e all right you ready Christine you okay good evening everybody the March 4th 2024 special meeting of the Melville city council is now called to order inperson participants if you would like to speak on items only on the agenda please submit your requests to speak C to the clerk to my right remote participants if you'd like to speak please join the zoom webinar printed meeting printed on the agenda and raise your hand in Zoom when the ity wish to speak on us called Christine can we have a roll c
all please yes council member granti yeah yes council member Riggins yes council member Silverstein here mayor protm Stewart mayor uring here uh you have a COR mayor please note uh mayor protm stor is absent thank you very much Josh would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you very much Christine could we reporting the posti
ng of the agenda please yes the agenda for this meeting was properly posted on March 1st 2024 can I have an approve I need a motion to approve the agenda please anybody I'll make a motion to approve the agenda second second all in favor I oppos none clear so ordered uh all right let us move to and let me just note that our mayor protm has arrived with less ceremony than I would have hope for glad to have you here okay we're going to go to new business item 1A the potential settlement agreement r
egarding the dispute with owner of the adjacent property 600 spring LLC related to the propos proposed skate park located at 24250 Pacific Coast we will now hear item 1A uh again if you'd like to speak in Zoom raise your hand other than that if you have submitted a speaker card we'll call on you when we get there so let's can begin with the staff report please good evening Mary uring and members of city council thank you my name is Kate manisco Recreation manager and I'm joined virtually by Jack
son statel with California skate parks and Anna Schmidt senior landscape architect with RRM design tonight I'm just going to provide you with a brief overview of the project that was discussed last meeting um the project proposed is a 12,500 ft skate park located at Malibu gluff park with a variety of Street skate elements as well as transition skate elements the design of the park was brought by a community survey and multiple design meetings open to the public and Jackson statel is on Zoom to
review the design changes to the project as part of the proposed settlement agreement that's it that's pretty quick very good thank you uh hello this is Jackson from California skate park okay please I just wanted um thank you for having me I just wanted to explain the um potential resolution that we offered and showed in in the drawings that will follow this slide if we could go to the next slide um this is just another view and then these are these are the two the the current condition that we
had in the plan and then the the proposed condition below just shows uh Shifting the skate park 10 fet farther away from the property line and lowering it about 2 feet into the ground and for the most part what I just wanted to reiterate to anyone that wasn't at the last meeting or wasn't able to attend is that uh the actual elements and the features the size the square footage and the timeline for the skate park won't be affected by this we're keeping the skate park design in its entirety and
moving just a portion of it in its entirety over and dropping it down so I just wanted to reassure everyone that was involved in this in the design process and the workshop that um their design is not going to change um this is just further illustrates the the dash line showing where the top wine bottle shaped portion of the the street area is being shifted farther away from the adjacent property and that section marker that's there was showing where the section was in the in the previous drawin
g that's it for this slide and this is just a zoom in showing that this is the only portion of the skate park that is being affected the dash line being its previous location and the hard line being its proposed location and once again the none of none of the features need to change and the Integrity of the design will be um kept that's it for this slide and that's all I have un let you have questions for me okay thank you so as part of the landscape plan for the project um the city's current la
ndscape plan includes 17 Coast live oak trees in 24in boxes various native shrubs and all of the irrigation will be through the city's wastewater treatment facility um the four plants on the bottom right are the proposed new additions as part of the proposed settlement agreement and then we do have some visuals of those as well this is the city's current landscape plan with the 17 Coast live oak trees depicted here and this is the proposed settlement agreement landscape plan with nine additional
trees as well as the additional plants along the property line along the wall and these are the new plants that are being proposed in the settlement agreement the green bark cus lemonade Berry California bay laurel tree and Island oak tree and then the final part which was discussed last week was this parking for 600 spring at this portion dictated in red on the map um for month to month and that the parking would end when construction begins on the skate park and no weekend parking would be in
cluded um to eliminate any conflict with use Sports programs at the park just a few other aerial maps of that property area and then the next step um should the project be approved um we have outlined here um with proposing bid docks um awarding the contract with a potential opening of fall or winter of 2025 I'm happy to answer any questions you may have thank you very much any questions from up here I I just have a request can you can you put back the slide with the heights of the vegetation th
