more for the permit.

So though this permit though will go up to something more along the lines of fifteen hundred dollars, or it has gone up.

So the permit, if I had gotten it on July 1st, would have equaled the cost of me actually doing the work myself.

So I would agree with the previous gentleman.

It seems like we used to have a system where we had a stratification of fees.

For example, on a sidewalk, you'd have something like zero to a hundred square feet, and then 100 to 500, something like that.

You'd have different, you'd have different strata of fee levels.

But my understanding is that's gone away.

So I agree with the previous gentleman.

I think some of these fees need to be reexamined, especially in light of Del Monte Beach and then the backlog out there where people were getting notices saying uh, you know, you have to fix your sidewalk, and oh, by the way, you also need to get a permit for it, which was the $1,500.

Um, yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Kathy Boya.

I just um two quick comments.

I wasn't able to stay for the end of the budget meeting.

Um, I had another appointment, but for me, it was a disappointment.

I felt like it gave us a chance to jump ahead, and I know it is water under the bridge, but it brings up my point that what we just did was leave it to our kids and their kids.

And I that just is so disappointing to me.

I know that you all voted for that as a way to get ahead.

Um, that is one thing.

The other thing I want to just mention is I appreciate the diversity of this board.

I think it reflects our community.

Um, I appreciate that you all have differences and you come together and compromise.

Um, I know that this budget meeting again was such a difficult, it reminded me of COVID, and I thought, oh my gosh, here we go again.

But um, I just want you to real, I just want to say I find you all approachable.

There's not one person in this room that I would not feel comfortable coming to if I had an issue or I had a concert.

So I I just want to thank you.

You guys get beat up a lot, but I appreciate your work.

Mayor Council.

Um, I just uh write to support my uh uh colleague that does a lot of work for me in the uh these uh the sewer uh permits, and it's astonishing when I go in there is how expensive these permits are, and I may get one inspection sometimes, two inspections, and you know, they're three, four thousand dollars for some of these uh these fees, and I understand it's based on value and stuff, but I think you should revisit these things because ultimately those costs go back to the uh the owners, the owners pass them on to the tenants.

You know, I'm a property manager and I manage quite a few units here, and so uh what I'm I'm hoping is you can revisit and start living within your budget because it appears that every time uh you guys uh get a uh increase in your budgets and stuff, you seem to just build it up with expenses.

I have never seen uh a council go through so much money in the last, and it's not just this one.

That's what that's been going on for 15-20 years.

So it's nothing new with you or anybody else here, but you guys have just continued to spend to spend and spend spend and have considered that you guys are live in one of the wealthiest cities in in California, probably, far by bar none.

We're on the coast, and so I I think that you should re-look at these figures and because these reflect what landlords have to charge tenants and what we pay our employees, you know.

When when they they got bills too, they want to get paid.

Well, guess what?

I can't pay because the permits are so expensive, or I can't do those projects.

One but one of the projects that I have are six ADUs.

Why?

Because you have this deed restriction you want to put on there.

Get rid of the deed restriction.

It's it stopped me from doing six, because I'm not gonna have someone have a deed restriction on my property.

Um, and that's how I leave that.

Thank you.

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

Yes, um, the speaker on Zoom can go ahead.

Yes, hello.

We can hear you.

We can hear you, okay.

All righty.

Um, mayor, city council member and member and members of the public.

The current the current vending lottery system is not working, it is not fair and is not balanced, and it's pushing hard-working local vendors out of their jobs and homes and the ability to survive.

Right now, there are vendors who have won the lottery three of the four times.

That means some people have received nine straight months of vending opportunity while other vendors have not won once.

That is not equal access, that is not a fair rotation.

That is a system that is failing the very people it's supposed to regulate fairly.

This needs to be changed as soon as possible, as at minimum, the city should create a true rotation or a rule that prevents repeated wins before every qualified vendor has had a real chance to vent.

Also, a weekly lottery, giving vendors 52 chances a year to win a shot to work at the wharf instead of only four shots a year.

I also want to remind the city that SB 946 protects sidewalk vendors in California.

That law allows reasonable local regulation only when they're based on objective health, safety, or welfare concerns.

I still have not seen proof that these restrictions were created because of actual safety concerns.

What many vendors see is a system that appears to have been shaped by pressure from brick and mortar businesses that did not want competition.

The Wharf Association in general and Canary Row as well.

That is exactly the kind of economic discrimination SB 946 is meant to prevent.

We are not asking for special treatment.

We're asking for our jobs back.

We are asking for a system that gives every legal vendor a chance for real support to support their families.

There's also another serious problem with vendors signing over contracts to each other and not allowing anybody but their friends to vend in that area.

So you have all right the time limit came up, so I muted that speaker.

Okay.

All right.

With that, we'll go ahead and end general public comment.

Thank you for all those that provided public comment today.

With that, move on to our consent agenda.

Um, I know that item seven has been requested to be pulled.

Does council wish to pull anything else?

Uh item six, six.

Anything else?

All right.

Let's take it out to the public.

This is an opportunity for the public to pull additional items from the agenda if you so wish, or you can just make a comment on in a consent item.

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

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

All right.

Seeing none, go ahead and close it off in the chamber.

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

And there's nobody on Zoom.

Bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation.

Uh I'll make a motion that we approve agenda items all except for item six and seven.

Second.

All right.

So we have a motion to approve the consent agenda items six and seven.

Any other discussion?

All those in favor.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes unanimously.

With that, we will move on to item six, which is to amend resolution two six-092 to include the citywide curb ramp improvement project 2026 in the capital improvement program, appropriate funds and award construction contract in the amount of 1 million forty-eight, two hundred sixty-two dollars to via Lobos and Associates for the citywide curb ramp improvement project.

Ed, I'll pass it to you to see if there are any specific questions or how did you want to initiate this?

Yes, um, if the staff could um give an overview so the public is able to also learn more about um the capital improvement program, some of the projects that are still pending that are highlighted in the list, but also um the specific question I had was on the bid process.

I noticed that uh the winning bid, Villalobos and associates, was considerably lower than the engineers' um estimate.

So if you could address the disparity between our own engineers' estimate and the actual uh bidder amount.

Sure.

Uh good evening, uh Mayor and City Council members.

Great question.

Uh so uh I'm pleased to introduce one of our newest associate engineers who's joined us.

This is one of his first council items, and so I've asked him to be here tonight, and he can answer some of your questions.

We did do a reference check on the contractor and a bid analysis.

Uh, but I'm gonna introduce Sean Wright to talk a little bit more about the uh specific details and introduce them as our welcome aboard, and so we'll be easy on your first time.

So it's it's all yours.

That's okay.

Uh, you can ask me anything you like.

Um, so yeah, the spread was pretty large.

It was like a 26% gap between the next lowest bidder and Villalobos.

Uh Villalobos came very low on their lump sum items like um mobilization and traffic control.

So they're confident that they don't need to make up money in those items.

Um, very low risk on that end, given that um they can't go over on those like they could on itemized items.

Okay, so having that low lower bid be because of those lump sums really reduces our risk.

So it's it's unlikely we'll have overages.

They were high on their bids on striping items only, uh, for the most part, and we don't expect an overage on striping.

It's a very low amount of the work for this project.

Uh Villa Lobos, when I worked for City of Gilroy, they did projects for us and they were a good contractor, so I don't really have concerns on them.

Uh, I think they gave us a really good bid, and uh, we're very lucky to have them on this project.

Okay, so you touched on the very essence of why I it sort of stuck out to me.

Um, and it's interesting.

I I know that what you're saying is that we don't have the exposure for change orders, which would drive the price back up to where they might want to recapture it, because it's divided into the general items versus some of the contingencies, and so there's a limit of what they can go back and say that they underbid, and there's a reason that they have to have a change order or an increase in the process.

Could you go through that one more time for the public to realize the bid process?

They're competitive, we're required to take the least expensive bid, but how are we?

How are we protected other than the uh 15% contingency?

Well, um, the lump sum items, the bid item descriptions for those are very thorough um and broad.

Um, they there shouldn't be much argument for them to increase those to get them to be uh higher bids.

I think that's been as well.

So we actually have a lot of contractual controls as well.

If they underbid the project, uh, I guess I'd say unfortunately that's a contractor problem that's not a city problem.

Right.

So we have a lot of controls within our contract.

So even if they did miss something in the bid proposal or strategically underbid the project, we have inspection, we have controls in place through our contract uh to make sure that the contractor can't ask for additional compensation just because.

So if they did underbid it, that's not a city problem.

The contractor has to honor their price, and they can't just request change orders or additional compensation uh just to get at that contingency.

Okay.

And I noticed that our estimate was actually higher than one, two, three, four, five of the bidders.

Although there's some wig of room and when you get in down to the estimated costs.

Okay.

Yeah, that's really all I wanted to do on that one.

But I wanted to go to the list of the capital improvement projects, unless the staff has got or the city council's got any more questions on this particular bid process.

Okay, okay.

Um, so the uh the next area I wanted to explore was the list of the capital improvement.

I know it's an extensive list, and if you could explain a little bit for the members of the public so that they realize what the five-year capital improvement plan means, we're having a 26-27 snapshot.

And so there are items on here that are we know they're alarming because we know that they're underfunded.

Yeah, as an example, Wharf two.

Um, so this is but one year of an example of a snapshot of a five year.

So a couple of questions.

What year are we in in the five-year capital improvement plan?

And how do we address the ones that stand out as the uh-oh's underfunded, still hanging out there that they're gonna emerge later in our capital improvement calendar.

Okay, so good questions.

I'll try to answer that best I can.

So this item is only amending the uh CIP list, so it's adding a new CIP to that list.

So the council's already approved our uh CIP program, which is one year of appropriation for 26-27, and then we also have the road roadmap for years two through five that just says here's probably where we're going in future fiscal years.

In that same presentation, we did provide uh uh infrastructure uh uh condition for the council, just so you know what's out there, including the wharfs and some of the deferred maintenance.

So even if there's stuff that's not funded through the five-year CIP program, uh it's for the council and the public to be aware of just where that deferred maintenance is, where the needs are.

Um so with this uh action, we're only amending that CIP program, that list of the 26-27 uh CIP projects.

The the five-year plan is gonna include this as a new project, but really isn't changing, and so everything that was presented to council at the annual budget and for with the adoption of the CIP program, uh remains unchanged, and all our deferred maintenance, including at the wharf, exactly as we presented a couple meetings ago.

Okay, um so is the find it here.

The sewer maintenance, that's not listed in the five-year capital improvement, is it?

So I'm gonna pass it to Andrew again.

But one of the things that we had spoken is that we weren't gonna appropriate measure S to the specific projects.

We were going to come back, keep coming back to council to appropriate measure S for the very specific projects and then add them throughout the year.

Okay.

So that's one of the reasons why we didn't appropriate the entire 9.3 million dollars in measure S.

We appropriated 3.9.

And as projects come up that are gonna have their own account number so that when these projects are closed out, they can be capitalized.

So that's what we're doing today, is we keep adding the projects for measure S and appropriating them separately.

Okay, I hope that helps clarify.

Yeah, it does, it does.

Because I know I know it's a it's a new way of forecasting and itemizing the actual specific projects.

It will probably be very helpful for the measure S oversight as well.

Yes, I'm sorry.

Yeah, so typically pursue our so some of that's moving into operating accounts.

You won't see it uh in the CIP program again.

If it's more ONM type work, it'll be funded through the operating account.

If it's a capitalized project that has beginning and end, uh, then it'll be something that gets added to the CIPS CIP list later.

It's it's gonna be changed, so it'll be different.

Um, and so easier for measure PS oversight committee.

Maybe it'll just be different.

I think we'll have a lot of questions, but once people get used to it, it'll be business as usual again.

Okay, okay, great.

Thank you very much.

Sure.

Mayor, that's all I have.

Okay, any other questions at this time.

All right, thank you, staff for the presentation.

Open it up for public comment 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 ahead and close it off in the chamber.

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

Nobody on Zoom, bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation.

So I'll make a motion to approve item number six.

Second.

Moved and seconded any of the discussion.

All right, all those in favor.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes unanimously.

With that, we will move to item seven, which is to adopt a resolution accepting the tabulation results for the city's flood protection and clean stormwater fee.

And if approved, adopt a resolution setting the rates beginning by in fiscal year 26-27.

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

Thank you, Mayor.

And I think we have Rebecca Baggett uh here who's going to give the presentation of this item.

Evening, uh Mayor and members of the council.

Before you tonight is the conclusion of the Prop 218 proceeding for the city's proposed flood protection and clean stormwater fee.

The item includes two resolutions, the first accepting the certified tabulation results, and the second, which would have set the rates if the fee passed.

The ballots were mailed on May 21st to the owners of 9,273 affected parcels.

The tabulation was conducted by the city clerk as election official at a duly noticed public meeting on July 6th.

The certified results are as follows: 4,119 valid ballots were processed for a return rate of 45.56%.

Of those 1,648 ballots, 40.01% were cast in support of the proposed fee.

And 2,471 ballots, 59.99% were cast in opposition.

An additional 106 ballots were determined to be invalid.

With 40.01% of the of valid ballots in support, and 59.99% opposed, the proposed fee was not approved by a majority of the votes cast.

Under Prop 218, the fee therefore cannot be imposed.

Staff recommends that council adopt the resolution accepting the tabulation results of the mailed ballot proceeding as certified by the city clerk.

This action formally acknowledges the outcome of the proceeding and closes the ballot process.

Because the fee was not approved, the second resolution setting the rates is presented for the record, but is not recommended for adoption.

Without voter approval, the fee cannot be imposed, and the rate setting resolution has no effect.

No charge will be placed on the county property tax roll for fiscal year 26-27, and staff will not proceed with the tax roll filing.

Thank you.

All right, opening up to council.

Um I'm okay with presentation, but I think once we get to the discussion, there might be some comments.

Totally.

Okay, anybody else?

All right.

Thank you for the presentation.

Open it up for public comment.

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

Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item?

All right.

Seeing no takers, I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one.

We have two on Zoom.

Go ahead and take those callers.

Calling on Rick first.

Thank you.

Mayor.

Members of City Council, McCoyer, President of the Monterey Peninsula Taxpayers Association.

I think you need to take the results of this vote as a continued wake-up call.

It's not very common for Prop 218 elections such as this to fail and to expell with this big a margin.

There was really no campaign involved in this either way.

And yet the public have said, the particularly the owner property owners have said enough is enough.

You need to start getting your house in order and need to do it quick because given this and measure the previous measures failure on the ballot this November is Measure S, which to have a hope of having passing, you need to start showing movement on cutting costs prior to it coming to a vote, or else you risk having it failed because it has an even higher threshold, which will be difficult in and of itself.

I mean, a Prop 218 failure is not very common throughout the state.

So please take it to heart and start cutting your budget and stop passing expenses on to the public.

Another thing that's working against Measure S is all these new fees that are start going up outrageously high and do not seem to have anything based in reality.

I think you need to take a hard look at that study that was done and how it was done because it does not make sense a lot of things.

And when you start looking at what was done in Del Monty Beach on the marking and sidewalks, it was obvious that contract you hired, and nobody was doing either.

So you need to start cross-checking these things and start looking out for your residents and their costs and keep the cost of living down on this area.

It's already too expensive.

Thank you.

And our other speaker is Esther.

Hi again.

I think if you guys have the opportunity to explain the consequences of this not being approved to the public and refreshing our minds on what is going to happen moving forward.

And regarding to everybody who keeps saying we need to cut our expenses, we need to get our house in order, we need to, you know, blah blah blah.

I don't hear them offering any real suggestions on how to do that.

They just come around and say that you know that comment, repeat it over and over.

We've already got cuts that have gone to our police department, our fire department, parks, every department in this in the city staff has been stepping up, doing their part, cutting, and this isn't the first year that they're cutting.

This is an ongoing thing.

We've been operating pretty bare bones, and yet you have you know overall public support and is happy with how things are happening.

Perfect example is the parks department presentation earlier.

With these supposed cuts that you all come to council and want to say we should be doing, I guarantee you, you guys will be the first ones to step up and complain when all of these departments can't get to your your issues, can't return your phone calls in a timely fashion, can't get to work you want done, whether it's the parks or whether it's on your street, and where exactly the cuts that are being, you know, presented, they're not being specified.

And when they get specified, I want to I want to see the public reaction to how they're going to feel when those things are cut the way that these people are asking me to, because I don't think people understand the consequences of not passing these expense and these increases that are needed, not because of not managing the budget well, but because costs have gone up.

It is not just in Monterey.

Almost every single jurisdiction is having the same problem.

That doesn't mean that the city of Monterey has a problem.

That means that there's an overall problem.

It's inflation, it's you know, costs have gone up with insurances and everything.

So again, I think it's a valid for you guys to remind the public what the consequences are for not passing this, particular one, and that will be an example of other things that are going to happen and have to fall by the wayside because these increases are not being passed.

Thank you.

All right.

I think that was our last public commentary.

So with that, we'll bring it back to the council.

And Dante, to kick us off, I maybe I think Esther asked uh uh a good question there at the beginning that might be helpful to just look at what the implications are as far as next steps um with the outcome of of this initiative.

Yeah, and this is significant.

Um, obviously, we have uh stormwater protection issues citywide, and this um was a fund to start helping put the infrastructure in place to deal with flood protection for the city.

My understanding is that um um people used to pay this um years ago um and um it was discontinued for a while and um it was asked again, but um it it definitely uh leaves us kind of scratching our heads and having to kind of go back to the table to figure out how we protect um the community um and and um have a flood control system protection system um when it does rain and when it does flood in certain areas, um, and um I'm gonna actually ask um our community or public works director to actually come up and provide just I'm sorry, we provide a few more details on the specific numbers and other impacts that I did not mention.

Thank you.

We're gonna tag team this one.

So um we actually have a meeting set up.

Uh, what we need to do is we also need to look at regulatory, what are the thing mandates that we have to comply with, and also um how are we gonna fund the maintenance and operations?

Because the stormwater fee was gonna fund maintenance and operations, and how we do we trim that down because um it's gonna hit the general fund, then obviously we're not gonna do the maximum.

So we have to figure out what's the responsible minimum that that we can um live with.

So, Andrew if you want to offer more information, sure.

Just the slight more context.

So we'll continue to meet our regulatory obligations and permit requirements.

Uh the worst case scenario would be uh for us to cut so deep that we risk notice of violations, uh permit violations, uh, or present perhaps having our permit revoked um or penalties that come with notice of violations.

So we're gonna continue to meet our regulatory requirements, uh, make sure we're compliant with our permits, and so there's a lot of reporting, a lot of inspection that goes along with that, but we'll anything above and beyond what's the minimum requirements, we'll be looking at cutting and reducing down to bare minimum.

So that's a lot of operations and main or maintenance that'll probably reduce but nothing.

Could you could you give us an example of something that we would have done if we had the funds that were being collected by ratepayers but now aren't, and that's the whole purpose of this initiative that failed.

What would we would have what would we have done that would be on the chopping block?

