Recording in progress.

Are we ready to go?

Okay.

Good evening, everyone.

Uh this is the regular meeting of the Pacific Grove City Council.

We're here in uh uh council chambers.

It's Wednesday, March 4th, 6 p.m.

the city hall at 300 fourth Avenue in Pacific Grove, California.

Calling this meeting to order at this time.

And I'll ask that uh we have all council members present tonight on the day, as well as our city manager and city attorney, and I'll at this time I'll ask Councilmember Garfield to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you very much.

And at this time, uh item one approval of the agenda, uh entertain a motion to approve the agenda tonight.

So we have a motion by Rao, second by Paduri.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, we'll take a voice vote.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Hearing none, pass unanimously.

We'll take the agenda as stated.

Moving on to item two presentations.

We have one presentation tonight.

Presentation recognizes the Pacific Grove 12U baseball team, the fifty-fours, for their participation in the July twenty twenty-six Cooperstown New York baseball tournament and their tribute to the fifty-fourth coastal artillery regiment, Coach Top all in and uh have you come up.

Okay.

So I'll let I'll let uh this gentleman start off the uh presentation.

Good evening, members of the Pacific Grove City Council.

My name is Hunter Top, and we are here the fifty fourth baseball club.

My teammates and I have grown up playing baseball here in PG in Monterey County.

Tonight we're here to share our news about our twelve U baseball team and to highlight the meaningful local history connected to our name.

We will also tour the National Baseball Hall of Fame, home of America's best time.

Artillery regiment who was stationed near Point Penis Lighthouse here in Pacific Grove during World War Two.

The fifty-fourth occupied key positions, including Lighthouse Point in Santa Cruz, Point Pinos, Lighthouse and Pacific Grove, Morrow Bay, and Pismo Beach.

Pacific Grove, the regiment was stationed near near the Point Pinos Lighthouse.

Some of the fifty-four soldiers had played baseball in the Negro League.

During wartime in Pacific Grove, the local players and soldiers forgot their differences and played baseball together and created the Twilight League.

After the war, several members of the unit returned to the Central Coast with their families.

Thank you for your time.

And we hope you see you at our booth at Goodold Daysh.

And if you have any questions, Ashk.

Well done.

That was excellent.

Thank you so much.

Coach, do you have any other comments?

Yeah, we're just uh again.

Thanks for the off-change coming in.

Um, it's been uh it's it's a lot of fun.

These these kids have all played together for a long time.

And uh, you know, going to Cooper Stand for us is finally the culmination of their little league experience.

So uh we're honored and uh look forward to spreading more about what we're trying to do and raise awareness of uh you know, very unique historical event here in Pacific Grove.

So yes, absolutely.

That's wonderful.

Um, Councilmember Rao.

If people would like to donate to your cause, how how would they do that?

Um in the mic.

So people get like PayPal or uh we we have uh Instagram account.

Okay, yeah, well, Instagram PG54 baseballclub.com, I think is our website.

Then I'll be resending that out, and I'm pretty sure Joyce will pick that up as well.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Yes, uh, thank you.

And then I both of my kids play baseball.

So first of all, Coach Tope and all the coaches here and everybody else uh coaching in PG and other surrounding areas.

Thank you for what you're doing.

Thank you for actually elevating PG uh on a national scale here.

And thank you for also elevating the 54th or Gloria.

Uh first of all, I in addition to all of those.

I think uh I actually like the design of your hats and uh 54 is something that we can probably wear.

So I think uh as you look towards uh kind of funding yourselves and looking for the future too with other uh with other folks uh that are in town.

It may not be a bad idea to also sell kind of some of these merchandise because I'm I'm I'm I'm I for one, like my son collects gaps.

So this is one of those things that we do all the time.

So I appreciate what you're doing.

Thank you all for uh coming here and uh you guys hit it off the bark.

Thanks.

Awesome.

I like the hats too.

Um Joe, yeah.

I just uh wanted to wish all of you well in Cooperstown and think of all of you.

All of you could be on at Cooperstown someday.

Name blazed on the wall.

Thanks a lot, guys.

We really appreciate it.

The great mission and I want I uh you know I love the hats.

I love the the mission and everything you're doing for the community.

Thank you.

So we'll uh move on to number three, uh, council and staff announcements.

Uh so we'll start with council members.

Do you have any council member announcements?

Uh councilmember McDonnell.

Thank you.

I actually have um three announcements tonight.

Um first is just to let people know that we are in the time that the seal ordinance is in effect, so no loud work is allowed on the public right-of-way from early to 10th street along Ocean View Boulevard on a semi-related note.

Unfortunately, um, they have determined that there is avian flu now in Anu Nuevo.

Um, they have seen that in some of the marine mammals there.

So we're letting people know that it's important to keep a safe distance from wildlife that includes pets, especially dogs, because it is contagious to both pets and people.

We haven't seen it in Pacific Grove here yet, but we want people to be aware that it has transitioned into the marine mammal population.

Um, just so this is on the record.

If you see a dead or injured seal or sea lion, please contact the marine mammal center hotline at 415-289 SEAL, which is 7325.

And they can either respond or they may refer you to the NOAA hotline because the NOAA hotline responds to the deceased animals.

And so that number would be 8667 6114.

Um, and we also wanted to let people know there was a seal with a fresh shark bite this morning.

It's the only seal we've seen at Hopkins, unfortunately, for the last week or so.

Um, but be aware if you are in or near the water that we are seeing shark activity again.

Thanks.

Anyone else?

Uh council or staff member announcements.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

We do have a couple of announcements tonight.

Uh, first announcements will come from uh deputy manager Hal B.

And the second will come from Chief Dave.

He wants to cue up as well.

Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the city council.

I'm excited to announce that we have released information related to the cannabis lottery process.

So phase three, which is the cannabis lottery will be held on Monday, March 30th at 5 p.m.

here in the city council chambers.

We will also be providing viewing via Zoom.

All of that information, including some additional details about how the lottery process will go, is available on the city's webpage, city of Pacific Grove.org, and it's linked there on the news section.

Second announcement is recreation department 2026 summer programs are now available for registration.

We've got a really great listing of opportunities for summer programming, everything from dance swim and engineering type camps.

So we encourage everybody to take a look at our website and view the offerings as well as register.

And then lastly, our recreation department is recruiting for camp counselors, sports assistants, lifeguards, and swim instructors, and all of that information related to these jobs are available on the what the city's website as well.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Smith and honorable city council.

It's my esteemed pleasure to publicly announce the implementation of our coastal enforcement and education program.

So really this was kind of an idea that had uh come to light with previous administrations, but through some hard work and planning uh in correlation with the city manager's office, we were able to kind of identify some of the boxes that we needed to check to make this a reality.

And so uh some of that had to do with um training up our community service officers through PC 832, which is uh certification for powers of arrests.

RCSOs uh by authority of the vehicle code are authorized to uh write things like parking tickets, uh, but really nothing uh above uh that kind of nature of a citation.

So what 832 does is certify them and authorize them to enforce uh other more significant uh issues such as city ordinances, communicodes, things of that nature.

And so um really the emphasis is on education and just having a presence uh in our coastal area and on the rec trail and also in you know those uh incidents where it's necessary to take enforcement action.

And so uh prior to uh the council being seated tonight, I just put uh stat sheet uh out in front of uh each of your chairs.

And so this is a really unique way for us to kind of analyze our progress over the next year.

Um, not that the stat the collecting of stats will end after the first year, but uh really a way for the police department to efficiently uh study trends and statistics and you know quality of life issues and you know, dispel misnomers and actually factually address those issues that are our most important to the community.

So we do see it as a very efficient uh use of public safety personnel and deployment.

And um, you know, again, just it's very exciting because this is something I think that's been talked about around here for uh quite a number of years.

And of course, uh I use the city manager to uh you know just kind of develop and go down the list and see what it was that we exactly needed to do to accomplish that.

So I think we've made it a reality.

I'm very proud of it.

Uh March is March 1st was the implementation date.

Um, and you know, it'll be kind of a ramp up through the first month in March.

Um, you know, these CSOs are newly trained.

We have one that is currently transferring from the PST role to the CSO, so though there will be that field training uh time.

And then I always like to say, wait, there's more.

Um, as far as the patrols that are going on down in the coastal area and on the rec trail, the CSOs will actually be deployed on police e-bikes.

So uh the idea there is to cover more ground in a shorter amount of time and be able to respond to emerging issues uh in an efficient time.

So uh that concludes my announcement, but uh I'm happy to answer any questions if there are some.

Thank you, Chief.

I appreciate the announcement.

Yes.

Thank you, Mayor.

One quick question is there any change to the policy if people notice something on the trail, or is it still just called the non-emergency hotline?

You know, I think we will we'll consistently and constantly be evaluating that for now.

Uh, we have not made changes to that.

Um, really the priority is getting our CSOs situated down there, uh, getting the proper equipment worked out and just kind of seeing how the first few weeks roll out.

Great, thanks so much.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief.

Um, so we're staff complete.

All right.

Uh we'll go ahead and move on to for general public comment.

Uh this is comment on matters within this subject matter jurisdiction of the city, but not on tonight's regular agenda.

So if you have such a comment, please step forward.

We'll take chambers first.

We have someone in chambers.

Go ahead.

So I'm Peggy Gibbs, CEO and co-founder of Pacific Grove Cares.

PG Cares is proud to be a member of Keep America Beautiful.

And just last week, I was honored to attend the National Summit, joined by more than 500 nonprofit executives, state leaders, mayors, and local officials from communities just like ours.

We heard remarkable stories.

In Tennessee, one affiliate is leading cleanup of the Tennessee River.

In a small Indiana town of 500, they have 400 volunteers.

Imagine that.

Almost everyone.

What an impact.

What we witnessed was deeply inspiring.

People on fire for their communities.

Volunteers dedicating to hours of picking up litter, planting trees, revitalizing parks, and strengthening civic pride.

Stories of service, personal responsibility, and neighbors helping neighbors.

We met leaders building powerful partnerships between nonprofits, local governments, businesses, and civic groups.

These collaborations are transforming neighborhoods, not just physically, but socially.

They are building connections, pride, and resilience.

Keep America Beautiful has been doing this work since 1953.

Today it represents nearly five, excuse me, 700 local affiliates and millions of volunteers across the country.