at's being proposed by the settlement I wanted to make a note okay what was the other tree so this is the California Bay Laurel and the island Oak and these are the two that are interspersed in the proposed agreement as or so one or these two would be the nine trees planted okay thank you the the other 17 trees are what they were oak trees also right uh those are Coast live oak trees and then the additional nine would be either Island oak or California bay laurel I I just Mar you question okay a
nybody else have one quick question uh I spoke to the biologist today when when she signed off did she sign off as to what would happen when we cut these trees down to 14 ft the only written documents by the biologist to date and approvals would be ones for the original Park plan that was approved by the Planning Commission the proposed changes by the the settlement agreements been discussed those have all just been verbal communication because we don't have a formal application in front of us t
o produce a written document on or review but the 14 ft is is required under the coastal development permit they have right so it was it's been in place for a long time no it's not part of the coastal development permit the coastal development permit for the skate park contains the condition which states that the trees shall be limited or the vegetation shall be limited to not obstruct primary views and have to be trimmed at any time if it does and the CDP for the actual tract that U that create
d this parcel has a 20 foot uh 25 foot excuse me not 20 25 foot limitation uh because of views at the time from the um Malu Country Estates okay go I'm just wondering I mean it's some whether it's 25 feet or 14 feet we got to trim these trees so I'm just wondering is anybody taking a look and talk to some somebody who knows if you trim these trees what happens to them it's the opinion of our biologist and we do have her available this evening that if you start with a small tree and and let it gr
ow up to and maintain it uh it is something that could be done if you take a large tree and and top it that is not something that's it's going to the tree probably won't survive if you do something like that and the proposal at this time would be for trees to grow into the heights that are proposed in the settlement agreement uh not get something taller and cut it down maryan go ahead uh don't we have the landscape designer online also yes we have Anna schmidtz with RRM who did the original land
scape design she can speak on canopies root systems Etc I think we should maybe hear from her is she available good evening this is Anna from RRM Design Group yes thank you would you go ahead oh I was just going to ask if you could give a little bit more information about maintaining the trees at the required Heights uh given that many of these trees have other Heights that um are possible if left to grow on a un encumbered uh certainly board member thank you um it is our opinion opion that the
umbellularia would be a better selection of species uh to maintain the desired height in and around the skate park and that particular species um it grows denser uh lower branching and it takes to pruning much easier than uh quarkus would therefore it would be easier to maintain we just have the common names is that the California Bay Laurel and the island Oak that you're referencing correct I was referencing the California bay laurel as being the species that would be easier to maintain uh via
pruning okay thank you cool thank you very much if I could if I could ask one quick question uh in the presentation we have in front of us the California bay laurel for example says 20 to 45t tall that's uh the maximum height that could grow not the optimum height so we could easily trans these to 14 to 25 ft is that correct for that particular species sir yes I would agree with that that is a denser lower branching uh tree that is often used as a shrub until it matures to its full height okay s
o that does seem like a good selection so the heights that we see on this uh presentation I think when I if you go to the next one please I believe it says uh up to yeah 33 to 66 ft tall on the island Oak um once again we don't need to have grow that high they can easily you're saying they can easily live in the world of 14 to 25 ft she she's saying not with the island Oak she said it with the other one let me let's her answer the island that is uh board member that is our council member that is
correct um the quercus toen that is proposed does not prune as easily as the umbellularia or the California bay laurel would um it is our opinion that the California bay laurel would be a better species selection due to the ability of the tree to be maintained more regularly without causing uh damage to an oak okay and when does that decision uh get made as to what plant which plants to be made or which trees to be planted is that uh in the final approval or would does that happen I believe tha
t would happen after construction is completed that's when the trees will be installed okay that's when the decisions made which one okay these are the the canopy trees right yeah anybody else Paul thank you do we uh would it be proper for us to suggest something that we we would prefer then when we get to the other on the basis of having information these are questions we'll come back to that when we get to the actual report okay I have Maran go ahead oh first no go ahead Maran um I was going t
o ask another question about the island um this particular location is quite windy um and so I'm wondering would that impede on its optimal growth I what kind of um I see when I looked into these I it was shown that these were on the um Islands the change of islands Channel Islands um are we seen that height of tree on the Channel Islands or is it um do the weather conditions and wind and such keep it at a lower height yes absolutely thank you for asking that's an excellent question um the growi
