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From everyone to the closed session portion of the City Council meeting, I'm calling this meeting to order. The time is now 5:30 | 00:00:00 | |
PM. | 00:00:03 | |
Madam Clerk, can you please take roll? | 00:00:07 | |
Council Member Gamma here, Council Member Hernandez here, Council Member McQueen, Lujan here, Mayor Pro Tem Perez and Mayor | 00:00:09 | |
Martinez, President. | 00:00:12 | |
We will now hear public comments soon. Participants, please use the Raise Your Hand featured you'd like to comment. You will have | 00:00:17 | |
3 minutes to provide comments. Madam Clerk, does anyone have a public comment tonight? No public comments for closed session. | 00:00:23 | |
Mr. City Attorney, can you please read the closed session items into the record? | 00:00:30 | |
Absolutely, Mayor Martinez. There is one item of business on closed session for tonight. It's conference with real property | 00:00:33 | |
negotiators pursuant to Government Code Section 54956.8. | 00:00:38 | |
The property in question is 100 Panoma St. bearing APN listed in the agenda. The agency negotiators are listed in the agenda and | 00:00:43 | |
under negotiation is price and terms of payment. | 00:00:47 | |
Do any council members have any conflicts other than myself to disclose for the listed closed session agenda item? | 00:00:53 | |
OK. | 00:01:00 | |
I live like right across from the property, so. | 00:01:00 | |
I'm going to recuse myself from closed session. I'm going to wish you all good luck. | 00:01:03 | |
Uh. | 00:01:08 | |
Council will recess to closed session. The time is now 5:31 PM. | 00:01:10 | |
We'll be back at 6:30. | 00:01:16 | |
Welcome everyone to the regular City Council meeting. I'm calling this meeting to order. The time is now. | 01:03:47 | |
6:33 PM Can everyone please stand and join us? | 01:03:53 | |
For the flag salute. | 01:03:57 | |
Ready. Begin. | 01:04:03 | |
Pleased to meet. | 01:04:05 | |
To the flag. | 01:04:06 | |
Of the United States of America. | 01:04:07 | |
And to the Republic for distance. | 01:04:09 | |
One nation under God. | 01:04:12 | |
Indivisible. | 01:04:14 | |
With liberty and justice for all. | 01:04:15 | |
Madam Clerk, can you please take roll? | 01:04:24 | |
Council member Gamma Council member Hernandez. | 01:04:27 | |
Here Council Member McQueen Lejean, Mayor Pro Tem Perez and Mayor Martinez. | 01:04:31 | |
Present. | 01:04:36 | |
Thank you, Georgiana. | 01:04:38 | |
Tonight's inspiration is going to be given. | 01:04:40 | |
By myself. I'm going to keep it nice and short because I think we're gonna have a long meeting tonight. | 01:04:42 | |
But I just want to mention that. | 01:04:46 | |
One of my goals coming into. | 01:04:48 | |
This position as a representative of the city was to improve relationships. | 01:04:52 | |
All all around and I think we've we've gone a long way with. | 01:04:57 | |
The port of Wanami. | 01:05:03 | |
I really feel like we're friends now. | 01:05:05 | |
Our relationship and our partnership has increased, increased a lot. | 01:05:07 | |
And even just recently on our DC trip when we went out. | 01:05:12 | |
We were able to learn a lot about each other and understand each other a little bit better and and that helped us a lot and. | 01:05:17 | |
The Banana Festival, which is this weekend and it was a really wonderful event. I saw the council out and a lot of community | 01:05:23 | |
support and it's something that they do for our community and it's something to be thankful for. | 01:05:28 | |
O for our inspiration is just continuing partnerships. | 01:05:34 | |
Even whether it's neighbors or family members or friends, like continue to build friendships and and bonds with one another | 01:05:38 | |
because at the end of the day, that's. | 01:05:42 | |
All there is is people here in this world. | 01:05:47 | |
We have to work with people. | 01:05:49 | |
Closed session report Mr. City Attorney, can you please provide the closed session? | 01:05:52 | |
Report. | 01:05:57 | |
Thank you, Mayor Martinez. There was no reportable action taken in closed session tonight. | 01:05:58 | |
OK, we will now hear public comments not pertaining to any items on the agenda soon. Participants, can you please raise the hand? | 01:06:01 | |
Use the Raise Your Hand feature if you'd like to comment. Comments are limited to 3 minutes. | 01:06:07 | |
This process will be the same for comments pertaining to each agenda item. Madam Clerk, do we have any public comment tonight? | 01:06:12 | |
We have a public comment for Timothy. | 01:06:18 | |
Good evening, Mayor Martinez, Mayor, Pro Temps, Council Members, City Manager, Vega, City Staff. It's nice to see everyone. I'd | 01:06:29 | |
like to thank the City Manager and the City Council for the much needed improvement to the libraries parking lot that's already | 01:06:35 | |
underway. We've had a few positive comments from the community already and we're looking forward to continuing to serve the | 01:06:40 | |
community, especially during the upcoming election season. | 01:06:45 | |
To recap the summer reading program at the library. | 01:06:52 | |
Which ended on August 4th. We had 980 people attend 30 programs over the course of eight weeks. | 01:06:55 | |
These programs were sponsored by our Friends of the Library, who will be hosting their annual High Tea on Sunday, October 15th. | 01:07:02 | |
It's the largest fundraiser for the library throughout the course of the year. We're looking forward to seeing some of you in | 01:07:10 | |
attendance there. | 01:07:14 | |
And to recap, some of the upcoming programs that the library is going to be offering will be providing a first time home buyers | 01:07:18 | |
program in partnership with the Ventura County Community Development Corporation on Saturday, October 14th. | 01:07:25 | |
From 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM. | 01:07:31 | |
Advance registration is required. | 01:07:34 | |
The library will also be hosting a Children's Halloween Carnival on October 31st beginning at 10:30 AM. | 01:07:36 | |
That's all I have for you tonight. Thank you in advance for your time, your service, and your commitment to providing the city of | 01:07:44 | |
Wanami with a world class library. Thank you. | 01:07:47 | |
Thank you, Mr. Tim Frugal. That's the best librarian in all of California, everyone. | 01:07:52 | |
Umm. | 01:07:59 | |
Moving on to agenda approval for City Council meeting, may I have a motion to 2nd to approve the agenda? | 01:08:00 | |
Move to approve. | 01:08:06 | |
2nd. | 01:08:08 | |
Madam Clerk, can you please take a vote? | 01:08:10 | |
All in favor. | 01:08:13 | |
Aye, all opposed. | 01:08:14 | |
Hearing none motion motion passes unanimously. | 01:08:16 | |
A conflict of interest declaration. Do any members of? | 01:08:20 | |
Council have any conflicts of interest to disclose for anyone item? | 01:08:23 | |
I guess I'll mention for item number 13 one of the recommendations, there's three parts. One of those is regarding my state | 01:08:31 | |
travel. | 01:08:36 | |
UM and pay and reimbursement for substitute teacher costs. | 01:08:41 | |
So I'm going to recuse myself for that one particular recommendation. | 01:08:48 | |
On. | 01:08:52 | |
Item number 13 on the agenda. | 01:08:53 | |
OK. | 01:08:59 | |
We will now recess. | 01:09:01 | |
The City Council regular meeting and call to order. | 01:09:03 | |
The Housing Authority regular meeting. I know it's kind of strange we do it this way, but the time is now 639 PM. | 01:09:06 | |
And we will now take roll call for the Portland Amy Housing Authority. | 01:09:16 | |
Meeting Madam Clerk, can you please take role? | 01:09:20 | |
Member Brown. | 01:09:23 | |
Member Gamma. | 01:09:24 | |
Here Member Hernandez, Member McQueen Lejean, Vice Chair Perez. | 01:09:27 | |
And Chair Martinez. | 01:09:32 | |
Present Let the record reflect that that member Blackwell is absent. | 01:09:34 | |
We went out here public comments pertaining to items not on the housing. | 01:09:39 | |
I. | 01:09:43 | |
I mean pertaining to. | 01:09:45 | |
Not the Housing Authority agenda, just regular ones, assume participants, please use the Raise Your Hand feature should you wish | 01:09:49 | |
to comment. | 01:09:52 | |
Madam Clerk, are there any public comments? | 01:09:56 | |
No public comments. | 01:09:59 | |
OK. We will now consider items on the Housing Authority consent calendar, which will be enacted in one motion unless authority | 01:10:01 | |
members. | 01:10:04 | |
As I have a request to remove an item for discussion. | 01:10:08 | |
May I have a motion in a second to approve the consent calendar moved? | 01:10:11 | |
2nd. | 01:10:15 | |
OK, Madam Clerk, can you please take a vote? | 01:10:17 | |
All in favor. | 01:10:20 | |
Aye. | 01:10:21 | |
All opposed. | 01:10:22 | |
Hearing none motion passes unanimously. | 01:10:24 | |
All right. So we do have one Housing Authority business item. It's item number three, HUD action plan for late submission | 01:10:27 | |
financial statements. Will staff please present the report? | 01:10:32 | |
Yes, thank you, Mayor. | 01:10:38 | |
I have just a brief staff report the item. | 01:10:40 | |
On the agendas the HUD Action Plan for Late submission of Financial statements. | 01:10:44 | |
In short, the city's Housing Authority recently received a letter from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. | 01:10:50 | |
Earlier this month that stated that the Housing Authority had failed to submit its financial statements by the March 31st, 2020 | 01:10:56 | |
third deadline. | 01:10:59 | |
The City had submitted our financial statements five days later than that, on April 5th, 2023. | 01:11:04 | |
We were informed that the HUD process is essentially simply pass or fail you either. | 01:11:12 | |
Submit by the deadline or you fail. | 01:11:17 | |
And so the Cities Housing Authority received a failed this year due to the five day delay in submittal. Upon receipt of the | 01:11:20 | |
letter, we met with our housing and finance teams and and city managers team to review that process and review. | 01:11:27 | |
The letter and and what occurred and so we wanted to put this item on the agenda to a explain that and then also explain our | 01:11:35 | |
action plan that we are going to submit to HUD to correct the issue. | 01:11:42 | |
And to assure them that the item will be corrected this coming year. | 01:11:50 | |
So in summary, the delay was caused by a couple of issues. | 01:11:55 | |
First, the city's audit firm had staffing challenges which led to delays in completion of the audit. | 01:11:59 | |
This is was not a typical last year, just like a lot of small businesses and other. | 01:12:05 | |
Agencies are auditors who are contractors. | 01:12:12 | |
Had staffing challenges due to turnover and and COVID related. | 01:12:16 | |
Issues. | 01:12:20 | |
So our audit process itself. | 01:12:21 | |
Was a challenge this year and there were delays in that process. That was one of the key primary causes. Second, the receipt of | 01:12:25 | |
the American Rescue Plan Act funds caused additional audit requirements and. | 01:12:31 | |
I've mentioned that before that each when cities received the ARPA funds. | 01:12:38 | |
There was initially a celebration and then a moment of realizing all the additional work and requirement that requirements that | 01:12:43 | |
came with those funds. | 01:12:47 | |
And so there was a specific housing schedule that was required because. | 01:12:51 | |
Housing and City both were required to file this schedule. | 01:12:58 | |
Due to the. | 01:13:02 | |
Receiving the ARPA funds. | 01:13:03 | |
And that was an issue that we were, our staff was unfamiliar with. It was something that hadn't occurred recently. It hadn't | 01:13:06 | |
occurred with our current staffing. | 01:13:10 | |
And so there was a delay in the process due to that issue as well. | 01:13:14 | |
And as mentioned before, this led to the audit being submitted April 1st, April 5th. | 01:13:18 | |
It was completed a couple days prior to that and actually on March 31st, but then it has to go through a process and it wasn't | 01:13:26 | |
submitted until April 5th. | 01:13:31 | |
So we took a look at this we we sort of were able to determine what happened and. | 01:13:35 | |
And. | 01:13:42 | |
What occurred so that we could make a plan to not have it happen again and so as part of the recovery plan or the action plan that | 01:13:42 | |
we are submitting to HUD. | 01:13:46 | |
We we state. | 01:13:51 | |
The following we We state some recommendations, including. | 01:13:55 | |
Umm. | 01:13:59 | |
That uh. | 01:14:00 | |
But some that we've already begun to implement. | 01:14:02 | |
As an example, one of the recommendations was to select new auditors. We had a contract that would have allowed us to keep our | 01:14:04 | |
prior auditors and additional term. | 01:14:09 | |
We declined that and we have selected new auditors. | 01:14:14 | |
As we selected those auditors, we also required a commitment that. | 01:14:17 | |
They would complete items on certain dates in advance of the deadlines to avoid another situation where we get items on the date | 01:14:20 | |
it's due. | 01:14:25 | |
And then to ensure that we remain on track to correct the issue, we're also committing to provide a report back to the Housing | 01:14:30 | |
Board. | 01:14:33 | |
In advance in December. | 01:14:37 | |
To commit, to show that we are meeting the requirements and that we are working in advance of the deadlines, and so that is also | 01:14:40 | |
included in the action plan. | 01:14:45 | |
And we've already scheduled work to begin with the auditors next week on October 9th to try to get ahead of the timelines. And so | 01:14:51 | |
the complete list of actions that we are taking are in the letter that's included as an attachment. | 01:14:58 | |
With that, staff is recommending that the Housing Board approve the action plan. | 01:15:06 | |
At which time I will sign the letter and submit it to HUD confirming that we will implement those actions. | 01:15:11 | |
So that with that I will turn it back over to to you Chair. | 01:15:17 | |
May I ask what? Yeah, well, this is the time. Does anyone have any questions? Anyone on council? | 01:15:22 | |
So will the audit firm come back to us or is that already done? | 01:15:27 | |
The prior audit firm or the new audit? The new audit firm. So I believe the new audit firm was already. | 01:15:32 | |
Approved by a council, but I'm going to look to look because I think might have been right before I. | 01:15:40 | |
Alright, but I believe the new contracts already been approved by council, yes. Good evening. | 01:15:45 | |
The new audit firm was approved by council. We did an RFP and went through the selection process and we selected a a firm that has | 01:15:50 | |
a lot of experience with smaller cities such as Portrayed me. They've already come and done a lot of the preliminary work, so | 01:15:56 | |