Its mission is simple but powerful to spark action and pride in the places we call home.

Because everyone does deserve to live in a clean, green, and beautiful community.

Pacific Grove absolutely embodies this spirit.

Our participation connects us to Coast to Coast Network of Innovation, best practices, training, proven programs, and grant opportunities.

Grants that can help us multiply the impact of every hour and every dollar donated.

Together, they create a big impact.

Beautification is not cosmetic, it's foundational.

Clean and welcoming public spaces, support local business, strengthen tourism, improve public health, and enhance civic morale.

They bring people together.

What we saw at the summit affirms something important.

Small towns can lead.

Pacific Grove can lead.

PG CARES remains committed to the work the city is doing and to maintain a vibrant and connected community.

One volunteer park and block at a time.

And we are honored to work with you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone online?

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay.

I want to address uh four issues during this public comment.

Uh first, I want to thank the Pacific Grove 2U baseball team for reminding us of this city's history and for representing Pacific Crove in Cooperstown.

Um, I think that's great, and thank you.

Second, I want to thank staff, particularly Sandra, for understanding and responding to my requests that comment letters be posted in a manner that preserves their meaning.

Sandra understood my concern and promptly assured me that will be done in the future.

It will further the council's goal of encouraging public participation in city affairs, and I greatly appreciate it.

Third, I want to mention that the housing element states on page 320 that a rental assistance program would be presented to the city council by January 2026.

That time has passed.

The program's goal is to assist at least 10 lower income renter households to obtain housing.

Will staff please clarify when and if the rental assistance program will come before the council.

Thank you.

That's all.

Thank you.

There are no other hands raised, Mayor.

Okay, thank you very much.

We're gonna go ahead and close general public comment.

Go and move on to the consent agenda.

The consent agenda deals with routine and non-controversial matters and may include action resolutions, ordinances, or other public hearings for which testimony is not anticipated.

Uh this consent agenda is are there any members of the council that would like to pull an item?

Uh walking stick, stick.

Uh 8A, please.

8A.

Storefront cannabis.

Okay.

Eight A's pulled.

Yeah.

That's what I was going to pull.

Okay.

All right.

And anyone online, we've already pulled 8A cannabis.

And I have to.

We don't have one.

Amara Morrison.

Uh thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Smith and members of the council and staff.

Uh I I am going to address the council on item 8A, uh, if that is permissible.

Uh it's been pulled, so we're not able to comment at this time on that item.

Will there be an opportunity to thank you?

Thank you.

Okay, are we good?

Okay.

Yes.

All right.

Can I entertain a motion on consent?

Uh accepting 8A therefrom.

So moved.

All right, we have a motion by walking stick, second by Emilio.

Uh all in favor, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Seeing none passes unanimously.

Thank you very much, staff for bringing these reports.

We'll we'll now turn our attention to item 8A, storefront retail cannabis uh business licensing information.

And I'll recognize City Manager Logan.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Yeah.

So the item A 8A tonight is intended to be an informational only item.

It addresses some of the questions that we've received over the last um, I guess a couple of months, and they've been in different iterations of those questions.

Um the memo that was that was posted uh was simply to intended to provide a history of how we have addressed those comments in the past.

And um that pretty much speaks for itself, I think, from that standpoint.

Okay, we'll go ahead and go to public comment on the item.

Item 8A.

Thank you.

Anyone wish to make a public comment on this item?

Ms.

Morrison did want to make promise.

Amara Morrison, you have the floor.

Thank you very much.

Uh again, my name is Amber Morrison, uh, and I'm an attorney with Redwood Public Law.

And I'll just point out I'm a former city attorney for two East Bay Cities.

Um, I'm here tonight as counsel for Nug Pacific Grove LLC, uh, one of the applicants in your commercial cannabis permitting process.

Um appreciate the opportunity to address the council relative to consent calendar item eight a.

I hope that uh you received our letter, which was submitted yesterday and which relates to our request this evening.

Uh and the request is as follows.

We respectfully request that the council poll, which you already have consent agenda item A, uh, but agendize the memo for a full discussion and deliberation at a future council meeting.

Um, and we request that you do so either before the lottery, uh, which was just announced is going to be held on March the 30th, or we ask that you postpone the lottery until the deliberations on the memorandum can occur.

Um, and the reasons for this request are as follows.

Um obviously no, there are uh 10 applications uh for the one commercial license, um, which have been determined to be eligible for uh proceeding to the lottery phase.

Um, as we have argued previously, we believe and argue that eight of these applications are interrelated and they're subject to common and overlapping ownership interests.

Um we've previously stated on the record in writing and before the council, even at last month's council meeting, uh, that we feel it's improper for the city to ignore its own ordinances definition of quote owner.

Um the city's definition of owner mirrors uh the definition found in the state's cannabis licensing statute.

We've outlined kind of the four elements of what constitutes an owner.

Um I won't belabor that point, it's in our letter.

Um, and so we request that as a part of the council's deliberation on the memo, uh staff and the city's consultant be asked to explain how or why common ownership and parent companies or affiliated enterprises is not relevant under state law uh or under the city's own ordinance.

Um I just want to point out that the memorandum omits the city's basis uh for proceeding with the permitting process um without undertaking the kind of ownership inquiry that our client, frankly, has been requesting for many months now.

Um, in other words, the city's cannabis permitting process web page just simply asserts the city's categorical compliance with the requirements of state law without any kind of explanation as to how the permitting process complies with state law, um, particularly around the question of of various applicants' ownership interests.

Um our our client has uh submitted a PRA request to Monterey uh related to similar commercial cannabis permitting or licensing effort.

We've included the results of that PRA uh request, um, which show a clear interrelationship between the eight applicants.

Thank you.

I just want to note it's this is a question of fairness and equity and the council.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Okay.

Another one to raised.

Okay.

So just gonna state this for the record.

Uh this is an informational only item and it has not been agendized for action.

That's on here.

So with that, I'll recognize uh councilman walking stick.

Thank you.

Um yeah, this this has been deeply concerning.

I've uh watched this hoping that the process that we had put in place um on uh on June 18th when we decide when we approved the updated uh cannabis licensing ordinance.

I certainly hoped that uh permit application stacking would have been prevented in that.

But um I will uh I'll take uh my share of the blame for uh my own lack of vision on how this process would have turned out.

And uh I'm not happy with how it's going right now.

I'm unhappy with the fact that uh we don't have, according to the report that just came in.

Um says twice in the report, uh there's clearly nothing in Pacific Groves cannabis ordinance that prohibits the stacking of applications by related parties, goes on to further say the city stated in its response that nothing in the city's licensing process prohibits the alleged affiliation with common entity.

Those are problems, those are those are major structural problems with our process, and we still have time to fix it.

And this this kind of feels like uh a lot like our lot last off ramp to do that.

So I would rather do the right thing and maybe step on some toes than allow the wrong thing to happen and try and clean it all up afterwards.

I think taking care of it ahead of time, being more proactive with this and taking responsibility for it now will help us in the long run and will make this an easier process in the long run instead of setting ourselves up for a future disaster.

Um and and most importantly, I want us to be in the right and craft good law.

And I I we tried, and a process isn't necessarily a one and done.

We try things, we get feedback, we see where it's it's got failures, and then we fix it.

And this to me, I think this is then we fix it part.

This is the fix it part.

So um, and I can get shot down on this maybe later, but I've got justification for it.

Um, I move that we pause the permit award process and agenda the discussion regarding an ordinance uh to prevent that prevents cannabis permit application uh stacking.

I base this on uh advice from Brian Pierrick.

Uh emailed to uh to Matt Mogenson, uh city manager Matt Moguson on April 14th, 2025.

Quote the legislative body may take action related to the agenda item as described in the subject section of the agenda, even if that action is not included as one of the specified recommendations.

Um this is very clearly storefront retail commercial cannabis business licensing, and that is exactly what I'm trying to address.

Is I want that licensing process to be fair.

I don't feel it is fair right now.

So I've got a motion on the floor.

Um I'll recognize the city attorney to talk to the uh efficacy of the motion.

The uh this is agendized only and it's explicit under the options there that it's it's not been agendized for action.

So motion on this would be improper.

Thank you.

Um council member or no proper time.

Thank you.

I have some questions, clarifying questions on uh 8A.

Um maybe Mr.

Morganson's can answer this or uh Ms.

Hallib.

Has the city followed the um the lottery process on this?

I I understood Miss Halliby talked about it.

The lottery process is gonna be followed.

Um yeah, some so council member, um our duty has been to implement the ordinance, which is exactly what we've done so far, as it's been approved and written by the council years ago.

Okay.

I um I have a couple other uh has there been out of the uh eight or nine applicants uh out of the 10 or whatever it was.

Um was there an appeal process uh in the uh from the applicants?

Was there any appeal process?

I um I have a couple other uh has there been out of the uh eight or nine applicants uh out of the 10 or whatever it was um was there an appeal process uh in the uh from the applicants was there any appeal process so there there are different appeals of processes throughout the the um process if you will to get all the way to the cannabis getting a permit um but if the process or appeal part you're talking about is on the applications that are eligible for the lottery yes there was a 10 day appeal process that ran I think the beginning of January January 5th for 10 days the the and did we get any appeals within the 10 days no we did not okay um those are some of the questions I had I may have some later um uh mayor all right well um and we'll take further any comments people have then then that'll be it though thank you um I so I um I know this has been floating around with these letters and questions etc.

So I just want to have a few things like this clear just for my sake here uh one is we the obviously the city's laws allow um stacking to take place am I correct on that or not so council member I think what I could really direct you back to is the memo I would say that the memo and all of our responses to this has been at the advice of our special counsel you know so staff has not come to these representations by ourselves so it has been vetted.

Okay.