So I'm gonna look for some more specific examples to come back to you at another point, but at the top of my mind, it's uh cleaning debris from our inlets and catch bases before rain events probably will be dialed back.

Uh stuff like that uh that maybe falls into maybe not totally required by a permit, but a nice to have uh good for flood protection and making sure debris doesn't get out in the ocean.

We'll be looking to dial back our operations and maintenance a little bit is probably what's gonna happen.

So sorry, preventative preventative maintenance as well.

What are the implications other than the debris going into the ocean of us capturing that debris prior to it clogs the drain or the culverts?

Then you'll have localized flooding.

Uh if we do too much of that, then again we run the risk of notice of violations.

So we'll be looking at right sizing our program to make sure we're doing the bare minimum of what our permit and the regulations require, but nothing more than that.

Okay.

So I just kind of wanted to like maybe help get a message out to those that didn't support to understand the implications of the lack of support associated with that.

So um opening up to the council for discussion.

Yeah, so while while you're there, Andrea, you can understand the question.

She used to move it with the quickness too.

She was.

The two of you do so well, I didn't want to see you left out.

Uh so you talked about the the strategy going forward, and it makes makes sense because you if you don't have the additional revenue, then you've got to figure out how you can staff up what we can do.

Um, have you had an opportunity to kind of think about the outreach piece?

And I know we haven't talked about this, but when when the opportunity would would be for us, and when the council felt that it was the right time to ask again, maybe for a lesser amount, a more strategic uh development through outreach, education.

I think one thing that I heard a lot from folks was that they saw this as a connection between the deficit and felt that this was just another way of gathering the money.

But I think in the outreach, we don't really have unless you happen to live across the street from a creek, or you happen to have large culverts that when it rains, you see the action.

There are places in this town, I think that we need to have mapping, outreach, and folks need to know that their homes are now the homes and businesses could be at risk on localized flooding if we don't maintain the culverts throughout.

And I speak in Jeans uh district all the way to the top of Skylined.

What's the elevation?

500 feet, 600 feet, it's coming down the hill, and it's all got to land down on Pacific, it's got to get in the Heart and Oak Gulch, it's got to get to El Estero Lake, and it's got to get to the ocean.

So there's a lot of risk in between, especially to district three, district two, and district one.

And I'm sure there's places in district four that's also going to be at risk.

But I think that yeah, the outreach, I know you can't answer this now, but you need time to figure it out.

But I think there's an opportunity for the education, the outreach for all of our districts citywide, to point out where's the history of where we have had problems, where we know we'll have problems again.

And if we're underfunded, then that's going to be um a high risk for property owners.

Absolutely.

Uh we agree.

It's uh it it is a challenge, and I think we did some of the outreach materials which were focused on the residents.

Why why should we care about the stormwater fee and what does it address?

Because it is easy to think that a sewer fee is is connected to your toilets, you know.

So there's a nexus on why it matters to us.

Yeah, I think stormwater fee uh definitely we need to fine-tune the outreach so that they can understand why it's so important for the city and for all of us.

Yeah, and I think we've all if you've been here any time at all, you've you've seen the years when we have the El Nino, and we lose all of Del Mani.

El Estero Lake is overflowed uh at MPC.

You know, so we we've all got the pictures, we've got the life stories.

A lot of folks haven't experienced that.

So we know we are still at tremendous risk.

Yeah, anybody else?

Is there a motion?

So I think tonight our motion is to accept the the count.

Is staff looking for anything else in this agenda item?

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded.

I have one additional follow up question.

I know Chrissy, um, um, with measures that go on the ballot, the city can't campaign for something like this for the Prop 218.

Are those limits do they still exist?

Okay, yeah, okay.

Um, okay.

Can I follow up with a question from the attorney?

In terms of when 218 ballots can be on the ballot for the public.

Are there limitations in terms of the time that we have to wait post the loss of this one?

I don't believe so, but we would have to go through the entire process again, which starts with the protest hearing, and um if that if there's not a majority protest, it moves on to the mail ballot.

Um I don't know of any waiting period.

Okay, um, and the process we used, are we constrained by that process because it's 218, or is any there any other way that the process could be on a ballot?

It could go on a um general election ballot.

Um that'd be atypical, but that is a way to do it.

Okay.

Okay, and um the timing constraints really are somewhat tied to the property tax rule collection, and so we could enact the fee but um be sort of on our own for collection if it doesn't meet the timing of the county.

Tax collector.

Okay.

Um, and if if I'm understanding the law right because this failed, we have no option to collect the fee in any way.

That's correct.

Direct billing, property tax, yeah, no fee, except for maybe donations.

That's about it.

Sure, we'll take a donation.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

All right, I'll go ahead and call the question.

Thanks again, staff for uh helping us being more informed on that.

Excuse me.

I did go out to public comment.

I did, yep.

Was there anybody that made comments?

Oh, we did have a caller.

Yes, we did.

Yep, we had two, yeah.

Um, all right, I'm gonna call the question.

All those in favor, aye, any opposed.

Motion passes unanimously.

With that, we'll go to our public appearance items 10 on the agenda is to receive subcommittee recommendations.

Appoint applicants to positions on board on board of library trustees, building and housing appeals board, disabled access appeals board, neighborhood and community improvement program, NCIP committee, and parks and recreation commission.

With that, I'll pass it to Dante for staff introduction.

Great, thank you.

And um, our city clerk, Clementine Bonner Klein is going to provide this presentation.

I do have a short presentation.

So um, as part of the regular cycle of term uh expirations that expire on June 30th, we did have a number of expirations this year, and we also had a few recent and longer ago vacancies to try to fill.

And so on April 10th, I had posted a notice in both our glass case and by email to our list of a few hundred um recipients who like to follow these um announcements.

I did posts for the board of library trustees, two member seats, building and housing appeals board, one alternate seat, disabled access appeals board, one member seat, neighborhood and community improvement program committee.

Um, one, two, three, four alternate seats and for parks and recreation commission one member seat.

We received applicants, applications from qualified applicants, and um priority review was to be given to applications received on or before May 11th.

And so on June 18th, the mayor and vice mayor who serve as the subcommittee according to our council policy.

They conducted public interviews of all of the applicants.

Um they deliberated and formulated their recommendations, which are in your packet as attachment one, and so it um there was mostly consensus from the subcommittee, but on one seat, which was the parks and recreation commission, the subcommittee would like the council to make that determination, and the council does make all of the appointments.

I also wanted to add that just in the last few days we received one more application for one of these seats, and so um there wasn't a cutoff.

We just said priority review would be given and um was received rather late in the process.

So I don't know how you'll want to handle that.

Unfortunately, our policy doesn't really cover that with the way that I noticed it for just priority review.

And that was for parts and rec.

Um that one was for old town alternate for NCIP committee.

All right, thank you, Clementine, for the presentation.

Um, are there any questions at this time from the council?

We'll save the debate until after public comment.

No, all right.

Seeing none, go ahead and open it for public comment.

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

Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item?

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

There's one on Zoom, we'll go ahead and take that caller.

Hi, everybody.

I wanted to um put in a good word for um one of the uh parks and rec applicants, Emily Adler.

She has a tremendous amount of of experience and knowledge that she would be bringing to the Parks and Recs Commission.

And I just want to put out there that she is hands down the better candidate, and hopefully uh the rest of the council will see that once uh you hear about her a little bit more in detail.

Thank you.

Alright, thank you, Esther, for trying to make your public comment.

Bring it back to the council for um motion and deliberation, um, uh as a way to kind of maybe help facilitate this process.

Um, I'd offer let's split this into to two motions.

Um, since there was agreement on all of the seats except for the park and recreation, I'll go ahead and make a motion to appoint all of the recommendations given by the subcommittee other than the parks and record commission.

All right, so moved and seconded.

Any other discussion on the motion?

All right, I'll just say um thank you to all those who signed up who spent time interviewing and and your your willingness to volunteer in your service to the city of Monterey.

Um, welcome aboard.

So um with that I'll call the question.

All those in favor, aye, any opposed motion passes unanimously.

Um, and then with that, let's get to the meat of the bones, which is the parks and rec seat.

Um, I had recommended um Emily Adler, um, council member or vice mayor Smith recommended Andrea Kingman.

I think what I took away from that was that we both thought that they were good candidates.

Um so maybe what I'll do is pass it to council member Smith to um give his his reasoning and then and then I'll I'll I'll give my reasoning for for Emily and then open it up to to the two of you to ask any questions or provide any additional feedback.

Yeah, good.

Uh I'll start.

Um yeah, and again, uh as it's already been said, thank you to the other candidates who took the time out to uh apply for their those positions.

As to the position of selecting for parks and recreation, I first start with um I'm looking at the role of the parks and recreation and looking for experience and you know, not just the academic experience, but the life skills, the time in grade where they've moved around a little bit in terms of employment or volunteerism or activities, and the education is important, and I would note that they uh both the candidates uh are very well educated and both have master's degrees.

Um graduated as recent as 2022, and then Drea has uh graduated much further along and has a much more established uh resume and her professional experiences.

Uh I was very impressed, um, especially with Andrea's uh perspective, her experience, her most recent volunteer work.

Um, she, as I said, she she does have a master's degree.

She has a public leadership credential from Harvard Kennedy School uh from 2026, and she also uh just was on the Monterey County uh civil grand jury, and she was the the chairperson as well.

Uh so she has a vast number of years of experience, and what I really thought that was unique for her was that her employment was with the National Geographic Learning.

Um, and since uh 2007, and she's done quite a bit of uh marketing work with K-12, social studies, humanities and partnerships and professional development.

And so that really sounds like somebody who is very experienced, well-versed in uh functioning with a large board.

And when I look out, asking myself in the coming years, in two to three years, what will be the planning commission's biggest lift?

And I think it's probably gonna be um acting on the master planning for the old capital side of the 130 acres that we we now own that we have not yet executed with what kind of a park nature it will turn out to be.

So I think the number of experienced years, the activities um gets the nod to Andrea.

Emily also has a nice resume.

She graduated um three years ago from, well, four years ago, actually, with a master's degree, and and is currently working in the trade is uh planning.

Um, and she's she lists her employer as planning studio manager uh at national fitness campaign, and it's and it's sort of seems like that that is like the first professional position that she's had.

So I lean towards Andrea because of more years of experience.

They both get the same nod as terms of their education, but uh Andrea has much more life experiences that would assist the planning commission.

And um I I think that Emily is gonna be there.

Um I wouldn't say that I would say uh don't go away and never apply again.

I'd say, hey, stay stay there and please apply again.

I just think that when you put two candidates that are both very qualified, you have to make a decision and I get the nod towards the experience and for what the planning commission is gonna be.

I'm sorry, what the parks and recreation commission is gonna be tasked with doing, and I think the experience is the nod for me.

Awesome.

Um yeah, and I recommended Emily.

I mean, interesting um uh point to focus on uh as it relates to experience.

Um Emily's educational background um is perfectly suited for the role within Parks and Rec.

Um, and I had felt strongly about her application in preparation for the interviews, but then when I'm getting into the interviews and seeing her level of enthusiasm, learning more about her growing up here, leaving, coming back, um, which is always something that's very impressive to me, to somebody that might go away, learns a skill set and bring it back to the community that helped raise them and to see that passion show through her interview um made me excited for the impact that she can have, not just on Parks and Rec, but on the city overall.

And I don't I I can't think off the top of my head if there's anybody currently on the parks and rec board that has that kind of requisite level of educational um skill set that she has.

So I think that she can provide a very unique and informative perspective that can help amplify the membership that's already on the parks and rec board.

Um again, both candidates super solid.

I think that the city of Monterey would be lucky to have either one of them.

Um but my preference would lean more towards um Emily for the recommendation.

Um Mayor, could I just point one thing out?

They both actually have local ties.

Emily was uh raised in Carmel, went to Carmel High School, and Andrea graduated for North Monterey County High School.

So they both have local ties.

Okay, I'll open it up to our colleagues here.

Councilmember Garcia.

Well, thank you.

Um thank you to all the candidates for applying and going through the process, and um thank you to um Clementine and Um Linda for putting together all the list and in a very organized way and the links to the videos and all that.

Really appreciate that.

That was really helpful.

And um I went and and um uh reviewed the interviews um and I agree both um Emily and uh Andrea bring um lots of knowledge and and I think also experience to the table.

So definitely not an easy decision.

Uh I do uh lean more uh for Emily because um of not only the the information that she shared during the interview uh but also really backed up with the uh uh portfolio that she shared as part of the application.

I think it it shows um a lot of um great and relevant information um that it's very much in alignment with uh the work that would be done in the uh parks and rec commission.

So um really enjoyed um what both candidates bring to the table, but uh I'm gonna go ahead and support Emily on this one.

Uh thank you.

I attended the interviews, um, like I have since we've created the new governance ordinance.

So I got to see um the two interviews.

Um, one was online and Andrea was in person.

I also have a scoring system that I keep, um, and I'm coming in for Andrea.

Andrea got a perfect um score across the board.

Um, and she was the only one of any of the candidates that got that.

I too was impressed with um the depth of her involvement in her community, and really was attracted to the year and a half uh program through Harvard on the um governance uh training at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and uh credential and public leadership, which I think would benefit us.

I I think we need that kind of maturity and and that preparation.

I think it would um serve us very well to have someone with her gravitas and her perspective.

It um her interview was I thought excellent, and I wrote down a note that um she she got a perfect score because she really nailed it in terms of creativity, which I look for.

There's preparation, education, involvement in the community, and and certainly Emily is a great candidate.

Um, but where Andrea really wowed me was um she really wanted to create um new avenues of um thinking about recreation.

She mentioned um trying to inspire some of our meetings to be walking meetings where we would where people could meet in the park and have their meeting and yet be walking and creative that way.

Um I thought that was um exceptional, and so I I was pretty wowed by her.

I would love to see her on um parks and works commission and uh benefit the city by all her preparation and excellence.

So that's where I come in.

Okay, um well, seems a little bit split, but we'll go ahead and go through the exercise here.

You want to try a motion?

No, I'll try uh a motion that uh we select uh Andrea Kingman for the parks and recreation uh selection.

I'll second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Any other discussion?

Right, although uh yeah, just please I I don't know that it'll it'll swing a decision or not.

Um but I I appreciate Jean being there to be able to see it live and uh to have have some sort of a uh scoring.

Um you know, it's I don't give any negative knock to someone who's not present.

I think uh Emily did a fine job, um, but she is working at home entirely that that's what her work is online working at home, and I just sometimes I worry about folks that will integrate with other folks that are coming together for the parks and recreation process and the outreach to the public, and so I just I just got a sense that Andrea was just a little bit more skilled for that for that level, but however it turns out I think uh Emily is a great great person and very qualified for something, and I hope she doesn't go away.

I hope she doesn't get discouraged, but I still find the lead towards Andrea because of her skills.

Thank you.

I would just did you want to jump in, please.

Uh well, a couple of points.

I I think in just because council member Smith, you bring up the um, and I'm not sure if you're going directly at the fact that Emily attended virtually, but if that is something that's not what I okay, well I'm not sure why the mention then that she was her work her work experience and what she does for her profession is not working directly live time with people, and it's all virtual, and it's a very short period of time when compared to Andrea in terms of the gotcha.

In the profession, okay, so to that point.

Um, I don't know Emily personally, but looking at her information and her work experience, this type of work um feels like it's not necessarily work that entirely would be done from home.

Having had some interactions with consultants that do this kind of work, it requires that they're out in the field, visiting sites, talking to stakeholders and that kind of thing.

Now, I'm not entirely sure that that's Emily's work, but I wouldn't necessarily assume that she just works from home to start.

And then second, I think there's value here in it and and I get I get the message that um perhaps the work experience has been less compared to um Andrea.

I get it that Emily might have less life experience, but perhaps this is the opportunity or a opportunity for Emily to gain some more of that work experience or life experience, if that's a concern, right?

Because ultimately I don't think that those items carry that much more significant weight than the actual skill set that they bring to this specific position.

Um so I wouldn't put that much more significant weight on on the fact that Emily has less in in your perspective, right?

My perspective is different, but um in your perspective that she might have less work experience or or life experience.

So I wouldn't count that as a negative either.

Um and I think in general, um, I it it is a a an instance here where we're not necessarily, and and this is the last point that I want to raise that we're not necessarily deciding who's better, right?

In the in this instance.

Right.

We're just we have to make a decision about who's moving forward.

And in this case, we have two amazing candidates, so so how do we make that decision?

Um, and I don't know.

Yeah, so I'll pass it on.

Yeah, and and I and I do value.

And hold up, hold on one second, and let me just make sure everybody I'll come back to you, but did you have anything to add, Jean, at this time?

I just wanted to provide one uh comment, which is I think we have to be careful in regards to how we characterize folks that work from home.

We don't know what their lifestyle is like, and I and I want to be careful not to um inappropriately put people in buckets around what their lifestyle is like and what impact that they'll have um because of the type of work that they do.

Um and how that's done.

And I think to um Councilman Garcia's point, we don't know how much she might be in the field.

She did allude to that most of her work is virtual during the interview, um, but it doesn't mean that she doesn't have that level of engagement that Councilmember Garcia spoke to.

So I wouldn't knock her for that, and and and if anything, that provides uh an important perspective, I think, for for the community.

And she did articulate during her interview um how active she is in using our parks and record facilities and some of the ideas that she had associated with that and what she would bring forward um if appointed.

Yeah, I just don't want it to hang that I am making it out because she works virtual as necessarily a negative.

I'm making the connection that she hasn't had that much experience beyond college.

She's graduated in 2022, and she's worked for this company that is virtual company, and I actually asked her a follow-up question in terms of has she ever had any work in the field, or was it mostly what she's doing now and it leaned towards the planning and not the physical field work?

So she she did answer that very well.

But what I was alluding to in terms of the number of years of experience in the workplace for the variety of things that she has done since college, is much less in terms of compared to Andrea.

That's what I was focusing on.

Okay, all right.

I'm gonna go ahead and call the question.

We have one more item to get to before we go into closed session here.

So um, all those in so the motion is to support Andrea um uh for the vacant parks and rec seat.

So all those in favor?

Aye.

Those opposed.

No.

So two, two.

I I'm not sure if it's even worth continuing to try to find.

I mean, unless somebody on the council feels like there's room for movement.

I think maybe we just defer this item to we have the fifth council member and maybe not waste too much time at this point.

Is that agreeable to everybody?

That's where I'm at.

Okay.

So we'll go ahead and table continue.

This item.

Do we have to vote on that?

Are we good to just uh it can be by consensus?

Is there consensus on that?

Okay, I got the meeting is that to the next meeting, yes, please.

Yeah, all right.

With that, we'll go to item 11.

Thank you again to all of the applicants and uh um and much gratitude to Andrea and Emily and being patient as we navigate this experience and trying to figure out how we move forward here.

With item 11, we have authorize the city's participation in the state water resources control board hearing in support of Monterey Peninsula Water Management District's request to modify the California American Water Company cease and assist order state water board order WR 2016-0016 and WR 2009-0060.

With that, I'll pass it to Dante for staff introduction.

And I'll pass it to our city attorney.