they've already tested a lot of the internal controls. | 01:16:02 | |
And they're coming back next week to do the field work, the last of the field work. | 01:16:08 | |
And they will be coming back as the other audit firm came to present the audited financials. | 01:16:13 | |
And we're looking at having those completed even for the city sooner than the last time. So they will be coming back on probably | 01:16:19 | |
sometime in January. | 01:16:24 | |
To present the financials to council. | 01:16:29 | |
Just don't see. | 01:16:33 | |
Ohh OK. | 01:16:35 | |
We can add their name to the action plan. It's one of those long names Lupe's loss. | 01:16:37 | |
Hartman and. | 01:16:43 | |
Levy, Levy and Hard Time. | 01:16:45 | |
Yes. | 01:16:47 | |
So we could add that to the action plan then the names of the new auditors. Did she say hard times? | 01:16:48 | |
Art SIM. | 01:16:56 | |
It is hard times, but I know it's hard. | 01:16:59 | |
All the time. | 01:17:02 | |
Member Brown, did you have a question? | 01:17:05 | |
Cover. | 01:17:09 | |
OK. | 01:17:10 | |
Yeah, just one question and it just came to me right now. Was there anything in the RFP or the contract? | 01:17:13 | |
That required the UH. | 01:17:20 | |
The contracting firm to. | 01:17:23 | |
Submit before 31 March. | 01:17:25 | |
So it wasn't specifically called out and. | 01:17:27 | |
Part of this is. | 01:17:31 | |
We we knew there was a problem. Maybe this is a way to explain it. Like we knew there was a problem. We knew that we weren't | 01:17:33 | |
getting the data when we expected to get it when we were asking for it. | 01:17:39 | |
So we knew there was a problem back around, you know, February, March, April. | 01:17:45 | |
We finished out the audit and then we had the option of either. | 01:17:50 | |
Having the same auditors continue, or coming back to council and saying we need new auditors. | 01:17:54 | |
And so we sort of. | 01:17:59 | |
Have done that and so now it kind of you know now it's four months later, five months later are actually. | 01:18:01 | |
I guess that's what, seven months later? | 01:18:08 | |
We get the HUD letter saying there was a problem back then. We've already taken steps to try to address it. We already knew there | 01:18:10 | |
was a problem. | 01:18:13 | |
And so. | 01:18:17 | |
Our plan is trying to. | 01:18:19 | |
Our action plan is saying we've already taken these steps and we're and and et cetera. | 01:18:21 | |
But we. | 01:18:27 | |
This issue since we weren't aware of the specific deadline when we did the RFP for the new auditors, we didn't have a specific | 01:18:28 | |
requirement related to this deadline in there. So it's going to be us working with them and it's going to be incumbent on. | 01:18:34 | |
Me, Lupe Gabby, to our finance directors and housing directors. | 01:18:41 | |
To hold them accountable and I think we're doing that. We've already had a couple of meetings after this letter saying this. This | 01:18:46 | |
is why we were trying to be more proactive and I think they're being responsive to that. So we're going to require that, but it's | 01:18:51 | |
not specifically in the RFP. | 01:18:56 | |
Great. That would have been my next question about accountability. Thank you. Thank you. | 01:19:01 | |
Vice Chair, Press. | 01:19:07 | |
Yes. Was there a penalty for the fact that we were, we failed. | 01:19:08 | |
It's not a penalty at this time. It's essentially a don't let it happen again and then we've committed to not let it happen, OK? | 01:19:14 | |
Thank you. | 01:19:22 | |
OK. | 01:19:24 | |
Are there any public comments regarding this item? | 01:19:26 | |
There are no public comments. | 01:19:30 | |
The recommendation is to authorize staff to submit the attached letter action plan to the US Department of Housing and Urban | 01:19:32 | |
Development. | 01:19:35 | |
May I have a motion and a second? | 01:19:39 | |
Move to submit the action plan. | 01:19:41 | |
After we approve it. | 01:19:44 | |
2nd. | 01:19:46 | |
OK. | 01:19:49 | |
Is there any discussion that you'd like to take place? | 01:19:50 | |
OK, Madam Clerk, can we please take a vote? | 01:19:55 | |
All in favor, aye. | 01:19:57 | |
All opposed. | 01:19:59 | |
Hearing none motion passes. | 01:20:01 | |
With Blackwell absent. | 01:20:04 | |
OK, Authority member reports comments and requests for future agenda items. | 01:20:06 | |
I'll start with Johnny Brown. | 01:20:11 | |
No. | 01:20:14 | |
At this time, I have no comment right now, you know. | 01:20:15 | |
It's running like it always does. | 01:20:20 | |
OK. | 01:20:22 | |
Inside. | 01:20:23 | |
That's good. | 01:20:24 | |
Alright, thank you. Is anyone else? | 01:20:26 | |
Just want to. | 01:20:29 | |
Give thanks to A Public Works. | 01:20:30 | |
It's been 5 long years trying to get a sidewalk over there and we finally got a sidewalk and I think it. | 01:20:33 | |
It's safety and it looks good and I think, I think the members of Mar Vista greatly appreciate it, so thank you Public. | 01:20:38 | |
Thank you Council for. | 01:20:48 | |
Alright, so the Port Wine EMY Housing Authority will adjourn to its next regular meeting scheduled for November 6/20/23 at 6:30 | 01:20:52 | |
PM. | 01:20:56 | |
And the City Council meeting will now reconvene. | 01:21:00 | |
The time is now. | 01:21:03 | |
6:51 PM. | 01:21:05 | |
And we have a presentation and a cappuccino 20th anniversary proclamation. | 01:21:08 | |
And just so you know, I don't know this has ever happened. | 01:21:14 | |
But. | 01:21:17 | |
There's a. | 01:21:19 | |
Fight between Who was gonna read the proclamation? I I wanted to read it myself, too, but I think we're going to let Council | 01:21:21 | |
Member Gamma read it. | 01:21:24 | |
First of all, Mayor Martinez talked about relationships earlier and how inspirational relationships can be in the community. | 01:21:33 | |
And the relationships down at Anna Cappuccino are. | 01:21:40 | |
Though inspirational and it's a place where people gather every morning. I go there every morning. | 01:21:44 | |
And my life would not be complete if I don't get my coffee at Anna Cappuccino. | 01:21:48 | |
My boss says, you know, we have free coffee here. Gone. I'm like, I know, but I got this relationship thing that's really positive | 01:21:53 | |
and I'm going to continue to build on that, so. | 01:21:57 | |
To my friends at Anna Cappuccino. | 01:22:02 | |
Whereas on October 3rd, 2003, Anna Cappuccino opened their doors in the city of Port Wanami. | 01:22:06 | |
And has been serving the community for the past 20 years and whereas Anna Cappuccino is a family owned business by daughter. | 01:22:12 | |
Jessica Lamb and mother partner Lucille Lamour. | 01:22:19 | |
Which is located at 289 E Winema Rd. Port Wanami, California 93041 and whereas Anna Cappuccino is open daily serving breakfast and | 01:22:22 | |
lunch where you can enjoy delicious coffee, smoothies, sandwiches, oatmeal, pastries, salads, wraps and more. | 01:22:30 | |
And whereas at a cappuccino has become a true gem for the city of Port Winema, local favorite. | 01:22:39 | |
And whereas Mayor Martinez is going to put it. | 01:22:46 | |
Alright, let's see where you left off. | 01:22:51 | |
Three up in the bottom. | 01:22:53 | |
Whereas Anna Cappuccino supports the small business community and provides a space where local artists and entrepreneurs can | 01:22:55 | |
display their artwork, crafts and items for purchase. | 01:23:00 | |
And whereas Anna Cappuccino is delighted. | 01:23:05 | |
And dedicated to the community. | 01:23:08 | |
They serve and is deeply involved. | 01:23:10 | |
Supporting many events including Port Winema's monthly senior social. | 01:23:12 | |
The City of Port Wines Health Fair, the Beach Cleanup, the Junior Lifeguard Program and other events such as the first ever | 01:23:17 | |
Winning Me Fun Run. | 01:23:20 | |
Now, therefore, be it Proclaim that the City Council, the City of Portland Amy does hereby recognize and a cappuccino for their | 01:23:25 | |
contributions and dedicated service to the City of Port Wanami over the past 20 years. | 01:23:32 | |
And join in the celebration of their 20th anniversary, offering congratulations and continued continued success in the future. | 01:23:38 | |
Proclaim this second day of October 2023. | 01:23:43 | |
And I would like to welcome you to the front if you'd like to say some words either Jessica or Brian or. | 01:23:55 | |
Yeah, Jessica's always stepped up when I asked her to support Winema High School and other things, and I forgot to mention that, | 01:24:03 | |
but thank you for that. | 01:24:06 | |
You make want to thank everybody for this. I did not expect that, but thank you very much for everybody's support and. | 01:24:10 | |
Not very good at public speaking here, only at the store. | 01:24:19 | |
But thank you very much. | 01:24:22 | |
Thank you, Jessica. | 01:24:24 | |
And then real quick, if, if you can hold on, maybe just sit down for a bit because rich, old Rich Rollins wants to say a couple | 01:24:26 | |
words. | 01:24:29 | |
Did you did you want to do a plug for your? Don't you have an event coming up? Did you want to plug that? | 01:24:33 | |
October 15 I know the same day as the T. | 01:24:39 | |
Which I can't make it. I'm sorry. We're going to have a raffles, We're going to have a DJ. We're going to have live music. | 01:24:43 | |
Different things throughout the whole day from 8:00 to 5:00. | 01:24:51 | |
So I hope everybody makes it. We'll have little treats and stuff like that, so it'll be fun. | 01:24:54 | |
Thank you. | 01:25:00 | |
Planning to have coffee for breakfast and tea at lunch? Tea at noon, right? Sounds like a good day. | 01:25:01 | |
Thank you. | 01:25:07 | |
So let's see how we're going to do this because. | 01:25:08 | |
I do want us to take a photo. | 01:25:10 | |
But then I also hear that. | 01:25:12 | |
There's comments and then there's. | 01:25:14 | |
Former Mayor Rich Rollins wants to say something, too, So how about we start off with? | 01:25:16 | |
Council and then we'll go with Rich Rollins and then we'll we'll take the photo. | 01:25:22 | |
So we'll start with. | 01:25:27 | |
Martha McQueen. | 01:25:29 | |
Yes, just want to congratulate. You haven't spent much time at Anna Cappuccino, but I think we've had a couple of conversations. | 01:25:31 | |
Over at the senior exercise and the after having coffee and danishes and different things, just really love the way that you show | 01:25:39 | |
up for the community and just thank you for that. | 01:25:45 | |
Yes, congratulations on your 1st 20 years. | 01:25:54 | |
Maybe we'll see you in 20 more years. | 01:25:58 | |
It's just been a pleasure knowing you and your family and watching your kids grow up. I think I just sent you a picture of the | 01:26:01 | |
other day of Isabella like 7 years ago. I think she was half the size she is right now. | 01:26:06 | |
She's growing fast, so congratulations to everybody at Anna Cappuccino. I love you guys, I love your service and I love to. | 01:26:11 | |
To get my day going by stopping by at what? | 01:26:18 | |
536 getting a cup of coffee. | 01:26:21 | |
Thank you. | 01:26:24 | |
Congratulations, Jessica, and to your family for 20 years in Fort Wayne, Amy. | 01:26:26 | |
You know one thing that the proclamation didn't include? It didn't mention the amount of contributions that you've made to the | 01:26:32 | |
city of Port Wanami. You're a member of the Friends of the Library. You're a member of the Sister City program. We hosted one of | 01:26:37 | |
our. | 01:26:42 | |
Meals at Anna Cappuccino. You did such a nice job hosting us and had the tables outside with the umbrellas. | 01:26:48 | |
And you, you've helped us out with our coastal cleanups in the past and bringing coffee and. | 01:26:54 | |
And pastries for the workers I just. | 01:26:59 | |
You're always showing up for us and I just want to say thank you on behalf of the community and and we hope that you. | 01:27:02 | |
Enjoy another 20 years. | 01:27:09 | |
Yes, thank you, Jessica. You are a very important part of my personal life. As you recall dating my husband when he'd get off | 01:27:13 | |
shift and I was going to work. That's where we met for literally a year every single day, Had breakfast right before he went to | 01:27:19 | |
bed, and I did what I had to do. So you want you got to watch that first year of our relationship grow. | 01:27:25 | |
So thank you for what you contribute to the community and justice for your personality. You're a great person and we are a benefit | 01:27:32 | |
to have you here. | 01:27:36 | |
Reading the proclamation and talking about how you've supported local artists and entrepreneurs that. | 01:27:43 | |
I can't stress enough how how true that is because I I feel. | 01:27:48 | |
I'm an entrepreneur and you've helped me out and and every time I look at the art, when I tell myself one of these days I'm I | 01:27:53 | |
wanna I want one of my art pieces over there for sale too. | 01:27:57 | |
So one of these days it's going to be up there. | 01:28:02 | |
Just want to say thank you and congratulations 20 years. | 01:28:06 | |
And then I I think this is a good time to bring up former Mayor Rollins. | 01:28:10 | |
You can see that I'm well dressed. | 01:28:20 | |
And part of me being well dressed is. | 01:28:22 | |
Recently, the city has gotten into developing the greenways. | 01:28:25 | |
Well. | 01:28:30 | |
Just a little note, Anna Cappuccino has been involved in that for a number of years. | 01:28:31 | |
They have coffee grounds. | 01:28:36 | |
And they've been donating them to the community to help make their gardens grow well. So that's kind of a neat thing. | 01:28:38 | |
I moved here 1516 years ago. | 01:28:45 | |
Didn't know very much about the city of Port Wanami, but I got to learn about it very, very quickly through my participation | 01:28:48 | |
coming down for my daily coffees. | 01:28:53 | |
At Anna Cappuccino. | 01:28:58 | |
The whole family is very much. | 01:29:02 | |
Involved in the community I gotta give. | 01:29:04 | |
Tribute to the whole family because they're the. | 01:29:08 | |
The kids are some of the nicest behaved kids that I have ever seen, even when they're younger. So that's a that's a. | 01:29:10 | |
A tribute to their parents. | 01:29:18 | |
Um. | 01:29:20 | |
It was mentioned earlier that they we have a. | 01:29:21 | |
An exercise program that meets three days a week and once a month they come down and provide coffee provides a great opportunity | 01:29:26 | |
not for the seniors just to eat, but to get to meet each other, talk to each other. | 01:29:32 | |
As you become a senior, the socialization becomes very, very important. | 01:29:40 | |
And they and they have contributed towards that. | 01:29:45 | |
Uh. | 01:29:48 | |
Let's see, what else do I have to say? | 01:29:51 | |