So so with that being said um the so it was my it is my understanding for the report that um the style we had communicated to all the applicants the existing laws that Pacific Grove had that included the fact that somebody could actually submit more than one application uh or or effectively stack everything um that was provided to the applicants correct well that's uh Miss Halby if she can respond to the FAQs and how that kind of came together yes there were two FAQs that are relevant um to the question you posed so throughout the application process window we allowed questions and we constantly responded to the questions received there was one question can multiple applicants be submitted on the same property by different entities that have no common ownership and the city's response was yes there are no restrictions in the existing ordinance that would prohibit this and then subsequently we received a question what if said owners are individuals applicants with common with no common ownership in the applying entity have common ownership in other entities a parent company or private contracts that constitute economic ownership and the city responded there are no restrictions in the existing ordinance that would prohibit this okay so what I'm getting at is uh effectively um the it was a level playing field uh from what I understand from how staff has responded to this FAQs meaning anybody could have submitted more than one application for through the process uh I understand there's some questions around ownership here and and my question to the attorney here is um effectively there was a higher kind of governing body for this the MA ME UCRSA or the department of cannabis do you know if we have vetted our process with either of those uh higher agencies I was before my time when when that went through I don't know if staff recalls the the process um by the state or some sort of state law yeah so so what was the answer sorry I didn't catch that it was before my time but as I as I hear it um it it appears it wasn't although it it didn't necessarily need to be vetted by the state so as it was being drafted so sorry and uh I was my question is this like really there's some ownership related questions that have come across has department of cannabis agreed that that doesn't come into play here or has come into play here but we're okay uh the city manager and I had a a meeting with department of cannabis control last week and that issue was not brought brought up to us as as any kind of issue or problem to say so in my tenure that's the only communication I've had with that with that administrative agency you may have to talk to special counsel directly on some of these questions.

Okay and and I don't see like special counsel here so it it seems like department of cannabis actually contacted us or recontacted department of cannabis and vetted something at least right it appears to be based on if I get back up to your first question I think the the answer to has the department of cannabis ever vetted our ordinance I I don't know the answer to that right now and but I also don't know that's required um you know we can pass our own ordinance on the second question we were contacted or the city attorney's office was contacted by an attorney at the department of cannabis and asked some questions and this is not one that came up.

Okay.

We've done what we can to provide communication and information to everybody.

Uh I think the intent of the lottery was to keep it really fair.

And I think we're we're so far we're communicating the right things to the applicants to say to keep it fair.

I understand the uh the the way it's looking right now, is certainly it looks like lottery by volume, draw and lottery by competition.

But uh, but the fact is uh at least from a procedural perspective, we seem to have done all the right things to make sure that everybody's able to submit as many applications as they can, which unfortunately uh doesn't seem to have happened.

So that's where I stand right now, unless I I I think uh we have more insight into anything that is going on, seems like at least in my opinion, we have um in some to some extent retted what is required from the department of cannabis and or HDL may have done their work to ensure that the ownership uh kind of does not come into play here.

And and and actually on that note, sorry, does HDL review these applications for uh for ownership uh kind of like status quo between applications?

Do you know?

So there's there's obviously there's eight applications, seems like all of them were effectively submitted by one kind of owner or or I don't know, but seems like they're all interrelated.

Does HDL um kind of look into the interrelatedness of these applications?

Unless you have a better answer, I I will say that um so we had administrative rules and regulations that the council passed last summer, I believe, um, that were going to be used about the applications.

So between the administrative rules and regulations and our ordinance, those are the the um review criteria that HDL used to review all the applications that came in.

So in terms of like the ownership structure and everything, you know, their review of it was they're not violating the ordinance and what they have done.

Okay.

All right, so this is a received report.

I I just can answer questions.

So we'll see how this turns out, but but thank you for the information.

Councilmember Garko?

Thank you.

I'm I'd like to back way up to understand what the assertions are that are floating around.

Um it sounds like if you look at it this most negatively, people are asserting that there's something shady going on.

I don't know that it is, but I want to make sure we're looking at that to make sure we're not being party to uh somebody pulling a fast one.

So when you say they're all the same, I'd like to know what the actual complaint is for the people saying that things are being done improperly.

Uh when they talk about ownership, uh shared governance.

Could somebody please explain that to me?

If you guys understand the question and can respond to it.

Um council member, uh I don't know that I can entirely characterize everything wholly accurately, but I believe that the speaker who just spoke um was that was the the heart of their issue, is what they described to you and they felt was wrong.

And it's probably encapsulating their letter too.

Okay, so I've read the letters and I've I've tried to follow through on this, but the assertions seem medi enough that I don't really fully understand what's being asserted.

And I want to make sure that we're not enabling something to happen that's not a good outcome for the city.

So I would be happy if anybody can clarify that.

Um I mean, are these applicants in what way are the applicants related to one another?

Which applicants?

We have 10 applicants, nine of which are supposed to be somehow interconnected.

Okay, you're asking how are the nine interconnected?

Exactly.

How are those supposed to be interrelated?

Okay, and so just to this is an information only.

I so if you have the information, let's we'll share it at this time.

If not, we'll send a memo to the council on that issue.

So the the eight applications is best I could could characterize it as well, because I um is that there appears that there's a parent company, if you will, and then there's there's applications that have been submitted by individuals who are somehow associated with that parent company, but they're all under individual name.

So but what do you mean by somehow associated?

I think that's really muddy.

That's that's I mean, that's what's being asserted, but I don't get why that they feel like that's a disqualifier.

That's that's I mean, that's what's being asserted, but I don't get why that they feel like that's a disqualifier in what if you if if they're interrelated because they are aliases, and they're trying to fool us into thinking that these are actually individual people and they're not, um, that's one thing, but to say that they are part of a network or they are a part of an association, um, of course, that would be that would be a perfectly understandable thing.

I don't understand what they're asserting is wrong with the folks that are supposed to be interrelated, because I don't understand, they're not saying stating the interrelatedness specifically.

Okay.

Council Moreau.

Each one of these has a unique and different LLC.

Is that correct?

And each one has a different EIN, is that correct?

Have a different LLC, that's correct.

So I mean, what it looks like to me is that somebody followed the rules, they read the FAQs, they saw that it was allowed, they spent at least 64, 6400, making different LLCs.

They um and in addition to the 10,000 application fee for each one of these.

I mean, you know, I think what happens is that if you play by the rules and then you somebody wants to change the rules, I think that's not gonna bode well for the city.

And so from my perspective, they knew what the rules were, they played by the rules.

It's time to enter the lottery drawing and let's see where it goes.

I mean, this, you know, we don't know who's gonna get who's gonna win in the lottery, right?

So this may be, you know, this may be all for naught.

So from my perspective, they followed the rules.

Let's let's move the program forward.

Yeah, and I'm gonna go ahead and close this item out for the night.

I think we've gotten a lot of asked a lot of questions and answered a lot of questions and given a lot of information on the information on the item.

We're starting to get into discussing the policy and um and debating, and I think that we're getting a little bit far up from the item.

So we're gonna go ahead and move on.

So, where are we?

I think we're 11A.

11A.

FY2526 mid-year budget modifications.

Good evening, Mayor and fellow council members.

Uh tonight again, um, we're having our assistant director, uh, Jessica kind of give the presentation on the mid-year mid-year.

Um, kind of good some good news overall, which we'll talk about just in a second, but I'm gonna turn it over at this point to Jessica.

Good evening, council members, Mayor Smith.

Bear with me.

I'm just gonna get this set up so I can share the slideshow with you.

Great.

So I'm presenting the mid-year financial update, which also includes the mid-year amendment for fiscal year 25-26 budget.

Uh, just a little bit of background on the fiscal year 25-26 budget council will remember you actually approved a two-year budget back in June.

And so both years were based on projective conservative, excuse me, projected conservative growth.

And both years were projected to meet the general fund reserve requirement of 25%.

Um, it is worth noting that in that budget, we also had a five-year forecast.

And the five-year forecast did project uh fund deficits for each year, lowering the fund balances.

This is just a summary of the fiscal year 25-26 budget, the proposed amendments, and then the overall changes from those proposed amendments.

So the fiscal year, excuse me, fiscal year 2526 budget, projected revenues of about 32.7 million, expenditures of about 33.8 million, and capital outlay expenditures of 870,000.

So we originally proposed an operating deficit of about 1.9 million.

And with current amendments, we're proposing revenue increases of about 700,000, as well as additional expenditures of about 294,000.

So overall it is an improvement, but unfortunately, we're still projecting deficits of about 1.5 million.

A little bit of background on what's driving those changes.

So we're looking at updating the revenues for 700,000.

And the two factors on that are increased property taxes projections for 200,000 of increased property tax, excuse me, property taxes.

And also increased projections for an additional 500,000 in transient occupancy tax.

And the reason for the increases on the transient occupancy tax are twofold.

One, we're performing a little bit better this year than we were last year, year to date, between like four and five percent increase in uh performance.

And then when we originally proposed the budget, we did not include transient occupancy tax projections for the Kimpton Hotel.

It's going back to being conservative.

We wanted to make sure the hotel was up and operating beforehand.

So now we can update the budget to include those projections.

And then the expenditures for general fund that we're proposing, we really tried to keep it at a minimum for obvious reasons.

And so what we have here are really just essentials.

Um the first one is an increase in the Monterey fire contract.

And that's because we came to council late last year for uh true up.

And so we went back and looked, and on average, the true up invoice that we get from Monterey Fire is usually about 3% of the overall contracts.

Uh additionally, they did inform us to expect the true up to be a little bit more this year because of added paramedic services.

And then we're also proposing 115,000 for elevator repairs at the youth center.

That summarizes everything on the general fund budget amendments.

The next items are related to non-general fund budget amendments.

I should note that everything on the next two pages are just uh expenditure budget amendments.

We didn't adjust the revenues uh for non-general fund as those revenues don't fluctuate as much, and we don't anticipate them changing.

So everything that we're proposing in the non-general fund budget amendment will be funded through current non-generces that exist.

Um, so some of the key items to highlight are an additional request from gas tax fund for 111,000 for speed surveys.

And then also in funds 30, 34, and 36, those are all related to grant funding for housing projects.

So housing rehabilitation is what we have set up for those projects at this time.

And moving on to the second page are our enterprise funds.

Um I'll just point out there's the large amount in sewer fund for 1.3 million.

But I do want to note that that was already approved in the 2627 budget.

Um, it's just that public works is looking to move the timeline up on the project because there's some time constraints.

So where we'll see this budget request for increased funding in fiscal year 2526, we'll see a reduction in the requests for sewer fund and fiscal year 2627.

And then golf funds, there was a lot going on with golf fund this year.

So overall, we're looking at expenditure savings of about 29,000.

And mostly this is due to the renegotiation of the lease contract for CORSCO, um, that we expect the utility costs to go down a little bit for that.

