Council work session at 7 31.

I'm calling to order the San Landro City Council.

Today's a work session.

It is Monday, September 14th.

And at this point in time, I will go ahead and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please stand if you're able to Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to read the public for which it stands.

So Madam Clerk, would you please take our role to establish quorum?

Council member James Aguilar.

Present.

Council Member Victor Aguilar.

Present.

Councilmember Delyn Bolt is absent.

Council member Silva Bowen.

Present.

Council Member Fred Simon.

Present.

Vice Mayor Vivaros Walton.

Present.

And Mayor Gonzalez.

Present.

Madam Clerk.

Well, I guess I'll start with my announcement.

The City of San Leto conducts orderly meetings to fulfill its mandate, discriminatory statements, or conduct that would potentially violate the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and or the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, California Penal Code Sections 43 or 415 are per se disruptive to a meeting and will not be tolerated.

Please see the City Council Handbook and City Council meeting rules of decorum for more information.

Madam Clerk, your message, please.

If you would like to make a public comment during the meeting, you can do so in person or via Zoom.

If you're present at the meeting, please complete a speaker card and submit it to the city clerk before the item is presented.

If you wish to participate in public comment via Zoom, you can use the raise your hand tool when the item is called.

During the public comment session, speakers will be invited to speak and we'll have a set time to share their comments.

A countdown timer will appear for their convenience.

And when the time is up, the microphone will be muted.

All raised hands outside of public comment will be lowered to avoid confusion.

Once public comment is opened, hands may be raised to speak.

Okay, so coming out of closed session, and thank you, public, for your patience.

We should have started at five o'clock, but we got through what we needed to get through.

There's one reportable action.

There's not so much reportal box as much as just keeping you informed.

So as the council, we have agreed to extend our city manager contract.

We are working on the documentation of the exact precise terms and conditions of that extension.

And we will be presenting that at a public session in the future.

Item number four.

So we do have a presentation today.

And I believe Deputy City Manager Eric Ingelbart is here to introduce our item on proposed draft code amendments.

Good evening, Mayor and Council and members of the public joining us in person online.

Pleased to be here tonight to present uh this discussion related to cannabis policy and potential draft code amendments.

Uh before we get started, I would remind that uh tonight's presentation does align with the city council's adopted economic development work plan.

And before we dive in, I want to provide a little bit of a refresher on how we got in here tonight and some of the prior actions uh that led us to tonight's presentation.

As you all may recall, last uh May 19th of last year in 2025 in these chambers, the council awarded a fourth cannabis retail cannabis operating permit to NUG Wellness.

And as part of its action, the City Council also directed staff to bring to the rules committee uh some other related items, including a potential expansion of the number of cannabis retail licenses, along with the related process for awarding them, as well as the directive to treat other dispensary operators comparably.

Based on that referral, uh staff uh brought forward this discussion item to the rules committee uh at approximately three meetings of the rules committee between June and December of last year, and that process culminated with a package of recommendations that the rules committee directed staff to bring forward for council consideration this past March in March of 2026.

And as we'll get into in a few moments, you'll see there were some areas within that package where there was broad consensus among the rules committee members, and there was other areas where there was a lack of consensus.

Uh, then in March, the council in these chambers considered that package of items.

Um, and and similarly, the council, there were some areas where the council did have consensus, and there was errors where there was a lack of consensus, so the item was referred back to the rules committee for further discussion and direction based on that re-referral the rules.

Uh, we discussed we brought up this item forward beginning in April, and we had uh discussions about it in April, May, and July.

Um, and just again, a quick synopsis, you can see in May, there was um kind of a revisiting of some of the earlier issues, including related to the definition of youth centers, and there was also proposal that was raised at the May meeting about the possibility of focusing cannabis retail operations or potential future permit awards only into certain council districts.

Um, and then there was also a consensus was reached to avoid and remove downtown or downtown area zoning from consideration of potential cannabis expansion areas.

And then in July, which is the last time that this item was discussed before rules committee, the committee directed us, and this was based on legal analysis to set aside that proposal related to focusing on council districts and to instead focus on zoning districts.

And one committee member at that meeting did again raise some concerns about youth center definitions.

So out of those items I just outlined, I'm gonna take a little bit of a deeper dive on each of them.