ng conditions of the Bluffs will absolutely affect the overall mature height of either of those species in question and I would venture to um say that neither one of them will reach their full mature height given the coastal conditions uh wind salt spray that that uh area is known for that's a great great point and then also there's been some question about the amount of droppings or leaves or such that would be come from these trees um is that something seasonal is it do they lose their leaves
like other trees do or are they more of an evergreen well they say both are great question again um both of them are evergreen species uh we would recommend placing them outside of the envelope of the skate park so that litter does not affect and the droppings uh do not affect the user's ability to use the park and other than that uh if you gave adequate spacing we don't believe the litter would have substantial effect on the project would not have substantial effect on the project correct corre
ct if outside of the skate park envelope thank you thank you yeah just couple couple more questions one's a followup for the um person who's just speaking um what is does the term wind firm mean wind firm yes uh sir I am not familiar with that um I'm familiar with other terms such as a wind row or wind resistive could would do you mind using it in a sentence yeah the US Forest Service reports that the California bay laurel is not wind firm okay so resistant to wind um so what effect will that ha
ve on the tree if it's not wind firm and there are strong Santa Ana winds correct I see that again that species is is quite hearty and adaptive um part of its form is naturally as it naturally occurs is to be low branching and um quite dense more dense than an oak tree would be at the base of it uh therefore you would see some effect from the wind and the salt spray but that tree should be able to survive in that condition you just might not see it reach its full maturity because of the conditio
ns so you've seen a number of these planted on Bluffs on the coast in Malibu where you know that they can withstand the winds that blow here uh no I cannot I cannot pick a specific location that would um support that it would be in other Coastal conditions where we have used uh the tree in addition to where it grows um in the natural environment and are those other Coastal conditions that you're referring to areas that are prone to the Santa Ana winds of the type that we get here that shut off o
ur power other windy conditions but again sir I I cannot think of a specific location where we have installed them on uh this Bluff or the Malibu Bluffs okay and if the if the um Forest Service says that they're not wind firm do you have any reason to disagree with that I would be more interested in the definition of the term wind for firm versus resistant to wind and or weather or the conditions that occur where we are proposing that species okay um the Channel Island Oak according to um anothe
r source it typically grows in canyons and is unsuited for windy Coastal locations do you that's what I've read do you agree or disagree with that I think there is literature to support that it can withstand wind um in other parts of the state and um if it's worthy of noting uh sir the the to inella does get uh a bit larger than both the quas agolia and the umia therefore we think that bay laurel is is a better fit to be intermixed with those quercus agrifolia okay thank you I have two other que
stions um there for Richard um you mentioned primary views tell me if I'm wrong there's there's no properties that have a primary view that would be impacted by anything that occurs in this area is that right without a map in front of me I I I don't know offand how far the country the malba country states are primary views per chapter 17 uh properties can claim them on Landscaping up to 1,000 ft away and without I didn't look up the numbers but I want my gut is that some of those homes could be
within a th000 ft okay do we do we know of any homes that have documented primary views that would have the standing to object to any of the Landscaping I couldn't give you an exact uh address or anything I do know that there are homes in the country states that have registered primary views and that research wasn't conducted okay and if the trees in this air on the at the skate park were above 18 feet um do we know whether that would impact any bluew sites scenes from the homes that have primar
y views not that I'm aware of no the and and the way the condition if it helps this Council the way the condition is worded it's that the vegetation shall not impact a view uh so if somebody were to claim a primary view it it could if the if the trees in a blue water view um and it's lower than 18 ft it's something we would look at the 18 foot Mark is is really something we use for structures okay thank you and then just one last question is is there any way um is if the skate park were to not m
ove forward if the CDP were denied or or challenged in court is there any way that that could in then impact the continued development of the case properties is your question then if they don't build the skate park would it have some sort of impact on the on the case properties if the CDP were to be denied by either the city council or or in a court where subject to a legal challenge would that have any conceivable impact on the development of the case the five properties I am not aware of one I