Uh, the overall adjustments for non-general fund budgets is 1.7 million.

And that's the conclusion of the presentation and the recommendations are on the screen.

And I'm gonna just add a couple of quick comments too.

I really want to commend staff, um, our staff basically.

Um, if you looked overall in the presentation, um, the adjustments are relatively minor.

I mean, the expense adjustments are less than 1%.

And you know, our revenue is pretty much right on about 2%.

So, really, again, want to commend staff shows the effectiveness, you know, of the two-year budget approach that we do.

The other thing that was mentioned in the staff report, too.

I just want to highlight very quickly was that uh it's proposed to take one of our um associates planners and basically reclassify it as a senior planner.

Um, basically, there really won't be any net effect because we were already underfilling uh our principal planner as a senior planner.

So as a result, what'll happen?

We'll have two senior planners um and one associate planner.

The net effect of that reclass was about 19,000, but it because it was in the staff report, not in our PowerPoint.

Um, I just want to call attention to that as well, too.

So thank you guys.

Appreciate the report.

Um, we'll go to public comment on this item 11a.

Okay, we'll go ahead and close public comment on this, bring back to the council for action.

Appreciate the staff report.

Appreciate the good news on the revenue change.

700,000 plus.

That's great.

That's always good.

Yes.

The great thing is we're still meeting our 25% overall goal that council established last year's fault too.

The reserves.

The reserves, exactly.

Got it.

Yes, absolutely.

Go ahead.

So I know that we tend to we tend to err on the side of caution when we project that $500,000 for the Kempton.

That is a conservative projection.

Is that correct?

It's a conservative.

Basically, what we look at a couple things.

I really have to commend uh Jessica.

She did a very thorough job in kind of looking through our revenues, you know, for this year.

So the 500,000 is kind of a combination of a couple things.

We were, as you know, you mentioned earlier, a little bit conservative with our TOT because it does tend to fluctuate um quite a bit.

Um, and with Kempton, obviously it came online a little bit later, you know, than we thought.

So we wanted to kind of hold down um those as well too.

There's a little bit of uncertainty with the economy right now.

So again, we wanted to kind of just be cautious because that could affect both TOT and sales tax.

So go ahead, um, Jeff.

Thank you.

Uh, and thank you for preparing this report.

Uh I I would first of all uh to your point, like commend staff and and to our staff to like take a prudent approach, um, being conservative out saying I know like from uh just uh comparing even neighboring cities, I think we're we're on a better footing here.

So thank you.

Uh and and uh my my question just was to ask a very simple question.

Do we have some revenues from the Kimpton that that we know of right now because one full month has passed?

Uh do you know?

So if I remember I just I think it comes, does it come monthly or quarterly?

Go ahead.

Do you know that one?

I I think I think it's monthly if I remember right.

And because they literally just started in February, they have basically 30 days from the end of the month for payment.

So we likely won't get it until like sometime this month or April.

So it's a little bit early at this point.

So but we're honestly excited about it.

Okay, great.

So so I think more to follow, but but but thanks for keeping us in check and hoping to continue this trend moving forward.

Thanks.

All right.

Uh Mayor Perton.

Yep.

I'm gonna make a motion on this, but I just prior to the motion.

Um uh I was at the recreation commission meeting with one pretty long time.

And um they were talking various things and you know on the back of my mind always is the skateboard part.

And I didn't see that in the budget.

We just we did not put that in the budget.

So the only uh thing, you know, it's in the back of my mind still.

Recreation department is doing a subcommittee dealing with that.

So but anyway, uh I'd like to make a motion to introduce and hold the first reading of the ordinance to amend the operating capital project budget and then employee position allocations for the screen year 2526.

And the direct the publication of the ordinance will be satisfied by publication of the reapproved by the city attorney.

Second.

Yeah, thank you.

Um again, really appreciate the the um approach you all take where we estimate revenues low and expenses high.

And when we turn out to be um that the actual result is more moderate, then it's all good stuff.

I would, and I do appreciate that I've looked at the the five-year implications of this small amount of lessening um uh a draw on our surplus, and it does carry out there's only the fourth year where we flop fall below 25% um out of the five years.

So this is not an improvement just for this year.

It it does ripple through.

I would, however, say um I hope that this will happen again.

Uh, we have some expenses coming up that we're already committed to, and in terms of the um breakwater at Lovers Point that's gonna require some money.

Um, we have a big some expenses coming up for um our uh capital assets like Chautauqua Hall.

So uh looking ahead for a full five years is really important and not getting too too giddy about um a little bit of my extra money.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Anyway, um, thank you.

Appreciate all of your work and the fact that how well you work with um the other departments to bring in everything.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll go ahead and take a voice vote on this.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Hearing none, pass it unanimously.

Thank you very much for staying on top of the budget.

Um, and and we appreciate the information in a in a very well done and succinct manner.

Appreciate that.

Um now we'll move on to item 12A.

This is the status update and uh review of work plan.

Uh City Manager Matt Loginson.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um we typically do do a two-year work plan and our budget's been annual, but every year we've been checking in about this time in the mid of the two years to make sure that I guess first of all to give you a better update than we do just quarterly, which is a consent calendar item with the narratives.

Um, but also sometimes you know, you want to make some adjustments based on budgetary stuff.

This year it's a little bit different.

You know, you just saw our mid-year budget, is it's pretty pretty bare bones of what we were changing and what we're asking to change.

So what I, you know, what would like to do is give you a deeper update.

But at the end of it, if there's anything within here that you feel that we should reconsider and maybe not pursue at this time, this would be a good time to probably discuss that.

There's also a list of projects that have been allocated or have been directed by the council that are outside of this work plan.

But I also wanted to kind of update you on to make sure that you know the status of that.

And then we have um more staff level contract or projects, if you will, that are significant work efforts that need to be done that are kind of things that are important to the city.

Um, but we'll update you quickly on that as well.

So with that, uh Sandra's put this chart on the screen, and hopefully you can see it.

I'm gonna use a hard copy as case.

So the good news I want to report on is you see the green, the green boxes with check marks in them.

Those are those are items that are already done.

So at this point, we are we are midway through the third quarter of our first year of this cycle, and we've completed nine of 27, nine of 27 of our supporting tasks so far.

So I think we're on a good track here, and we've tried to lay these out in somewhat of a strategic manner so that you know, some build on on others and so that we could get through the whole plan within the two years.

But to um we won't go through the ones that are completed, but if you have questions at the end, please feel free to ask.

Uh so the first one you come to that's still under development is develop options to fund the long-term storm drain infrastructure needs.

This is a big project, and um, it's something that is definitely gonna take us until a quarter two of next year to have just some different ideas and options we can bring back to you to start to talk about.

Um, but we are keeping our keeping our feelers out there and looking for the different ways that other cities are accomplishing these types of things.

So that's the first item that's still in the works.

Um, the next one is uh under the goal of identifying and reduce expenditures and enhance revenues, uh recover low, no cost recovery programs for effectiveness order.

I'm sorry, it's review uh for effectiveness and recommend improvements.

So we have um we've already started undertaking this.

We're looking at our recreation programs currently, and we're also reviewing um fees and both that and our seat community development department.

And those are two of our higher programs that are just program-based, so meaning that people pay for the use of those programs.

So the idea is to hit certain cost recovery levels.

Um, so we're we're evaluating that and we'll bring those results back to council.

Um, so you'll notice in this first overall area, it's called fiscal sustainability, and it goes hand in hand with what Fred just presented.

But most of this is front loaded because we really want to jump on our fiscal issues and try and make a real difference as we go through our two years.

So you'll see that that's the heaviest area so far that we've completed things.

Another big one in here is um we've had a risk management assessment done by we're a member of the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority.

So they've come in and they've looked at our whole operation, all of our policies and procedures, and they've given us a list of recommendations of how we can improve to lower our risk, if you will, or costs that we have in the long term because we pay for all of it.

So the idea is to lower that as much as we can.

So there's a whole lot of things that come out of that item that are on our plate that that are not that nobody sees as well.

So going down to the next category, the next area is infrastructure.

And within um infrastructure, um, we've completed the five-year, the initial five year CIP that we started working on, as you'll remember.

We still need to work on the the um, I believe the sewer, the stormwater, um, and some of our recreational infrastructure.

Um, but we have a good start on that, and that's where some of the numbers came out to be presented to you recently, which is that we need cluster to four million dollars to keep up on our on the infrastructure costs that we have.

A new asset database system is being borne out of the um the uh facility assessments that we had done last year.

So we're gonna take all the data within that and we're gonna put it into schedules.

So that's something that we're we're looking to get done this quarter.

Um, we're working on that.

Uh the next the next item, the sidewalks is is another one of these items that is a big uh, you know, it's a big project, it's a big idea, if you will.

Um we're working on that uh the next the next item the sidewalks is is another one of these items that is a big uh you know it's a big project it's a big idea if you will so we do have a sidewalk program policy that we're looking at how can we up or revamp that policy um so to try and either accelerate sidewalk and and installation or to um accelerate sidewalk repairs as well in some of um I mentioned our risk management program that kind of goes together with that um so we need to finish a sidewalk inventory around the whole city and from there we'll know where there are more issues with sidewalks and then we'll be working with the people who own those sidewalks to to fix them in one way or another and um so that's a program that we'll be coming back and discussing with the council before too long.

But that's probably what's really going to make the biggest change when it comes to installing new sidewalks that's going to be a you know again some policy discussions we need to have you know because it's currently if somebody does more than 4000 of improvements to their property they have to put in a sidewalk in front of their house is and we also at times the city will go ahead and do info.

So it's one of those situations where we maybe want to think about a more equitable program in the long term of how we do that.

And maybe we'll be able to accelerate some of the sidewalk um installations so one of the major things we really need within the city is an enterprise resource system.

So our system I don't know the exact year I'm sure that we could we could ask uh friend Jessica to come tell us about how difficult it is to work with but it's really old and it we we really need to replace it.

So one of the main things we want to get a did a leap on here is just putting the other RFP which is a big project by itself.

So that's something in the works and you can see the that that's a quarter two delivery um within our IT infrastructure um issue we also have a lot of work to do there and I mentioned we've done an assessment we have a six and a 12 month program Joyce is now leading up those efforts to help us get on track with that we're also looking though to get into some some other some other items within there so we'll be working on that and that some of those deliverers were quarter four.