I I I would like our city, as we move forward with our business plan to promote small businesses like this, because small | 01:29:54 | |
businesses really become the fabric of our community. | 01:30:00 | |
Become kind of their they. They get involved in our community and those are the things that we want to see. | 01:30:05 | |
In our community, so that's all I had to say. | 01:30:12 | |
At this time, I'd like to call up Jessica again for a photo. And then I think. | 01:30:18 | |
The entire council might also want to be part of the photo, so I think. | 01:30:22 | |
Yeah, yeah. And her entire family, of course. | 01:30:26 | |
Make sure it's in HD. | 01:30:36 | |
Take the picture. | 01:30:53 | |
Somebody. | 01:30:56 | |
Ohh, go ahead. | 01:31:03 | |
How many people? | 01:31:10 | |
Can't get it wrong if you do too many. | 01:31:12 | |
We're sneaking. About. | 01:31:18 | |
It's got to be approved. | 01:31:22 | |
By the boss. | 01:31:25 | |
OK. | 01:31:26 | |
All right. We now have two more presentations and I'd like to hand it over to the Commander Albertson for our next two | 01:31:49 | |
presentations. | 01:31:53 | |
Breast Cancer Awareness Month Proclamation and Domestic Violence Awareness Month Proclamation. | 01:31:56 | |
Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, members of City Council, members of staff and members of the public. | 01:32:04 | |
What I have before you tonight are two proclamations just like the mayor mentioned. First one is Breast Cancer Awareness Month | 01:32:10 | |
2023. | 01:32:13 | |
And the second one is Domestic Violence Awareness Month 2023. | 01:32:18 | |
Whereas considerable progress has been made in the fight against breast cancer. | 01:32:23 | |
It still remains the most frequently diagnosed type of non skin cancer and the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women | 01:32:27 | |
in our country and whereas. | 01:32:31 | |
This year alone, over 250,000 Americans will be diagnosed in Nearly 44,000 lives will be lost and. | 01:32:36 | |
Whereas. | 01:32:43 | |
Knowing that many contribute to breast cancer. | 01:32:44 | |
Excuse me, Knowing what may contribute to breast cancer is an important part of its prevention. | 01:32:47 | |
Risk factors for breast cancer include family and personal history, radiation therapy to the chest for previous cancers, obesity | 01:32:52 | |
and certain genetic changes and. | 01:32:57 | |
Whereas. | 01:33:02 | |
Getting regular screenings may help lower the chances of developing breast cancer in women, and men are encouraged to talk with | 01:33:03 | |
their health care provider about their risks and what they can do to mitigate them and. | 01:33:08 | |
Whereas thanks to earlier detection and better treatments, mortality rates for breast cancer have steadily decreased in the last | 01:33:13 | |
decade. And whereas. | 01:33:17 | |
During National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we stand with our mothers, daughters, sisters and friends, and we recognize all who | 01:33:22 | |
have joined their loved ones in fighting their battle, as well as the advocates, researchers, and healthcare providers who care. | 01:33:29 | |
And hard and work hard. | 01:33:36 | |
Giving gives hopes to those living with breast cancer and. | 01:33:38 | |
Whereas. | 01:33:42 | |
By educating ourselves and supporting innovative research. | 01:33:42 | |
We will improve the quality of life for all Americans affected by breast cancer and one day defeat this terrible disease and | 01:33:46 | |
whereas the Port Wanami Police Department will be wearing pink patches on their uniforms. | 01:33:52 | |
Signifying their commitment to raise awareness to help support all those affected by breast cancer. | 01:33:58 | |
Now therefore, be proclaimed that the City Council of Port Wanami hereby recognizes October 2023. | 01:34:03 | |
As Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the city of Portland, Miami. | 01:34:10 | |
And encourages the community to help raise and support in the fight against breast cancer. | 01:34:13 | |
Proclaim the second day of October 2023. | 01:34:17 | |
So the next one I have is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Excuse me, I'm getting over a sinus infection. I was out of the | 01:34:24 | |
office all last week with it. | 01:34:27 | |
Whereas October is designated as Domestic Violence Awareness Month and whereas domestic violence is a crime which affects all | 01:34:31 | |
races. | 01:34:35 | |
Cultures and social demographics and. | 01:34:39 | |
Whereas domestic violence has a profound impact on families and the community. | 01:34:42 | |
And whereas children that grow up in violent homes are believed to be abused and neglected at a rate higher than the national | 01:34:48 | |
average. | 01:34:51 | |
And whereas only a coordinated Community effort will put a stop to this atrocious crime and. | 01:34:55 | |
Whereas Domestic Violence Awareness Month provides an excellent opportunity for residents to learn more about preventing domestic | 01:35:01 | |
violence and show support for the numerous organizations and individuals who provide critical advocacy services and assistance to | 01:35:06 | |
victims. | 01:35:11 | |
And whereas a Port, Wine, EMY Police Department, City of Port Wine, EMY and community based organizations are in a position to | 01:35:16 | |
provide education, information and services to assist victims in the understanding that they have the right to be safe. | 01:35:22 | |
Feel safe and live free from violence at home and in the workplace and. | 01:35:29 | |
Whereas we must all continue to help and advocate for victims and the criminal justice system and law enforcement must continue to | 01:35:34 | |
hold offenders accountable. | 01:35:38 | |
And whereas we will continue our efforts to end the violence in our homes, schools and communities. | 01:35:42 | |
Now therefore, be it proclaimed that the City Council of Port Wanami hereby recognizes October 2023 as Domestic Violence Awareness | 01:35:48 | |
Month in the City of Port Wanami. | 01:35:53 | |
And encourages the community to participate in programs and outreach efforts aimed at towards educating and supporting those who | 01:35:58 | |
are victims of domestic violence. | 01:36:02 | |
Proclaim the second day of October 2023. Thank you. | 01:36:06 | |
Thank you, Commander Albertson. | 01:36:11 | |
Would anybody like to say anything? | 01:36:12 | |
I'll just. | 01:36:17 | |
Congratulate the Police Department for supporting those two very important initiatives and all the fundraising work. | 01:36:19 | |
That you do to support the costs. | 01:36:25 | |
Thank you. | 01:36:27 | |
I also wanted to say thank you, Commander, for. | 01:36:28 | |
Bringing up these two proclamations for us, you know, my mom has had breast cancer. She's going on 97 and if it hadn't been for | 01:36:33 | |
the medical advances that we've made through breast cancer awareness, she might not be here today, so. | 01:36:40 | |
That that one really hits home. So thank you very much for both of those. | 01:36:47 | |
Proclamations. You're welcome. Thank you. | 01:36:51 | |
Thank you, Commander. | 01:36:54 | |
We will now move on to the consent calendar and we will consider items on the consent calendar which will be enacted in one motion | 01:36:55 | |
unless the Council member has a request. | 01:36:59 | |
To remove an item for discussion. | 01:37:04 | |
May I have a motion and a second to approve our consent calendar? | 01:37:07 | |
Move. | 01:37:10 | |
2nd. | 01:37:12 | |
Mayor, if I can, I just quickly make one comment. | 01:37:13 | |
Clarification. | 01:37:16 | |
Sorry for interrupting. | 01:37:18 | |
So on the five year on call professional services agreements, both the city attorney and I want to make sure. | 01:37:20 | |
We sort of. | 01:37:25 | |
Assumed to something that we need to state, which is that that agreement, that item applies to general professional services that | 01:37:26 | |
do not. | 01:37:30 | |
And. | 01:37:34 | |
That does it doesn't bypass any bidding process. It's not applicable to public projects that need to be bid. | 01:37:35 | |
And so it's not intended to bypass those processes. I don't know if the city attorney has anything to add, right. So. | 01:37:43 | |
For everyone's edification, the professional services are those services that are like architectural, engineering and nature. | 01:37:50 | |
They are specifically exempted from public contracting and public resources code requirements that have a whole host of other | 01:37:56 | |
sorts of things, like things we typically define as. | 01:38:00 | |
Public projects that have to follow state competitive bidding laws and things of that nature, so this On Call Services agreement | 01:38:05 | |
is is for those unique professional services. | 01:38:09 | |
That are allowed different requirements and more flexibility to the city to ensure the city gets. | 01:38:14 | |
The best services it can. | 01:38:20 | |
I have a question. So I look through the list of the on call consultants and real quick if we would like to pull an item, we can | 01:38:22 | |
pull it if for further discussion. | 01:38:26 | |
OK. | 01:38:31 | |
Would you like to pull it? Yeah, I'd like to pull Is it item 5. | 01:38:32 | |
Yeah. | 01:38:36 | |
And. | 01:38:37 | |
Item 10 of the consent agenda, so we could decide to attend the five year on call. Yeah. And then I'll move to approve the rest. | 01:38:38 | |
Yeah. Apologies, I probably should have just recommended that, but thank you. | 01:38:42 | |
Right. | 01:38:48 | |
Madam Clerk, can we take a vote? | 01:38:49 | |
All in favor. | 01:38:52 | |
Aye. | 01:38:53 | |
All opposed. | 01:38:53 | |
Hearing none motion passes unanimously. OK, councillor member comma, you can ask. Thank you so much. So I was looking at the Anki | 01:38:54 | |
on Call consultant list and I noticed that Atkins is in every category except one. | 01:39:01 | |
Umm. | 01:39:08 | |
Are they a multi disciplined? Obviously they must be, but I was just curious as to. | 01:39:09 | |
That seems kind of unique in a way. | 01:39:15 | |
Umm. | 01:39:18 | |
With them at the top of the list, that mean that they're the 1st. | 01:39:19 | |
Go to consultant or do you? | 01:39:23 | |
When the need arises, you go through a process to to select the consultant on that particular issue. | 01:39:26 | |
Yeah, let me ask. We have a. | 01:39:33 | |
Public works here and let me ask them to just sort of speak to the process that we'll go through once we have them on call. | 01:39:37 | |
And then my other question would be, is it is, are they ranked? Is this a ranking list, In other words that you go to the first | 01:39:43 | |
available or? | 01:39:46 | |
Or is it just a list? | 01:39:50 | |
And I'll ask Public Works to good Good evening, Mayor. | 01:39:52 | |
City Council staff. | 01:39:57 | |
And the general public? Now this is just a list. | 01:39:59 | |
And we selected the list based on qualifications so all the. | 01:40:02 | |
Consultants here were qualified for the services they applied for in the RFP process. | 01:40:06 | |
Atkins is a large corporation that has. | 01:40:11 | |
Multiple engineering disciplines that they can provide. | 01:40:15 | |
We would select our consultants based on schedule, qualifications and their locality. | 01:40:19 | |
Atkins is based out of Los Angeles, so if we, for instance, they were the only ones that were bid on the architectural services, | 01:40:26 | |
we would have to use them. | 01:40:31 | |
But that doesn't necessarily mean we would just use them for civil engineering, so. | 01:40:35 | |
This is not a ranked list, it's just a list available to us. | 01:40:40 | |
You had mentioned previously Council member Gamma. | 01:40:43 | |
Sometimes you'd like a second opinion for like traffic engineering. So we would be able to do that to check some of our | 01:40:47 | |
consultants. So it's like a peer review and things like that. | 01:40:50 | |
Thank you. | 01:40:55 | |
Other. | 01:40:56 | |
Thanks, Mayor. | 01:40:59 | |
Thank you, Mr. Cable. I just have a quick question. I've typically seen this done in instances where jurisdictions want to have in | 01:41:01 | |
place. | 01:41:05 | |
Consultants and. | 01:41:10 | |
Agencies on hand during major disaster declarations is would this serve that purpose? It can. This is more for professional design | 01:41:12 | |
services. | 01:41:17 | |
Like the the Pleasant Valley. | 01:41:24 | |
Water line break we had if we needed. | 01:41:26 | |
Consultants, services, we would, we would call these people for that. | 01:41:29 | |
Are there any other questions or comments? | 01:41:35 | |
Right. | 01:41:39 | |
We have a motion to approve item number 10. | 01:41:42 | |
So moved. | 01:41:44 | |
2nd. | 01:41:46 | |
Thank you. | 01:41:49 | |
All in favor. | 01:41:50 | |
Aye, all opposed. | 01:41:51 | |
Hearing none motion passes unanimously. | 01:41:53 | |
Right. There are no public hearing items tonight. So we will move on to business items, the first business item. | 01:41:56 | |
Item number 11. Rent stabilization and tenant protection. | 01:42:03 | |
I will now turn it over to City Manager James Vega. | 01:42:07 | |
Thank you, Mayor. We have a. | 01:42:11 | |
A couple slides. I think this is the only presentation for tonight, so. | 01:42:13 | |
We'll try to go through it fairly quickly. | 01:42:18 | |
I just have to click. | 01:42:21 | |
Thank you. | 01:42:24 | |
Thank you. | 01:42:24 | |
So a couple of points up front before I start the presentation because rent stabilization and tenant protections. | 01:42:26 | |
Get very technical and it gets very complicated. So a couple of points, just very simple upfront. | 01:42:34 | |
One is tonight. There is no ordinance being considered. There's nothing being approved. This is simply a discussion to consider. | 01:42:39 | |
Whether the city wants to look at this further at this time to a feasibility review essentially. | 01:42:47 | |
Two other key points, and. I'll go through these again, but they're just key points that I want to keep reiterating. | 01:42:57 | |
There is currently a state law. | 01:43:03 | |
That prohibits the city from imposing. | 01:43:06 | |
Rent control. | 01:43:09 | |
Which is different from rent stabilization. | 01:43:10 | |
Rent control includes. | 01:43:14 | |
The. | 01:43:17 | |
Setting of Brent. | 01:43:19 | |
The first time somebody moves in rent stabilization is only increases after they move in essentially. | 01:43:21 | |
And uh. | 01:43:26 | |
So there's already a state law that prohibits the city from imposing rent control. | 01:43:28 | |
And the state also stops the city from imposing rent stabilization on anything other than. | 01:43:33 | |
Multifamily units. | 01:43:39 | |
Approved per occupancy before February 1st, 1995. | 01:43:40 | |
And so very simply, the only thing that we can regulate rents on are apartments built before 1995. | 01:43:45 | |
In a in a nutshell. | 01:43:53 | |