Okay, uh, hopefully this will be an easy one for you all.

Um, it's the moment we've been waiting for for months and months and months.

You'll recall that in October of 2025, the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District filed a petition with the state water resources control board to modify the cease and desist order that was implemented in 2009.

So, as you know, the city has been operating under um extreme water constraints since 2009.

There's been a moratorium on the setting of new meters and intensification of use based on a change in use or zoning change, and that's affected the city's ability to increase jobs and produce housing, you name it.

It's been a big hindrance.

Also, as you know, because um this council did support the management district in its petition and wrote a letter to the state asking um for this modification to take place, and now it's just been it had sat for months, and then we finally heard in June that they are gonna take up this item, and briefing um is due July 20th.

And so the purpose of having this item is I think we understand the policy, but and before my office or others start submitting um briefs and declarations on behalf of the city, we need to make sure that the city council um supports us taking that action.

And of course, any of you as individuals could um speak and participate in this hearing, but I also think it's impactful if um we could submit a brief from my office and declarations um from other city employees that explain why this water allocation from the management district is so important and why uh the setting of new meters um should be authorized.

So um, and then again, I think it would be great if council members, all of you or any of you wanted to attend either in person or virtually and have that ability to say you're speaking on behalf of the city of Monterey, not just in an individual capacity.

Um so that's that's the request.

We just wanna make sure um we can execute this policy um officially.

Thank you, Kristen, for presentation.

Open up to possible questions.

Yeah, I appreciate that, and I think our position um we need to have representation, and I think we we definitely have a lot at stake.

Um, I just want to clarify that part of the staff report tonight um talks about the city's general plan housing element.

I'm just gonna read it so the public is aware of it.

Um and it's on uh packet page uh 127, the city's general plan housing element program to-k states quote support efforts by the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, MPWMD, the California American Water Company, Calam, and the Marina Coast Water District, MCWD, to expand the water supply, including but not limited to future supply from the pure water Monterey Expansion Project and the Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project Ocean Desalinization Plan anticipated to become available by 2030.

So I can support this as along as we are in alignment with that doctrine that we have listed in the city's general plan.

So it's I guess it's just a question that we don't deviate from the city's general plan.

Yeah, I'm getting it more of a policy decision.

We would um participate to the extent that you're authorizing us to.

So if there were specific things you wanted us to address or not address, that can be done.

But this is the existing policy statement of the city, and um that would be our intention is to just follow that.

What page was that at?

Uh it's packet page 127.

Thank you.

And that's referring to this city's general plan housing element 2-K.

Um and I just I think I think it's gonna be a robust.

Um, there's gonna be a lot of documents, a lot of letters, a lot of advocacy, a lot of perspectives that it's gonna be out there in the community.

And I think we're we're at this point where I just don't want to see a divided effort by the city council that takes on um a carve out of uh Cal Am's position of their D Cell plan.

I think at this point we're talking about a modification of the the cease and desist.

That's my focus.

That's our effort, and I think that that I can support this as long as we are not dividing something out, and we're we're picking partners that we see as part of the solution.

I think all of these are solutions for our position going forward for the future of Monterey and the Cal Am District because we need modification to move ahead, whether housing for business expansion for economic development, and whether we have a DSAL plant that's opened by Cal Am in five years or eight years, we're not gonna have a vote on that.

That's going to happen at the state level.

Okay, any other questions?

Um I guess I would just ask um is this something that we can bring into closed session or this has to be done in open session.

Yes, because it's not um we're not involved in litigation.

Um, I would hate to use this time now to try to wordsmit the document that I don't know what it would say.

So I guess my question would be before something gets submitted to the state, is that something that could be reagendized so that we could have a look at it and have an input on what's being sent to the state on behalf of the city.

The deadline is the 20th, July 20th, and so there's no meetings between now and then.

But part of what we're trained to do, at least in my office, is write and advocate on behalf of the city.

We file briefs all the time that the council doesn't review or read, and um, so really it's just if we have clear policy guidance, we should be able to reduce that to writing and not be astray of um your desires.

So I I understand your your concern.

I understand.

I think kind of a little bit of a different angle than uh Vice Mayor Smith is bringing.

I guess I want to be careful not to involve the conversation in the politics around D Cell.

And of course, this is all embedded in that, but I want it to be purely focused on the goal at hand here, which is to try to get some relief from condition two and let that be the parameters and not try to make it give an impression that we're supporting the D Cell.

So the D Cell from what I gather from the um notice sent to us by the state water resources control board is a pretty narrow focus, and it's basically in support of the management district's petition saying they've developed this new water source, and this new water source has eliminated the need to have this moratorium on the setting of new meters and the other restrictions in condition two.

And so it's not really talking about the D Cell and what may or may not come of that.

It's more focused on hey, we have this new water supply.

Um, Cal Am hasn't drawn overdrawn, um, in the last four or five years, I think.

And so that would really be the focus.

And from staff's perspective, um, I would obtain a declaration maybe from Kim Cole, someone from staff to talk about the um city manager, the um constraints we have with um businesses coming in and development of housing and things like that, just to give some real factual background on the need for this and um just support the water management district in getting getting what they're requesting accomplished.

And and nothing more than that.

We we don't I don't think the board is entertaining anything outside of that more narrow scope, okay.

I think I think for whatever it's worth, it may just be easiest cleanest to just maybe avoid even bringing it up in whatever the city's response is at all, just to not show support or lack of support.

I think just kind of leaving that conversation neutral and um allowing the focus to be on what you just articulated, I think is I would be comfortable with.

Um please I'll come back to you.

I know you I know you got a point.

And just to clarify, because I mean, I I think um council has varying uh opinions around this, and so do our constituents.

So um would it be appropriate, and and this is more for for the knowledge of the public.

Would it be more appropriate if each council member does have um an opinion that strays away from what you'll be drafting, right?

That each of us consult with you to see uh or or determine whether we come to this hearing advocating as a council member or as an individual.

So I think what we're trying to solidify tonight, and the council's already done this um in a letter that we sent on this matter in November of 2025, um, is to support the water management district's petition.

So once we know what the city's position is, we can articulate that, and then if there's individual opinions that are different from that, um we can't stop you from voicing those.

Um, but you'd I'd I'd ask that you just clarify this.

Isn't the city's position, this is my independent position.

But again, I think um if I were the board, I wouldn't want to hear a lot of stuff about D SAL when that's not really the purpose of the proceeding, and it and they'd probably would just get it annoyed.

Well, and I'm sorry, could you hold on one second?

Um are you well said, okay.

Council Rash, did you have any?

I don't have questions.

I'll have a statement when it's statement.

Okay, yeah, and let's try to do that.

I mean, I know we were kind of narrowing into a little bit of the debate there, but it was kind of tied to questions.

So do you are you good with holding off for now?

We're holding off.

Okay, thank you, Chrissy, again for that.

Um, let's open it up for public comment 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, uh cut it off in the chamber.

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

We have two on Zoom, we'll go ahead and take those callers.

Gary, you can go first, Gary, we're not hearing anything.

If you um you may need to adjust your sound settings.

Yes, this is Gary Curcio.

Yes, we hear you now.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

Chair and uh other council members.

Gary Curcio tonight representing the coalition of peninsula businesses.

The coalition is actually a part of the originally filed lawsuit, and we have uh written to the state water resource control board absolutely supporting well, some type of easing of the cease and desist order.

Uh MCHA follows the coalition's position on that.

I would just like to say, uh, as council member Smith stated that uh in the coalition's position, absolutely entirely in favor of this relief, but not uh as using it as a tool to say that there's no longer D cell required.

I have to uh uh disagree with our city attorney on this one.

It is actually a big piece of the puzzle, especially now that there are concerns, not right this minute, but down the road of the availability of source water uh for M1 water, and the coalition is for all of these projects.

Don't misunderstand.

We want all of them to be successful, but if the uh source water is reduced for M1 water phase two, uh, the peninsula is going to face a tremendous water shortage without the Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project.

So, again, just like to keep that in mind, and clearly uh both the coalition and MCHA are absolutely in favor on some type of relief of cease and desist.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And our next speaker is Esther.

Yes, I can't believe we're finally at this point.

In fact, there's actually conversation happening about getting rid of or loosening the cease and desist after so many years, and it being such an obstacle.

Um, I don't know anybody that would oppose this.

I mean, I just can't think of a single type of organization or person that could possibly oppose not getting rid of the cease and desist.

I will put out there though, um, that I do uh recommend if the city attorney's office is not considered or if it's appropriate to get support from um county supervisor Kate Daniels, um Senator John Laird.

I know that the two of them have been you know very supportive of anything that has to do with housing and water over here, so I'm not sure if it would be appropriate for them to chime in on this, but um that might hold some value in supporting what what we're trying to accomplish as a city.

So I just thought I'd put it out there.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you to both of our public commenters.

We'll bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation.

I'll start with you, Councilmember Smith.

Yeah, I think it's um I think we're really at an agreement point.

Um, I think it's a nuance uh that the conversation about condition two for our position is all about making the recommendation and making the case because of housing because of economic development for our city and only our city, that we do advocate for mitigation.

Now, there's gonna be a lot of participants in this conversation, and there will be some that will have a position that carves CalAM out, and that's okay for them.

I think our focus needs to be supporting the housing uh element that we have that maintains that we recognize that we need more water, and we need the condition to modified so that we can execute those two big things housing and economic development.

And there may be something that's mentioned in the case that says that Calam, we are aware that CalAM is proceeding with a D Cell.

We're not taking a position as a council supporting that.

It's been very clear that there are not votes for that.

And I don't think our city attorney is going to be writing documents that are advocating for that.

But I think somewhere it's got to advocate that the entire portfolio of future water is what we're after, so we can execute housing.

And there's a lot of unknowns on phase two source water, the farmers, salinas.

That's not what this argument's about.

And I think that's not part of the the legal communications that's gonna happen.

Um, that case will be made by others.

I think our case needs to be made through through our city attorney that focuses on housing and economic development and and ties it to the fact that we need mitigation so we can see um water meters installed in our city so we can finally have some relief for housing and economic development.

The water resources are smart people.

They're gonna make the references.

They're gonna make their inferences.

They're gonna read all the thousands of documents that are gonna go through.

They've already issued um guidelines to CalAM's application process.

The Coastal Commission issued an A2 ruling.

All the governmental agencies, the Lands commission, two weeks ago.

So that's a different train that's gonna operate on its own, and I don't see any connection for that.

Um, I'm gonna go ahead and make a motion to approve staff recommendation.

Second.

All right, it's been moved in, seconded.

Any other discussion?

All those in favor.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes unanimously.

All right.

With that, we're gonna take public comment on closed session agenda items.

There's three items.

Item 12 is closed session conference of real property negotiators related to six fishermen's ward.

13 is conference of legal counsel existing litigation related to our more versus city of Monterey.

And 14 is conference with legal counsel deciding whether to initiate litigation pursuant to government code 54956 94.

And it's one case.

Opening up for public comment for folks on Zoom, you can use a raise hand function.

Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on any of these items, just ask that you see it up to the left of the podium.

I see two takers.

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

Okay, or any of these items.

Alright, so we'll cut it off to the two in the chamber, and I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one.

Nobody on Zoom, we'll go ahead and start in the chamber.

Good afternoon.

Hello, my name is Quincy Yaley.

Um, thank you for having us.

And I too played on the uh train at uh Dennis the Menis Park for many years.

Um, and uh I just wanted to thank you for considering a lease agreement tonight uh for our family.

This is a full circle moment for us because uh my parents, Clark and Tasha Struve, along with Clay Larson and Sharon Larson operated the captain's gig out of that same space for over 20 years from when I was born until I was in college.

And um from the moment that each of us streve or Larson children were legally old enough to work.

We were dropped off at Fisherman's Wharf uh for a shift.

We bust tables, fillings, filled sodas, and washed dishes.

And uh all of us kids, along with all of our friends, uh grew up working at Fisherman's Wharf, and have memory, many memories and stories of serving a lot of fried food.

Uh, so much that after your shift, a shower was needed, not just uh change of clothing.

Um I haven't lived back here on the Monterey Peninsula since I was in high school, um, but recently my family, my husband Mike, and our three kids, one is actually out of the house.

Uh one got dragged along here tonight, um, have moved back here and uh are um really excited about this amazing opportunity to continue the legacy of the gig, which is now Peluca's, um, forward to future generations.

Uh, you can be sure that our kids will also be working there, hopefully, along with their new friends, um, and doing exactly what we started doing when we were young, um, but also but at a much uh higher uh dining experience now than it was uh when we were younger.

And um, we're really excited for Sal, uh Tedesco to turn the space over to us and are eager to continue to serve uh residents and visitors to our beautiful Monterey Peninsula.

Uh, thank you so much for uh considering this tonight.

Thank you.

Hello, uh, my name is Mike Yaley, and that's my beautiful wife, Quincy.

Um, I just wanted to introduce myself and thank you for the opportunity to potentially be uh assigned the lease that will hopefully be renewed tonight.

Um I look forward to bringing my career's worth of leadership and hospitality and food service to the wharf.

I know how important having visited here for 27 years once I met my lovely wife in 1999 and actually going to the captain's gig several times before they sold it to Sal, who was their manager at the time.

So when she talks about a full circle moment, this is really cool that he's now riding off into the sunset and giving it back to the family that gave him the opportunity.

So we're excited, as she said, to have our kids come and work there for this to be part of our life, and for us to provide the hospitality that's so important to the city out there on the wharf.

And you can be assured that we will exceed expectations because my whole career has been exceeding customers' expectations.

And I don't expect to do anything less.

And thank you for the opportunity.

What's your son's name here?

Uh, that is Jackson.

Jackson, are you ready to start working?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, he's ready for it.

I love it.

All right.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Alright, with that, we'll go ahead and close uh public comment on closed session items, and we'll go ahead and and recess.

Um, until our evening session.

So thank you, everybody, for being here.

We'll break them for dinner.

How do we give us a h do we give us a h do we give us a h do we give us a h do we give us a h do we give us a h do we give us a h do we give us a h do we give us a h do we give us a h do we give us a h do we give us a h do we give us a hug Smith to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thanks, Ed.

With that will continue general public comment from the afternoon session.

This is an opportunity for members of the public to speak on non-agendized items.

So if it's not on the agenda, this is your opportunity to speak to the council.

How the process for public comment works for this item and all subsequent items is we identify the public speakers at the beginning of the public comment period.

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

So if you try to raise your hand after the cutoff, fortunately, we won't be able to have a speaker.

Everybody has an opportunity to identify yourself at the beginning of the public comment period.

Thank you.

We did two minutes in the afternoon, so we'll continue that for the evening session.

So I'll start with folks on Zoom.

If you're on Zoom, you can navigate your way to the raise hand function.

In the meantime, I'll check in the chamber.

Anybody in the chamber wishes speak for general public comment.

Not seeing any takers, so cut it off in the chamber.

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

We have two on Zoom.

We'll go ahead and give them the two minutes.

We have a telephone caller with the last three digits, nine zero two.

Good evening.

This is Nina Beattie.

The Monterey Herald on Sunday stated that ATT and the FCC are ending landlines and only grandfathering existing ones.

I've asked the FCC to confirm this as it would violate FCC process.

However, if you want a landline, order it now before July 19th.

If ATT Customer Service won't do this, call the CPC consumer affairs branch.

They can help make ATT comply with their obligations.

Landlines are lifelines and the only reliable source of communication power outages and during disasters.

More information is on Save Landlines.org and Monterey Bay Matters.org.

I apologize, you went past your time limit.

Caller, which has the last three digits of 874.

For other caller, you'll need to dial star six to unmute yourself, please.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Yeah, just again on the garrison I'm calling for three different reasons.

One complaint about the trees behind.

You see it in the picture.

When you see the city of Monterey logo, it shows a great grand trees.

And unfortunately, these trees are the polished trees in the whole city, and the scheduled to be cut down.

The entire grove is supposed to be removed.

And it's unfair that many people don't know this is happening.

And it's unfair, it's not like that entire grove should be removed to make way for um a project coming through that's already been approved.

That's probably too late to make a change on that.

However, um, I want to talk about lack of oversight by um officer Rory, who is supposed to be writing tickets, who does not write tickets to violators, and it makes it very difficult for people with um people that have a street vendor permit.

Um, and the rules are not maintained, followed.

There's no set structure.

He shows up for 20 minutes and probably just billed for a couple hours.

Just like early when the journalist said that the city's bills for hours at a time when really they do 20 minutes of work and probably three hours of paperwork just to um get payment for the city.

Um it's unfair that it's not right that the city of Monterey has a worker lorry.

We're supposed to be writing tickets, and when you request a maraton ticket on violations, there's probably been a few times.

There's probably been 40 times where I've requested tickets to be written, and not a single one has been looked at.

People that play music, people that break the rules, but yet there's no such structure by enforcement.

It's not good that you have an enforcement officer who does not enforce the rules.

It makes the city's job look very much like a failure.

Um, and I also want to acknowledge um overpayment.

Is my time up with the last time still?

Yes, your time is up.

Thank you.

All right, with that, thank you for the public commenters.

We'll uh bring it back to the council.

At this point, we'll do announcements from closed session, please.

Thank you, Mayor.

The first item heard in closed session was a conference with real property negotiators pertaining to six fishermen's wharf suite C.

And the agency negotiators, it was Jana Aldretti and negotiating parties, Salvador Tedesco over the price in terms of payment for assignment of a lease and lease extension on a unanimous roll call vote with council member barber absent.

Confidential direction was given to real property negotiators.

The next item was conference with legal counsel for existing litigation.

And the case title is more versus the city of Monterey workers' compensation appeals board hearing case and on a unanimous roll call vote with council member barber absent.

Confidential direction was given to legal counsel, and the last matter was conference with legal counsel deciding whether to initiate litigation, and on a unanimous roll call vote with council member barber absent direction was given to join in writing uh signing on to an amicus brief prepared by other Bay Area and Central Coast Local Governments in support of plaintiff's motion for preliminary injunction in the case titled County of Santa Clara and State of California versus United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement et al.

Northern District of California case number 526-cv-05604.

And this is pertaining to the construction of an ICE detention facility in Santa Clara County.

And that's it.

Awesome.

Thank you, Chrissy.

With that, we'll go to our public appearance items for this evening.

Item 15 is to provide guidance concerning 2627 neighborhood and community improvement program objectives and priorities.

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

Thank you, Mayor.

And I'll um bring up our senior engineer Reggie Paulding to provide the presentation for this item.

All right.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

We'll be presenting a short brief presentation, and then I'll be here for uh for questions.

Um as you know, we have um we just completed the prior uh NCIP cycle and we're starting anew for the 2627 um program.

Uh and uh in the agenda packet, you have the upcoming schedule for the project or for the program, and uh a key date to keep in mind is uh August 15th, which is the revised um date to submit um applications for projects.

Um so just just a quick brief reminder NCIP program uh was created to preserve uh the uniqueness of Monterey in the mid-80s, um, and the funding for that program comes from uh TOT tax hotel tax, and um that's currently at um 12 percent.

So there um sorry rewind here.