So that's gonna be more of a probably again a layered entry um so develop a plan to to retain key staff and you know there's a number of things that HR has been working on that and I would say that overall what we've started doing is more all staff meetings we're trying to bring people together more often to to bring them up to to speed on our budget issues and other things that are happening around the city we're also looking at some new training ideas um and then we also uh awarded the first um city manager beacon award this year and that went to Arlen Moore so I will let you know about that he's at a Arlen works at our public works yard and he is um he had some great ideas one was he took a two cars and made them one and saved us a bunch of money with that so he won the award this year so if you see him say congrats uh let's see trying to move along here for you so addressing critical physical infrastructure um back to the sidewalks that's a um we're working on that to help to work on our safe routes to school plan I think that the recent project we did that finished sidewalks and cinex down the Congress is a big was a big um improvement on that also there's been some fine avenue improvements that are being monitored right now and they seem to be making a difference and we'll hear I'm sure as we go a couple other things there that are not yet started our downtown streetscape improvement plan um we'll we'll see as we get into this uh how much we can we we're able to do within that uh but we'll come back and we'll talk about it more and then the sewer master plan so every I believe uh it's been 10 years since we last had a pseudo master plan so next year we really need to start going again because that's how we set our fees so without doing the plan we won't we won't be able to set new fees which we'll need to start recouping.

Climate action and adaptation plan is coming to you in April.

So that's recently been in the B BNRC fire safety inspections those the first year of those in the high fire severity zones were completed by monary fire.

This year they're going to move to the outer ring which is the next moderate zone and then next year they'll go back to the high fire severity zone.

So they'll kind of flip flop back and forth but those are those are under underway.

George Washington master plan um you can see the quarter four deliverable on that same with um Title 12 actually that's quarter three so that would be coming forward after the climate action plan I believe or those might be reversed to be honest with you.

I believe those are reversed so the the George Washington Park Master plan will be first.

Assess the wildlife protection efforts that is ongoing I think you know the new CSO plan that Chief DA just rolled out is going to be a big not only start to this but also a big data gathering um effort.

So that is what doing well and also the recreation drones band is also I think a um an effort towards this moving in the last uh focus area here we have uh in our community development um so eight ADUs are are something that we're probably gonna be looking at we need to update our ordinance and we also need to come up with our model ADU ordinance and we also wanted to talk about an amnesty program of some kind in order to permit ones that are out there that might not be permitted at this point.

So that would help add to our to uh check out check off some numbers on our arena arena requirements.

Uh affordable housing project location.

That's we're we're planning on bringing in a discussion in in May that kind of kicks this off and talks about it.

So we'll be that'll be coming back pretty soon.

Evaluate the city's water allocations.

Um so we've done that.

We've also done the business license um uh process.

So we've taken a look at that, and uh the deputy city manager Hallaby has made some some um streamline within that process to to shorten it.

We're looking for feedback on that, you know.

And so far, we haven't heard the negative feedback, and obviously, and off often that's the way we know if things are working better or not.

If we don't hear negative stuff, so uh evaluate timelines and permit processes for the city department, and that is also something that um our our community development director is knee deep in right now, and we'll be making a lot of process changes.

So to quickly jump over to the other items uh that are council directed projects.

Um, as I mentioned before here, the cap will be before you in April.

Uh I'm sorry, we're gonna jump past that table and go down to additional city directed work plan items.

The the golf course lease.

Um, we believe that'll be coming on the next agenda already that's moving along really well.

Uh so we currently have the council, the council has decided to put the stipend measure on the ballot, so that's out there.

AI policy is gonna be coming to you in most likely April.

That's coming together, and we're learning a lot and ready to discuss that with you.

Um, germ ordinance, we will revisit the um the commercial and the the uh other institutional um provisions within there.

E-bike coordinates, the traffic safety commission has kind of taken this on, which is I think is what the the council wanted.

So they're gonna hold uh the some of their own meetings and then make some recommendations up to the city council.

Uh we just finished up the polling on the long-term finances of the city that the council authorized in January, and we'll be presenting the results on that on 318 Chautauqua Hall improvements.

We've hired the architect and the funding agreements in place, and uh those designs will be happening soon.

Uh, we also need to bring you back the Chautauqua Hall policy uh information.

That was a direction recently.

Chinese pavilion is that is similar to to Chautauqua Hall, and that we're gonna hire an architect and we're gonna have a funding agreement and and we will uh bring you plans to review on that.

Uh so the sign program, the coastal trail.

There's there's been a lot of um interest in new signs on the coastal trail, and we thought it might be good to first inventory what we have and kind of take a look at that.

So we're gonna bring an inventory of those signs and some ways we can improve.

Dancing monarch sculpture was a project that I think was directed, I want to say in fall of last year.

And we've as we've gotten into that, we've realized it takes a little bit more work than we initially thought.

We're gonna need a uh CDP.

Um that also needs more substantial um footings and things that that's all being gonna have to be costed out a bit more, and we're gonna have to come back with the CIP on that.

But it's underway.

Crespie Pond maintenance, we've talked about this quite a bit, but there's still some work to go here on this.

We're permitting.

We needed a permit from the water resources board and the CDFW, and then um, I believe then we'll be ready to award an actual contract for, or actually, the golf course is gonna do that.

So that will um hopefully within six months or so that work can get done.

Central Lighthouse um Congress intersection, that's gonna come back in April or May with a proposal for a four-way stop.

Recreation program stats that's been recently in uh directed to staff, and we are we're working on that.

So I just you know again, I'm just gonna highlight a couple of these staff level ones.

So emergency preparedness, you know.

So Chief Day is taking control of this one, and we're we're gonna be doing some more drilling.

Um, we're gonna get staff up to speed on training to make sure that we're we're the best we can be when it comes to emergency preparedness.

Public information, we put a lot more effort on that lately, and I think our social media numbers are greatly expanded.

Um we are you know doing our we're working with uh councilman Pradori as the former EDC um liaison, and we're we're looking at a number of things.

So we'll come back in the near future and actually talk about that in more detail.

Organizational assessments, you you know about those.

We've had several of them done, so we're making quite a few adjustments internally and things we can do to improve.

ATC is just waiting on the developer to eventually submit.

Um, another project coming soon will be a parking meter retrofit project, and that's to look at taking our coin operated meters around the ATC and making a more of a park mobile, something that's more efficient for us, and then also talking about the idea of maybe expanding some of that parking district.

And then uh I mentioned business license and then records digitization.

So I think that's that's all the projects that are outside of just the day-to-day stuff that staffs you know trying to keep up on the basic services of the city with all that as long as more than you wanted to know.

But if there's any feedback on the work on the general work plan of things you would like to reconsider or um it it would be great to hear that feedback tonight.

All right, thank you very much for bringing public comment on this item.

Uh this is the work plan item.

All day.

We'll go ahead and close public comment, bring it back to the council for this is a received report, but also provide direction.

So I'll just lead off today uh on this one.

Um I think it's very organized.

I mean, you know, uh tells us exactly what we're doing on each little item.

So it's a nice thing to have, you know.

You kind of put it on your fridge or something, like you know, these are all the things that we gotta do.

Um, but yeah, so and everyone seems to be working on um something.

So, you know, it's it's a good thing.

I mean, uh all of these things are important priorities for us, and I think it reflects a well done set of goals, you know, keep it to a limited scope set of goals and then be able to tackle and hit all of the goals.

So that's that's what I'm seeing here.

Uh it looks great, and I really appreciate I think it's this is important to take check, have checkpoints and check milestones.

And when we're here with the nine or the two out of eight quarters is probably a really good time to do that.

So that's uh those are my comments on this item.

Um, who would like to go first?

I think it's Caps and then I'll go to Thank you.

Um I like the fridge comment.

Um, but the um first of all, I I would like uh like to appreciate what staff is doing here, broadly speaking, uh, like um making it successent for even for us to follow this.

Uh and also I I see a lot of items that a lot of council members were interested in that were moving making progress on.

So I really think that's a that's a great thing.

Um, I also uh would like to take this opportunity to recognize uh the deputy city manager slash uh city manager more pro tem.

She's she's been really uh I would say taken on the role with with enthusiasm and really short the work shows, whatever she's doing behind the scenes.

I know a lot of staff are doing great work, but I I just want to mention that uh the DCM, thank you for stepping up and and doing what you're doing.

Um I I did have a couple of uh questions.

One is uh we we do have the Cedar Street, uh sorry, not the Cedar Cedar Street, but the uh the intersection, the roundabout of the Sunset Corridor project, and I don't see that listed anywhere here.

And I wanted to know why it's not listed, or is it like track somewhere else, or does it need to be listed, uh, etc.

Uh on that same note.

I also wanted to get some feedback on um the the lovers point peer.

Where where does that stand in the grand scheme of things?

Are we just um kind of like holding it off for for later?

Uh how does that work?

So, council member act, um actually both of those projects are in our capital improvement program, and this isn't all inclusive of our capital program improvement program either.

So there is another whole nother group of projects that are within that.

So the um the roundabout is still within the CIP and there's still work going on on that on the on the outside by the engineering firm who's working on designing it.

Um and Lovers Point Pier.

So our um public works director, deputy city manager Dan Go has acquired 750,000 towards the one fit 1.5 million.

So we'll be back in, I believe, April to talk to the council about the remainder of those funds.

Um, but that project is being, I think, designed and permitted now, and we just need to I think move forward uh on it, to my knowledge.

Um so like I said, I we could have brought that list as well.

Um, but this this did not include CIP.

There's a couple things in there that are CAP, but okay.

Thank you for making that distinction.

I I just saw some projects being called out, and I'm like, wow, these so that's my my bad.

But uh I think great work and I I actually like the format that you have.

I know the fridge comment was there, but like really I like the format, and I think it it is really beneficial for us to review time over time what is going on with this format, which keeps it really easy for us to follow too.

Thank you.

Um Council Member Garfield, I sorry, I forgot.

I forgot.

Go ahead, Councilmember Garfield.

Thank you.

Good to thank you.

I appreciate it.

Um, first of all, it's very good to stop and remember how much is being accomplished.

Um, this is uh it we we tend to like want to do more and more and more and more, and it's really easy to forget what's being accomplished um behind the scenes smoothly, effectively, and and so bravo.