Uh. | 01:43:55 | |
2nd A separate state law AB 14901492, which took effect January 1st, 2020. | 01:43:56 | |
Already applies statewide rent stabilization and tenant protections, and we'll go through that a little bit too. So there's | 01:44:03 | |
already a statewide rent stabilization. | 01:44:07 | |
And then, if the city were to consider rent stabilization, it would only apply to apartments approved for occupancy before | 01:44:11 | |
February 1st, 1995. | 01:44:15 | |
So there's nothing that the city can do at this time to. | 01:44:19 | |
Stabilized rents for people living in single family homes, condominiums, et cetera. | 01:44:22 | |
So I just want to kind of make those points because when we get into the weeds of these things. | 01:44:27 | |
We'll forget that and somebody will say, you know. | 01:44:33 | |
Well, what about my house? Well, if you're in a single family home, you're you're out, you're not in the conversation, so. | 01:44:35 | |
That's sort of setting the groundwork. | 01:44:41 | |
So the presentation tonight, it's going to be a few slides. | 01:44:44 | |
An overview of rent stabilization. | 01:44:47 | |
And then what some local cities have done on rent stabilization, what some local cities have done on tenant protections? | 01:44:50 | |
And penalties and enforcement options. | 01:44:57 | |
So the I and a little some of this is gonna be a little repetitive of what I just said just because I want to reiterate it. | 01:45:00 | |
There's a state law called the Costa Hawkins Act. | 01:45:08 | |
And that's the one that limits the city to only have rent stabilization for apartments or what the the term they use is | 01:45:12 | |
multifamily homes. But. | 01:45:15 | |
It's essentially apartments. | 01:45:19 | |
Approved for occupancy before February 1st, 1995. | 01:45:21 | |
I mentioned already the difference between rent control and rent stabilization rent controls. | 01:45:25 | |
No city that didn't already have rent control can now have rent control. So that's off the. | 01:45:29 | |
Table. The only thing that could be done now is this rent stabilization for limited. | 01:45:35 | |
Situations. | 01:45:42 | |
The statewide Rent Stabilization 1482 went into effect to stop what the state referred to as rent gouging. | 01:45:44 | |
1482, the state law that's in effect right now. | 01:45:50 | |
Prevents landlords from raising the rent of a unit by more than 5% plus the rate of inflation, up to a maximum of 1010%. | 01:45:54 | |
So in other words, the state law right now stops somebody from raising the rent on a unit of more than 10% in a year. | 01:46:02 | |
I think we've all heard of that happening. And so there's a question of is it being enforced or do people know that that's the | 01:46:09 | |
law? | 01:46:12 | |
But that is actually the state law that that is enforceable at this time. | 01:46:16 | |
As I mentioned, I now I've repeated it three times so I won't repeat it again, but. | 01:46:23 | |
But I mentioned the date and the the fact that it applies to apartments. | 01:46:27 | |
A key question in each community that considers this is really should be looking at our community. | 01:46:31 | |
How many units? | 01:46:37 | |
Do we have that are in that category? | 01:46:38 | |
Out of how many total units? | 01:46:41 | |
What's the need of a? | 01:46:44 | |
Of in that community and that category. | 01:46:46 | |
And that's just different in every city. There's some cities that are. | 01:46:49 | |
Very apartment heavy, and it may be that all their apartments were built before that date and it could be something that has a | 01:46:53 | |
major impact. | 01:46:58 | |
And then there's other cities that don't have apartments, and maybe it wouldn't make an impact. | 01:47:02 | |
Or maybe it's a city that's newly developed and has only new apartments, in which case this wouldn't apply either. | 01:47:07 | |
And so we took a look for Port Winema at how many units we think fit in the category. | 01:47:13 | |
Roughly of. | 01:47:19 | |
Being able to apply these rent stabilization measures. | 01:47:21 | |
Our estimate is based on our planning data. | 01:47:24 | |
Is 600 units out of 8000 total. | 01:47:28 | |
About 7%. | 01:47:31 | |
So it wouldn't apply. | 01:47:33 | |
To 93% of the community. | 01:47:36 | |
And again, you know. | 01:47:39 | |
We just as we talk about this, we'll want to be very clear on that because. | 01:47:42 | |
Inevitably you have somebody come in and say who says my rent just went up, and then they find out that they're either. | 01:47:46 | |
Single family home or a condo or newer build. | 01:47:51 | |
And this doesn't apply to them. So we just want to make sure that that messaging is. | 01:47:54 | |
Consistent and out there. | 01:48:00 | |
Local cities have started to introduce rent stabilization. I think probably one of the common questions that I heard was when | 01:48:04 | |
Oxnard adopted their rent stabilization. | 01:48:09 | |
A lot of people sort of assumed, well, when is Fort Wayne Amy gonna do theirs because. | 01:48:14 | |
On the map where essentially. | 01:48:19 | |
You know, connected and and there our neighbor. | 01:48:22 | |
But again, looking at the big picture, I think the question for the Council and the community is. | 01:48:26 | |
Do we have? | 01:48:33 | |
Those types of units and what what is our ability to protect? | 01:48:35 | |
The people within living within our city limits. | 01:48:40 | |
But. | 01:48:43 | |
As a starting point, we looked to Oxnard and Ohai, who recently adopted A variation of Oxnard. They're the 2 Ventura County cities | 01:48:44 | |
who've adopted. | 01:48:48 | |
Each adopted rent stabilization in Ventura County, which. | 01:48:54 | |
Their ordinances limited increases to a maximum of 4% annually. | 01:48:58 | |
And only one in one increase in 12 months, so one increase up to 4% every every year. That's what those cities have implemented | 01:49:03 | |
with rent stabilization. | 01:49:08 | |
They've had some additional requirements, like requirements that a landlord must provide written notice to tenants. | 01:49:15 | |
Regarding the ordinance and their tenants rights and how to respond if they believe that they've. | 01:49:21 | |
Been subject to an increase greater than 4%. | 01:49:27 | |
And then the they created a process where the tenant would have to notify the landlord. | 01:49:31 | |
If the increase exceeded 4% and give an opportunity to fix it within 30 days before they could file a civil lawsuit against the | 01:49:36 | |
landlord. | 01:49:41 | |
They included a civil remedies and attorneys fees provision. So obviously one of the first things as well, if you're a tenant | 01:49:46 | |
who's being priced out of your apartment, how do you? | 01:49:52 | |
You know, how would you have the ability to enforce that and so the ordinances. | 01:49:57 | |
Adding attorneys fees provisions so that the person could seek an attorney and the attorney would know that they could obtain | 01:50:02 | |
attorneys fees. | 01:50:05 | |
So it was intended to help them to be able to afford that if they needed to to do that so. | 01:50:09 | |
So that's what's been included in the the local cities that have adopted rent stabilization. | 01:50:15 | |
Secondly, along with rent stabilization, it's typical that it gets paired with another. | 01:50:22 | |
Section, which is referred to as tenant protections. | 01:50:29 | |
Which prevent. | 01:50:33 | |
Unjust evictions. | 01:50:35 | |
Just very. | 01:50:37 | |
At a very basic level. | 01:50:39 | |
If they can reset their rent every time they have a new tenant. | 01:50:41 | |
If you didn't have tenant protections, the thought is that the landlord could just keep evicting and raising the rents. | 01:50:44 | |
And setting a new rent. | 01:50:50 | |
And so most cities that have adopted rent stabilization have included tenant protections. | 01:50:51 | |
To make sure that doesn't happen. | 01:50:58 | |
State law. | 01:51:01 | |
Similar to rent stabilization, state law prohibits landlords from terminating lease without just cause. | 01:51:03 | |
And a just cause eviction can be at fault or no fault. | 01:51:10 | |
And so this slide shows a list of the reasons why I eviction would be considered at fault. | 01:51:14 | |
So something like if a tenant doesn't pay their rent or they breach their lease. | 01:51:20 | |
It's an at fault eviction and the tenant would not get could be evicted without any. | 01:51:24 | |
Relocation benefits. | 01:51:31 | |
If it's a no fault evac eviction. | 01:51:33 | |
And there's only four reasons for a no fault eviction. | 01:51:36 | |
But if it's a no fault eviction. | 01:51:39 | |
The tenant could would be entitled to relocation benefits if evicted and the no fault reasons. | 01:51:41 | |
The four reasons are. | 01:51:47 | |
An intent by the owner or their family to occupy the unit themselves. | 01:51:48 | |
They're the owners taking the market off or the unit off the rental market. | 01:51:53 | |
Essentially to to stop renting it out. | 01:51:58 | |
The owner is required to remove the unit off the market because of a government order. | 01:52:01 | |
Or the owner is going to substantially remodel the unit and. | 01:52:06 | |
And they they they then can evict the tenant. | 01:52:12 | |
So those are the four reasons that. | 01:52:16 | |
If a landlord evicts A tenant and there's tenant protections in place. | 01:52:18 | |
The. | 01:52:22 | |
Tenant would be entitled to. | 01:52:23 | |
Relocation benefits. | 01:52:25 | |
So. | 01:52:27 | |
So as I mentioned before, a couple of local cities have adopted. | 01:52:30 | |
Some of these measures I won't get into the details on the. | 01:52:35 | |
Tenant protection portion, but they adopted the. | 01:52:41 | |
At Fault or no fault Eviction definitions and they. | 01:52:45 | |
Provided different amounts of relocation assistance, such as if, if. | 01:52:49 | |
For example, you have to evict the tenant and it's no fault of their own. In one city the tenant gets paid a $5000 relocation | 01:52:54 | |
assistance. | 01:52:58 | |
Or two months rent, whichever is greater. And I think that was, I think that was Oxnard that did that. | 01:53:03 | |
And then, similar to rent stabilization, the landlords are required to post notice about the tenant protections and what that | 01:53:09 | |
means for the tenant. | 01:53:13 | |
And the ordinances include penalties. | 01:53:17 | |
And the notice to of an opportunity to cure within 30 days. | 01:53:20 | |
Last. | 01:53:27 | |
The ordinances in those cities include penalties and enforcement. There's essentially 2 paths. | 01:53:28 | |
There's either administrative or civil penalties. | 01:53:33 | |
Civil penalties are the simpler of the two. It essentially gives the tenant the right to. | 01:53:36 | |
File a lawsuit against the landlord if if they violate. | 01:53:41 | |
And don't cure within 30 days. | 01:53:45 | |
Administrative is a little more complicated and a little more burden on the city. That's where the city would actually essentially | 01:53:47 | |
have code enforcement and issue fines. | 01:53:51 | |
For violation of the ordinance. | 01:53:56 | |
And that's. | 01:53:58 | |
My understanding was that it was the path. | 01:54:00 | |
Our Oxnard chose that path of having both. | 01:54:03 | |
Which is why they had the significant cost of over $1 million to start their rent stabilization process. | 01:54:06 | |
Because they were planning to do full enforcement and allow tenants to file civil suits. | 01:54:13 | |
O. | 01:54:20 | |
Doing both is is the more expensive of the two. | 01:54:22 | |
And that goes to the cost conversation. I mentioned a minute ago that, you know, bigger cities and cities who do sort of the | 01:54:27 | |
deluxe package. | 01:54:31 | |
Have spent, you know, as as much as our exceeding $1,000,000 and. | 01:54:35 | |
Trying to enforce this. | 01:54:41 | |
I was in Ohio when we adopted. When Ohio adopted, it's rent stabilization and tenant protection. | 01:54:43 | |
We estimated that we could, with a smaller city and doing less of the enforcement that we could get the cost down to about | 01:54:50 | |
$150,000 a year. | 01:54:54 | |
And I think it might, it's going to be in that range, maybe a little bit higher than that, maybe closer to two hundred $250,000 a | 01:54:58 | |
year. | 01:55:01 | |
And essentially that comes down to having like a staff person to administrate it and some code enforcement. | 01:55:06 | |
And that's that's what would make up those costs. | 01:55:12 | |
So. | 01:55:15 | |
The cost of administering the program would depend on the level of service that the Council desires if we choose to adopt rent | 01:55:18 | |
stabilization and tenant protection. | 01:55:22 | |
And then I point out just at the end, one thing that I learned from going through this previously. | 01:55:27 | |
Is that? | 01:55:34 | |
Even though we tried to keep costs very low in how we did it and we thought it was such a small number of units that it wouldn't | 01:55:36 | |
be a lot of calls. | 01:55:40 | |
You do end up getting a lot of calls because people just aren't sure if it applies to them. | 01:55:44 | |
We said earlier, the ordinances get complicated. They're 8 or 9 pages. | 01:55:51 | |
Typically the first question from somebody when somebody when their landlord raises their rent is they call the city and say am I | 01:55:55 | |
protected? And then you have to have that conversation. | 01:55:59 | |
Finding out what their address is? Finding out what type of unit they have when it was built? Is it multifamily? | 01:56:04 | |
And then you can imagine there's some conversations that are not. | 01:56:10 | |
Fun conversations to have because you're dealing with people when they. | 01:56:15 | |
Found out they're being priced out of their home. | 01:56:20 | |
And a big chunk of the people who call the answer is we actually can't help you and so. | 01:56:22 | |
Um. | 01:56:27 | |
That's a challenge with enforcing the rent stabilization and tenant protections. | 01:56:29 | |
So I ultimately and I I think I've noted this previously, I think ultimately it's going to come down to. | 01:56:34 | |
The need in our community. | 01:56:41 | |
Being fairly new, I haven't heard a lot of. | 01:56:43 | |
Request for this I think. | 01:56:46 | |
I asked staff and we've heard a few requests since Oxnard adopted the ordinance. | 01:56:49 | |
But I think that's the question is. | 01:56:53 | |
What's the need in our community are the people who would benefit from this ordinance and who need this ordinance are the you know | 01:56:56 | |
how many of them are there and. | 01:56:59 | |
With this ordinance, help the people who need help in our community so. | 01:57:05 | |
With that, that's the background. | 01:57:09 | |
Again, this item was just intended to be sort of big picture how this works. | 01:57:12 | |
How it could work in port Wanami? | 01:57:17 | |
But ultimately. | 01:57:19 | |