I'm going in the wrong direction.

Um, in the budget, um, the current fiscal year budget NCIP committee offered recommended 3.5 million dollars from the NCIP fund uh go to the general fund uh to support the city.

Um we and estimate uh 6.2 million dollars um in TOT revenue going into the fund.

You subtract that 3.5.

We have roughly uh 600,000 in unappropriated fund balance, which is offset by roughly 600,000 in um expenses, which leaves us uh 2.7 million in change in funding available for projects this coming cycle.

Uh just as a status update on where we are with projects in the program, uh going back to 2023 when was uh we kind of restarted the program following COVID.

Um, we currently have uh roughly 70 projects in progress or not started and a budget of 22 million in uh the last four years.

We've uh completed 51 projects across the city.

Um, and we added 11 new projects last year, which gives us the 70 um count.

So we're here tonight um to kind of uh kick off the season, so to speak, and to get um city council input on uh kind of projects that you would like to see from the public and the NCIP committee to recommend to the council for next uh next round of projects.

So with that, um the city staff are bringing forward uh a number of recommendations um that that are needed and um and supported by staff starting with fire station 12 renovations.

We have an additional need for uh 100,000 for a swing space, um, which would include uh temporary dorms, uh facilities for uh the firefighters for their turnout gear, um, showers and other support facilities at Hilltop Park Center, while fire station 12 is under renovation.

Um we have citywide public restroom repairs that are needed.

Recreation trail retaining wall is in need of repair.

We've we've started a fund, uh ADA improvements throughout the city, kind of build that up, forest and fuel force management, fuel reduction, uh utility undergroximately two and three quarter million dollars in that or 2.75 million.

Hilltop Park Center may need some additional funding.

We're working on uh getting bids for the roof.

Uh that's gonna be step one in this uh renovation project at Hilltop.

So, and we'd like to this all ties to Fire Station 12, and that we'd like to get the roof work finished before we need to set up the swing space and coordinate those two projects.

Um, and then we have El Estero Park Center in need of of renovations, Chelsea Park Center, and and both wharfs and uh specifically Wharf 2.

So I think that is the overarching uh presentation.

Like I said, I'm available for any questions that you might have.

All right, are there any questions from the council?

Councilman Garcia, thank you, Reggie, for the presentation.

Uh, my first question was uh relating to the uh um first item on the list of priority uh projects fire station 12 and um swing space at Helltop.

Thank you for clarifying that um how those two are related.

Um so in staff's uh perspective um Hilltop would be able to accommodate Monterey fire during the uh upgrades or repairs to fire station?

Yes, so we've done uh several walkthroughs, including with the fire department personnel, and they've worked.

We we've we've involved the parks department, fire department, and public works, and outside um contractors.

Um we've evaluated the available space, and it is sufficient for what the fire department needs.

Great, thank you.

Um, in terms of the uh citywide public restroom repairs, that's specifically for repairs and upgrades only, correct?

Like no net new installation of restrooms, correct.

Okay, and then um in terms of the uh uh recreation trail um retaining wall, would you um be able to remind me?

I I thought there was a conversation around possibly Presidio being able to support with that, or am I just No, you're correct, but there are two separate projects so uh the Presidio U.S.

Army project is on the lighthouse curve, up above where the cars, you know, the roadway and the sidewalk.

What we're referring to here with the recreation trail is the walkway path that's closer to the cliff.

Gotcha.

Thank you for clarifying that.

All right, that's it.

Thank you.

Um, yeah, Reggie, I'm curious about um the citywide public restrooms and repairs and upgrades.

Is there a price tag that's associated with that?

Uh not off the top of my head.

And uh we have a facility assessment.

I don't know if you want um we have facility assessments, and we can pull together um a price tag, but I would argue it's it's in the multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars total price.

Okay.

Um, and the same question.

Do we have a an assessment on the lighthouse curve retaining wall?

We do not currently, no.

And then also the Americans with disabilities, that's just basically a general need that is open, but I imagine those dollars are.

Well, that's multiple millions.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, and then the forest management and fuel reduction over the last three and CIP cycles.

We've averaged about a million dollars, haven't we?

More than a million.

Yeah, we did uh 1.8 million, I think, two years ago, 1.25 million this previous cycle.

Okay, and then that's paired with you know the matching funds from Calfire.

Right.

Right.

Okay.

Um and going down the list, you said one of the accounts was uh two million dollar balance.

What account was that?

That's the undergrounding.

Okay.

Right, so that's that project for undergrounding.

So that's that's two million or two point seven five.

I can tell you exactly.

It is for undergrounding.

2 million 748,573 dollars.

Okay, okay.

So 2.75.

Uh and then the Elstro Park Center facility improvements.

Do we have any idea what that amount is and what level of the scope would be for El Estero Park Center?

So the scope for El Estero is pretty comprehensive.

I mean, everything from roof to kitchen, um, and and other facilities.

I don't know if Shannon.

But I mean, we do have, yeah, we do have a facility assessment on that building as well.

Okay.

So we can pull that up.

I mean, so in the last three years or so, we had a contractor do facility assessments on all the city buildings.

So we do have that information.

Okay, and then again on the list, Schultz Park Center.

Do we don't have a price that's quoted here?

No, not off the top of my head.

But they've recently redid a significant portion of the roof on that building.

Okay, okay.

Um that's the only questions I have right now.

Nope.

Um, do we have an estimated price tag for all of staffs asks?

Like an estimate of what we're looking at, it would exceed the uh available funds 100.

Yeah, absolutely.

If that's the question, yeah.

So, I guess it might be helpful.

As a deciding person, to have something that's within the bounds of what's available as opposed like so like how do we choose?

Um, and I and I imagine that a lot of these projects are tied to the capital improvement program, and so with that there's built-in prioritization of projects, and I just I wonder how this all fits into that.

This is all interwoven into a much bigger conversation.

Um, and I was talking with Kurt before the meeting.

Um, I think we have to we the larger we have to find a way to in some existing projects, bring some of that funding back into the portfolio, tie that into what we currently need to do, and find a way to move the whole thing forward.

I mean, it's it's a much much larger project.

Thank you.

I just want to add some context that we're also looking for, for example, the restrooms.

We do have a facility condition assessment.

So maybe we focus on the one restroom that's the worst.

Um I think during our estate of the infrastructure, we showed part of the wall and one of the Carnival restrooms, is kind of deteriorating really rapidly.

So maybe we focus on, and again, we're here looking for a guidance from council, so maybe focus on the worst restroom.

It doesn't mean we have to um we have to do everything.

So maybe we can look at the facility condition assessment and focus on the most urgent items, the most um deteriorated items, and some of the things that we can at least try and and catch up.

Okay, all right.

Thank you for that.

Um, have there I I when I look at the website, it still shows that it's the deadline for submitting projects is July 31st of 25.

But when you click on the form, it shows fiscal year 2627.

Um have we received any project submittals to date this fiscal year?

A few, not not very many.

Okay, less than 10.

Okay.

I think that's all my questions for now.

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

You can use the raise hand function.

Anybody on the chamber in the chamber wishes to speak on this item?

Just ask that you stand up to the left of the podium.

On any item or the ones you do this item specifically, the NCIP.

This this the item that we're lit we're considering right now.

Uh is that including the round of that no anybody else in the chamber that's not standing that wants to speak on this item all right so we'll cut it off to the three that are standing I'll do a countdown for folks on zoom to five four three two one we have five on zoom sorry I almost said teams because that's what I use for work um and we'll go ahead and leave it to two minutes so let's go ahead and start in the chamber.

My name's Kurt Tipton and hey broke you just one second Kurt I just want to tell our broadcast team that we're showing something on the document camera if you could please include that in the um in the feed thank you.

I'm talking about the display boat at the front of Fisherman's wharf that's what our visitors are seeing this is the third boat that we've had it started in 1970 and this has lead paint and it's chipping it's in disaster we need to replace this and I think last year we this was on the NCIP and we can probably replace it for 15000 to 2000 and perhaps Dante you can talk to the old fisherman wharf association and get them to do part of the maintenance rather than having the city try to do the maintenance on this because obviously trying to keep this boat is not going to be cheap.

So or find a replica that's not an old boat but maybe fiberglass or something that would look better than what we have now I'm asking council to please go ahead and make this a priority thank you.

Good evening council uh city attorney city manager um I'm vice chair of the NCIP I would hope that the guidance that you folks uh deliver to us is general we don't have all of the submissions in and who knows there may be some great ideas out there that come in before August 15th and I believe the last year we've shown that we are pretty darn responsible having uh funded a number of things for the city and funded the three and a half million to help with the budget shortfall so I think we're pretty wise group that can bring it appropriate recommendations to council for their ultimate approval.

So I'd appreciate general guidance like health and safety foot forest etc like we've usually had rather than specific project guidance.

Thank you.

Hi my name's Cora Pantrad um I'm a resident of Old Town and I just wanted to advocate and your guidance that you request that the NCIP recommend products that are um improvements to quality of life and investments in third spaces especially with the affordability crisis that we're seeing I know there's a lot of people in our community who would love to go have fun in our community without spending a few hundred dollars um that's all thank you very much.

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

Yes first I'll call in Chris hello uh Chris Richardson from the police association uh first I'd like to thank uh the council for approving the 500 thousand and NCIP funding for improvements to the police department that investment acknowledges what many have recognized for years that our building needs attention I'd ask you to continue identifying additional funding to address the remaining deferred maintenance that this initial investment simply won't cover our building is very old um our population has doubled since the PD was built uh and it's much smaller than our or our police department is much bigger than it used to be on the 2017 18 uh Monterey County civil grand jury found that our facility creates operational inefficiencies and no longer reflects the size and needs of the police department.

Uh nearly a decade later, those findings are still true um while much of the approved funding will likely address our long overdue locker room deficiencies and many other uh many other issues will remain.

The building has peeling exterior paint, rusting eaves, plot holes throughout the parking lot, doors that swell with weather that routinely need adjustment and an HVAC system that sometimes leaves the inside of the building hotter than the outside.

We've also outgrown this facility.

Our investigations division is working out of an aging portable, and we've had to place connex boxes in the parking lot to store evidence because we've run out of space.

These conditions also affect recruitment.

Every agency in our region is hiring, and applicants compare more than salary.

Modern facilities demonstrate that the city values its employees.

Unfortunately, as one of the oldest and most visibly worn police facilities in the region, it makes it harder for Monterey to compete.

With Measure D not passing, it's even more important to be good stewards of the facility we have.

Investing in deferred maintenance today protects the city asset and avoids uh greater costs tomorrow and provides a workplace that reflects professionalism for those who serve our community.

So I respectfully ask that you continue uh investing uh more money uh through NCOP funds to uh further improve the uh condition of our current police department as there's no other way to get a new police department currently with the fiscal situation.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Tom.

Hello there, this is Tom Reeves.

Uh I agree with uh what Dennis Duke had to say about broadening your priorities rather than having specific projects be enlisted.

And I'm one of the people who turned in a nomination, and one of my nominations is to uh allocate a million dollars towards affordable workforce housing.

A number of you on the council have said an awful lot about trying to help the affordability crisis on the peninsula, but you've really done nothing about it other than a rural registry, which is largely ineffective.

So don't don't uh don't limit yourself to just those specific projects.

Uh another observation I have is that it seems like NIP projects are languishing even though they're fully funded.

And by fully funded, I mean there's money in there for the design of them.

Yet while other projects that the council didn't even ask for, such as the next item on your agenda, the traffic circle, have had uh attention paid to them and designs prepared.

So why is that?

Why can't these NIP projects get out the door and get designed?

Um, lastly, you have control over the projects that are approved.

So if a project comes to you that looks like it's going to be maintenance intensive, you have the ability not to approve them.

I once upon a time had a project that was to add a caboose to Dennis and Menis Parks train, and you didn't approve it.

And for the a good reason, it was going to be additional maintenance.

So you hold the you hold the keys to this.

You don't have to approve projects uh that come to you that that may end up having a large maintenance obligation.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is uh telephone caller.

You can go ahead.

This is Nina Beattie.

Um, and I just want to say the city's not cutting off the mic for in-person commenters and never has.

Um, the city is unlawfully refusing to give me ADA accommodation so I can be present in hearings and not be cut off.

So I'd appreciate the same consideration as for the in-person commenters.

Your agenda report states despite the daunting nature of the funding gap, city staff are striving for transparency and emphasizing the challenge should not be to defer to future generations, etc.

etc.

Um, the city has suffered from a lack of transparency, internal agendas not disclosed to the public, failure to follow state and Monterey rules, relationships with special interests and inaccuracy and omissions.

This is a long-standing problem with the city.

Why would transparency start now?

I again remind the council of city staff's misuse of measure SP funds and failing to notify the public, including Caille Prince Powell when only city insiders knew about it.

The traffic circle is another example with no notification to residents and fully funded.

Unless there's an external and historical audit by an independent entity not connected to the city, the state of city spending and past spending can't be verified.

NCIP is the rare exception for the residents actually to have a voice in determining what needs to be done in the neighborhood.

And I agree with the prior speaker with NCIP being a wise voice.

This is taking money from the NCIP program and using it for general funds that should have been expended years ago instead of the vanity projects the city has undertaken.

And I also want to call out the forest and vegetation management project, which is worsening the risk of forest fires while destroying habitat and killing wildlife.

This is not under the current regime, under the current theoretical background.

This is not a viable project that's helping Monterey.

And I can the the state of the fire department, the state of the police department, these should have been taken care of years ago, and they have not.

So I think it's up to the NCIP program to continue as it is using their wisdom and not dictating.

Thank you.

And our last speaker is from the Monterey Firefighters.

Hi everybody, my name is Phil Bazuska.

I'm president of the Monterey Firefighters Association.

I represent about 75 men and women who work in the fire stations in Monterey, Carmel, Pacific Grove, and the Monterey Regional Airport.

Just like to relay our thanks to city staff, uh the council and the members of the NCIP committee for your diligence and combing through the numerous needs of the city.

Speaking on behalf of our men and women uh to voice support for additional funding for Fire Station 12 and new Monterey.

The station at 582 Hawthorne Street was built in the early 1950s and is in dire need of maintenance as we peel back the layers on this building.

It's my understanding that the scope of the facility needs have expanded.

Additional funding will ensure that Fire Station 12 is functional well into our future, and our firefighting crews are able to provide effective emergency response during the construction work.

Thank you all for your consideration.

That's me.

Um thank you, and I misspoke.

There was still one more speaker for this, Hester.

So Esther, you can go ahead.

Thanks, Clementine.

Um I wanted to make a couple of points um regarding some of the comments that were made.

First of all, I want to correct Dennis's comment that nothing has been done for affordable housing by the city council.

We have 100% affordable housing going up behind City Hall, and that is because of the city council.

So that is an incorrect statement.

I want to support uh Chris Richardson's comments that we do have to um continue helping out the police department.

Um I've been advocating for that for a decade and a half at this point, and conditions have gotten worse than when I started that long ago.

Um, lastly, I want to comment on um NCIP uh project that for my neighborhood, Laguna Grande, has been in the in the process for a while.

I wanted to point out that I've actually um recommended to NCIP members and people who submit projects to try and find alternative funding for some projects, which I want to say I have been doing with the workout equipment project that was passed by NCIP a couple of years ago.

It was unanimously passed by all the members and ranked the highest project of that cycle.

And understanding that that is a nice to have and not a need to have project.

We have made the effort and have been working on and having some serious encouragement on getting um grants and nonprofits to fund this project for us.

So I am continuing to work on this.

I am um saying this as an example to others who have projects that they might want to try and follow this example, and I am very encouraged that we can make this happen at minimal cost and effort from the city if we get the cooperation that we need.

Thank you.

Okay.

With that, we'll go ahead and close public comment.

Thank you for all those that provide a public comment on this item.

With that, we'll bring it back to the council for discussion.

Please, Councilmember Smith.

So Reggie was bringing something up, and I'm not sure if we really got a sense of what he was saying.

So I want to pose this question.

Was staff offering an option that maybe we need to go through or have NCIP go through projects that are dated?

Um sitting on the list funded, but one would ask the question if we haven't done it in six years.

Are we ever really gonna do that?

And is it viable?

So I need I need to hear from staff.

Um are we satisfied that we have before us the 70 projects?

I think there's 70 in the inventory.

70 projects they're funded, and we look at those 70, and some would say, why are they still on the list?

And have we gone through those 70 and has NCIP weighed in on whether or not those should be identified as not doable, no longer relevant, uh beyond the scope of approved money.

I mean, I just I need to probe this dilemma, unless somebody's gonna propose on the 15th of August buying a series of money trees.

What we're really talking about is a great number of we have dollars in equity, approved projects, we can only get to 10 to 15 projects a year, and many of those projects remain.

Are we satisfied that all 70 of those should continue to remain?

Or is there an opportunity where we ask the question?

Are some of those no longer viable to still remain a project?

There are projects.

So let me rewind.

So the NCIP committee did this exercise in last winter, yeah.

At the request of city council.

Yes, right.

So the committee went through and they review projects, so that work a lot of that work has been done.

Um there are projects that are stalled, no secret, right?

There are projects that are stalled, and I there are projects that could be removed from the program.

That is true.

I mean, so that's what I mean.

I think there has to be it's not my decision to make, right?

There are the commit, I think the committee needs to make recommendations to the city council, and the city council should make that decision.

Okay, so does our manual allow us to pass that question, or does it have to be a form of an agenda item that the city council acts on and directs NCIP?

I mean, because help me out with the mechanics of this.

We've both identified an opportunity.

How do we move our policy in alignment to solve that problem and act on the recommendation that NCIP did with their work?

And then maybe others.

Well, I think the path exists.

I don't know, I feel I can feel Dennis.

Um the path, the path exists.

Um to do what the community decides to do, okay, right?

I think the path exists, and as I understand, there's a joint meeting on the agenda for August, okay, where the council and NCIP can have this discussion.

Okay.

Um I don't I personally don't believe that there's a limitation.

Okay.

So maybe it's a primer for us to say, okay, we think we're gonna have this conversation again, and maybe we're gonna have more specific recommendations from NCIP that they might identify what's still hanging out there.

That would be my hope.

Okay, okay.

Um I w I want to go into a couple other things, but I don't want to cut off anybody else on the council that might want to have Dennis Reggie.

Kitchen to say something.

Well, why why don't we you finish um and then we and then we'll go down the line.

Okay.

So thank you, Reggie.

Appreciate it.

Um so I want to just address what I think our task is to do tonight, which is you want to hear from the council about input for the NCIP to have some sense of what we're thinking before they go into their process.

Correct.

And I would say larger for say the public to have that guidance prior to the August 15th submission deadline.

Okay.

But yes.

Okay.

Um, so I think what's helpful is that staff gave us a list, and we just went through that.

But what's hard is that we don't have the specific dollars of those amounts.

I don't want to get involved in going down the list.

I have a letter that Mr.

Tipton provided that's that's great guidance.

The staff work is great guidance, but for me, my priority is uh generally and in broad terms, health and safety, resident serving, such as recreation parks like the Solicito ballpark.