This is I mean, really well done.

I think the team is working very well together.

Um so one of the things I've talked about before is the importance of having the whole team uh corralled and working well together.

And in that, I include the BCCs.

How do we make the best use of our um established conduit to the public and the members on the BCCs are there to reflect on things and give us feedback and interpretation of what's happening?

That's why they they speak about things.

Anyway, so I went back to their quarterly reports and found that many of the BCCs are in fact working very well on some of the the have a strong correlation with the goals that council has set out.

However, um I would like to propose to the BCCs that they get on board uh more firmly with our important goal of fiscal sustainability and look at the projects that they're doing and working on and looking at ways to streamline, make things more effective, make things more efficient, um, and to be more knowledgeable about the actual resources that will be involved in things that they're working on.

That to me would be uh make their work even more helpful.

Um, and I don't know how to go about that, but I would like to suggest that we invite the BCCs to be more savvy about the fiscal implications of what they're working on and how they can propose things to us more filled out so we understand them better.

Anyway, that's how I think we can work better with the BCCs than we have been.

Thank you.

Mayor, I I like your idea of putting it on the refrigerator, but I'm gonna have to take some pictures of my kids off the refrigerator.

So anyway, uh just a couple of questions.

Thank you, uh Mr.

Morgerson and the staff for working on this.

Um I got three questions on this.

It says sidewalk policy review update.

Does this include the morning park also?

Councilmember, there's currently a sidewalk city council sidewalk policy that covers the whole city.

Um it's got maps in it that shows where our brakes and sidewalks are and stuff.

So it would yes, it would definitely include the money.

Okay.

Thanks.

Uh the other thing is um on the ADU.

Uh, I know we were pretty aggressive on having uh ADU units, but what if a a family wants to start a ADU?

Well, I guess this is a procedural question I ask offline.

Uh someone's mentioned to me that they would think about an AD unit, but they're not going to rent it out, they're gonna put their family in it.

I I guess it really doesn't matter if they put an ADU in it up, right?

Or so council member, I'm not, you know, um, I would imagine a family is just fine to go into an ADU if they chose yeah, I would probably direct them to our planning counter where they can learn a lot more about okay.

Uh I'll do that.

And then um the the other thing I want to talk about is um the Chinese pavilion, um the Mari Bhinese Association um been really uh diligent about I don't know how much of these raised two, three hundred dollars thousand or something.

Uh will they be doing aren't they supposed to do the plans for that?

I was just curious about that.

Um I will ask Director Go if he has a little more details to that, but I believe it's working the same as Chautauqua Hall, where we hire the architect.

So we've have not expended that much money yet.

We've uh solicited the services of a landscape architect to do initial drawings, concepts as we're weighing through what we want to do.

Um, we'll be bringing forth uh item to the city council for consideration that will include a funding agreement for reimbursement, very similar to what we did with the Heritage Society in Chautauqua Hall to anticipate that that will be before you if we're ready in April, but it might slip to May, because it's a lot of ideas, and they have raised approximately 200,000 for that.

Okay, great.

Thank you, Mr.

Go.

The other question I had real quick.

Uh I'm sure the traffic commission is gonna be happy about the uh Lighthouse Central and Congress intersection with the stop signs coming up.

And uh I you already explained a little bit on the ATC project, they're just waiting for plans to be submitted.

Is that correct?

I guess council members, our next step is just when they submit plans, we review them against all of the approvals and so okay just to wait and see.

Great.

And the uh some more about the parking um your retrofit.

Am I correct on that?

Yeah, so that'll also be something that's coming to you, I believe, in um probably early April.

Okay.

And again, it's gonna be a initial proposal to just replace the existing parking meter heads that we have from coin operated to more of a park mobile so people can do it through an app.

And um, yeah, we don't have to collect coins and charge batteries and stuff.

Okay.

And uh thanks to the old you and the staff for uh dogging this uh work plan.

Thank you, uh Councilmember Rao.

Thank you, Your Honor.

I would like to join Councilmember Padori and say that I think one of your most effective uh things that you've done is to ask Ms.

Hallaby to step up.

And I think she has done an outstanding job.

You know, this whole work plan review has uh it takes me back to the very first report I read, which was the report from the consultant about the deficits and the way that the city has been running.

And one of the first things that it said is that we are a little city trying to do big city things.

And I think this work plan, I think that the thing the items that we're working on speak directly to that.

And I think you and your staff are doing yeoman's work to work through these on a shoestring and also uh with you know very thin staffing.

So I look forward to the proposal about making us more efficient on the technology side so that we can even do more with less.

Uh I think that's gonna be great.

I also am very excited about the Lighthouse Central Congress.

Um, since that's where I live, and that's where we walk multiple times a week.

Um, I think that's outstanding.

And I've really enjoyed the the updates because you know, people say, Well, what are the staff do all day?

Well, let me just tell you here a lot.

So uh you and your staff should be commended for everything that you've done.

Thank you, Mr.

Go.

Thank you to everyone else that's sitting in the audience.

We really appreciate your efforts.

Well, thank you very much.

If there's no further comment, uh we will receive this status update.

And I think that uh it's very well done.

And we're always going to continue to keep working on things, and we'll send emails and questions and have meetings with you and Joyce and Dan and continue to move the ball forward on various topics and any attendant or ancillary topics can be brought up in separate agenda items as well.

So we'll go ahead and receive the report, move on.

And now we will welcome Mr.

Shuto here from Monterey One Water to give a presentation.

Really appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you guys.

You're awesome.

Thank you.

No timer, no timer.

I'm a little scared to say that, but no timer for put the one-minute timer up.

Thanks, Paul.

Um, I really appreciate the time to go do a quick overview on Monterey One Water, as well as some upcoming things that we have going on.

It's been a little bit of time since I've been in before you, so it's it's great to be back.

Um my name's Paul Shudo.

I'm the executive officer of Monterey One Water.

So we're your regional wastewater and recycled water purveyor.

Um, our treatment plant is out in marina, and I'll get into a little bit of what we do and then go into what we have planned.

It's nice to see um the projects you have going on, particularly from an infrastructure perspective, because we're just gonna sort of build on that with this brief discussion.

Next slide, please.

Um, so like I said, we're the recycled water people around.

Our mission, as you see there, we take very seriously.

Um, because we do, we are a regional entity.

We're a joint powers authority that serves from Moss Landing all the way here through Pacific Rail on the coast.

Um the city of Salinas.

So we do serve the northern part of the community.

Our five strategic goals that we try to work around are as you see, water and energy, obviously what we do day to day, our community serving our community, whether that be through agricultural irrigation, potable reuse, whatever we can do.

When I we say employer of choice, obviously, to do the type of work we do, we need to attract and retain really skilled people.

In addition, we want to make sure that all our vendors and consultants and contractors are treated fairly, paid reasonably quickly.

So they keep coming back to us.

An appropriate use of technology.

As you can imagine, with all the outlying facilities and everything that's at that treatment plant, we use a lot of technology, a lot of instrumentation, programmable logic controllers.

The amount of infrastructure that our operators have to operate, control, keep an eye on alarms is tremendous.

And having that resilient and well, resilient and multiple backups is required.

And then lastly, positioning ourselves within the industry from a policy and regulatory perspective.

And we'll get into that in a little bit as well.

Next slide, please.

So what do we do?

You actually mentioned your sewer plan.

And so Pacific Grove, when the water goes down your drain or out of your shower, comes out of your house, Pacific Grove takes care of the conveyance of that wastewater until our pump stations.

And that's true for all of our member entities.

So we operate, uh, we own six large pump stations and about 30 miles of force mains, so large diameter force mains to convey the water treatment plant, which is the next little circle on their wastewater treatment.

On our 100-acre campus, we have a 30 million gallon per day treatment plant capacity.

On average, we get about 17 million gallons a day.

So that is 24-7, 365.

So you can imagine the amount of infrastructure necessary to process clean and either reuse or discharge.

Where the water goes after that is a sort of, that's not exactly a fork in the road.

I guess it is.

There's like there's three options.

So a three-tine fork.

One is recycled water for agricultural irrigation.

Since 1998, we have been irrigating or help irrigate 12,000 acres in the Salinas Valley with recycled water.

At the time, it was incredibly innovative.

We were the first one to use recycled water on uncooked food crops.

And there's a number of studies that went over a decade proving the safety and efficacy of that.

The next place the water could go is our potable recycling water plant or pure water monterey.

You may have seen back in October, we stood up our expansion of pure water monterey that originally started in February of 2020.

So as of the end of last year, we're producing with recycled water about 60% of the potal water demand for the Monterey service area of Calam.

Not on the resource recovery, because it's actually being discharged.

There is some wastewater that we still discharge to the ocean through our outfall, which goes about two miles offshore in the marine sanctuary, about 130 feet deep, and meets all California ocean plan requirements.

As you can imagine, moving and treating water, it takes a lot of energy.

We're our energy bill is on the order of about 9.2 million dollars per year just for buying electricity and gas.

So our board has been kind enough to allow us to embark upon a more aggressive renewable energy strategy.

For about 30 something years now, we have used biogas.

So in the wastewater processing, we have we generate biogas.

That goes to fuel three co-generation engines.

They're frankly older internal combustion engines, and we produce about 90% of the power demands for that primary, that main wastewater treatment plant.

Well, when these other ones came on, our uh particularly the pure water plant, our demands increased 136%.

Even though I mentioned that it's a 30 million gallon a day plant, pure water is only 7.6 million gallons a day.

So even though it's small, it takes a lot more energy.

So last December, we brought online a food waste receiving station so we can co-digest food waste with our biosolids, increasing biogas production so we can run those engines a little harder.

In I'm gonna say May this year, we're gonna be requesting of the board to May June to award a renewable energy project to contractors to condition the biogas because we're increasing the production to make renewable natural gas that we can put back into the grid, sell to PGE.

In addition, we're gonna replace those old internal combustion engines with a new technology.

They're called linear generators, they're more efficient, they have less uh emissions.

If there's any downside to them, it's that when you turn on your 500 horsepower pump that you have that end rush of current, like you know, when everyone turns the lights on in your house and it sort of flickers for a second.

Same sort of thing in the treatment plant.

Those new generators really can't sustain that.

So there's other technology we can bring online.