The decision hasn't been made yet and the question will be for council of whether to move forward and how to move forward with. | 01:57:21 | |
Rent stabilization. | 01:57:27 | |
I just council have any questions for staff. | 01:57:30 | |
Only questions at this time. | 01:57:33 | |
Thank you. Mayor, one question, you mentioned that 600 units in the city are would potentially fall under rent stabilization. | 01:57:37 | |
Measured if, if we so decide to go in that direction, how many people would that? | 01:57:46 | |
Constitute how many people would be affected? | 01:57:52 | |
Their families perhaps? | 01:57:54 | |
Roughly, I think our average household size was somewhere around. | 01:57:56 | |
4 or so, so roughly 2400. | 01:58:02 | |
Maybe 2400 to 3000 people. | 01:58:05 | |
And and then the administration of a program like this. | 01:58:08 | |
You estimated maybe 200 and 5350. | 01:58:12 | |
OK. | 01:58:16 | |
And I would, I would estimate. | 01:58:17 | |
Sorry, my microphone turned off. | 01:58:20 | |
That's the range I would estimate, but again it depends on the specific level of service that the council requests. If there | 01:58:22 | |
there's potential to do a lot more or a lot less. | 01:58:27 | |
So the admin staff costs would be the primary weight of passing. | 01:58:34 | |
A measure like this. | 01:58:41 | |
Yes, the three sort of main things is just somebody to administer the program. | 01:58:42 | |
Hearing officer and city attorney cost potentially and in analyzing some of the situations. | 01:58:49 | |
And and then potentially some enforcement. | 01:58:56 | |
Having somebody do an enforcement. | 01:58:59 | |
And there are no Is there any recourse for offsetting these costs through penalties? It doesn't seem like the penalties would. | 01:59:01 | |
Be a drop. It would be a drop in the bucket. In terms of offsetting our our admin, yeah, I wouldn't expect to recover much if | 01:59:08 | |
anything. Potentially there would be some citations, but I would, I would guess that we'd be surprised if we'd issue more than | 01:59:14 | |
five to 10 a year. | 01:59:19 | |
Just wanna you know that would I would be surprised to hear that and and just to point out like when you get into code enforcement | 01:59:25 | |
and administration, administrative citation appeals and whatnot there's there's usually a lot of hidden costs that that aren't | 01:59:30 | |
identified. | 01:59:34 | |
So for example, you cite somebody with an admin site and they want to appeal it. The first thing you get is a Public Records Act | 01:59:39 | |
request. | 01:59:42 | |
And they want every correspondence between you and any tenant that's ever existed in the city. | 01:59:45 | |
Well, that generates a lot of documents that that obligates the city clerk to do quite a bit of review. It obligates IT staff and | 01:59:50 | |
obligates me to review for. | 01:59:54 | |
Public records, then you end up in front of an appellate officer, and then after that you're allowed to go to the Superior Court | 01:59:58 | |
and whatnot. And to the extent the city is going down that process, then you're into civil discovery. You're into a lot of things | 02:00:02 | |
that can. | 02:00:06 | |
You know, attorneys aren't cheap. It generates costs. | 02:00:11 | |
Very quickly and as a government entity, you're typically prohibited from recovering those costs. | 02:00:14 | |
Thank you. | 02:00:21 | |
With regard to. | 02:00:24 | |
Where does the dollars come from for relocation assistance? | 02:00:26 | |
So. | 02:00:31 | |
Based on how other cities drafted their ordinances, it's typically the landlord has to pay the relocation costs of the tenant. | 02:00:33 | |
And so if a dispute. | 02:00:41 | |
Develops and that's where the litigation begins. | 02:00:43 | |
Right. | 02:00:47 | |
Right. | 02:00:48 | |
And then it sounds to me that the state has a pretty good. | 02:00:49 | |
Program in place, There's protections. | 02:00:53 | |
Aimed at rent rent stabilization statewide, is that correct? | 02:00:57 | |
So I won't comment on the quality of it because I'm sure people have their own opinions of that, but the state has. | 02:01:02 | |
A similar. | 02:01:08 | |
Rule in place to what we could actually put in place, because the state stops us from really doing. | 02:01:09 | |
Much more other than. | 02:01:15 | |
Essentially. | 02:01:17 | |
Kind of tightening their 10% down to you know 4 or 5% is typical. | 02:01:18 | |
So. | 02:01:24 | |
They provide. | 02:01:25 | |
Similar rent stabilization and very similar tenant protections to what cities could propose. | 02:01:26 | |
Yeah. And then once this program, let's say if it were adopted and the program is staffed up and. | 02:01:32 | |
Who would never go away? And it would be a, it would be a. | 02:01:41 | |
Additional. | 02:01:44 | |
Item on our budget, correct. | 02:01:46 | |
It would be an ongoing cost each year. | 02:01:48 | |
And a couple, just a couple points to that is. | 02:01:52 | |
Technically, the council could. | 02:01:56 | |
You know, change the ordinance in the future. I think politically it would be very difficult too, and I don't think any city has. | 02:01:58 | |
Undone or rent stabilization. | 02:02:05 | |
So I think we it would be ongoing and I. | 02:02:07 | |
Don't expect it to. | 02:02:11 | |
Be like a one or two year thing. | 02:02:12 | |
I think the state rule applies to 2030. I think so. | 02:02:14 | |
Potentially, if the state changes, what they do. | 02:02:19 | |
And and they could, they could do it either before then or at 2030. | 02:02:22 | |
Then that could preempt what the city does as as they change their laws. But. | 02:02:26 | |
The simple answer to the question is if we adopt it, it would be ongoing costs for the foreseeable future, right. And currently | 02:02:31 | |
our budgets a little bit busted and upside down perhaps and so this would be a new. | 02:02:37 | |
Item to our budget that's already under stress. | 02:02:44 | |
This would be a new item. | 02:02:47 | |
And. | 02:02:49 | |
We did a presentation. | 02:02:51 | |
Two or three meetings ago noting that. | 02:02:55 | |
With our CIP budget included. | 02:02:57 | |
We do have sort of a structural deficit that we need to fix, so this would be added to that. | 02:02:59 | |
Right. | 02:03:03 | |
Thank you. | 02:03:05 | |
Are there any other questions? | 02:03:07 | |
Their Proton, Yes. Thank you for the presentation and the information provided. Do we know where the 600 units are located or are | 02:03:10 | |
they spread out throughout the city or are they in one certain area? | 02:03:15 | |
I believe they are spread out. I didn't get a map of those, but I I'm not. | 02:03:22 | |
There there's not. They're not just in one area. I'm not sure if they're concentrated in one area, but they're not in just one | 02:03:27 | |
area. They're they're. | 02:03:31 | |
Spread out through town. | 02:03:36 | |
The other cities that have implemented this, what is the level of success they've had with? | 02:03:37 | |
Helping their community members. | 02:03:42 | |
Yeah, I know. | 02:03:43 | |
I I said in this presentation, I think it was in some of the wording that I was. | 02:03:46 | |
In Ohio when Ohio adopted it and. | 02:03:51 | |
I think. | 02:03:54 | |
Those two points that I just kept reiterating, those were not understood and I think. | 02:03:55 | |
There was a. | 02:03:59 | |
Large percentage of the community that had thought this would help them. | 02:04:01 | |
And then we're very upset when it didn't. | 02:04:05 | |
And I think. | 02:04:08 | |
I had been there about six months after it got adopted and I think there were probably there were. I think we're about two people | 02:04:10 | |
that actually qualified out of the. | 02:04:14 | |
You know, dozens and dozens of. | 02:04:19 | |
Calls and conversations. | 02:04:21 | |
So it's just one it's the challenge, and it's the state who's limiting it. | 02:04:24 | |
So it's just the way it is, but. | 02:04:29 | |
You know, it's we're able to do something, but in such a narrow area that it ends up. | 02:04:31 | |
Not being as helpful as I think everybody thinks it is when they hear. | 02:04:37 | |
The initial idea of rent stabilization because it doesn't apply to single family homes or or condominiums, so. | 02:04:40 | |
So that brings U another next issue. We we implement something like this and then. | 02:04:47 | |
Individuals who own single family homes or those with condos or say for instance, Wanami Bay. | 02:04:52 | |
Who is an at risk area with a fixed income? | 02:04:57 | |
They're going to be wanting the same thing and asking, you know, what about us? What alternatives are there? | 02:05:00 | |
To helping with this situation besides. | 02:05:06 | |
What we're talking about here? | 02:05:10 | |
Yeah. | 02:05:11 | |
You know, I mean, we'll probably get a public comment on it, but I think we got some letters this this week. | 02:05:12 | |
That listed. | 02:05:19 | |
Different programs that are available and things like, you know, like. | 02:05:20 | |
Federal funding of rent subsidies and, you know, things like that. | 02:05:25 | |
There are programs available to help. | 02:05:29 | |
There is not any city ability to do rent stabilization that would help. | 02:05:33 | |
The areas you just mentioned the that are not apartments, so. | 02:05:39 | |
There's. I guess what I'm saying is there's. | 02:05:44 | |
There's options but it's not rent stabilization to do that. It's would be thing, you know, other kinds of incentives or. | 02:05:47 | |
Funding ideas? | 02:05:56 | |
My last question which is kind of silly but. | 02:05:57 | |
What is the difference between an apartment and a condo? | 02:06:00 | |
I think that sort of the in the states definitions, I think one of the key words they used was or one of the key defining points | 02:06:05 | |
was the ability to sell a condo. | 02:06:10 | |
Versus renting an apartment, Yeah. And you might be able to, Yeah, some of the. | 02:06:16 | |
Basically the difference is the state uses the term separately alienable, and in legal parlance, alienable means saleable. | 02:06:21 | |
In the past, what's happened with certain condos that were subject to Costa Hawkins, which was one of the states protections? | 02:06:28 | |
Is people would land owners would pull the units from market and never convert them to saleable condos. | 02:06:35 | |
But the pulling them from market was enough to get out of the rent control or the the rent stabilization aspect. So now there's | 02:06:44 | |
been revisions. | 02:06:47 | |
Through AB 1482 to make it so that you actually have to follow through. | 02:06:50 | |
To to making them separately alienable and whatnot. | 02:06:56 | |
Umm, I I think one of the other things to always keep in mind here, and I just say this for a risk analysis deal, is that. | 02:06:59 | |
Anytime you're talking about taking private property. | 02:07:07 | |
And affecting the economic return on investment. | 02:07:11 | |
Typically the very first challenge you're going to get is something called a takings, which is it stems from the 5th Amendment and | 02:07:15 | |
14th amendments. Is that? | 02:07:18 | |
It basically in. | 02:07:23 | |
Eminent domain proceedings, you cannot deprive somebody of a property or an economic use thereof without paying just compensation | 02:07:25 | |
for it. | 02:07:28 | |
And so the argument typically arises that. | 02:07:32 | |
In doing something like this? | 02:07:35 | |
The government is taking up property for public purpose and affecting market value. | 02:07:37 | |
OK. | 02:07:43 | |
Thank you. | 02:07:44 | |
Any more questions? | 02:07:47 | |
Are there any public? | 02:07:49 | |
Comments regarding this item. | 02:07:51 | |
I'm pretty sure there are. | 02:07:53 | |
Yes, Mayor Martinez, there are public comments. I'm going to go ahead and call up the in person comments 1st and then we will move | 02:07:55 | |
to zoom and written comments less. | 02:07:59 | |
The first public comment would be from Janet's Brassier and Julio Gomez would be after. | 02:08:05 | |
Thank you Mayor and Council for giving me the opportunity to speak this evening. | 02:08:20 | |
My name is Janice Bressler. | 02:08:25 | |
I am here on behalf of the National Association of Residential Property Managers, the Ventura County Chapter, and as broker, owner | 02:08:26 | |
of Rent Eight O 5. | 02:08:31 | |
I wanted to give some more facts about rent stabilization. | 02:08:36 | |
Import warning me, there are roughly about 7000 rental units, as we heard. | 02:08:39 | |
But today's? | 02:08:43 | |
As of this morning when I pulled owner non occupied units based on the parameters that Costa Hawkins says can have rent control, | 02:08:45 | |
we're showing about 329 units that would be affected. Remember Costa Hawkins plays into it and the Ellis Acts has a lot to do with | 02:08:52 | |
how an owner can increase rents as well after they've given notice based on AB 1482. | 02:09:00 | |
Umm. | 02:09:09 | |
Also, the ordinance that you spoke of with Oxnard, it's actually 'cause I fought really hard for this, was the language the lease | 02:09:10 | |
is given. So the ordinances are given out in English, if that is the language of the lease. | 02:09:16 | |
If they are a primary Spanish speaking home, then they can get that second. | 02:09:22 | |
Umm. | 02:09:28 | |
So rinse ablation does not decrease current rents, it actually automatically increases rents annually. | 02:09:29 | |
In Oxnard they did do 4%. | 02:09:36 | |
Are economists looking at the next year are looking at zero to 1% increases for the next two years due to how the economy is | 02:09:39 | |
looking? | 02:09:42 | |
Are the top ten highest rental cities in the nation. Five of those cities are in California. | 02:09:46 | |
All five have run stabilization and tenant protections. | 02:09:51 | |
These are San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and Oakland. | 02:09:55 | |
And all but one has been in place for 44 years. So when we do a comparison of Bell Garden, we just passed in 21, Oxnard pass in | 02:09:59 | |
22. Oh, I just passed. | 02:10:04 | |
The comparing of those units in those cities. | 02:10:09 | |
And in their infancy is really just not really a great. | 02:10:12 | |
Study to tell us what it's going to run. | 02:10:16 | |
Including, we talked about cost. | 02:10:19 | |
Portland Amy is throwing around the figure about between 250,000 to run the program and all those other cities. 50% of that cost | 02:10:21 | |
is passed to the tenant. | 02:10:26 | |
So they would be sharing that with the owner. | 02:10:31 | |
And then I have to ask what fee study was done for organic because Oxnard, we're at a year and a half and they still do not have | 02:10:33 | |
their fee study done and it does cost the city to do a fee study. They just can't hit an arbitrary number and charge that. | 02:10:40 | |
And then? | 02:10:47 | |
AB1482 we talked about. | 02:10:49 | |