believe the only requirement was to subdivide and create the lot but I don't believe there was a requirement that it had to be built okay thank you all right anybody else Paul Richard long while you're there uh from uh most of Malibu West I'm sorry most of States country states thank you if you are looking at that bluff what these trees that have been planted already inside the case do is they make it difficult for people to see the houses and so those trees I believe it was said early can be u
p to 25 ft on that side so these trees would at best block part of the view of those trees we're not going to get up into being higher than those trees as I understand the way the elevations work does that seem logical I I believe you are correct my gut is telling me that these trees the way they're positioned given that these trees are are to the north if you if you will of homes that are south of it and south of it would most likely put those make those homes between the ocean and views from t
he Country Estates so yes I think these trees would end up blocking views of the country of States uh excuse me blocking views of the new homes from the country of States okay thank you all right let's go to public comment uh Robert you're up got seven minutes followed by Josh you're up second and then and you're going to follow Josh if you would tell me if have you read the the staff report for the appeal that's coming up in the next meeting I have okay thank you I have sorry uh good evening Bi
ng and city council Robert gold on behalf of Scott Gillan 6 and 600 spring owner of the case first we'd like to thank the members of the council for your time and extraordinary efforts today to try to resolve this matter we very much appreciate it we also want to thank the city manager City attorney planning director and staff for their time Scott agrees with the terms of the settlement Proposal with two requested changes first the settlement agreement proposes to limit the height of the Landsca
ping along the wall to8 feet Robert can I interrupt you for a second did you not say he had seven minutes because good seven minutes yeah go ahead thank you appreciate that Mar you're welcome first the settlement agreement proposed to limit the height of the Landscaping along the wall to 8 ft in all our Communications with staff we requested that the Landscaping be allowed to grow up to 14t and we confirmed that the Landscaping would be maintained in a natural appearance not as a hedge this is n
ecessary for the Landscaping to provide the visual screening from the skate park which along with preventing graffiti is the purpose for the Landscaping page five of the staff report for the appeal points out that quote the lip does not provide a limit on fence Heights for the skate park and therefore does not prohibit the city from installing a taller fence or larger trees along the shared property line in the future we have informed because of this section of the lap also requires that the fen
cing design take into consideration views and Vista areas the planning director is not comfortable with making a substantial Conformity decision that will allow the planting along the wall to grow to 14 ft we believe that this is incorrect it was anticipated at the time the plan development standards in the lip were drafted that it would be desirable to have visual screening between the skate park and the homes therefore the development standards for lot 7 specifically provide that the state par
k is exempt from the 8ot high limitation elsewhere in the lip and unlike the residential lots at the case which limit the height of landscaping to 25 ft the lip does not limit the height of landscaping uh on lot s the staff report in the appeal uh also States quote the proposed row of coastal live oak trees was added to the project to provide visual privacy buffer between the skat Park and the case development while the trees proposed to be installed will not mature at the time of planting they
will provide substantial privacy screening at full maturity clearly it is the intent of the approved project to have vegetative privacy screening between the skat Park and the homes which would be over 14 ft however because of budget concerns by staff's own analysis without the additional landscap of proposed by 600 spring limiting the Landscaping to what is on the approved plan will not provide substantial visual screening for at least 15 to 20 years because the landscape plan specifies Oaks an
d 24in boxes that will be about four or five feet when planted and Coastal Oaks are an extremely slow growing species we've also been told that residents of Malibu Country Estates or other locations may have concerns about view impacts if these plants are allowed to grow to 14 ft potential View impacts the Malibu Country Estates and 25 other locations both from the homes and the Landscaping were studied extensively in the IR the houses which would be in the background of any ocean view from MCE
are 18 ft which is 4T higher than the proposed landscaping and Landscaping is permitted to be up to 25 ft in height on the skate park as mentioned there is no limitation on height therefore allowing the Landscaping along the wall to reach 14 ft will not impact views from MCE or any other location accordingly we ask that you change a settlement agreement to require the community service director to request within 7 Days of the settlement agreement an administrative plan review to allow Landscapin
g along the wall to be up to 14 ft in height keeping the Restriction that such Landscaping cannot obstruct views from private primary views from private property we would also work with staff on the selection of landscape materials second while 600 spring has been involved in negotiation of the settlement imine given that 600 spring is not the applicant and is not receiving any entitlement which typically give rise to Indemnity Provisions we believe that In fairness 600 spring should not have to