Anyhow, it's sort of a comprehensive look at how we can do better and have some price stability for our customers, as we all know what our electricity costs are doing and gas costs are doing.

We want to have some input and control over that, being that we use so much.

Now, yeah, I mentioned 35 years old, the generators and and so on.

So that's the next thing.

Um, next slide, please.

Last year, our treatment plant celebrated its 35th birthday.

So, yes, we had cake, and it's to celebrate all of our employees that have been doing a great job keeping it going.

Um the maintenance is extraordinary if you can think about everything that's out there.

And I would certainly invite all of you, if you'd care to come on out for a tour.

We have set tours uh that our public relations staff take you on, and we'd love to show you everything we have.

Um, now the downside of this, the 35-year-old thing is in a marine environment and wastewater environment, which is tremendously aggressive, a lot of that infrastructure is starting to come to its end of its useful life, or it's past the end of its useful life.

In all, we have about a billion dollars worth of assets at the treatment plant and our pump stations, not our microphones, because I do beat those up a lot, so that value is down.

Um you can tell I'm Italian.

Um we have to reinvest in that.

Now, um, so this is where we start getting into what we've done, what we need to do, and the rates.

But next slide, please.

So, what have we been doing?

You've probably seen we've been doing some upgrades and pump stations.

We've done some in Pacific Grove.

Currently, we're working on one in Monterey and in Seaside.

A lot of work going on at the treatment plant at our main campus there, and then replacement and efficiencies that goes to the power generation and frankly, a lot of new instrumentation.

As you can imagine, with whether it be our cell phones or our computers, technology improves dramatically.

So things that I feel are new that I know we put in 12 years ago are bordering on obsolete now.

So it's this constant renewal.

That's what we're doing currently with our with our rates that we get from all of our customers.

Next slide, please.

This is sort of the big thing that's in the future.

Electrical reliability.

We're trying to replace pretty much our entire electrical system because that is 35 years old and there is an end of useful life to it.

In addition, um, as you're doing a sewer master plan, we just embarked upon a treatment plant master plan, looking at what is the next 35 years look like for us.

And then may seem a little odd and not as glamorous, but our biosolage management process, um, with certain state regulations, we can't just take all of our biosolids next door to region Monterey.

Um, AB 1383 is saying it needs to be reduced, greenhouse gas emissions, etc.

So we're looking looking at different ways to number one, try to get rid of it in a more cost-effective manner than we're doing.

And number two, trying to reuse it.

There are technologies out there where high temperature paralysis where we can create biochar, which is a usable product, not only for us, for ag in the construction industry and elsewhere.

So these current priorities, when you line them up, and we've scrutinized them with our engineering director who said, Hey, I really think we need this many projects.

We've squished it down and extended the time frame because of the financial impact.

Even with doing that, we're looking at about 500 million dollars of capital projects over the next 10 years.

It's not a straight line 50 million dollars a year.

There's you know, little curves up and down, but that's the nut to crack as we see it.

Uh, next slide, please.

So when we look at our rates, and I get this question a fair amount is I'm a wastewater customer.

Am I paying somehow for a pure water Monterey?

Or I'm a pure water Monterey customer.

Am I paying for ag irrigation?

And the simple answer to that is no.

As you, as any public entity, we have four discrete enterprise funds.

So we don't have different customer classes subsidizing others.

And we try to keep those in their own silos, if you will.

What I'm gonna I'd like to talk today is a little bit more about the wastewater fund because that's what's coming up before us.

But just to touch on the recycled water in the blue, the non-potable, that is entirely paid for with a contract with Monterey County Water Resources Agency.

The beneficiaries of that water is those 12,000 acres of ag land, which has, if I'm not mistaken, somewhere around 26 landowners and ag growers.

On the recycled water side, we have a set separate enterprise fund for pure water Monterey.

That is entirely paid expense or revenues coming in from the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, which ultimately gets their revenue from CalAM.

And Marina Coast Water District is also a customer of the Pure Water Project.

Lastly, we just brought up an energy discrete enterprise fund because we see that string of cash coming in the future.

So we wanted to establish that now.

So then it could distribute out to the other three funds.

But on the wastewater side, it's our 65,000 customers that you know, the rates account for about 95% of our revenue.

We have interest and other things that accrue also, but the bulk of it is all of us paying our rates and the businesses.

Next slide, please.

So what drives the rate process?

We have a rate consultant.

It's fairly standard in the utility industry.

You look at your revenue needs.

Obviously, there's operations and maintenance.

I already mentioned the $9.2 million worth of electrical costs.

That's in our OM bucket.

We have about a little over $8 million of chemical costs.

So there's some substantial costs just to do what we do.

So OM salaries and benefits for all those employees that I just referenced that are the highly skilled and trained that make this all happen.

But the big shift from past years is the increase in capital improvement projects.

That ends up being about 40 to 45% of our overall budget.

It's an investment in everything we own.

So you look at those revenue needs.

So that will be the same, no change there.

But we staff and our consultants are going to propose to the board in the near future a rate increase over some period of time.

Under proposition 218, we can do that between one to five years.

And we'll be uh heading to the board in March with that.

We're still looking at a lot of the numbers right now.

So I don't have a discrete, hey, it's going to be this amount, but I can tell you with the rate schedule and the preliminary information, it looks like we're going to be asking for about an 8% rate increase, which I know is substantial.

What that means for that 85% of revenue from all of us paying, right now our rates are $54 per month for a single family dwelling.

At the 8%, if the board agrees to go forward with it and then approves it, it would be $58.32.

So that's sort of the difference that we're looking at.

That in conjunction with some existing EPA low interest loans, some bond issuances in the end of 27, early 28, we feel we can address that 500 million dollars worth of projects that we have strung out over that period of time.

I understand that that is an encumbrance to a lot of people in our service area.

When you think about what we serve, the board did ask us probably about three years ago now, maybe four years ago now, time flies, to put together a customer assistance program.

And we've done that this year.

We funded it through non-rate revenue, because that's the only way we really can do it.

We can't be taking from rates to subsidize someone.

So it's non-rate revenue.

We have about 200,000 in that account as of last year.

We've helped out 900 customers that have applied and qualified as a low-income or meeting those.

The downside of it, we actually had 50 other people that applied that we ran out of money, so we couldn't do that.

So we'll be coming to the board again and say, can we have a little bit more?

Can we shift around?

Here's the impacts to our budget.

We just feel that it has to work both ways.

And there is a vehicle to get that done.

Next slide, please.

So I mentioned the proposition 218 process.

It is what we are legally obligated to do.

And it is that part of getting the feedback from the customer, trying to understand where everyone sits.

In February, I mentioned that the board voted to keep the structure the same.

In March, we'll bring the draft rate study that has those revenue requirements.

And in general, ask the board to say, yeah, you know, we want to do a five-year, or no, we want to do a three-year, whatever it's going to be, and here's the proposed rate increases.

That allows us to go back and start printing the proposition 218 notice and all the legal requirements, it goes out to all the customers.

It's not until April 27th that the directors will see what the exact rates are.

If it's 8% for 85% of the people, it's that 5832.

But for the dentist's office and the restaurant and others, we'll have to calculate all those out as well.

So if they agree to um put that on the 27th, there's that public period.

We send out notices, people have 45 days to comment.

And whether that be send a letter back to us, an email, call in, show up at a board meeting.

That's we keep tabs on all that.

In June is that public hearing.

So people can come and express their wishes.

And then it's up to the board to make a decision at that point, hopefully.

Because what's one reason I say hopefully is those decisions are contingent upon what our budget looks like approving a budget before the end of the fiscal year.

Thank you.

So we've tried to do uh a very tight job planning and trying to optimize what kind of projects we're doing, as well as what the impacts are financially.

And um, yeah, I mentioned last year we got our pure water expansion done.

We stood up the the food waste receiving station, not to mention to keeping the thing running for the entire year.

I I think we've shown that we have an incredible team.

I mean, the staff, they get a lot done.

They're well respected in industry, and we're ready to keep moving.

Doing all these projects can be hard though on everyone, but we're there.

Um, I do want to just highlight real quickly if it's okay, the Pure Water Project.

And next slide, please.

So like I said, ribbon cutting last October came online.

We're producing about 60% of the potable water demand.

That is six, I'm sorry, 7.6 million gallons per day that this plant that you're looking at can produce.

It's what you're seeing there.

Um it's reverse osmosis treatment.

Now, something that I think is phenomenal, that our um external affairs staff helped out with and frankly drove.

Is you see that the overall cost of this expansion was about 63 million bucks, plus or minus through state and federal funding of you know, beating down doors, putting in applications, doing everything they need to do.

We do have a lobbyist in Sacramento and one in in DC that helps us out.

We brought in 42 million dollars of grant funds for this $63 million project.

So two-thirds of the project cost for this community was outside funding.

The remainder was a low interest rate loan that we were able to qualify for with EPA called the its WifiA program.

It's water infrastructure.

You know how the federal government loves their acronyms.

I don't remember what that is, in all honesty.

But it's just a testament to, I think when you plan ahead, you can whittle down costs appropriately.

And with that, uh I can answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mr.

Shido.

As always, uh what a great presentation.

And uh my only comment, I'm gonna let my colleagues that they want to make comment or ask you any questions.

But um, my only comment is that even though these wonderful, beautiful things like the RO in our wonderful new facility, and I was there that day in October.

We have those things.

We also have really old other things that are necessary uh for the plant.

And those things are the what have been um decaying over time over the last 40 years.

So those are the those are what you're trying to address.

And so I'm supportive of that effort.

Um, and anyone else wanna uh council Garfield?

So um one of the things I know you're addressing is the uh oh, we have a hand raised.

Do we need to go out to the public first?

Uh we yeah, I'm I didn't I just saw the hand, so we can do that.

You would you like to wait?

I'll hold off that.

Thank you, mate.

Go ahead and recognize.

Thank you, Sandra.

I guess all I had to do that time was raise my hand.

Yes, Mr.

Shudo.

That was a very slick presentation, and that's what everybody does when they're asking for money.

Uh yes, I'm very glad that you have the lower income assistance program now, which basically gives me two months, two payments of less, less.

That's all.

Because you're talking in Pacific Grove that has doubled with our own sewer add-ons, this fee.

We are talking a huge amount here.

We're not talking 53 dollars, you know, that you're talking about.

We're talking about a lot more.