I just wanted to let you say no, that on the governor's desk right now they have that there for treble damages for any bad actors | 02:10:51 | |
that did things to tenants during this time on troubled down. I'm just cost a lot. | 02:10:57 | |
As well as the one month security deposit. | 02:11:02 | |
With that, I'm going to end with a quote from the Swedish economist ASR Lundbeck. | 02:11:05 | |
Rent control is the fastest way to destroy a city other than bombing it. | 02:11:10 | |
Fort Wayne, Amy, please do not do this to your tenants or your owners. | 02:11:15 | |
Thank you. | 02:11:18 | |
Good evening Mayor bro. | 02:11:30 | |
May approve things City manager, city attorney. | 02:11:32 | |
City councils and public. | 02:11:36 | |
My name is Julio Gomez. I'm a broker owner, small. | 02:11:38 | |
Real estate company, Property Management Blue Sky Realty in Oxnard downtown. | 02:11:41 | |
I've been doing this for 25 years. | 02:11:46 | |
In what? The city of Propanamide? | 02:11:49 | |
Is proposing or try to. | 02:11:52 | |
Entertain. | 02:11:54 | |
Like a Jenny says, it's gonna kill the economy. | 02:11:56 | |
The best thing to do? | 02:12:00 | |
Is to create more housing. | 02:12:02 | |
No. Create more obstacles. | 02:12:04 | |
I have three properties here, managing and providing me. | 02:12:07 | |
My honors. | 02:12:11 | |
Their mom and pop, they're the retirement for them. | 02:12:13 | |
So if we start putting rent controls, what happens is. | 02:12:16 | |
They're gonna force them to do something that they don't want to do. | 02:12:21 | |
They want to. | 02:12:24 | |
They want to keep the properties to pass it on to their families. | 02:12:25 | |
If we put rent controls. | 02:12:29 | |
What happens with the with the the increase we're going to see force and increase every every year. | 02:12:30 | |
And the point that the the people won't be able to to to afford it. | 02:12:36 | |
And what we tried to do is like. | 02:12:41 | |
I read this. | 02:12:44 | |
This year. | 02:12:46 | |
It says. | 02:12:47 | |
I'm sorry, solving the house increases is increasing housing supply and not imposing additional restrictions on the market. | 02:12:54 | |
Please. | 02:13:02 | |
From the point of view of the small business owner and real estate. | 02:13:03 | |
Put the drink control and create more stress. | 02:13:07 | |
Either to this, to the rentals, to the tenants and to the. | 02:13:10 | |
Owners of the properties. | 02:13:14 | |
Thank you. | 02:13:16 | |
You will have it, Juliet escapes. And then Louis Mendez after her. | 02:13:20 | |
Good evening, city staff. | 02:13:32 | |
Council members Mayor Pro Tem Perez. | 02:13:35 | |
Mayor Martinez, My name is Juliet Asclepius. I'm the current president of the Ventura County Coastal Association of Realtors. | 02:13:38 | |
Thank you so much for letting me speak. | 02:13:45 | |
We represent over 2000 members. | 02:13:48 | |
And we are extremely familiar with the housing challenges faced by Ordway Nemi, as well as this county and across the state. | 02:13:52 | |
As you know, as we've been talking about this evening, the state of California passed implemented AB 1482. | 02:14:01 | |
Statewide rent stabilization that has placed limitations on rent increases. | 02:14:08 | |
Has just caused eviction requirements in place and requires relocation fees for no fault tenancy terminations. | 02:14:14 | |
If an ordinance is passed. | 02:14:23 | |
Our understanding again, it's only going to affect about 7% of the Portway uni housing. | 02:14:25 | |
Units. | 02:14:30 | |
The majority of the housing providers affected would be mom and pops. | 02:14:32 | |
And those mom and pops housing providers? | 02:14:37 | |
Often invest in real estate as a part of. | 02:14:39 | |
Retirement plan or a Second Income? | 02:14:43 | |
The implementation of even stronger rent stabilization ordinance would ultimately place an unfair burden on small housing | 02:14:46 | |
providers while failing to relieve. | 02:14:50 | |
Deliver relief to those who actually need it, the tenants. | 02:14:55 | |
Housing providers and renters have a mutually beneficial relationship. | 02:15:00 | |
Renters need a clean, safe place to call home. | 02:15:05 | |
And housing providers facilitate. | 02:15:08 | |
That need excuse me. | 02:15:10 | |
The consensus among economists is that the housing crisis is best addressed by increasing housing supply rather than imposing | 02:15:13 | |
stricter restrictions. | 02:15:17 | |
There are many policies and programs available to this city that should be considered before implementing more restrictions. | 02:15:23 | |
Instead of spending resources on creating an onerous and costly new bureaucratic system, we urge Port Winnie to educate the | 02:15:30 | |
community on existing policies regarding affordable housing. | 02:15:36 | |
And the creation of housing. | 02:15:42 | |
We ask Fort Wayne Amy to be creative and innovative in its approach to these sensitive and complicated issues. | 02:15:44 | |
Instead of following suit of other cities. Thank you. | 02:15:51 | |
Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Martinez. | 02:16:04 | |
You know, protect City Council, city manager. | 02:16:06 | |
My name is Luis Mendez. I am a resident here in Port Raimi and also a member of the real estate finance community. | 02:16:08 | |
I'm here because I wanted to adjust the cost of this program. I think it far exceeds the benefit of what it will bring to the | 02:16:14 | |
city. | 02:16:17 | |
And I think that the revenue or that that money could be better used in other areas, such as addressing homelessness. | 02:16:20 | |
Improving the parks and things that. | 02:16:26 | |
Other areas where money is lacking, where you guys are falling behind in your budget. | 02:16:28 | |
In Why me being here for 35 years, it is strictly an inventory problem, not a rent stabilization problem I think that we live | 02:16:31 | |
with. | 02:16:35 | |
And that should be the focus. If you guys decide to move forward or entertain possibly into implementing rent stabilization or | 02:16:39 | |
tenant protections, I would strongly request or ask that you guys reach out to the community and ask maybe local leaders. | 02:16:46 | |
People see our the local real estate community and residents to chime in on what type of ordinances or what are the best ways. | 02:16:54 | |
She addressed the issues we have. | 02:17:00 | |
I just personally think that in Port Winema as small as our city is. | 02:17:02 | |
The rent stabilization is not an issue. | 02:17:06 | |
That we need to address or waste money on. | 02:17:08 | |
So please consider that and thank you for your time. | 02:17:10 | |
Adela trainer. | 02:17:14 | |
Good evening everyone and thank you for your time and thank you for all you do by the way. | 02:17:26 | |
I always like to start with that because. | 02:17:31 | |
I know with the time that you give. | 02:17:34 | |
Very well said. I'm probably just going to repeat a lot of what they said. | 02:17:37 | |
I am a realtor also, but I'm also a property owner and a home provider. | 02:17:41 | |
And so I kind of wear 22 hats and my comments. | 02:17:46 | |
Kind of come from both places. | 02:17:50 | |
When I have clients. | 02:17:52 | |
Who are Home Providers? | 02:17:54 | |
And they hear of rent control or they're living in one of these cities where they're. | 02:17:56 | |
Where these issues have been addressed, the first thing they think of. | 02:18:01 | |
And. | 02:18:04 | |
And since we haven't had the time to see in our local cities how this is going to play out. | 02:18:05 | |
Is 04 percent. Well, guess what the rents going to be every year? 4%. | 02:18:09 | |
Whereas they might not have done that in the past. | 02:18:14 | |
There are those mom and pops, and now I'm going to speak from a property owner myself. | 02:18:17 | |
People who? | 02:18:22 | |
Turn to real estate for our retirement. | 02:18:24 | |
And uh. | 02:18:28 | |
You know. | 02:18:29 | |
That's a little disconcerting when we think about. | 02:18:31 | |
Of what that's going to look like, especially when you have that tenant? | 02:18:33 | |
And all property owners want that good tenant where you've got that great relationship like you were talking about relationships | 02:18:36 | |
that is worth more than those increases to have that good relationship. But if I'm going to be limited in the way I can increase | 02:18:43 | |
my rent or do the repairs or pay those water increases or fix that roof. | 02:18:49 | |
That relationship can't work. | 02:18:57 | |
Because I can't afford. | 02:19:00 | |
That. | 02:19:01 | |
You know 30 year. | 02:19:03 | |
Tenant. | 02:19:05 | |
The same low level rent that he's been paying. | 02:19:06 | |
I have to get up to market value. | 02:19:10 | |
That doesn't help. | 02:19:12 | |
The people that we say we're trying to help. | 02:19:13 | |
I would encourage you also if you go forward and. | 02:19:16 | |
Thank you for the clarifications and the great questions. | 02:19:19 | |
When, if you go forward, is to do talk to your community, talk to your home owners, the property providers. | 02:19:22 | |
And see how this works for them as well, because those numbers that you're talking about affecting aren't just tenants, they're | 02:19:29 | |
also those home providers. | 02:19:32 | |
Thank you. | 02:19:36 | |
OK Mayor, I'm gonna switch it over to zoom. | 02:19:41 | |
And we are going to have Janet begin. | 02:19:45 | |
Janet, if you can hear Magnan. | 02:19:49 | |
Yes, we can hear you perfect. | 02:19:51 | |
Janet Gagnon from the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles. We represent rental housing providers. | 02:19:53 | |
Throughout Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. | 02:20:00 | |
And 80% of our members, our mom and pop providers owning 20 or fewer units. | 02:20:05 | |
The problem that we see for Port Wanami is that this would apply to older buildings only. | 02:20:12 | |
Due to state law and those older buildings require more maintenance with HVAC, with roofs with electrical systems and they need a | 02:20:19 | |
small businesses to be able to make those. | 02:20:26 | |
Repairs. | 02:20:33 | |
To keep their investments in good shape for their existing renters and if rent stabilization below what the state already | 02:20:34 | |
provides. | 02:20:39 | |
Is implemented in Portland, Miami. It causes our mom and pops to make a very hard decision of either selling their properties to | 02:20:44 | |
corporations and having them replaced. | 02:20:50 | |
With luxury apartments or condominiums that their current renters cannot afford. | 02:20:56 | |
Or they're not able to make the necessary repairs and. | 02:21:02 | |
Keep up with current standards of living in Port Wanami and so this is a very bad policy idea. | 02:21:08 | |
Four part Port Wanami in particular. We were actively engaged in Ohi when they were discussing their ordinance and as was touched | 02:21:16 | |
on, it didn't address the primary problem that was going on there, which was rental houses. | 02:21:23 | |
Being sold because of increased property values that that was a better alternative for those owners. So a lot of the renters there | 02:21:31 | |
were very upset when they realized that this new ordinance did nothing for their problem. | 02:21:38 | |
So we're just hoping that you will support small business as was discussed a lot at the beginning. | 02:21:46 | |
Of our mom and pop owners and pursue policies that actually support mom and pops as well as renters. Policies like voluntary | 02:21:54 | |
mediation that Santa Barbara currently has. | 02:22:00 | |
Has been very popular, very successful and has done all through volunteer mediators, so there's no mediator cost involved. | 02:22:06 | |
Or if you're going to spend this kind of money, spend it on direct rental assistance. | 02:22:16 | |
For renters to maintain and be able to stay in their properties during urgency situations like a sudden illness, job loss, injury, | 02:22:21 | |
that's what Claremont has done. They've created a new rental assistance program specifically for that using their ARPA dollars and | 02:22:28 | |
I know you guys mentioned you'd had. | 02:22:34 | |
Some problems with reporting on Arpra, but you might be able to reallocate those dollars to a rental assistance program. So at the | 02:22:41 | |
end of the day, we'd really like to see policies that support your small businesses, including our mom and pop owners as well as | 02:22:49 | |
renters, and engage all stakeholders for a more thorough discussion and creative solutions. | 02:22:57 | |
Thank you. | 02:23:05 | |
You Janet. | 02:23:09 | |
Thank you, Janet Maria Navarro. | 02:23:10 | |
Hey folks, how's it going? My name is Maria Navarro. I am a. | 02:23:14 | |
Resident of Fort Wayne Niemi for the last since. | 02:23:19 | |
Well, 2010 already. So it's been a while. | 02:23:23 | |
I apologize first of all for not being able to be there in person. I am feeling a little bit under the weather so I thought I'd | 02:23:26 | |
play it safe. | 02:23:29 | |
And I do want to thank the City Council and the city manager for bringing this up. | 02:23:33 | |
Tonight. | 02:23:38 | |
And I I do want to also thank the public commenters who shared some points. I totally agree with the Emergency Rental Assistance. | 02:23:40 | |
I think that actually would be a really awesome program that Portland you could look into. | 02:23:45 | |
But I do want to point out that some. | 02:23:52 | |
Of their comments. | 02:23:54 | |
Are very interesting. I feel like some of them are saying that rents were going to increase while others were saying that, you | 02:23:56 | |
know, landlords wouldn't be able to make a living with rent control. I. | 02:24:01 | |
I do think our rent stabilization, I do think that. | 02:24:05 | |
There hasn't really been a good study. The studies that have come out from rent stabilization, not rent control, but rent | 02:24:09 | |
stabilization seem to be generally positive in that it's an anti displacement policy and I think that's the first point that I do | 02:24:14 | |
want to make. | 02:24:20 | |
Restabilization isn't an affordable housing policy. It's an anti displacement and homeless protection policy. | 02:24:25 | |
It allows people to stay in our city. | 02:24:33 | |
Without necessarily having to end up in the streets and the biggest piece. | 02:24:37 | |
Some of the points that I that I want to make. | 02:24:42 | |
About the presentation and also what we've heard so, so far. | 02:24:45 | |
First of all is that Fort Wayne Amy already has restabilization because it falls under the state protection. | 02:24:49 | |
Because we fall under the state law. | 02:24:56 | |
All of those units already have principal ization, and now the cap is at 10%. But that varies depending on inflation, right? | 02:24:59 | |
So. | 02:25:07 | |
What happens to the residents who fall? | 02:25:08 | |