I mean, I think we've well known that that's identified, and some budget, but money has been budgeted, but it's a shortfall because it's got more work.

So that sort of falls in the resident serving interests that I have.

And then that category, uh, and I don't know how else to write it, but I said it's preventative, where if we act on it now sooner, we would reduce future costs.

In other words, fix it as soon as we can rather than delaying it because the cost will be greater.

I don't know what you would call that in project management, but identify what needs to be fixed and fix it before it costs us greater amounts.

So that that's kind of my general thinking of where I'm at.

But I like the idea that the smart people in NCIP get together and are very creative and can work around the the structure and the loose guidance of things like public safety, resident serving, and preventative measures to save us money in the future.

So I'll pass.

Okay.

Please.

So if you would, Reggie, um, and staff, um, I I think I'd like a little bit of help just confirming information that that I think I know, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

So in my understanding of this whole process, NCIP through through its own process, identifies projects, then makes the recommendation that the list of recommendations um that then come to council for uh deliberation.

Then in this context, in what we're um trying to address here tonight, staff has taken that list and identified the list of projects that based on the budget that we have, the figures that you shared earlier, and looking at the needs, the very specific needs, staff has now um created a list that's a priority list of I think it's nine items.

Is that correct?

Sort of.

Um so the list that you have the list that I presented, like I said before, exceeds the amount of money available, right?

So it wasn't the list wasn't formed to meet or match the funding.

Um that's where the committee would have to come in and and rank the projects, um, and then council would select or appropriate funding for those projects.

But otherwise, I would say, I mean, and projects can come from anywhere, right?

So these these projects were necessarily from the public, but they're from say city staff that that know that these facilities are in need.

Got it.

So these are projects that some were on the NCIP list, but some weren't.

Correct.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Um could you talk then a little bit about how and let's use the list of nine projects?

Like, what was that thinking?

Like how how did you figure out um I don't know the uh ADA is a priority.

We know it's a priority, but what was that thinking?

Like for for the or for the list.

Well, I mean, it I say it's multifaceted in that yes, we all know ADA is uh is a priority, and it's like I said, multi-million dollar right backlog of projects that need to be done across the city.

We also know that unfortunately there's limited to no CIP funding, so the only funding available would be through the NCIP program to manage those you know needs.

Um so those that's so specifically ADA is put on the list almost every year, right, in some capacity in order to say move the ball down the field to use the you know the sports cliche, right?

But to get something done, um it's added to the list with the hopes right that we can make some progress like we did last year with the library project, right?

So library got funding, that's on the list.

That'll address some AD specific ADA requ needs for the library.

Got it.

Okay, that's all I have.

Thank you.

So a lot of the list is reoccurring topics that circulate through NCIP and the community and have risen to the top, and we're also gonna have mandates on the ADA, so they're a hot topic right now, and they're gonna have to be addressed.

Um I like the the list.

Uh we've looked at it for years now, and and I'm sure we can get to some of those projects.

Um NCIP is well functioning, um, despite the abuse we put on it.

They come back every year um looking good and doing great work and knowing how to do it.

So um they're they're gonna function well.

Um the usual health safety infrastructure ADA, but I would also like to point out something that um Tom Reeves has um been espousing.

He mentioned it uh in front of council, I think a few months ago and in front of NCIP a couple times last year, and that's to keep in mind that right in our charter, the Monterey City Charter Amendment on neighborhood and community projects program measure B.

This is the from the full text.

If you go to D, it says that the committee shall recommend a list of capital improvements desired to be accomplished in each neighborhood.

Recommendations may include multi-year projects and funding, and Tom has reminded us of uh of that, and and I would suggest that that might be a new concept that it's really time to get fertile about.

We might have some infrastructure projects that we could achieve in four or five years.

The the wharf comes to mind um that we could do more long distance planning, which is completely allowed right right in the charter language.

So I would I would encourage that great idea that Tom keeps leading us to.

I think maybe it's it's time for NCIP to see if there's some opportunity there.

Thank you.

Um, so a couple of thoughts.

I know that there have even tonight there was um some project proposals that were suggested by members of the public, and I think that the process is set up in a way that allows us to um consider those projects through the NCIP process, and pretty much the council accepts the recommendations that come from the NCIP.

So I would encourage those folks that are pushing for those projects to um submit project um proposals.

Um I I can't remember who made the comment, but the project that was alluded to was this Madison Herman Drive intersection being prioritized.

City staff isn't just focused on NCIP projects.

There's a whole slew of things that are happening in the city of Monterey that city staff are trying to be responsive to.

So when it seems like something is moving faster than maybe an NCIP project, it's because staff is trying to juggle a lot of different balls in the air, and how do we prioritize these different efforts?

But these all these projects, all these processes are public transparent processes.

So as we see tonight, the next item on the agenda, we're bringing back an item that the council's already decided on.

And we'll have that discussion subsequently.

But we have public meetings.

All of our funding is approved in a public setting.

There's nothing done behind closed doors unless it's statutorily required.

And so I I guess I just push back against that idea a little bit.

But it's not the only tool.

So I just wanted to kind of push back a little bit there because we're engaging in a discussion that is in a public meeting.

I think that's all I wanted to say for that part.

I think tied to the projects and this overall feedback about how we move forward.

Thank you, NCIP for supporting the three and a half million to help support the shortfall in the deficit for this current fiscal year's budget, very helpful towards addressing the needs.

As everybody in this room probably knows, Measure D failed, which would have brought an additional four and a half million this afternoon.

We accepted the votes, uh, the vote results for the Prop 218 regarding the stormwater fee.

That failed, that would have brought in close to another million.

Um, so really our deficit is probably looking thicker and thicker um uh as as we go along here.

And I'm just really concerned that our main focus needs to be lasered in on addressing the deficit and what that means.

And so when we're when we're having conversation around how do we consider more nice to have, I feel like we're spending energy in a space that is taking away from energy that we could be putting towards solving um the elephant in the room.

And very much driven behind that is our infrastructure.

So if I were to offer any suggestion in regards to a prioritization of projects, it's things that meet our capital improvement needs because we have engineers that we pay pretty decent salaries to and benefits that help us look across the city around where there are needs.

And we didn't fund the CIP at all in this year's um budget.

That's concerning what led us here is concerning.

We've kicked the can down the road for far too long.

Are we going to continue to kick the can on the road and have the community go through this process of entertaining more nice to have projects?

Um, I'm just concerned about it.

I don't want to get in the way of the democratic process and allowing the NCIP committee to engage with the community and have the community consider projects.

I just don't know if right now is the time.

So I would offer suggest and ask for the council to consider like why don't we look at doing a pause?

Um we we have seen in the presentation tonight.

Um in 23, there was a backlog of 35.

In 24, there was a backlog of 54.

In 25, there was a backlog of 80.

Fortunately, in 26, there's only about it went down 10, it went to 70, but that was only because there was 11 projects added to the list, which is unusual for the NCIP.

And this is a conversation that we've had over and over again around the NCIP, which is this part of the issue is that we have this huge backlog that we're not solving.

So what I would offer or suggest is why don't we look at allowing staff to dedicate their time and energy towards maybe getting more projects across the finish line that have already been approved that community members have dedicated so much time and energy for NCIP members, people that are applying that have been approved for these projects.

I feel like we're almost going to start repeating what happened prior to COVID.

Um so why don't we take a pause there and maybe try to find a way of utilizing the funds?

It seems like there's more than plenty of projects that we can fulfill from the capital improvement program.

I would like to hear more from staff around how we prioritize that if there is a effort or desire um to utilize that funds, and let's just go with that as opposed to having this whole process where we're getting everybody spun up for when I I don't think everybody's fully kind of allowed it to sink in in regards to the impacts of the deficit and what's to come.

Um so I I would hate for us to go down this process and then something happens later in the fiscal year, and everybody's like, oh crap, we should find ways to cut and make sure that we're not getting rid of our employees.

Because by the way, the last thing we should do in regards to addressing the deficit is getting rid of employees.

We need to make sure that we're doing whatever we can to retain the talent that we have in the city that supports all of the wonderful programs that our community gets to enjoy.

So I'm I'm going on and on, but I I feel like it has to be said, because I'm I'm if there's an opportunity that we have now to help prioritize our energy as as a city as neighbors, um, I know that we all care and we're passionate about um making a difference and making an impact.

I just ask us to make sure that we're thinking about the deficit and what the impacts are associated with that.

So that is my comments.

Please.

I sort of know that we're constrained by how we've set up the agenda.

I feel like NCIPs probably would love to be able to say something else.

Would it be appropriate to ask a representative from NCIP to just give us a little indication of what's gonna happen on August 15th and what they may need between now and the joint meeting?

I'm not asking them to respond back to us, but I'm asking them to maybe do they need a minute to walk us through and tell us what they gonna come back with on the 18th, because on the timeline it is modified and it's presented by our staff, Reggie.

815 is the project nomination deadline, and then the 18th, they are gonna join us back here with a joint city council meeting.

Um, a regular city council meeting.

So between the between now and the 15th and the 18th, I'd love to know what the NCIP leadership is thinking.

I don't know, excuse me, uh Chrissy.

If we can like open it up for just one person to speak.

I think we would have to open it up for everybody if I um I just feel like you know we've got these fine folks here that are representing NCIP.

Um I I know that we've heard in part from some in the NCIP.

I just kind of feel like this process is incomplete.

Would the council entertain an opportunity to open it up for a limited time of no more than six minutes?

But then everybody that wants to speak, that would be that six minutes will be divided up up amongst them, and so they might only get 30 seconds.

I think that would be appropriate because I think there's selected members of NCIP that are gonna want to speak.

Um, I mean, I'm fine opening it back up and just limiting the public comment to a minute.

Okay, I'd go with that.

Are you guys good with that?

All right, let's open it back up for and I would suggest that we start with the vice chair of NCIP.

Well, however, we're gonna follow the same process that we've always followed.

So if the vice chair of NCIP happens to be the first one in line in the chamber, then he would be the first one.

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

Um and I'll check in the chamber.

Anybody in the chamber wishes to speak on this item.

All right, we have one taker.

Anybody else?

All right, well, that's that.

I guess you're the first and the last.

So all right, we'll cut it off to the one.

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

All righty, Mr.

Duke.

I'd love to flir with filament of the Brown Act.

Oh, I'm sorry, cut off.

I there's three on Zoom.

Okay, okay, good.

So the comment about consider multiple opportunities and multiple years of funding.

That's exactly what we did with the Windermere uh million dollar project that was taken in the COVID take.

I got that funding for that project that was necessary in 271,000 increments to get up to the number that was needed to do the project, and then it went away.

Currently, the undergrounding, we are doing that as a once-a-year addition, style additional stipends as A, B, C, D, E, F, G kind of additions to that, so that we can get to the money that we need to be able to match the PGE funding.

Uh, as to the issue of looking at projects and seeing whether or not they ought to be defunded, that's been something I've been pushing the last two years, and we'll continue to push, and the committee has heard from me that that's something that we want to do.

If I can't build it, I don't want to keep the money, and we're gonna need it for other things.

Yeah, the meeting earlier that we had on NCIP, Reggie presented nearly two million dollars worth of overruns that we are going to have to figure out a way to fund.

Okay, in addition to anything else.

So we have to be pretty darn creative, and I think we have a good group to do it, and I think we need to have the freedom to be able to do those things.

Thank you.

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

Our first speaker is Tom.

Um, yes.

Uh, the multi-year funding uh idea that I've spoken about in the past is actually different from what's been done uh, which is as Dennis just described, it's so many dollars approved each and every year.

What my concept is say it's a million dollars for five years, so it's it's already pre-approved for a stretch of five years, a million dollars per year.

There's no more discussion at the NIP committee or the city council.

It's automatically approved.

Um, when projects are defunded, that money goes back to the NIP funds.

I think there's maybe some mistaken thought that this money will become available in the general fund, it won't, it goes back to the NIP fund.

And all these discussions seem like we're trying to make a camel out of a horse.

It's the NIP is what the NIP is, and really what you're trying to do here is you're trying to force the NIP to do something that you want to have done.

And it's really the committee who gets to decide that.

Thank you.

Esther is not is the next speaker.

Hi, I just wanted to um make a point uh that I like that um council member Smith highlighted um resident uh needs or as one of the priorities, and uh I think he said resident serving.

And he also mentioned Solicito Park, which Solicito Park gets a lot of money and attention from the city city staff and funding, and Laguna Grande Park is still struggling to try and get our project done, and I'm working on all these creative nonprofit avenues, but I would submit that continuing to give money repeatedly to the same park without spreading out the funding is not okay.

So I want to put that on the record because um I agree with resident um issues being important, especially health related.

Thank you.

And from the firefighters association, you can go ahead.

Hi, this is this is uh Philip Azusi again.

Just wanted to offer appreciation for uh Mayor Willemson's thoughtful consideration of uh preserving our talent uh here at the City of Monterey.

Um, you know, we do we have great appreciation for the jobs that we have, and and we feel that we're all part of the city family.

Um, you know, no matter what department you're from, whether it's fire or recreation, public works, etc.

Um, you know, everybody's important here and has a great job to do.

And then finally, while it's we have a rather complex system here um to secure funding for for various projects.

You know, I'm trying to learn it and navigate it, but to our our boots on the ground who are working at the fire stations, doesn't matter to them, you know, who approved the funding, whether it's the council or the NCIP.

Um it it makes no difference to them.

What really matters is that they're taken care of and they have a you know a fire station that they can respond from, all righty.

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

Thank you for uh indulging on that unique uh opportunity here from folks again.

Um I think what's set before us is a timeline that's reasonable.

We'll hear uh more back from NCIP at our joint meeting on the 18th.

I just have one um just one little thing tells me a pang in my stomach that tells me that the NCIP has a process that's institutionalized that is statutorily guided by the charter, and we do need to acknowledge that we have structural deficits and they are compounded by the results of recent election, however, the two are not necessarily connected unless we wind up talking about an NCIP recommended project that's sponsored by their vote through an applicant that might touch one of those CIPs or something that helps the city budget side, but I never want to blame anyone or lay the responsibility of a structural deficit in the city budget on anybody else but this council, and so we do have tough decisions.

We do need to acknowledge that we are going to go through this next uh six to eight months trying to figure out the go forward plan.

The city managers laid out a timeline, and I'm looking forward to working through that, but we cannot continue to stay on the same course, and we passed a budget in June that is a stopgap measure to get us for the next six months, but we will have more decisions to make in January and February that are gonna have long-term effects on our structural deficit.

So I know that that's there, but within the city process, we have the NCIP.

That is a process that they have always found a way to find things that benefit the city at large, capital improvements, and things that the city budget would otherwise have to pay for.

So it's a unique partnership.

There's nowhere else in California like this, and we have um kind and caring folks that work really hard to do this process.

So a big appreciation to all of them for this process.

I look forward to the next uh joint meeting on the 18th.

Those are always fruitful and always enlightening, and appreciate all of your input.

Oh, please, Dante and Mayor.

Just to clarify, uh, for the record, since the posting of this agenda, um, it had a tentative date for that joint city council evening session um of the of the 18th.

That meeting has been actually moved up until 8-4.

So I just wanted to make that correction.

Um, that has happened since the posting of this agenda.

Perfect.

Thank you for that clarification.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

So part of my um questions, I I think we're trying um clarify for me.

Um especially looking at this list of nine bullets, uh nine projects for consideration.

Trying to see if that's where staff and perhaps others saw the greatest need for attention within this list of of uh projects, and and I think that um I'm my concern also is that um because of our current situation, our current context, um we're we're not paying attention to the uh major infrastructure items that in the end, if not addressed, will be impacting our our residents.

So if it helps in terms of any guidance, since that's what um the uh the request is here, I would also advocate for more of an emphasis on what what are those bigger projects that um we're needing to address sooner rather than later that have uh an impact on our greater community versus those projects, still valuable projects, but have less of an impact, maybe more in a neighborhood or a certain part of the city.

So that would be what what I offer.

Thank you.

Well, every year NCIP puts at the top of the list the um fuel reduction in our 799 acres of forests.

So um, not only can we not statutorily um not have NCIP for a year.

Um, I would never want to pause it for any length of time because I want to know that the community has the opportunity to continue to say that their number one priority is taking the fuel out, and that was between a million and two million dollars in the last year or two.

If we have 2.7, we need that one to two million dollars to keep us from burning.

So uh take that, and maybe the fire stations need some supplement.

We'll see what they need.

Somebody's gonna need something, and CIP will be there, and um, we'll make the best decisions that we can as a community uh with what we have.

Um I think I would I kind of want to clarify a point that Tom was making, and perhaps Tom, you and I can connect offline too, because maybe I didn't fully understand what your comment was.

Um but I I would clarify the process.

How it works is it goes through the NCIP.

The NCIP makes a recommendation, and the council is the body that makes the decision.

Frankly, since I've been on the council, it's been it's been pretty much rubber stamp for the most part.

So I can understand how it's been interpreted as if the NCIP is the body that makes the decision.

I think the point that I'm making is all of us, and we know this in our personal lives, have limited bandwidth.

We only have so much capacity.

As a city, we have only so much capacity, and we've loaded so much on staff right now.

Is there a way that we can find a way of scaling back in the short term so that we can focus on the deficit?

Not to say that this is gonna be the solution for the long term, but heck, if I can save Reggie some time of having to prepare agendas to respond to NCIP members on project proposals and going back and forth and extra meetings, because now we're talking about re reevaluating the 70 projects to see if we can remove some of those, all that time and capacity could be spent towards actually addressing some of the infrastructure that's already on the books.

Let's address these 70s projects.

Let's address our capital improvement program.

Let's address the deficit.

Let's focus on the basics, the foundation.

Let's stop adding on.

Um, and I and I think it would help save us all time.

And the concern that I have is that the council gets to the decision in what's proposed to be of April next year when we have to approve projects, the funding, and whatever it comes out to be, call me crazy, but do you not see it as a possibility that when the cards are all laid out on the table and we're trying to figure out how to address the long-term structural deficit, that somehow we're not gonna potentially use the NCIP funds to help us meet that need.

This isn't about stealing money from anybody.

This is about this is city money.

All of this is city money.

We're talking about it because it's city business.

We have to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars.

And if we're continuing to consider projects that may end up pissing more people off because we've gone down a whole path.

If anything, if we can help truncate this and we have a joint session with the NCIP where we get their feedback and input so that we can make that decision in the same meeting.

Let's try to create some efficiency in this process.

So again, we can allow staff in the council and the public to focus these conversations over the next several months on addressing the deficit.

Isn't that what's on all of our minds?

Isn't that what we want to address?

Isn't that the elephant in the room?

I uh I I I asked the council to seek some reason in in how do we prioritize the use of our time over the next several months.

So all right, I think staff, do you have you feel like you have what you need?

Um, all right.