And because Pacific Grove has put so many add-ons on it.

And yes, I always fill out a 218 in a nay way, and that's what I will be doing again because you know we just can't take it anymore.

I mean, I can't.

I'm a homeowner, but I'm elderly.

I am in firm, and it is just plain too much for me, and Pacific Grove is the one who doubles the bill.

But thank you for your little uh public assistance for the lower income now.

That is very helpful.

I've been outspoken at those meetings also.

So thank you for your presentation.

I know what to do.

Thank you very much.

Kyle Landstrom.

Kyle Landstrom, you have the floor.

Okay, go ahead, Councilmember Garfield.

Thank you.

Public comments closed on this item.

Okay, thank you.

Um so I know you're doing things about sea level rise.

And so I know a lot of folks are are very interested in what you're doing.

Um, am I this the right group?

About the the project to relocate the electrical systems for the pump station.

And I know that we have some citizens that are very concerned about that.

Can you speak to the process and the opportunities they will have to weigh in?

Yes.

So I believe you're speaking about our Coral Street Pump Station, which is sitting right there in the water and frequently um in high weather, waves crash over the pump station.

Um, our electrical gear is in the pump station.

So we've had times where um we had to wait for PGE to come out to disconnect the power at the street because it was unsafe to send our people in.

So, in an effort to be able to access that so we don't have a spill or any environmental issues, we're attempting to move the just the electrical gear elsewhere.

The pump station would still be there.

So if and when waves crash over or things happen, at least our people can get to it because they can disconnect it, disconnect the electrical elsewhere.

So, in terms of the process, we did go through uh an environmental process looking at alternatives.

And um, I don't remember the exact month that we did put that out, and we got a number of comments.

And so, and what we ended up doing is instead of moving it towards our board like the schedule showed, we sort of put the brakes on it just to try to understand people's interests to see if we can address anything while still making this critical piece of infrastructure safe and working.

Um we'll be coming back to your council in the coming months uh to do two things.

One is I know it's our process, so it's not your responsibility, it's our process, but to help inform you and get some feedback.

Um, I think what had happened, if I may sort of go on a bit of a tangent, is the location that was selected, the uh architectural renderings that were used, they tried to match the area, like the clubhouse and things like that.

In listening to what people said is like, what's this giant thing?

Well, it was to match it architecturally from a functional perspective.

A lot of that may not have been necessary.

So we're looking at ways to instead of making it appear like everything else, try to make it blend a little better.

And hopefully that addresses some of the concerns.

I know it won't address all of them, but we're trying to look at a variety of options and choose number one, the least environmentally impactful as well as one that will work.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Anyone else?

Oh, go ahead, Josh Lord.

Do you know?

It was time.

It was a time.

Thank you.

Um, thank you, Mr.

Shudo for uh coming and providing the presentation.

We actually made our uh entire meeting short so that we can listen to you.

Uh-huh.

Thank you.

Um, and then I took it too long.

I'm sorry.

So it's all good.

So we have time for questions.

Uh but I I did have uh a few, at least uh just for my benefit, uh, some understanding here, if nothing else.

Uh, but typically it's uh it's not just capital equipment, right?

Like uh it's obviously aging infrastructure is always like a thing, but but you also have like you just finished the BWM expansion, so there's ongoing maintenance that you require for for those two.

So in your like spiel to the board, are you considering both of those aspects or just aging infrastructure?

No, we are looking at the budget holistically.

So certainly operations and maintenance, salaries and benefits and the aging infrastructure.

It's just when you look at our budget as a pie, the shift has been truly in the capital side of things.

But no, what we'll go to the board is the a comprehensive budget that addresses those operations and maintenance issues.

And they're increasing dramatically.

Um I I mentioned we all know what electrical costs are doing.

Chemical costs have gone up just since COVID, which is really interesting to me significantly.

A lot of the um manufacturers dropped out of the market during that time or went elsewhere, meaning instead of coming to wastewater or public utilities, they're making chlorine for other purposes.

So what we've seen is a little bit lack, well, frankly, a lack of competition.

And a lot of these companies won't even hold their prices good for a year.

So if I go back 10 years ago, we could ask you for a chemical contract, and you'll give us three years worth of costs.

At this point, they're like, no, this is this is your cost for six months.

So there's a lot of variability out in the market right now, but we are addressing that as best as we can.

Yeah.

Yeah, but I expect like there's a lot of things going on.

I would say tariffs, I would say labor, there's a lot of components to this, it's not just uh lack of competition.

So I would expect so we're all facing the same issue, yeah, not only here, but other boards too.

Um the other question I had is uh the uh the prop 218.

Uh what has has this been done in the past?

Uh and my question is uh has it been done in the past?

And what is the threshold for somebody to like to say that it's blocked or or or not?

So this has been done in the past.

Proposition 218.

Um I don't know when it started.

I mean, I've been doing prop 218, it's probably since early 2000s.

Did it was at the end of the 90s?

I'm not sure when it was, but certainly since the 2000s onward, yeah, absolutely.

It's yeah, so I think my first one I did was like in 03.

So we've been doing this for a long time as an industry in the state of California.

Now, to your other question of the threshold, the threshold for the board is if you get protests of 50% plus one.

So I'm gonna round up around.

We have 65,000 accounts.

So if we get protests of 32,500 one, the board could not move forward with those increases.

Now, what I will tell you is this board as well as others I've been involved with, it's very difficult to get to that threshold where it's a a no-go, particularly with this many customers.

But when we've gotten to literally like 200 protests, the board is really critical.

And now from a percentage standpoint, that's really small, but it's enough of enough inertia that they scrutinize it.

So even though the threshold is very difficult to get to, I think the voice of the people does impact the 10 decision makers on our board.

And that is also helpful, so thank you.

And I think 200 people you can fill up the room for sure.

So I think that's uh crowd.

Um just the final point.

I I know you're addressing affordability and and lower income kind of items.

Uh I would just encourage you to find more avenues to to do it, uh, so that uh everybody is taken into account when we're considering this race.

But looks like you're on the right track.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member.

Thank you, Your Honor.

Uh, thank you, Mr.

Shuto.

It you know, it's all fun and games until the sewer doesn't work.

And then, you know, I mean.

But you know, when you understand the infrastructure needs, it's not unlike what we're going through in our budget process as well.

We've got aging infrastructure.

We have to make those uh we have to make those improvements, or you know, we're just gonna impact the quality of service overall.

People throw out a number, it sounds like four bucks.

Well, you know, it's it's expensive.

And I think the fact that we've been able to create enough water to hopefully get us out of this TRO situation that we're in.

Um, I think Monterey One Water has had an awful lot to do with that.

Um I think, you know, with the rest of us just being aware of what it's gonna cost, but also being aware that there are a lot of people out there that are struggling today.

And I think whatever we can do to help mitigate that or you know, ramp that up in a in a thoughtful way, so it's not as big of an impact to your customers.

I think I mean I hear it all the time.

People like, what are they gonna do with well, you know, it's a delicate balance.

And I don't remember you having to walk that tight rope, but I do appreciate the presentation.

And um take it easy on us.

Thank you.

Yes, go ahead.

Thank you.

Um, and I I would like to say I do appreciate the proactivity to trying to find ways in particular to bring the energy cost down since that is such a huge expense.

And I definitely agree with the request to try and do what we can to help.

What seems like a little amount to some people can actually be a really big amount to others.

So anything we can do to kind of ramp up and have more consistency in helping, I think that would be great.

Um, I wanted to loop back actually to the coral street pump station.

And um, so we've heard a lot about you know the concerns, and that's good to know that at least part of that could be solved architecturally.

Um, but is there any chance of a different location being considered?

Something because in looking at the plants, it is incredibly close to the neighbors.

Um, is there any place else that is being considered as a location?

Yeah, so um we did look at Esplanade Park.

We also, and I don't know if Dan's still here.

We looked at a couple other places.

Something else was looking at the where the old treatment plant was.

Now some of these get incredibly cost prohibitive.

If you think the reason that pump station there, it's at the low point.

So everything sort of flows to it.

And then we have force mains that leave it.

So if we wanted to put it, you know, up over there at the dais, we'd have to reroute all those lines.

So it's not necessarily just the cost of the pump station itself.

It is making sure everything can flow over there, and then the force mean that leaves it.

So the when I say the over there, I mean um by the treatment plant.

It gets into the 20, 30 million dollars when you start adding the pipelines in with a pump station.

Um Esplanade Park, uh, I think it was very similar concerns in terms of visual and impacts to people.

Um a number of places were reviewed.

And and you're right, it is near homes.

Um I'm not an architect.

And if you ever come by my house, you'll know that.

But I I think there are definitely ways when we've done some of the geotech borings before you hit sort of that bedrock, there's a little bit we could excavate.

So maybe we could sink it down a little bit.

Would it be more expensive?

Yes, but it wouldn't be 30 million dollars to go down the road.

And you know, you it when you go to other golf courses, you can see those how they build in swales to hide where they can store a lawnmower or a ball retriever, whatever it may be.

So I've encouraged our consultants to look at that direction.

Is it still gonna impact people?

Yes.

But could we make it, could we minimize that to a greater degree?

And I do appreciate that comment because I know that a lot of the letters because we were being CC'd on a lot of them, had to do with it is a very active wildlife area as well.

So if you are indeed kind of integrating it more to where it flows, that would help.

I know there's views and and kind of going and standing there and looking at where it's proposed to be, it is right there practically on the sidewalk.

Um, but I'm assuming because of the golf course location in that location, there's no place to put it, even slightly move further away from the road.

I mean, we uh I don't know.

And I apologize that I I don't know that, but I was just going by what was evaluated from an environmental perspective for that document.

We can look into that.

Okay, and because I know we're gonna keep getting these questions, and I think they're very important questions.

There have been issues of property value as well.

Lindstrom if he's if he's on we're gonna try one more time but if it doesn't come up pretty quick we're gonna we're gonna move away um I do not see him on okay if he's gone then he's yeah I previously closed public comment but I saw him raise his hand about four more times so I was trying okay any any other comments up here all right thank Ms.

Shidd thank you so much always excellent presentation um and the and uh thank you for everything you do uh moderate one water we really appreciate you guys and I think that takes us to the end of the agenda thank you all right thank you very much meetings adjourned thank you thanks everyone for joining in