Into that. | 02:25:11 | |
Category. | 02:25:12 | |
Have that protection, but they just don't know. | 02:25:14 | |
Or they were never really told that they have that. I think that is a point that we didn't address either in the presentation or | 02:25:17 | |
here. | 02:25:20 | |
Is that there is a group of people who are already protected, right? | 02:25:24 | |
Then forcement is the piece that I always talk about in these meetings because there there's something to be said about the state | 02:25:28 | |
law and it not being enforced. | 02:25:32 | |
And I think it's the responsibilities of cities to try and create a legislation, whether it matters the state law one and copies | 02:25:36 | |
it piece by piece. | 02:25:40 | |
Or it creates further possessions like Oxnard and Omaha. | 02:25:44 | |
To make sure that the people who are protected under rent stabilization know that they're protected under rehabilitation and there | 02:25:47 | |
is a number that they can call. | 02:25:51 | |
And they could be like, oh hey, do I fall into this or do I not? | 02:25:54 | |
Because. | 02:25:58 | |
Well, there are cases of people who do increase. | 02:25:59 | |
The. | 02:26:02 | |
The rent beyond that 10%. | 02:26:03 | |
Or that you know, 4% or whatever number is that a local law puts in. So that's the first piece. The second piece is on. | 02:26:05 | |
Just cause eviction protections. Just cause eviction protections. Unlike rent stabilization is not limited by cost of Hawkings so. | 02:26:15 | |
Just cause eviction protections could apply to Miss Navarro. I'm sorry, I just wanted to let you know that your time is up, so if | 02:26:23 | |
you can wrap it up that would be great. | 02:26:27 | |
Yeah, I think more discussion about this would be appropriate, I feel like. | 02:26:32 | |
They're like on fees. | 02:26:36 | |
On enforcement, there are more things. | 02:26:38 | |
To talk about, especially on who applies to those because. | 02:26:41 | |
Again, just cause applies to almost everyone in the city. | 02:26:45 | |
OK, I'll switch over to the written public comments. | 02:26:55 | |
The first comment is. | 02:27:00 | |
From David Scribner. | 02:27:02 | |
The state of California has experienced a severe housing crisis for the past decade, causing housing prices and rents to | 02:27:05 | |
skyrocket. | 02:27:08 | |
That legislature responded by passing rent control measures that limit rent increases for current renters to 5% plus the CPI, | 02:27:12 | |
which is currently 4%. | 02:27:16 | |
In no case can an annual increase exceed 10%. | 02:27:21 | |
The state also enacted various measures to protect tenants from predatory evictions and allowed many tenants to live rent free | 02:27:24 | |
during the pandemic. | 02:27:28 | |
Most landlords were never able to recoup these costs. | 02:27:32 | |
Housing is one of the most regulated business sectors in California. | 02:27:35 | |
The City Council is considering enacting more regulations by enacting A Rents Debilitation Stabilization Ordinance. | 02:27:39 | |
While this may have a short term impact on rental costs, it will create long term problems that will negatively affect. | 02:27:46 | |
People's abilities to find housing. | 02:27:52 | |
These unintended consequences include. | 02:27:55 | |
Landlords will be incentivized to raise rents to the maximum allowed under new guidelines, or lose the ability to recoup these | 02:27:57 | |
funds later. | 02:28:01 | |
Rents will increase every year. If tenants cannot afford the increases, they will be forced out of their current housing and need | 02:28:04 | |
to find new housing at the market rate. | 02:28:08 | |
The landlord will incur costs related to downtime and refurbishment costs. | 02:28:13 | |
The cost will be passed on to the new tenants. | 02:28:17 | |
The cost of housing for new tenants will rise. | 02:28:20 | |
When tenants vacate a unit, the landlord will be incentivized to raise the rent as much as the market will bear. | 02:28:22 | |
Select applicants with higher income, excellent credit scores, no pets, and smaller households. | 02:28:28 | |
More tenants, more wear and tear. This will make it more difficult for a family of four to find housing than a single person or a | 02:28:33 | |
couple. | 02:28:37 | |
Housing opportunities for families will decrease. Applicants with the history of eviction will find it next to impossible to find | 02:28:41 | |
housing. | 02:28:45 | |
There will be no incentive to improve or maintain rental units beyond minimal legal requirements. Slumlords will be more | 02:28:48 | |
profitable than responsible landlords. | 02:28:53 | |
Tenants can expect diminished living conditions. | 02:28:57 | |
Owners of most rental properties purchased years ago have lower mortgage costs and tax rates than new owners will be responsible | 02:29:00 | |
for. | 02:29:04 | |
When properties change hands, the only way the new owners can cover the increased costs will be to ask tenants to leave. | 02:29:07 | |
So that so that they can remodel the units and charge market rates. | 02:29:13 | |
This will displace many long term renters who will need to find new housing at market rates. | 02:29:17 | |
While landlords may be responsible for relocation costs, the new tenants will end up paying for these costs through higher rents. | 02:29:21 | |
The former tenants will end up paying market rates for their new household. | 02:29:28 | |
History shows that when rent control and rent stabilization measures are enacted, the number of rental units. | 02:29:31 | |
Decreases, further shrinking the number of available units. | 02:29:37 | |
If new regulations are enacted, the city will have to hire additional staff to enforce them. | 02:29:40 | |
Where is the money going to come from? David Scribner. | 02:29:45 | |
The next is from Kelly Wilmer. | 02:29:52 | |
Dear City Council members, Port Wanami is not Oxnard the inference that your real estate pool is the same, or that the City | 02:29:55 | |
Council should consider expensive. | 02:29:59 | |
Draconian style rent stabilization is a bad choice. | 02:30:03 | |
It's about choice for tenants who already have reasonable rent protections under the state AB1482. | 02:30:07 | |
Which does not incur administration costs for the city, which will be borne by tenant and owner if you adopt them. | 02:30:13 | |
Your real estate mix does not have a lot of apartment buildings. | 02:30:19 | |
You have single family homes and condos. | 02:30:22 | |
Enter. | 02:30:25 | |
Burst with apartment buildings. | 02:30:26 | |
Owners have been spending tremendous amounts of capital to improve the city of Port Wanami and take care of their buildings. | 02:30:28 | |
Some of the condo associations have been spending millions of dollars in upkeep. | 02:30:34 | |
Rent stabilization never helps those whom it should. | 02:30:39 | |
Artificial rent caps can be disastrous for a city. Just look at Santa Monica. | 02:30:42 | |
I assure you that the majority of people driving up to those apartment buildings are not means tested and many earn over 250,000 a | 02:30:47 | |
year. | 02:30:51 | |
The cost burden on the city for administration will be large. | 02:30:56 | |
I asked you to be prudent in what city funds are used for to balance your budget. Why on earth would you think this approach would | 02:30:59 | |
be beneficial for port wine? Emy? This is barely any Properties for Sale right now and interest rates are high and most likely | 02:31:04 | |
will remain so for the near future. | 02:31:09 | |
So if you chase investors out of your town, your rental pool will get smaller and smaller. That doesn't help anybody. Thank you | 02:31:15 | |
for your time and your long term vision for port wine EMY. Sincerely, Kelly Wilmer. | 02:31:20 | |
City Council members. Considering there is already a statewide rent stabilization ordinance in effect, I'm thinking there are | 02:31:28 | |
probably better ways to spend our money and staff time than adopting another costly ordinance. | 02:31:34 | |
Perhaps some of those resources could be used on opportunities to create more affordable housing in our city, such as the Habitat | 02:31:40 | |
for Humanity project on San Pedro St. | 02:31:45 | |
Also, I would like to mention that from what I've observed, your city clerk is doing a great job. Thank you Jeffrey Scarberry. | 02:31:50 | |
I did not add that in. | 02:31:59 | |
Dear City Council members support my name is only. | 02:32:05 | |
4 square miles in radius. We are not huge like Oxnard. Please stop trying to get on a bandwagon with the rest of the cities when | 02:32:09 | |
you can see that the results are devastating to owners. | 02:32:14 | |
Home owners and myself have worked very hard to accumulate funds and purchase property here in port Whiting me. | 02:32:19 | |
We have invested in real estate and deserve a return on our investment. | 02:32:25 | |
Why are we having to be penalized by succumbing to rent control, stabilization, et cetera? | 02:32:29 | |
If you do not own a property yourself, then you will not understand how difficult it is for an owner. | 02:32:34 | |
There are great programs like Section 8, et cetera to help families in need. | 02:32:39 | |
Implementing rent stabilization is a bad choice. Tenants who already have reasonable rent protections under the state AB 1482, | 02:32:43 | |
which does not incur administration costs for the city. | 02:32:49 | |
If if implemented, the costs will have to be borne by the tenant and owner if you adopt them. | 02:32:54 | |
Owners have been spending a lot of money to improve their homes and buildings, thus helping improve the appearance of the City of | 02:33:00 | |
Port Wine also. | 02:33:03 | |
The condo and other HOA communities have been spending millions of dollars in the upkeep, which also results in increased HOA | 02:33:07 | |
monthly dues to the owners. | 02:33:11 | |
I completely disagree with the rent stabilization. Why would you think this approach would be beneficial for Port Wanami? There | 02:33:15 | |
are hardly any Properties for Sale right now. Interest rates are high and will not be coming down anytime soon. | 02:33:21 | |
If the rent stabilization is implemented, it will drive away investors. Thank you for your time and your long term vision for Port | 02:33:27 | |
Wanami. Sincerely, Kieran Locke. | 02:33:31 | |
The public comment I'm about to read was submitted by the Ventura County Coastal Association of Realtors VCCAR. Written public | 02:33:40 | |
comments, as indicated on the agenda, are subject to a 500 word limit. | 02:33:46 | |
Please note this comment surpassed that limit and therefore the submitter revised their comment to meet the 500 word limit. | 02:33:52 | |
The original comment will be on file in the City Clerk's office in accordance with the city's retention schedule. | 02:33:58 | |
Please also note that the City Council received 43 additional emails as of 5:00 PM. | 02:34:03 | |
From different individuals in line with the same comment I'm about to read, and although they did not follow the process for | 02:34:08 | |
submitting public comments as indicated on the agenda, I wanted to make note of it here. | 02:34:13 | |
And this, the Ventura County Coastal Association of Realtors VCR, representing approximately 2000 Realtors on the Central Coast, | 02:34:20 | |
is voicing its sincere concerns regarding rent control measures. | 02:34:26 | |
Advocating for mediation as the only acceptable approach. | 02:34:32 | |
BCR emphasized that its members, many of whom reside in Port Winema, are deeply familiar with the housing challenges faced by the | 02:34:36 | |
community. We argue that rent stabilization is not the solution, and may in fact. | 02:34:43 | |
Exact suburb and sorry exacerbate the existing problems. | 02:34:50 | |
A central argument resented is the consensus among economists that the housing crisis is best addressed by increasing the housing | 02:34:55 | |
supply rather than imposing market restrictions. | 02:35:00 | |
The current statistics of port winding me with its population of nearly 22,000 and only around 8000 housing. | 02:35:06 | |
Units as of 2021 under score the pressing need to address the supply demand imbalance. | 02:35:13 | |
And they provided data from census.gov via data comments. | 02:35:20 | |
To tackle this challenge, Port Winema has a range of policies available. | 02:35:26 | |
Affordable housing through the Port Wanami Housing Authority Density Bonus Program to allow more units and typical zoning permits. | 02:35:30 | |
Accessory dwelling units for additional rental housing. | 02:35:37 | |
Condominium conversions to transform existing apartments. | 02:35:41 | |
Inclusionary Housing Ordinance for Middle Income Buyers. | 02:35:45 | |
Housing Rehabilitation Globe program to maintain affordable rental units. | 02:35:48 | |
Average unit size density programs to promote additional housing. | 02:35:53 | |
Section 8. Housing Choice voucher program for rent subsidies. | 02:35:57 | |
Tenant based rental assistance for permanent housing through temporary subsidies. | 02:36:01 | |
Tenant Displacement Assistance Ordinance for situations involving residential Unit Elimination. | 02:36:05 | |
VCR suggests that instead of venturing into new rent stabilization or control programs, which have faced criticism from economists | 02:36:12 | |
Port Wine, EMY should maximize the potential of these existing programs. | 02:36:18 | |
We call for a comprehensive education campaign to inform developers, property owners and renters about these initiatives. | 02:36:24 | |
The city is also encouraged to foster new housing projects. | 02:36:31 | |
Particularly emphasizing programs like the average unit size, density, and the accessory dwelling unit. | 02:36:35 | |
BCA's perspective on the proposed rent stabilization measure is clear. | 02:36:41 | |
Mediation VCR supports this, citing the success of the Rental Housing Mediation Program in Santa Barbara. | 02:36:46 | |
Mandatory lease VCR opposes this, highlighting its potential to burden housing providers, especially in situations. | 02:36:53 | |
Involving student housing, retirement plans and flexibility for property owners. | 02:37:01 | |
Apartment inspections. We have strong opposition due to concerns about governmental overreach and potential constitutional | 02:37:06 | |
violations, with several U.S. cities cited as examples. | 02:37:11 | |
Just Cause Eviction BC CAR criticizes this for its unintended consequences, emphasizing the challenges and costs faced by property | 02:37:17 | |
owners and the potential negative impact on well behaved tenants. Rent control or rent stabilization, VCR. | 02:37:25 | |
Resents A comprehensive critique, pointing to its general detrimental effects on housing quantity and quality. | 02:37:33 | |
It's discouragement of new construction and the significant administrative cost it incurs. | 02:37:39 | |