With that, we're gonna go ahead and move on to item 16 on the agenda, which is a motion for reconsideration of resolution numbers 26-083 CS, which awarded a construction contract to the Don Chapin Company Inc.

for the Madison Herman Larkin intersection safety improvement project and directed staff to conduct outreach, be open to project modifications, request an extension of grant funding, and return to the council for final project approval, and if reconsideration motion is granted, decide whether to approve the Madison Herman Larkin intersection safety improvement project, accept related grant funding, and award a contract to the Don Chapin Company Inc.

in the amount of 143, 140,306.50 cents.

With that, I'll pass it to Dante for actually, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna pass it to Dante.

If you're okay with that, I'm actually just gonna because this was requested to be reconsidered by Councilmember Ash.

So I'll go ahead and pass to cut some barrash to kick us off.

Okay, thank you.

So we left off with that vote that that the mayor just explained.

And um starting the next day, I got quite a number of calls from residents in the community.

I think I may have gotten them and maybe others did or did not.

You'll have to speak for yourself, because I'm the one that pulled it off um the consent agenda.

So I I think I am attached to this whole process.

So a lot of people were concerned um that we were in contract before we had any community feedback, and that um they weren't happy.

So um I needed quickly to decide whether I was going to um ask for reconsideration, which is the process that someone in the majority vote can ask by the next meeting to have it reconsidered, and um I um I I felt that um I wanted the community to know basically the same thing, and I needed a tool to calibrate the feelings of the community.

So I wrote out a paragraph which has become the petition, and it included that it's TAMSI money, that it was um quoted to be 130,000 into the contract, that it was a temporary project, things about the the proposal that I thought the public really should remember.

And I said, I just put it out and said um if people want to get this back to me so that I can figure out how many people are upset, what they're upset about, then get it back to me.

I'm gonna decide.

If I get 40 people that are concerned about this.

I will I said to myself, I will ask for reconsideration.

Well, within 36 hours, I had 74 people um opposed to um the contract going forward.

Within the next 24 hours, I had another um 40, and I've gotten another um 12 over the weekend and into today.

So um not and of the last 12, five, six want to go forward with the proposal.

One wants to go through the go forward with with the proposal with changes, and then another what's the main the remainder, another five were against the contract.

So that's what we have.

Um I think we should I I am putting forth that um I think a vast majority of the public is upset with this, and we need to talk about it.

The place to start might be reconsideration for the purpose of not going forward with the contract, which which will have some repercussions, or we can not reconsider and just go on as we are.

I I might have pass it off to um staff for what those choices are, and I think I think they were actually written up quite well here.

Could we do some staff questions?

Absolutely.

Are you all set for now?

Um, or do you want to have that talked about first before we move on to others?

Um, no, that's just the background um that I think people need.

Um let's see.

If if anybody else wants to give the project background, and then we have um the choices.

I have a lot of questions for staff, but I didn't want to start with that.

Could we maybe have staff articulate what those different alternatives are?

Yes, and I'll have uh Andrew um come up and give a brief presentation in response to any questions.

Thank you, Dante.

So just a brief presentation.

I'm just gonna recap how we got here and where we're at.

So rewind 2023, Tamsi had a grant program that was released.

It was a new pilot grant program to do quick build projects.

Uh quick builds for something new that's been successful in a lot of other agencies rather than having a long plan development, uh plan production phase, an expensive phase.

We hired a lot of consultants to modeling, plan production.

It would use temporary non-permanent materials, just do something quickly, try it out with the community, get feedback, see if they like it, want to make permanent, want to make adjustments.

So it was always intended to be like this new tool that Tampsy was encouraging cities to do uh to do traffic calming solutions.

Uh so staff got the grant.

We came to council and planning commission, it was approved um three years later.

Hasn't been a quick project.

Uh, I just want to emphasize we have been short staffed, we've been working on this, but um it's it's been uh not as quick as ideal.

Uh we came back to council, had the project awarded, uh it was pulled for comment.

We did receive a lot of feedback after award from the community.

So we've heard a lot of the same things you have, and then we received um this motion to reconsider.

Um so it's I just wanted to emphasize staff was trying to do the right thing, um, helped the council achieve its objectives, the vision zero plan, safe for us to school program, move Monterey, um general plan policies, and we got this grant funding to do the quick bill project, was always intended to be non-permanent, um, and that we would come back to the council later.

Um so we were just trying to do the best we could to help improve the community.

Um I think that's how we got here.

That's what the quick build is.

And uh with that, I'd be happy to answer specific questions.

I was just trying to set the stage.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Couldn't please.

Can I go next?

Yeah, you're you're on.

So um, you know, one of the things I learned from Kate Daniels when I ran for office is to start where we all agree.

And um, I agree, we we all want the best, and we're all doing our best.

And I I encourage us to to stay with that.

Um, we all want safer transportation and pedestrian walkage for our children.

We all want community engagement.

We all want to be included, we all want to have a voice.

So we want transparency, and we want to know how our dollars are spent.

Yes.

Gene, I apologize.

Yeah.

Do you want questions?

Yes.

Yeah, I I thought you were so my first question is um you stated that it went to council in 2023.

Yeah.

It didn't.

I, you know, I don't I don't believe it did.

Tamsi gave a report in 2023, November.

And um, it was a general report by Todd Muck, and this intersection was not introduced.

So it went to planning commission, it was presented to planning commission, and it was adopted onto the CIP list in November of 2023.

I don't have the exact date, but it it was November when it was added to the CIP list.

Under a CIR preoccurring CIP list, okay.

I would not know about that, but it wasn't it wasn't presented by Tom Todd Muck in the No, Todd hasn't been here to present on the specific.

Okay, all right, all right.

So questions.

Um are we talking about 130,000 or 140,000?

Or I'm actually seeing 249,000 and some change.

Yeah.

And that the 249,000 seems to be the budget, and the 130 seems to be the contract with Don Chapin.

So great question.

So these were in a former staff report.

There's a lot of numbers in there.

So the total base bid with Don Chapin was 140,000.

Um, so that's the amount that we would be contracting with Chapin.

We were also authorized to spend another 15% in contingencies.

So that would be $21,000.

That's for unforeseen construction conditions, changes that might not need to happen to make the project occur.

The grant funding, the total funds available is 210,000 of grant funds of that, or in addition to that, there was approximately 240,000 because we also spent some money in design to put together plans and studies.

So 240 was the overall grant budget, two 10 is what's available, 140 is what's the base contract amount that we would be awarding to Chapin, plus another 15% for construction contingencies.

All right.

So I just want to say, well, I can wait, I can make statements later.

So what will be the economic damages to us, the loss, if we reconsider and do not go into contract tonight?

Yeah, so ultimately we've we've spent some money on design.

29,000.

29,000, and potentially probably that's gonna go back to Tam C.

Uh, although ultimately they have a board of directors that makes those final decisions.

But we've talked with Tamsi staff.

So if if the grant project isn't delivered as we you know accepted in the grant agreement, then we probably wouldn't be uh reimbursed those costs that we've sunk so far.

So that's potentially 29,000.

Past that, if we pulled the the ripcord, those are the sunk costs.

There wouldn't be any additional costs of the city unless we wanted to try to do this project in the future.

Um if we had to rebid bid pricing would probably come in more expensive any time we rebid a project, the lowest responsive contractor sees how much money they left on the table, and so your costs never go down, they only increase.

All right.

Um if we don't go to reconsideration, and we go into the community engagement, and at the community engagement, people don't want to continue.

We then will have been in contract.

When do we when are we legally in contract?

So the agreement hasn't been fully executed yet, even though I we have the council resolution.

It does take time to get through contracting.

The bids are valid for 90 days from time they were submitted.

The bids were open May 26th.

So the bid essentially expires August 24th.

Unless the contractor says they'd honor it for some reason.

So there's still some runway, if that makes any sense.

So if we do the community outreach and we decide, hey, the really the public support's not there.

Council wants to, you know, just end the project and walk away.

Staff won't be brokenhearted.

It's ultimately your decision.

Like, like I said, we're just trying to do the best for the community.

And so if that's ultimately the decision of the council, uh, yeah, we'd probably be lose out on the the cost we spent so far, and we'd walk away from potential grant funding outside dollars coming in.

Um and under the topic of um that the motion included getting receiving feedback from the community and being open to making changes.

Does that legally, I think this is a legal question, include the ability for the community to say, dump the whole thing?

I mean, again, can we do we have to decide tonight to end the project?

Is this our only chance?

Or will we have the chance after Thursday's community discussion?

So council can always request to agendize new items, uh, and so I think there's opportunities for council to to make those requests to come back.

So if we don't take any action tonight, uh I think there is a process for council to request or agendize new items, and I guess we would have some some time to do that before the bid expires, and even once the bid expires, uh, I think there's opportunity to reconsider this project.

Correct.

And as the council knows, um, your direction at the last meeting was to come back to you for final decision.

So council will get a second bite at this if you continue with the process.

To include the ability to end the whole proposal.

Yeah, you have the ability to um uh approve or not approve the project.

And what would that cost us?

I mean, it does it cost us the entirety of the contract with John Chapin of 130,000, or is it just the expenses to date?

No, no.

So even once the contract's executed and until there's a notice to proceed and there's actually work that's ongoing that they can invoice us for, there's there's nothing that's automatically due to the contractor.

Okay, all right.

Um but that being said, I wouldn't recommend that we enter into a contract while there's this ambiguity in whether or not we want to proceed.

Can you can you repeat that?

I'm sorry.

I I would not suggest that the city sign and enter into a contract when there's indecisiveness over whether or not it's going forward, and when do we have to sign and enter into a contract?

August 24th basically.

The bid is good for 90 days, so by the end of August.

Oh, okay.

All right.

So this is new information.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Um those are my questions.

Any other questions?

Uh, I don't know who's handed one up first.

Oh, Gino's fine.

Good.

Uh Andrew, uh, a few questions.

Um can you share with us what was the and and either in your perspective or the team's perspective, what's the primary driver for applying for these types of funds?

So, yeah, the the driver will there's um uh council um it's a driver statements, but we do have active transportation as one of our goals, and so this fits in well with one of the council's uh value drivers, and it also again fits in with a lot of general plan policies.

It's consistent with our safe strout uh safe routes to school program or vision zero, which is reducing uh uh severe and fatal collision injuries to zero plan, and then our move monterey, our multi-modability plan.

So it was consistent with council value drivers, at least in staff's opinion, and then consistent with a lot of the plans that had a lot of outreach to develop and and ultimately get approved by council.

Um so that was really what was driving us, and then once the oh and then within the grant program itself, TamC has its own goals, but they were encouraging agencies to do stuff faster rather than getting stuck in a years-long process of you know developing detailed plans and and putting together that long project development phase, saying just do something with cheap non-permanent materials, try it out with the community, get feedback, decide if you need to tweak it, make changes, make it permanent.

So on the flip side, Tamsi, who's the awarding agency, was trying to encourage cities to just do something, be responsive, do something quick with cheap materials, and then get the feedback from the community, see if you want to make it permanent or non-permanent or make changes.

So great, it aligns with plans and our values.

But what does that do for our community?

So to improve having these plans, save routes to schools, vision zero, what what is what is the motivation for jurisdictions to have these plants?

So uh the vision zero specifically is reducing collision, safe routes to school, uh, in addition to traffic safety, was also encouraging students to if they feel safer to go to to walk to school or to bike to school, maybe those are trips that pedestrians will walk or students will choose to walk rather than you know, carpool or get in the car and drive and create more congestion on the streets.

So uh, in terms of improving the community, hopefully offloading vehicular traffic, encouraging students to walk to school and improving traffic safety.

So, in a few words, improving safety for our students, our families, yeah.

Folks who walk through there, who ride bikes, even who drive, correct?

Um in the time that you've been with City of Monterey, have you received communication from neighbors, residents expressing concerns specifically about this intersection?

Yeah, yeah.

We've actually had uh a couple emails.

We went back recently and and compiled a lot of the email correspondence about this intersection.

We've had emails from people saying, you know, someone should really do something here, and so uh one reason this intersection was was selected because it was on a route to school, so it was consistent with the safe rest to school policy.

It did have a you know some collision history there, so it was it would move the needle with our vision zero policy, and we did have some some community engagement, you know, early on, even if it was just emails saying, hey, look, there's a lot of school traffic, someone should really do something.

So we felt it was a good candidate at the time when we submitted the application and thought it checked a lot of boxes with the different plans and policies and value drivers.

And this communication has been over the span of months, years, uh I went back a few years.

I I full caveat, I've only been with the city three years.

So just as I was getting here, is kind of when this was getting rolling, but yeah, is as far as I know.

I I've seen some emails throughout the years uh regarding this intersection.

Right.

Um, in terms of the actual installation, knowing that it's a quick build, it's temporary.

Let's say we move forward, we install it.

Everybody gets an opportunity to feel what that uh infrastructure could do for safety for better traffic flow or whatever the uh the uh goals are through community feedback.

Once the installation is there, if community at that point offers that feedback saying, you know what?

We we still don't feel like this is appropriate.

Can the installation be removed?

Can the intersection put back to its original state?

Yeah, great question, 100%.

And in fact, that's kind of the intent of the program.

The intent is just do something, try something quickly.

Even if you know you try it and it doesn't work, it's it's cheap temporary material, it can be removed, restored to its original condition, and ultimately that was the plan.

We did intend to come back to council.

And so, yeah, if we hear from the community, we hate this, we want it to go back to the way it was.

Yeah, you know, a year from now, those those are plastic temporary posts, they can be pulled out, the decorative traffic circle can be removed, and we can bring it back to its original condition.

Can it does it have to be say a year from now?

Can it be six months?

Like what's that timing?

So it's staff's intent was to do it a year from now.

Uh if there's an appetite to do it earlier, I think council can make that request to agendize the item.

Um, but yeah, and and I think our original report we said we do plan to come back to council a year from now.

Once we've heard from the community, see how it's been received, if people have gotten acclimated, still hate it.

Whatever the case be, you know, we'd say here's the feedback we heard.

You guys have kind of probably your own feedback from uh residents and would ultimately make the call.

Do you want to keep it?

Do we want to make adjustments or do you want to just scrap it entirely?

Got it.

All right, thank you, Andrew.

So I think uh he's answered the question again.

So you're all set?

I'm all set.

Like to hear from the public.

I've got a couple.

Please, yeah.

Um tell us the collision history.

Sure.

Uh, so leading up to it, I had it printed out in front of me.

So at the time of the grant application, we had uh eight collisions in the database we had access to uh in the two years prior, and then since uh we accepted the grant in 2023, we've had four collisions to the present.

And I will just caveat that with saying the collision database we have access to is the transportation injury mapping system.

It's kind of a weird system, it doesn't have a comprehensive list of collisions, so it might only have injury uh collisions.

We might not be seeing property damage only or non-reported collisions.

So it could be an incomplete data set.

If someone says there's more collisions, we might not have records on it.

So is that 12 collisions in how many years?

12 collisions since 21.

Since 2021.

Okay, were there any um do you know if there were any injuries?

I don't have the specific details of it.

They should have some injuries because it was the transportation injury mapping system.

So even if it was just minor injuries or complaint of pains, it would be on that database.

Uh so that should be injury collisions, not property damage only.

Okay, all right.

Um, and it's accurate though that if we reverse it, if if we go through the sequence and we decide to reverse it, that cost is all borne by the city, not by Tam C.

The design uh fees that we've already had, yes, that would probably come to the and I'm saying probably because ultimately TAMSC would make that final call, but it would probably have to uh it wouldn't be reimbursed, it would probably be born by the same.

All right, yeah, sure, sure.

So even if the project was installed.

Oh, did I misunderstood that?

I think that's that was the question, right?

Even if the project is installed, and oh, and then afterwards we decide right we still don't like it.

Funding is for the build, yes.

Sorry, thank you for weighing in.

I must have misunderstood the question.

So even if it's installed and ultimately scrapped entirely, no.

Uh those funds would be eligible.

Uh so TAMC actually really wants, they don't want these things to be permanent projects.

They don't want staff to pick and say, here's exactly what we're gonna do, we're gonna make this permanent.

It's intended to be kind of a trial, see if it works with temporary materials, make modifications, and then if there is support for a larger project, then come back with the excavators and the bulldozers and do a kind of a more permanent type of project.

So it yeah, I I think they're they're looking for projects that try something new, even if it's unsuccessful, they're just trying to say, hey, this is a demonstration project.

Here's a pilot project, something new to try, and that's part of the quick build project.

On Tampsy's dime, on Tamsi's time, yes.

They're paying for that.

All right.

Um thank you for um okay.

Okay, all right.

With that, we'll go ahead and take it out to public comment.

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

Folks in the chamber, just ask that you stand up to the left of the podium.

If you want to remain seated, feel free to do so.

I'll capture hands here in a second.

Okay, so we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Am I math correct?

Am I mathing?

Ten.

Anybody else still sitting that wants to speak for public comment.

10.

We have one straggler coming, so that's gonna make it eleven.

All right, so we'll cut it off to the 11 in the chamber.

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

We have five on Zoom.

We're gonna go ahead and leave it to two minutes.

We'll go ahead and start in the chamber.

Hi, Cora again.

Uh so local resident sustainability program manager for the county.

These kinds of projects do fall into my realm of expertise, which I'm happy to share with you today.

So last time discussion items fell into three main buckets: safety, flow, and volume.

So, in regards to safety, this project does rather well.

It narrows lanes, it makes tighter turns.

This induces slower and safer turns for pedestrians and bicycles, and also for people in vehicles.

Um, by only having one right turn, that reduces options and conflict.

That's very good for safety.

We have to recognize that this intersection is actually quite dangerous in status quote conditions.

There are four options for drivers when you approach the intersection, and people do not understand right away.

I have always I've almost been hit at this intersection.

I've seen several near misses personally.

For flow, this is where the project falls short.

It is not stated in the project goals.

Um I highly recommend that the stop signs be removed as part of this trial.

That would keep the traffic moving in a full roundabout configuration and actually reduce congestion.

Volume and congestion is really where a lot of our residents are concerned.

And again, the root cause of this is that we need to be shifting our students away from the drop off line and driving themselves so that they can bike and walk and take the bus to school safely.

That way we can actually reduce the pile-up of cars that we have on our streets.

Um, as far as cost goes, budgets are really tight.

I do not think we should be throwing away 29,000 at a time like this, especially on a temporary project where funds are eligible to remove the project if we decide that we hate it.

I am annoyed that the outreach didn't happen prior to this.

I will be furious if a student is seriously injured in that intersection when we could have done something about that.

And I think that there is plenty of opportunity as this project moves forward for outreach to be scheduled and transparent and for the data collection from the pilot project to be made available to the public and so that we can really have a better process moving forward.

Thank you.

I was employed by the California Highway Patrol as a motor carrier specialist from 1995 till 2010.

Part of my duties was inspecting and uh evaluating uh I was the safety inspector for school buses at all the districts in this area, including Carmel and Salinas and all the farm labor buses.

I was the guy who investigated the bus that crashed into the aquarium.

I was the guy who chased down the duck boat who told me he's a boat.

Well, I told him when he drove up the ramp he's a bus and he's gonna get a permit.

That's what I did.

I have worked with the school district, and I am still very close with the people that.

Well, I was over there today at the transportation office.