provide city with a broad Indemnity Indemnity therefore we request that the indemnification provision be limited to challenges to the validity of the agreement and requests for administrative plan review from the beginning of the city's work on the skat Park 600 spring has consistently requested two things that are specifically contemplated and included in the Project's development standards taking advantage of unlimited grading exemption so the skate CL could be built below grade and the abili
ty to have walls and vegetative screening around the skate park that exceed 8 ft in height from August 2019 when the city council approved moving forward with the temporary and permanent skate parks through November 30th 2023 when the Planning Commission approved the current design Scott and I have been asking for the same two things we've made this request in public comments and submissions submission of comment letters at the city council Planning Commission and Erb in multiple meetings with f
ormer and current director and assistant director of community service and multiple meetings attended by the city manager planning director and two council members and other members of staff and 11 substantive emails as we now know these two requests are easily accommodated and are consistent with the Project's current approvals and the lip because our requests were ignored there was no alternative other than to file an appeal with the hope that the city council would listen keep in mind that no
one in the skate park community has said the skat Park must be built above above existing grade and should not have additional Landscaping rather they wanted an amazing skating experience which would been told is unaltered by implementing the design changes in the settlement agreement and as we heard last week the general sentiment from the skate par Community was that these changes were acceptable and they want you to move forward with this agreement so by putting this matter behind us tonight
Scott is not getting a benefit nor is the city agreeing to something that not otherwise contemplated or permissible in the lip 600 spring is simply getting the ability to pay potentially several hundred th000 for landscaping that will become a public benefit and to pay 100% of cost for mind and design changes to the skat Park's grading without prejudicing anybody's property rights and without otherwise changing the design of the project agreeing to the settlement agreement is not showing weakne
ss in the face of appeal or threat of litigation it's about showing leadership it's about avoiding the creation of a potential public nuisance it's about being good neighbors it's about complying with the requirements of the lip to minimize potential disruption to the families living at the case it's about problem solving and is about doing the right thing under these specific circumstances this is how the process is supposed to work and if the settlement agreement is approved tonight the proces
s will have worked for all of the state St State stakeholders thank you thank you Robert appreciate your time can I ask a question Bruce I Doug Bruce I'm sorry go ah yes please Mr Gold did I not hear you just say that you guys are not agreeing to the settlement agreement that's in our book right tonight we wanted two we're requesting two changes whoa whoa whoa is this are you ready to sign this or not that's up to Mr Yan not me okay but that's that's a good question are you are you representing
him are you using his minutes to be up here on this Podium he is I am using then you're speaking for him so yes or no are you willing to sign this agreement as written yes I'm seeing a no shaking the head no said no no is the answer is no the answer no the answer as oh this the question he asked a good question let's get should be a very short answer what is the answer you saying that no okay thank you very much all right is it appropriate to make a motion if we are going to adjourn at this poin
t or we have to hear we have to take the rest of the public comment because the point of this was to decide whether to approve this we have other things on the agenda as well Bruce okay I managering this this matter not the meeting okay all right Josh you're up did you did you read the staff report for the appeal uh yes I did okay cool yeah thanks hi good to see you all again um I wrote down what I was going to say this time um for everybody watching and everybody here I hope everybody understan
ds that the city council wants the skate park and this isn't them lying down they just want to move forward so speaking to the public thank you all again um personally I I don't really care about moving the skate park over a little bit or or pushing it down the additional grading you know fine as long as it's exactly the same I'm good um I do want to talk about the landscaping and it seems like this is becoming more and more and more of an issue again I'm worried about the the leaves the nuts th
e whatever falling into the park um this isn't just about the trees hey I look if you want to do add more trees like okay I mean my daughter loves climbing trees I like climbing trees it's a great place to climb a tree and and film people skate um I don't know how that's going to affect his privacy but I I don't think that's a good idea for privacy um you know I think that we've talked about uh primary View and all that it's not just Malu country I know that Richard wiro really doesn't like the