In conclusion, BCR urges the City Council to prioritize existing housing policies. | 02:37:44 | |
Over the introduction of rent control. | 02:37:50 | |
We want to express our willingness to collaborate with the city and community education efforts and emphasize the need for | 02:37:52 | |
innovative, evidence based solutions over strategies driven by political pressure. | 02:37:57 | |
And that says. | 02:38:03 | |
Signed Juliet Eskimos, but also from Rob Leatherwood. | 02:38:05 | |
And that concludes public comment. | 02:38:11 | |
OK. | 02:38:14 | |
Thank you, Georgiana. | 02:38:14 | |
So we do have a recommendation, but can I ask a question real quick? So the recommendation is to receive a report on the statewide | 02:38:16 | |
rent stabilization ordinance and the city's authority related to the rent stabilization and tenant protection measures. | 02:38:23 | |
That doesn't mean that anything would happen, that just means that we would receive it. | 02:38:30 | |
Correct. It's just receiving the report we've given and then any direction would come from the council about if we if we wanted to | 02:38:33 | |
do anything else after. | 02:38:38 | |
Alright, are there. | 02:38:44 | |
If there's if. | 02:38:45 | |
I'll make a motion to receive the report. | 02:38:47 | |
And. | 02:38:50 | |
Just basically received the report. | 02:38:51 | |
Even file ohh receiving file yes. | 02:38:53 | |
I'll second. | 02:38:56 | |
The motion. | 02:38:58 | |
Yeah, I would just wanted to make a comment of everything we heard, if that's OK. | 02:38:58 | |
Well, we have a first and a first. We have to discuss. We have a discussion opportunity here, yeah. | 02:39:04 | |
Yeah, I think. | 02:39:10 | |
You know every. | 02:39:12 | |
Time. We have a City Council meeting. I look through the disbursement records and I I see. | 02:39:13 | |
A lot of familiar names that. | 02:39:18 | |
Participates in our Housing Assistant program. | 02:39:20 | |
I know, I know these people. | 02:39:23 | |
And I don't understand how it works, but I do see that the city. | 02:39:26 | |
Is subsidizing property owners, I believe, right? Is that how it works? | 02:39:30 | |
And so and and I'm amazed at how many. | 02:39:36 | |
People participate in that. | 02:39:39 | |
And I think. | 02:39:41 | |
I think. | 02:39:43 | |
Trying to stabilize rate rents in this fashion. | 02:39:44 | |
May. | 02:39:49 | |
Lead to. | 02:39:51 | |
Unintended consequences and. | 02:39:52 | |
They mentioned that LA, Oakland and San Francisco. | 02:39:56 | |
I don't want to live there. | 02:40:00 | |
I mean I see what's going on there and and those are the big three that have have went heavy on rent control and and rent | 02:40:02 | |
stabilization. | 02:40:06 | |
Ohh, so I I don't think, I think we we have opportunities to. | 02:40:10 | |
Assist people, and I know we do because I see the participation in our rental assistance program, our housing department. | 02:40:15 | |
And I think that's great. | 02:40:22 | |
And. | 02:40:25 | |
The biggest issue for me is. | 02:40:26 | |
This isn't a tried and chewed. | 02:40:30 | |
Program. | 02:40:33 | |
The state has a pretty aggressive rate stabilization program. | 02:40:34 | |
And we provide housing assistance to many people in this beautiful city of ours. And our budget, our budget right now is. | 02:40:38 | |
Kind of upside down. We have a structural deficit and we really can't. | 02:40:48 | |
Afford any additional spending at the time and I think we really need to. | 02:40:52 | |
Before we consider any discretionary spending, I think we really need to sit down and and really figure out our budget. | 02:40:58 | |
Just June 30 wasn't that long ago and we were told that we had a balanced budget. | 02:41:05 | |
And come to find out that we don't. | 02:41:10 | |
And we have a. | 02:41:12 | |
3. | 02:41:13 | |
$1,000,000 deficit and. | 02:41:14 | |
Our reserves are going down. So I hope that the you know. | 02:41:17 | |
We we we really can't afford right now. | 02:41:21 | |
This and I don't think this program is. | 02:41:25 | |
Viable for our city. | 02:41:28 | |
Mayor, if I could just clarify one comment. | 02:41:31 | |
Just. | 02:41:34 | |
May have been a a. | 02:41:36 | |
Misunderstanding, but I think there was a statement about subsidizing property owners, and I don't believe we subsidized property | 02:41:38 | |
owners. | 02:41:42 | |
I believe we just provide rentals through our affordable housing, but I'm going to look to our housing director to tell me if I'm | 02:41:45 | |
correct about that. | 02:41:50 | |
Do we do any? | 02:41:56 | |
Property owner subsidy. | 02:41:57 | |
Programs. | 02:41:59 | |
OK. That's what I thought. Thank you. | 02:42:01 | |
If it's not appropriate, then. | 02:42:04 | |
But. | 02:42:06 | |
Can. | 02:42:07 | |
We get an explanation as to. | 02:42:08 | |
Those disbursements go into to property owners who are landlords. | 02:42:11 | |
Because I like I said I know. I know several of them, yeah. And and I it just. | 02:42:16 | |
It just kind of follow up on that. OK, good because I've always wanted to understand how that works because in our disbursement | 02:42:20 | |
records you could see. | 02:42:24 | |
Yeah. | 02:42:28 | |
Yeah. | 02:42:29 | |
Any other comments? I have comments. | 02:42:31 | |
So I was the individual Council member who brought this issue up for discussion tonight. | 02:42:34 | |
And how it came here was I was brought to me to my attention. | 02:42:40 | |
That there was a woman, Rosie, a mother of three, who was a farm worker and a Mistico farm worker, who would have applied for rent | 02:42:46 | |
stabilization. | 02:42:51 | |
And went to Oxnard. | 02:42:56 | |
She's a resident of Port Winema and she went to Oxnard seeking rent stabilization because her rent was going up. | 02:42:58 | |
But she was heartbroken to find out that she was not eligible. | 02:43:06 | |
Umm. | 02:43:10 | |
To apply because she was a resident of Port Wanami. | 02:43:11 | |
O Let's say Rosie comes to Port Winema. Me. | 02:43:14 | |
What do we tell her? | 02:43:17 | |
What options do we have for people like Rosie who are living paycheck to paycheck? | 02:43:20 | |
And could, without one paycheck be homeless? | 02:43:25 | |
So I really liked what Maria Navarro had to say. | 02:43:29 | |
About considering emergency rental assistance. | 02:43:34 | |
Um, I like the fact that we, we, we could and we should probably view this action if we or this, this. | 02:43:38 | |
Proposed action. | 02:43:46 | |
If we decide to go in that direction, has an anti. | 02:43:48 | |
Displacement policy and a homeless protection policy. | 02:43:51 | |
And maybe there are ways we can better inform our public on. | 02:43:56 | |
What is available under the state laws? | 02:44:01 | |
And if so, I would like to amend the motion to include direction to staff. | 02:44:04 | |
To continue the discussion. | 02:44:11 | |
To work with the VCR and the other organizations that are out there. | 02:44:14 | |
And to UM. | 02:44:19 | |
To find out ways that we can assist our our residents and potential need. | 02:44:22 | |
Now I heard a lot of. | 02:44:28 | |
Uh. | 02:44:31 | |
Solutions pointing toward more housing. | 02:44:32 | |
Well, unfortunately, Port Wanami. | 02:44:35 | |
The housing situation is bleak. We are built out. | 02:44:37 | |
Any new housing is slow in coming. | 02:44:41 | |
So. | 02:44:45 | |
In the meantime, what do we do with people like Rosie? | 02:44:46 | |
You know, how are we gonna help people like that? | 02:44:51 | |
I think we need to find a stopgap. | 02:44:53 | |
And. | 02:44:56 | |
If friends, stabilization is not a stopgap. | 02:44:57 | |
Then maybe there are some other solutions. | 02:45:00 | |
That that staff can come up with and. | 02:45:02 | |
If we're not informing our public correctly about. | 02:45:05 | |
Being eligible under the state program that maybe we need to look at that. | 02:45:08 | |
I also have a question for our Housing Director and thank you Miss Basua, for being here tonight, but. | 02:45:13 | |
We have Section 8 housing. I I think it's called something else now. What's the waiting list on that? | 02:45:18 | |
Three years, OK. | 02:45:27 | |
My sister moved in with me 10 years ago. | 02:45:28 | |
And she applied for Housing Section 8 housing voucher. | 02:45:31 | |
10 years ago. She passed away two years ago and I just got a notice. | 02:45:35 | |
In the mail. | 02:45:40 | |
Asking if she wanted to continue. | 02:45:43 | |
Remaining on the list. | 02:45:46 | |
So. | 02:45:48 | |
While there are some solutions out there. | 02:45:49 | |
They're not solutions for somebody who who's living. | 02:45:52 | |
Paycheck to paycheck. | 02:45:56 | |
And who could be homeless? | 02:45:58 | |
Within the 30 within a 30 day period. | 02:46:00 | |
So. | 02:46:03 | |
I would like to ask. | 02:46:04 | |
If we could amend the motion to ask staff. | 02:46:06 | |
To go back and look at. | 02:46:09 | |
What can we tell people like Rosie? What can we tell members of our public? | 02:46:12 | |
Who need that housing assistance. | 02:46:17 | |
On what the city can do for them. | 02:46:20 | |
Whether it's. | 02:46:22 | |
Our own resources or it's under the state? | 02:46:23 | |
Law. | 02:46:26 | |
I don't wanna just. | 02:46:27 | |
Close this issue and say we're not going to look at it anymore. I wanna know that that the city's at least referring. | 02:46:29 | |
People correctly, I mean, if they're eligible for some kind of assistance. | 02:46:35 | |
Under the state, then then we should be. | 02:46:40 | |
Sharing that information with them. | 02:46:43 | |
So I I. | 02:46:49 | |
Build. | 02:46:51 | |
I feel very. | 02:46:53 | |
Bad for anybody like Rosie that's in that. | 02:46:54 | |
Position. | 02:46:56 | |
But then again, my first question is, is she in a? | 02:46:58 | |
A unit that doesn't qualify. In other words, maybe she's renting a condo that wasn't built before 1995. | 02:47:02 | |
And those are the type of things that I think I heard from our city manager that. | 02:47:09 | |
You know when you put this program together then? | 02:47:13 | |
You know. | 02:47:16 | |
Most of the people hearing are going to start calling and asking for assistance and they don't qualify and then they're upset. | 02:47:17 | |
Who are they upset with? | 02:47:24 | |
The city of Port Wanami. | 02:47:25 | |
You know the the state law is pretty. | 02:47:27 | |
Pretty generous, I think. | 02:47:30 | |
Going from state to state, so. | 02:47:32 | |
I just feel like. | 02:47:34 | |
You know. | 02:47:36 | |
Perhaps. | 02:47:37 | |
That example, you know, maybe it was a. | 02:47:39 | |
You know the the fact that. | 02:47:41 | |
The unit was was built after 1995. I don't know, we just don't know. But I I think I do think that the. | 02:47:44 | |
That. | 02:47:50 | |
We need to understand the programs that we have. | 02:47:51 | |
Looking at this disbursement records right now. | 02:47:54 | |
Sorry, when Mike went off. I'm looking at the disbursement records right now and there's a number of people participating in our. | 02:47:58 | |
Program whatever it is so. | 02:48:04 | |
Umm. | 02:48:06 | |
I would like to to understand how how these programs work. | 02:48:07 | |
Well, perhaps that's. | 02:48:12 | |
Justification for asking for an amendment to the motion so that we can learn a little bit more about. | 02:48:14 | |
The situation for residents here in Port Wanami. | 02:48:23 | |
What the need might be? | 02:48:27 | |
And what solutions we might have for them? | 02:48:29 | |
If they fall into this category. | 02:48:32 | |
I'm a I'm a a mom and pop. | 02:48:35 | |
Landlord. | 02:48:38 | |
I own property along with my family. | 02:48:40 | |
We try to be friendly landlords. | 02:48:42 | |
And we offer rates below market rate. | 02:48:44 | |
Or our apartments. | 02:48:48 | |
Umm. | 02:48:50 | |
And that's just the way my families. | 02:48:51 | |
Brought up. | 02:48:53 | |
But not everybody does that. | 02:48:55 | |
And umm. | 02:48:57 | |
You know you have some good landlords out there and you have some bad landlords. You know, it might not even have anything to do | 02:48:59 | |
with bad or good. | 02:49:02 | |
I I just, I just want to make sure that we are taking care of all of our citizens. | 02:49:05 | |
All our residents in Port Wanami. | 02:49:10 | |
And even though it's a small percentage. | 02:49:12 | |
They're the people who. | 02:49:16 | |
Bring food to our table. | 02:49:19 | |
Who washed dishes in our restaurants? Who serve as our meals? | 02:49:20 | |
I I think we owe it to them to. | 02:49:25 | |
Look into this a little bit further. Maybe rent stabilization is not the answer, but can we come back with? | 02:49:28 | |
Umm. | 02:49:34 | |
Some solution? | 02:49:35 | |
Mayor Yes, thank you. So I am not in a position to agree with rent civilization right now as well. I would like more information. | 02:49:38 | |
I would like community input. I want to know all other options. | 02:49:44 | |
And who are these individuals that? | 02:49:50 | |
Potentially reside in properties that may fall under this, but who are they? They could be people that don't even live in this | 02:49:53 | |
area and really don't qualify this because they make too much money already. We don't know who these people are that live in these | 02:49:58 | |
apartments, so I would like to find out. | 02:50:03 | |
Exactly who they are and what other options are on the table. | 02:50:08 | |
And that we could consider. | 02:50:12 | |
Also. | 02:50:14 | |
We need to be fiscally responsible and although I wish you would stop talking about how upside down we are on our budget, because | 02:50:17 | |
I don't think that's entirely true. | 02:50:21 | |
We do have some budget issues that are being corrected and I do not want to add to that if it's unnecessary. | 02:50:26 | |
So I would like to explore this. | 02:50:32 | |
Topic and others and find out other options if there are any and weigh the pros and cons of each of them and come back and have a | 02:50:34 | |
full discussion on it. | 02:50:38 | |
I just want to mention so, Council member Hernandez said. You know what? What can we do? What? What do we do right now? If it's OK | 02:50:44 | |
if I ask Gabby Missoula. | 02:50:48 | |
What do we do to help? | 02:50:54 | |
These individuals. | 02:50:56 | |
That are in those situations as of right now. | 02:50:57 | |
I don't know if you can come up to the. | 02:50:59 | |
Podium. | 02:51:01 | |
4/4 please. | 02:51:04 | |
That's a very loaded question. | 02:51:12 | |
Umm. | 02:51:14 | |
Council member Hernandez asked me what the wait list was. | 02:51:15 | |
It's three years and the reason it's three years right now, which is not a very long time if you really think about it. | 02:51:19 | |
About a year ago, our wait list was 10 years. | 02:51:25 | |
We've been issuing vouchers for the past year. | 02:51:29 | |
The problem is we don't have the inventory. | 02:51:32 | |
That is the problem when it comes to, unfortunately. |