Currently, the school district, Monterey School, high school, during the year that just finished, had 1413 students.

Among them student, those students, the ones who received reduced price free meals was 734.

That's more than half.

All those people, by definition, are entitled to free bus rides.

The district, this started years ago.

Just started after I retired.

Those kids, the parents came to sign them up for free bus rides.

The district previously they collected money for the year per student to transport the kids on the bus.

Today they told me there are three buses that bring students from the entire north side of town.

And then another point was made when I was talking to them.

One guy that works there told me, Well, I dropped my kid off in the morning, but he walks downtown and he rides home on the transit.

Sir, that's your time.

Can I uh I'll finish with a comment.

I'm sorry, sir.

That's your time.

If I give that to you, I have to give it to everybody else, and I just want to make sure that we're fair, so that's your time, please.

Well, I don't feel like you're being fair.

I try to set a precedent here.

I apologize, but let's let the school school district.

Sir, please let the next person speak.

Your time is up.

You have a timer right in front of you.

So everybody pay attention to the timer because when the timer ends, I'm gonna ask you to wrap up your comments.

Mayor Williamson and Council, I want to encourage you to vote for the reconsideration of the construction contract for this quick build project.

This project is wrong for so many reasons, but primarily because the council voted to put the cart before the horse in awarding this contract before any public outreach.

Despite the initial proposal over three years ago, not once did city staff reach out to residents.

This is disrespectful.

When were we going to find out about it?

When the construction started?

Staff states that the goal is to reduce vehicle speed through this intersection, but staff's perception is false.

This issue is gridlock, not speed.

Neighbors asked Monterey police for help with traffic controls at this intersection.

We also asked this very council.

Tonight is not the first time my council my neighbors and I have asked you for help with this congestion.

We were at council in March 2025 asking for help with traffic enforcement.

In fact, many of my neighbors that are here tonight were here over a year ago.

I would like now to ask all my neighbors to please raise your hand to show support for the council's uh reconsideration of this project.

City staff somehow believe that turning a five-way stop into a traffic circle, adding some obstacles, making the road lanes narrower, all while removing parking would relieve this congestion.

In reality, our neighborhood can tell you it will only make it worse.

The need for this project is not supported by any traffic studies and is not supported by any residents.

Over the past few years, the traffic patterns around Monterey High have changed.

Important access points were closed, forcing drivers to use a single intersection, the site of this quick build causing gridlock.

This issue could be addressed if the school worked with the city, parents, students, and others to make other pickup and drop-off locations available.

I urge the council to listen to your constituents and vote in favor of this reconsideration.

I hope that you will see the strong opposition to this project and dot and deny this project outright.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor and City Council.

I'm here to comment on the traffic project modifications proposed by the city at the intersection of Madison, Larkin, and Herman.

There are several things wrong with this proposed project, so I'll try to be brief.

Planning for this project started back in 2023, and citizens only found out about it when it appeared on the consent agenda at a June city council meeting.

We neighbors are uniquely qualified to comment on the viability of the project, and we are also the ones most impacted every morning and every afternoon during the school year.

We were never notified.

In fact, if it hadn't been for the awareness and courage of council member member Rash, we may never have known about it until construction started.

Secondly, Monterey High School was listed as a partner in the project.

This is the same Monterey High School that pays no taxes but wants to co-opt the very roads we pay for.

Thirdly, the city's stated purpose is traffic calming, which is the opposite of what's needed.

Gridlock is the issue, which has been exacerbated by a couple of things.

Monterey High closed several access points to the campus during their post-COVID construction project and failed to reopen them after construction was finished.

Additionally, with roughly 13 to 1400 students by generally accepted standards, they should have 300 to 340 parking spaces.

They currently have less than 100.

Additionally, the new three-way stop in Madison, Hartnell, and Polk only allows three to four cars to move through per traffic sequence to move down Madison, adding to the gridlock.

Thirdly, there was never a professional traffic study done by an objective outside firm to determine the appropriateness of this project.

Lastly, given the dire financial status of the city's finances, it seems irresponsible to spend almost 175,000 bucks on a project that is improperly planned, hidden from the public, and called temporary.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and staff and council people.

I would just like to add, my neighbors have done quite a good job, but you should recognize that I didn't hear or see anyone from Monterey High School even on present here tonight.

You may have had dialogue with the high school previous to this time, but it would be a very easy answer to have staggered times when children are getting out of school to ensure their safety.

And all the school would do would be able to take 10 minutes or 15 minutes and keep traffic flowing rather than seeing the gridlock that's on both Martin Street as you go down, or if you go down Madison or try to go down via Del Rey at certain times of the day, it's impossible.

You might as well just wait till the school hours are off.

So I can't believe that there hasn't been more dialogue between the city and the school to come up with a reasonable answer for traffic flow.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Uh my name is Tim Eckert, and I'm a resident on Larkin Street near the intersection that we're talking about.

I uh vehemently oppose this uh proposal, and I request the council reconsider uh and withdraw the uh contract to Don Chapin and also reconsider the moving forward with this project.

I've heard a lot of talk about safety um for uh the children, which I am 100% in support of, but the issue is as mentioned before is gridlock.

This is a this is an intersection that cars don't obey the traffic rules, they block the intersections, they park illegally, waiting for children to come out.

It's it's a volume issue, it is not a flow issue.

Um, the kids after they exit the inner the intersection after school, they race down Larkin to see if they can get to 60 miles an hour before they get to Jefferson.

Um, this is a ready fire aim project.

It's been moved forward, submitted in 2023, monies were spent or not spent on consultants to uh come up with a with a uh set of data that that supported a preset conclusion, it looks like.

So the request is step back, involve the community, which there has been none.

There's been no communication to the residents.

We have received zero communication.

The data doesn't support it.

Tim's data is shows that there has only been four accidents in the last 10, 12 years.

That's injury, non-injury accidents with vehicles.

It's doesn't correlate with the data that the city sees.

So it's ambiguous at best.

So we don't have a common set of facts, we don't have alternatives, and and it just doesn't make sense to move forward with a contract with a bid when we don't even know what we're doing.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Nancy Soulay.

I'm the secretary of the Old Town Neighborhood Association, and as such, I got a lot of email on this subject.

The almost to a one, uh, there has been opposition to the speed of this, the lack of consulting, and the concerns for safety.

I know we're all here to try to get safety, but the Tamsey report said that the purpose of this was to reduce the speed.

And as you've heard, it's not speed, it's total gridlock.

I mean, I'd be surprised if you go two miles an hour in the two periods that are are the problem periods.

Those problem periods are when school just before school and just after school when the kids are getting out.

I love the suggestions that you're hearing there.

And I hope that the council talks to this man about the buses that he seems to know a lot about.

Sounds like there's a bus solution that could also be added to it.

Other things that I've heard, and I did have questions that I had sent to Marisa in the public works because she said to direct all the questions to her.

So I summarized them, but I've had no answers.

We've asked on behalf of the various uh letters I received for the widths of these new lanes, how wide will they be?

You've got now a uh a center divide between each one.

The concern is that as you're going around the traffic school circle, now a pedestrian enters where you're wanting to exit.

So that car immediately would go to a stop.

You've got everybody just jammed in around the traffic circle.

So it's not only gridlocking the traffic circle, but in a very emergency type of um situation to do so.

Um, I think it's very important that we look at at other solutions, including the other exits that could be possible that have been possible for drop-off before.

I also heard about how about sandbaggings, sandbag these areas, the traffic, the circle itself and the dividers, so we can see how that works.

Thank you.

Mayor and council members and staff, I'm Bruce Sineta, Vice President of the Monterey Vista Neighborhood Association.

Last night our NVA board voted to support the following message of reconsideration on the project before you.

Um, this is what they voted on.

We support the action of the City of Monterey to not award a contract to construct a quick build traffic circle at the intersection of Laura and Madison Herman Streets.

We under understand that the that this project is not considered permanent, but only a pilot project to see how the community views the traffic circle.

We understand the project costs uh are around 130,000 and was funded by the transportation agency for Monterey County's quick build pilot program.

We understand that it was specifically created to help local agencies test pedestrian and bicycle route improvements quickly and cost effectively before investing in permanent solutions.

However, our concern is about the process for this project.

Outreach to the general public on this project has not happened.

Public outreach should have been done sometime within the last two and a half years, maybe three since the project um inception, and public outreach should have occurred first before a contract was awarded.

The city has done this backwards.

To award a contract first is to pressure the surrounding neighborhoods into a project that may be neither wanted nor needed.

Thank you for your time, consideration, and concern.

Mayor City Council Pat Benza President Monterey.

Um there is a lot wrong with this project.

First is the process not involving the residents for their opinion was wrong.

Second, I am not a traffic engineer, but keeping cars longer in a congested intersection just does not seem to make much sense.

The stop signs are still gonna be there, and now the cars would all go around the circle, even if the quickest way out would not require that.

Third is the parking loss.

It is already at a minimum in that area.

Fourth and most important to me is that our city and the economy as a whole should be only doing what is needed, needed to be done, not what is a want to try it out.

I don't care if the money is city money or Tamsi money or some grant money that will be lost.

Wasting taxpayer money is never a good thing, but especially now.

So hopefully, we reconsider, you listen to the uh residents on Thursday, and um it's reconsidered.

But doing a project just to spend funds that are there, no matter who the funds come from, just does not seem right to me.

Thank you.

My name is Kim Appleberry.

My wife and I are at 16 El Caminito del Norte, and the house that our parents bought 66 years ago.

We have been through that intersection thousands of times.

The problems I see, I believe you, mayor, that the city is transparent.

This was not being intentionally hidden.

It was intentional that they would build quick and then find out how the neighbors liked it.

I mean, that was stated.

That is that really how Monterey wants to spend their money and run, build it and then find out.

I mean, that they stated that.

The other thing is they talk about traffic calming and throw around the idea of safety, although there's no traffic study to show what the safety factors are that this is solving.

It's a matter of it's just a matter of opinion.

Um the the um the calming effect.

Well, all cars that come to the intersection stop.

So I, you know, coming through tonight, I I looked, leaving the stop sign.

I'm through the intersection before I get to 15 miles an hour.

So what is the calming needed?

That doesn't make sense.

So I I think this is a mistake in in a couple of ways, and mostly that it doesn't do any good.

It's if you want pedestrian safety, deal with the crosswalks, not this impediment and flower boxes, um, deal with the crosswalks.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Uh, my husband and I have lived uh in that neighborhood for nearly 35 years.

We live up the hill above the high school.

Um I use that intersection several times a day.

Uh I go down Herman and uh down Madison and then back up again.

I usually see a car, sometimes two, uh sometimes a pedestrian, but there's really not a lot of traffic there.

Um it's always the gridlock at uh school drop-off and pickup times.

And that's not addressed at all in this plan at all.

Um they talk about safety, but it's still the same crosswalks, there's nothing done for safety for the kids.

They talk about traffic calming, it's it's gridlock.

So if you're gonna do calming, uh, we may as well just turn our engines off because we're just sitting there.

I've sat there up to five minutes sometimes.

Uh you just sit there, it backs up.

If you're going up Madison and you get stuck in it at the Larkin as they're trying to turn into the school, it backs up down to the police station.

And until the school steps up and does something about it, it's not gonna change.

This plan does nothing to change that.

And it's too bad this gentleman was cut off because he has the facts that none of us do about the buses because that's the problem.

There is no bus service.

These parents are having to go pick their kids up, and what are they gonna do?

Because they turn, they go up Madison, they turn left onto Larkin, and then they're stuck because it's a circular drive to get into the school, go around through the school, and exit onto um Herman.

But they can't because it's backed up at the gridlock at the intersection.

This plan does not address that in any way, shape, or form.

So traffic calming, we don't need it.

Safety for the kids, it's not in here.

They still have to cross at the same crosswalks.

So, what has been accomplished?

And like they said a little while ago about the um the the price, that just slays me.

29,000 for this plan.

They've got horse troughs in there, that metal.

That's a horse trough.

These pylons sticking up, they're taking away Larkin Street parking.

I'm stunned.

And then to say that it's it's a grant.

That's our tax money.

That's my tax money, that's your tax money.

I think the whole thing is just absolutely, I don't know, it's outrageous to me.

So and the other thing is that that stop sign that appeared down there at Park, uh Poke and Hart now, that has backed up traffic all the way up the hill.

It it all of this is just it's got to end.

I don't know how.

Um I hope we have that meeting tomorrow night, and I hope you guys seriously reconsider this.

So thank you.

Hello, good evening.

I essentially live on that intersection.

I live at 560 Madison Street, and that's my primary view out my front window.

And yeah, a lot of things need to be done with the traffic from the high school.

But painting their emblem in yellow and green and in those lanes and putting up the orange little signs, garish and ugly, and even if it's only up for a year, that's just not what this neighborhood should look like.

So I I really hope you reconsider the resolution for the contract and allow us to speak to you about what could go there instead.

Thank you.

All right, and with that, we'll figure callers on Zoom.

Laurie, you can go first.

Good evening, all.

So I'm gonna talk a little bit about a similar theme that I see between this project and an intersection in my neighborhood, and it from a perspective of the similarities and what we could do better going forward because clearly there's a missing piece.

Somehow, all of these people don't feel like they knew anything about it or weren't um reached out to, and I can say that there's a similar theme.

So I'm gonna the Casaverde intersection at Del Monte Boulevard to make the rec trail crossing safer because it was a nightmare.

And I have to tell you, it's even worse now, it's not done.

It was uh something that started.

We had one meeting with the city in 2021, and we were told sign up for have your say monterey.

We'll keep you informed.

You know, we the thing is is and everybody needs needs to understand in the city, people want to be involved, they want to be heard.

That's what you're hearing from all of us tonight.

People want to they just want to be part of the community they live in and contribute, and to just not be involved, isn't helpful at all.

Uh, this intersection here cost two million dollars.

Half of it was NCIP money, another half grant money.

All we needed to do was block off the the rec trail and route them through the traffic signal, and that that would have solved the problem.

Now we have this intersection that Jackhammer started four years later, and we didn't hear one thing from have your same monterey until it was too late.

We lost two lanes of real estate, it's not done, they did things wrong.

We have people crossing now everywhere, at least before you knew where you had to watch out for bikes and skateboarders and pedestrians.

Now it's the whole length of that Casa Verde all the way down to the traffic light.

People are crossing every which way.

So I think the missing piece is communication with this with the residents.

Next speaker is our telephone caller, Miss Beattie.

This is Nina Beattie.

I also oppose this project.

It's a very dangerous traffic situation on Madison after school and before school, as you've heard.

The city has worsened it by approving a huge housing project behind City Hall and Madison, which adds many more cars and related traffic to the immediate area.

You've previously heard at another meeting of the inability of emergency responders to get to the high school when there was an accident because of the traffic.

The city doesn't need traffic calming here, it needs traffic mitigation.

This project doesn't work, it doesn't reduce traffic flow or improve safety.

You can't cross a traffic circle easily or safe safely as a pedestrian.

The traffic problem is caused by the limited entrance into Monterey High with four streets feeding into it.

As you just heard, gridlock.

Temporary is a great idea on project, but this project doesn't fix the problem of limited access into the school.

That requires a multi-prong approach, working with the school district to get parent and school carpooling, rework the entrances, buses.

But the city streets constrain school access with all these cars pouring in.

Here again, staff at time is allocated over several years for a project for which the public has no knowledge or participation while other projects language.

And then it's put on the consent agenda last month, which staff has repeatedly abused with significant and even controversial projects.

It's very, very expensive for a temporary quick build.

It wastes staff time and city funds for at least 29,000 already spent.

Tamsi is not free money, it's public money.

And I wouldn't rely on Tamsi's guidance.

Their surf project isn't grounded in reality.

Currently, a hundred million dollars of public money for a 6.5 mile road that dumps people in San City without viable transportation to where they need to go.

That's ridiculous.

I urge the council to do the right thing, cancel this project and cancel the contract.

And staff, stop putting things on the consent agenda that don't belong there.

Thank you.

Tom, you're up next.

First was that at the previous meeting, I forget who it was on staff, said that the center circle was going to be a mountable curb, which then implies that that circle is going to be elevated above the rest of the paving.

And what I heard tonight was that it's just going to be painted.

So I'd like to get clarification on that.

Is it just going to be paint or is it going to be a raised mound?

Because I definitely heard the term mountable curb at the previous meeting.

Looking at the staff report and the goals of this project, there's eight bulleted points there.

Reduce vehicle speeds on intersection approaches.

Well, we've already said it's a stops, it's an all-way stop, so you can't get any slower than stopped.

Reduce speeds through the intersection.

Well, okay, you can maybe argue that it might slow some cars down in the intersection, but it's a pretty short intersection.

Provide better visibility for the pedestrians.

Well, the pedestrians are visible as is.

Now at the previous meeting, somebody mentioned, well, it's shortening the distance for the pedestrians to cross.

Well, that's that to me is a legitimate goal, but that could be accomplished through other means, not having to use a circle in the middle.

It goes on and on here, but uh it seems to me like most of these goals are irrelevant or already being met.

One of the goals is to gather community input.

Well, obviously, you've got an earful tonight about this project.

Um, it's it's suffice it to say that this should have been rolled out in a much better way than it has been.

The public wasn't engaged at all, and that's what you're feeling the wrath of right now.

Thank you.

And Betsy, you can go ahead.

Thank you.

Um, this is Betsy Wilson.

I live on Via Del Rey.

I drive through that intersection probably up to eight times a day, and I'm just gonna be the lone voice that says, I think that we should move forward with what staff has proposed.

Um I remember a number of years ago working with the city when the roundabout up at 68 was being built, and Rich Deal, the traffic engineer was just being absolutely abused for that thing.

And you know what?

It solved many, many problems.

So I appreciate this.

That this is temporary and going to be a trial.

There is a lot of confusion at that five-way intersection, especially when there's traffic.

That's when people don't know who gets to go and people are jumping the queue.

So I'm hopeful that in fact, you know, during school pickup and drop-off, which every school I've ever been near has congestion, that this will create some clarity and flow and improve that.

And if it doesn't, hopefully we can revisit it and you know go back or iterate in some other way.

But I do support moving forward with the trial.

Thank you.

That was it.

All righty.

With that, we'll close public comment on the item.

Thank you for those that provided public comment.

Bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation.

Consider Garcia.

Oh, actually, first, can I just have staff come up and I have some questions that came up during public comment, but I figure I just pass it to staff.

I'm figuring you took notes and might want to be wonder if you respond to some of the comments.

Sure.

I did hear a question towards the end.

Uh the traffic circle is mountable.

Uh so it would be mountable with some paint.

If I said it was just paint earlier, I must have misspoke.

Um it would be six-inch with kind of a tapered uh like uh asphalt mountable.

And so it's a car or a fire truck or a large box truck couldn't make that turn, they can just roll right over the traffic circle.

That was the one question I heard.

Do you have other specific questions?

Um there was the comment that came up around stop signs.

Um whether stop signs come out or whether they're yield signs.

Yes.

So the first comment, I think that was a recommendation.

So uh we kept it as as an always stop.