city right now and he has that property across the street so I don't know what he's going to say um and then one question about the trees too if topping if you're going to top the trees isn't that going to make the trees go out and then drop everything in the park so something to think about um my main issue is is the parking um I I don't think that this is a huge thing for for Scott I mean it seems to me he could park his people on his property but it's been a while since you've all had young k
ids so let me let me paint you a picture when you come up to the Bluffs with your kids for baseball softball practice whatever what happens is you pull into your parking space click the little button opens your trunk and then your kids see their friend and they go Lucy and they bolt across the street and that happens about 2:45 3:00 and guess what's happening then his guys are getting ready to go home after a Long Day's Work they're getting in the car to go back to Santa Clarita or where the whe
rever they live and they're not ready to see those kids come out and that's a dangerous situation up there this is a safety issue for our children okay like I don't I it's it's so clear to me and it it boggles my mind that we'd be considering this as part of the settlement agreement but I trust you all to do the right thing I won't agree that it's the right thing but I'll respect your decision let's see what else I got here um one one more thing on the park I was was going to say some other stuf
f but it doesn't look like we're going to do anything tonight anyway he's not ready to sign a settlement agreement which is total curveball to me um Friday I was there 3:30 Mr gillan's guys are loading up a trailer with some heavy equipment while kids are running around I mean that's that's that's not cool all right if you are going to do the parking thing make sure you have all his heavy equipment loaded on his site and coming out as main gate okay thank you very much good night one quick quest
ion before you leave if there's the whatever trees they put up there there's they're also supposing a berry tree which is going to drop berries on the I mean oh that's fun yeah that's great when they if they hit the skate park what happens if they hit a a wheel and the yeah just if they're if if we don't clear them off to skate park what happens swellbow swellbow or you know hip or head which sucks I got pieces of poo in my in my elbow from that same thing thank you very much I appreciate your c
omment Andy you're up yeah I think they're outside discussing what to do Andy and you got you got got an extra minute thanks to my yeah gler gave you more time and I did read the agenda for minutes for the uh the appeal which staff recommends that you deny his appeal so what are we doing here why are we doing this what the trees I mean let's go to the skate park pictures um there is a s oh no this is something else we'll go here there the next picture is shows this is Scott Gillan parking all hi
s cars every single day this is every single day he's going to get that corner there I'd like to see the picture from the other staff report that shows you showed one picture but that he's he's now it's not just parking it's parking and storage so there's one exit to get out on that side right there he's actually going to take the one side right there that driveway is going to be his driveway now in that schematic so he's going to be it's not just parking he's taking up the whole thing so in and
when anybody pulls in now for for using the the the parking on that spot they're going to have to go through the skate park and then go in and so it's going to be a complete cluster of parking not to mention that he's only getting he's giving 5600 $ a month for four months so that means he's got this at least till All Summer in baseball he's been using this thing for three years and that's generous 56 he's using the whole thing so that's $67,000 a year that he should have been paying for this o
kay the skate park we can go to that picture of the the ramp the changes not this one but on the staff report um there is a significant change to that feature they've taken out the vertical the transition has been changed they took the top right off the ramp it might not be a big deal but for California skate pars to say that it's the same thing and there hasn't been a change there absolutely has been a change um the fact that Paul you yeah right there you can see that the parking is yeah that's
not you know that doesn't show the true nature of what he's going to be doing with that he's going to have it fenced off the the um what else the 75,000 Paul when you said he paid $75,000 the $75,000 that he promised to pay was three years ago he never paid it he said I'll be in tomorrow he's never come the the the graffiti now we're putting bushes up there was a meeting and he said I don't care what they do that side of the wall they want to put graffiti at your side of the wall now we got to
cover it for okay this shows the the difference in the transition it's clearly a different ramp it goes from a mini ramp to it almost vertical okay now we can go to the picture that I have because this is sort of important deny this guy right this is glider's Uncle great uncle owns this this is a very iconic ramp this is the Vans Warp Tour ramp for the $75,000 that Gillan owes us we can fence off that whole proper property and have this ramp delivered to that property in know what two weeks let
them Su let him try to do if he doesn't have basis for a lawsuit if he doesn't have basis for an appeal what kind of basis does he have for a lawsuit and he comes in here and he changes this tonight on us like seriously you say all this business stuff and and Paul you shouldn't even be you shouldn't even be on this cuz you sold gold the property you were the agent for the property if I was up there I would have been recused you know this is my time so you can just hold on this is a joke who are