So traffic circle and roundabouts are technically different things.

The traffic circle just it's not a yield flow intersection.

We didn't intend to change the intersection control.

Really, it slows down people as they go through the intersection.

So they have to take a wider turn, straighten out the vehicle as they cross the uh departure crosswalks.

And so it does slow people down through the intersection.

Uh on the approaches to the intersection, they had the delineators that narrow the lanes, and so that's what slows you down on the approach, come to a complete stop just like you would normally, then through the intersection as you go through, you'd have to kind of take a longer trip around the circle, which which slows you down, straightens you out as you you look into the the exiting crosswalk.

And so it would slow you down on the entrance and on the exit.

That was the intent.

Okay.

And you're right, it was more of a recommendation, and and I don't want to go too far down that path because that's not the discussion point in front of us at this point.

Um, so I'll just go ahead and open it up.

Thank you for sure for that.

Thank you.

Um, so uh a few comments here.

I'm just gonna go down the list.

Um my uh initial question to staff was about um the kind of communication that they have received from residents because I know for a fact that I've received over the years communication um uh expressing concerns uh around the safety of of this uh intersection.

So for me, um I think it's great that staff has looked into this and has proactively reached out um to other agencies to seek grant funding to at least try something different in this intersection.

Uh something different that will have a positive impact that will increase safety that will help with uh navigating through that intersection for both drivers and and pedestrians.

So I I applaud our staff's effort for taking these steps and and push them, pushing them forward.

Could there have been initial um community outreach?

Absolutely.

And I support the idea of over-communicating with our residents because it's just the right thing to do.

Um that should be part of the process throughout the project.

If we were to move forward, absolutely, um definitely include um robust community engagement as the project move moves forward.

Um this is a quick build, it's it's intended to be a quick build project.

It's not a matter of building it and then running, it's a matter of putting elements down in place that allows the opportunity for all our residents, folks who live in the neighborhood, the students who come in, the families who come into the area to test it out, see what it would do for their own experience, their own safety as they're navigating through the intersection.

And that's really the uh the best opportunity to get the feedback from the community.

Once this project is in place, all the elements are in place.

That's a that's the best opportunity for all of us to go through that intersection, feel what it could do for better or for worse.

Do we like it?

Do we not like it?

And then offer that feedback.

In my own experience, it's very difficult to try to get that kind of feedback from community when talking uh about these designs conceptually.

So it's not about showing a picture and then asking the question, what do you think this would do for safety?

Could that process help?

Maybe, but it's even more valuable once there's there are elements in place that we can actually see and touch and then be able to give more complete uh feedback about that.

Um there's been a lot of talk around the concern being the gridlock, which I I agree.

My kids go to Monterey High, so I get to experience some of that both in the morning and in the afternoon.

So there is something to be said about that and and further planning that uh would need to happen to further address that.

Um but it that shouldn't just happen independently of the elements that need to be installed at that intersection.

This this is all this would all have to be part of a bigger project to ensure safety at the intersection and also address uh gridlock.

And and I think it's really interesting how uh a lot of the commentary was around gridlock uh from our folks tonight.

I think if we were talking to the uh student population or the teacher population, the administrators, they would have a different take on the gridlock.

Their concern is primarily, I'm I'm talking, thank you.

Their concern is mostly revolves around safety, and I know because I've experienced it myself, I've seen multiple closing encounters, um, and that's really where our staff is setting the priority because we want to keep our residents safe first and foremost.

The goal of the this installation as I see it, is not to try to keep vehicles in a gridlock, but rather have vehicles navigate the intersection in a way that's a little bit more safe than it currently is.

I think that leaving the intersection as is is really not an option.

Um, and also I I heard a lot of the concerns around the uh the traffic that we see during drop-off and pickup times.

This uh installation with the various elements that are shown, I think would do a lot of positive for the intersection in our residents throughout the day.

It doesn't matter if there are students, if there are no students, because there are and and I navigate through this intersection very often.

I also see folks coming down the hill in their car very fast and many times rolling the stops.

So these elements would do a lot to slower those vehicles down, have them navigate in a slower way, again, to increase uh safety.

Um, in general, I just feel like the concern shouldn't should focus more around how do we keep our students, families, teachers, everybody in the community safer.

Um I wanted to mention Tim's really quick as well, because I I also do have some experience using that system, and something that wasn't mentioned that I think it's important to keep in mind is that Tims will only show us data that has been reported.

There are many instances that probably have happened in that intersection that never get reported, and and who knows what level of injury.

There might not be injury, there might be close calls, right?

And and I personally have witnessed close calls, and I know that those aren't getting reported to Tim.

So let's let's not use Tim's necessarily as the data source, because it's it's not a complete source.

Um I think there's opportunity here to expand the conversation uh along with this project, um, and talking about improvements, um or other methods that would help uh increase the safety of this intersection, and some of them were shared during public comment, talking about our a remote location for drop-off or pickup, um using alternate modes of transportation, bikes, busing, busing.

I think it's it's uh it's a great topic to to bring up with the district.

Um it does require that coordination with their transportation department because even though busing is quote unquote available for students, many times it doesn't work for the students or the families to take the bus.

So we have to keep that in mind.

Um an example of that is um, for example, my students, uh, they could easily take the bus to the high school, but the only bus that can pick them up when they have a start time of eight o'clock would be I think right around 6 a.m.

So that means them getting to the high school very early and just hanging out for almost two hours.

So again, lots of coordination, I think that could happen there with the district to to better uh satisfy that that process.

Um and to wrap it up, I I think I as as you could probably tell, I'm I'm going to support this item to move forward as the project that was originally presented by staff.

I see there's a lot of value here.

Um it's all grant funded.

Why not support our staff to proactively um seek those opportunities to increase the safety for our community?

I mean, this is all again, it's temporary.

If we don't like it, we don't have to keep it.

If we only have uh if we only like elements of it, we can play around with it to see really what fits best for our community.

And this is all on the dime of another agency that's willing to uh support excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me.

Hey, excuse me, everybody.

And and and you everybody hold on one second.

Sure.

That was this maybe the third time that he was interrupted while he was talking.

Just simply be respectful.

Like we gave the respect for everybody that spoke during public comment.

Just be respectful so we can finish this meeting efficiently.

If you disagree, that's fine.

Write a letter to the council after the meeting is over, but do not be disrespectful and interrupt somebody when they're talking.

I think we're all adults here.

I think we can do that.

Let's do that, please.

Or we're gonna take a recess and I'm gonna start asking people to leave.

Do not interrupt anymore, please.

And and I I'm very thorough with these points because to me, the safety of our kids.

Excuse me.

I have excuse me, sir.

Did you did you just miss what I said?

One more time from you in the back, sir, and I'm gonna ask you to leave.

I have two students, this is crazy who navigate this intersection daily.

But it's not only about my kids, it's about the what was it, 1,300 students that attend and their families and teachers who are members of our community.

I take this very seriously.

Rest assured, I'm taking this very seriously.

I hope you're taking it seriously too.

This is all grant funding that doesn't come out of general funds.

It is taxpayers' uh dollars, but if we don't use it, another jurisdiction will.

Why not have that come to our community?

Thank you.

We'd like to go next.

Yeah, there you go.

Okay, Councilman Smith.

So I base my thinking on the lack of evidence for collisions, the lack of uh conflicts other than some of the many um annoying annoying issues we've all encountered when we go through the intersection.

To me, it's more imperative that we pursue a path of the school district involvement.

It's their students, it's they're generating the traffic, it's their property, they're the ones that are impacting our neighbors.

They're the ones that are drawing in uh plus two thousand drivers a day, and the students to go there.

Now I have history of the school.

Uh I married a lady that went to that school, and I had two kids that went to that school, and I have a grandson that's there now.

And it is a pain in the neck to get in there, and there's alternatives to go.

But it's really, really bad when you have a parent or a student, and students aren't supposed to park up top anyway, but there's a student parking lot with insufficient parking, and they took way too long to finish their project.

That's a whole nother side note, but they don't have enough parking, and their parents, the parents are coming too late and not allowing for enough time.

The total amount of time, and I know Kembley Horn in their study lists AM peak hours 745 to 845.

It's probably not that long, more like 7:45 to you know, 840.

School bell is at 8:30.

So if they're not in by that time, shame on them.

They really started out late.

Um, and then their PM hours are listed as 315 to 415.

And I think most of the traffic is really pretty much gone by four.

So you've got an hour and a half to an hour and 45 minutes, and out of a 24-hour clock, it just doesn't measure with me saying everybody that goes through that intersection except for that hour and a half, is gonna go around the longest way, passing 12 horse troughs that have some semblance of gardening that the city's gonna have to maintain, just to accommodate the hour and a half travel.

To me, that's just not worth the sizzle.

The whole intent of a grant a grant like this, where it comes from public dollars through TAMSY, is to reduce carbon footprint greenhouse gases.

We actually are impacting that with the additional movement of the transportation coming through that in the remaining 22 and a half hours of the day, the transportation issue is that they are compounding their trips longer, taking more time through the intersection, and actually increasing greenhouse gas.

So to me, it just doesn't make sense.

I'm a fan of just stopping this.

I I just I'm struck with the information we've heard from the neighbors.

I was a little uncomfortable about this when we were trying to figure out how to make lemonade the last time, and and I think we were trying to accommodate staff.

I think we were all well-intentioned, but uh on reflection and hearing from the overwhelming lack of support, the testimony tonight, the testimony in the um the neighbors who have who've voiced a disagreement to do this project.

Yeah, it's not from general fund money, but it is money that should go to a more worthy project that Tamsi can find.

You have the mic right now, so you're well able to make a motion.

So I'm gonna make one more comment, then I'll make a motion.

Um I don't want to impact the neighbors anymore, and I'm struck with the fact that you know this neighborhood and you know the center section probably better than anybody up here except for Jean because she has to go through every day to go home.

Um I think this is a case where our former mayor, when I first met him, I heard him many times at many meetings.

The neighbors know best, and I think this is one of those times where that's true.

So for this project, I think I'll make a motion that we direct staff to cancel the bid and postpone further work on the project, still have an outreach meeting to hear the neighbors make suggestions of improvements that could be made.

A second, it's been moved and seconded.

Further discussion on the motion.

Um, yeah, I haven't made comments recently.

Um, 250,000 for an experiment, it still strikes me as a lot of money.

Maybe it's not, but it's the equivalent of our um rental assistance program.

It's a lot of money.

Um I would feel better if it had more support.

I'd feel a lot better if the neighbors wanted it and we weren't heading up a route of disassembling it.

Um I was glad to hear that we aren't in the attorney's opinion in a legal contract.

Um I um regret not being clearer on June 16th to stop it then.

Uh I I think we were deferential to staff and and wanting to keep options open um on something that really is um is not been approached in the right manner to get the result that we need.

Um I would appreciate not being in contract, um, going to the community, uh, do the presentation.

Uh at the presentation, I would appreciate written information on the history of collisions, the written information on injuries.

Um, we need some data.

We need we need more about what's going on.

And we'll, you know, have more outreach to the to the public, people who couldn't be here tonight maybe can be here Thursday.

Everybody will come again, we can go through it again and see if we're on the right track um or not, and um and and go from there.

It's um it the whole thing is unfortunate.

I'm I'm I'm really sad about it.

I I do believe everybody was well intentioned.

Absolutely, staff was well-intentioned.

Um, I think we all want safety for our kids.

We all want transparency, we all want to do the best with our money, and um, we kind of blew it.

That's all I have to say.

Okay.

I I'm gonna when you're done, I got one more thing I need to add.

Okay, I'm gonna make a comment.

I'm gonna give you a minute to make a comment, and then we're gonna call the question.

Yeah.

Um, I'm not gonna support the motion because when we approved this initially, we heard the public comment, and I appreciate the fact that you pulled this, um, Councilmember Ash, because it allowed us to have a deeper conversation.

And even though there was questions on my mind about it when reviewing it, um I thought it was good to press forward, seeing that it was temporary.

Um, but it it allowed us to engage in a deeper conversation here.

And some of the comments that I'm hearing give me a feeling of just leave it as it is, don't do anything with it.

Um, that's the vibe that I'm getting from some of the comments.

And that might not be accurate, because nobody actually explicitly said that, but that's the vibe that I get from some of the comments that were made.

Others were, hey, maybe if you do it a little bit different here, maybe it might address the issues in in a certain way.

That's the whole intent around why we approved the motion that we did um at the last council meeting, and which is why we have this public meeting scheduled for Thursday.

If we're not going to support the contract moving forward, there's no point of having this meeting on Thursday.

I'd rather have staff dedicate their time and energy in places where people in the community actually want them to spend their time and energy.

And and truly, I'm walking away with a feeling of resistance.

Don't do this.

It's sticker shock.

And again, I get it.

The the concern that I raised at the last council meeting that gave me the greatest pause around this was the public engagement piece.

And this is no fault of staff, right?

They followed the process, they did what they needed to do.

Maybe we need to reevaluate what it looks like for us to do community engagement, and that's a discussion that we're having with staff behind closed doors so that we can have a better community engagement strategy.

Um, but we're here now.

We have the funding, and I think one of the comments that we were made was, um, don't just spend the money for the sake of spending the money.

Nobody that I I don't even like again, like some of the bases of the argument just don't make sense.

Nobody, nobody said that.

Nobody is thinking that this isn't being presented to spend money for the sake of spending money.

And I think one of the greatest challenges that we have in government, people get frustrated because government is slow.

And I think the opposite of that is being creative and innovative and exploring and testing things out.

And if we're not willing to be innovative and creative and test things out, then we're gonna be right back in this other boat of just being slow lethargic and things aren't gonna get done.

And so the alternative to us exploring this move and moving forward, and we haven't even decided if we're doing it yet.

Let's have the community discussion on Thursday, and then when it comes back to council, we can have a deeper conversation around it.

But if we're not even willing to explore it, I don't know how to help some of the concerns that were being raised.

Um, that initiated this in the first place.

This didn't come from nowhere.

Staff isn't just finding an intersection and thinking, oh, this is a good idea.

Let's do it.

There was feedback that was given, and we're trying to find a way of meeting community need.

Was it done in the best way possible?

Perhaps not.

And let's find a way of maybe doing things better.

We're all in this together, so let's find a way of working with each other.

Um, I get the frustration.

It's clear the fair, fair majority of you all.

I'm taking a vote to go against you.

I don't want to do that.

That's not, I'm not here to be like an opposition to you all.

I'm here to try to find a way for us to work together.

Nothing is gonna happen unless a decision is made again with the council.

So I'm gonna go ahead and pass it to council member Smith.

Please keep your comments within a minute, and then I'm gonna go ahead and call the course.

Yeah, I can I can do that.

Um I don't want nothing to happen.

I want a meeting to happen tomorrow because I think that the staff would benefit out of hearing from the residents about alternatives.

If this is killed tonight, alternatives examine, and certainly this would take engineering process, consult consulting with uh public safety.

Some of these intersections to me are prime example of we should have uh no left-hand terms.

We could restrict some of the turning movements at certain times of the day.

I think that the neighbors need to have that input and to be able to offer other solutions, and so it's not for all for nothing.

I think the school needs to be contacted, we need to work with them, and they have some responsibility in this case as well.

The other thing I was gonna say is I am struck with the ugliness of it of 12 horse troughs, planters that have to be maintained.

It's just not the kind of thing that I would want to look at if I lived here, and I just wouldn't want to have this in my neighborhood.

All right, all right.

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

So the motion is the motion was made to um sorry, let me eliminate the project.

Let me just make sure I get the language right from the agenda.

It's too much.

Would it rescind the resolution?

So I'm sorry, would that motion rescind the resolution?

Yes, so I get yes.

So the I couldn't hear you.

It was to reference.

Pardon my interruption, I'm so sorry.

So first there needs to be a vote on whether or not the decision is going to be reconsidered.

And so council member rash is requesting or bringing a motion for reconsideration.

If that is approved, then you go on to the next step, which is to discuss the merits of of the project.

Okay, I think we got a little bit ahead of ourselves here.

Just a little bit.

So I make a motion to we're sorry.

There's a motion on the table, so let's just make sure we take care of that.

So do you want to rescind your motion so she'll resend it so we can do this correctly?

Okay.

So I make a motion to uh reconciliate.

Reconsider the warning of the contract, and I second that.

All right, so it's been moved and seconded to uh reconsider the motion.

Um all those in favor?

Aye, aye, all those opposed, no motion dies.

So what happens there?

We're done.

We got another pickle.

So if if the motion um dies, that means there's no action, and so if you wanted an option would be if a council member made a motion to continue, but that would need a majority vote to continue this request to reconsider to a date when you have a full composition of the council, okay.

Is anybody else want to try to make a motion?

Can I ask a clarifying question?

Um, if it dies, what happens to the meeting on Thursday?

Um if it's not reconsidered, then the prior action stands.

Right.

So you we go into the community meeting and um we are in contract or heading for contract.

That's correct.

Well, I think the contract wouldn't happen until later in August.

When was the staff has until August 24th?

But what I heard August 24th was that it's currently in the flow.

Um, okay, we're gonna move on from this.

I'm just gonna wrap up with one final comment.

Um, I hope my ask, I guess, for folks is when you if and when you go into those discussions.

Obviously, if you're in opposition to it, express that freely, but I would also ask that you look at if we were to move forward with it, what what do alternatives look like to that project that could help us move forward with um something given that we have this grant funding available to pilot something out and see if it works in our community?

So that's that's that's my ask that we can be forward thinking.

With that, we're gonna move to council.

Okay, can we just repeat when the community meeting is going to be and where that's a good idea for everybody?

It's on Thursday, it's Thursday and not tomorrow.

Yeah, not tomorrow.

Uh, yeah, a couple people said that it's Thursday at six.

Library community room, six o'clock on Thursday.

This Thursday ninth for anybody online to July 9th, uh 6 p.m.

Um at the community library room.

Perfect, perfect.

And so this it's said it's been said three times, so you can't say you didn't hear it.

All right.

So this this action would come back to a full council at this is gonna come back to the council before any any day forward to construction or anything starts.

Yep.

Yeah, and that would be a regular city council.

So the public knows a regular city council.

Okay, we're moving on.

Count uh uh council comments, anybody have council comments?

No comments um, yes.

Um I'm receiving concern um from one member of the community, um, that we pay extra attention to the weather predictions of heavy atmospheric rains this winter, and that we um talk about extra preparation or how we would be prepared.

I guess this is landing on public works again, but um I I just wanted to say that I'm beginning to hear this in the community, and I I'm worried about it too.

I last winter, some of those rains, somebody mentioned District 3.

They were torrential, and now we don't have the money for uh attending to the um to the drainage system, and uh I'm just really worried.

So um, I just need to express that worry that I'm hearing it from the community that um we be as prepared as we can be.

Is Demi still here?

No.

Um, that we consider um having enough portable generators or our energy boxes or or something for when people are out and they are medically dependent, which happened for Chief Hober and I, where people were coming home from the hospital and needed electricity, and you know, it's a huge mess.

So anything we can do to um be better prepared for this winter.