you guys working for here now you are saying well we get these trees now you know what I don't want to have him eating it because there's a bunch of berries and leaves and all this other stuff in the skate park you guys need to do the right thing you got any questions I'll answer them thank you Andy do you go to um Venice Beach Skate Park I don't go down there it's not too safe for him I I could go in the morning if I wanted to but I don't go I go to The Cove do they get sand in that skate park
last year or during the pandemic they tried to fill with I understood that they do no they I'm sure they get I'm just saying that do skate parks have debris and is it up to the maintenance of the skate park in order all the design of this skate park and all the community input I don't think anybody said hey we need trees okay Paul Andy what year did gold buy the property you had the listing on it well well whatever you had a party to that you were the listing agent you have a relationship with a
longstanding relationship with Robert gold I you can smile at me I know plus like this is the way you negotiate as a realtor like you just fold I don't know maybe I'd think twice about being your real estate or your client but all right anybody else it's my time Andy thank you very thank you Andy that's cool hether you're up next okay hello city council members staff and members of the community um I wrote a really sweet nice professional speech and I don't know how to address it whether I shou
ld read it now after what just happened um I was pretty excited that we had gone through this political process that you guys had gone back and forth with the lawyers our lawyers with their lawyers blah blah blah everything looked good on paper at least to me I was very happy read the settlement in detail today I have all these points that I like and then I come to and I say um something about how we are going to pass this tonight we have a unique un opportunity tonight to settle all of this onc
e and for all so I've been doing this for about 10 years my kids are in the hallway eating dinner I was late buying them dinner because of Chipotle's lack of professionalism and um I am here now just very disgruntled and frustrated and I don't know what to do I don't know what to do with that so it'll be interesting to see what they say overall I felt like moving 10 ft not a big issue doesn't affect people the Landscaping we can work that out they're paying for everything I the grading down belo
w but Andy said we're losing a little bit of the the skate actual drop down that it might affect kids um but it's really in your hands now I I am at a loss for words um because I am kind of sick of it I am sick of I've looked at probably seven or eight different city council groupings and spoken and done this with my kids for way too long this is kind of sad we should all be ashamed of this this we should look at and to hear Tom sh's mom speak last week and the fact that you guys were arguing la
st week and things got cray cray I left and I had to go home and then I saw even more drama going on this needs to be done professionally and if we can't can't do it tonight with an unknown of what are these two things they want to add in I mean come on they had their chance we had a settlement but now they want more it's yeah I feel like it isn't ever going to end so you guys do in your heart what you know is right try to be unified please and also I want to thank you so much for everything you
did for the Malibu Marlins because watching all those people come up last week can speak you guys fixed that problem so fast and it really encouraged me look at what our city council can do but then I'm here going I've been doing this for 10 years and so it's very discouraging and when I talk to people in the community I'm just kind of I don't know I don't have a lot of great things to say unfortunately and I want something good to say so please give us something good to talk about do what we c
an thank you very much okay that's the last of the public comments so let me close no you had a chance to talk mayor we have uh public speakers on Zoom what you in Zoom go ahead there are three hands versus heish Patterson heish you're up good evening city council can you hear me c you all right well I the dysfunction down at City Hall is is amazing this all could have been handled at the planning commission meeting or the four years that led up to the Planning Commission meeting I I get why thi
s is falling apart we went from talking about landscaping and skate park design to all of a sudden we're talking about parking indemnification lawsuits all sorts of stuff I get why they're walking this is a giant mess and and I I want to thank councilman Silverstein for making it into a giant Nest this is entirely unnecessary this is this 14 years I've been on I'm right there with Heather this is crazy what is going on here and and the fact of the matter is it could have all been solved at the P
lanning Commission meeting but we have a dysfunctional Planning Commission you had we had commissioner Peak commissioner Maza arguing and bickering just like what was going on here at the city this is Four City Council meetings later this is a giant waste of the community's time this is a giant waste of your time I I this is utterly dysfunctional and and and and it's a joke because every small town in the Pacific Northwest has a Monumental skate park and they they seem to get it done lickity spl
it I don't know what the dysfunction is down at Malibu City Hall it's gross I'm super discouraged at you mayor uring for for publicly shaking down Scott Gillan that was disgusting what went down last week you Steve like that that that's beneath you to do that and to be just so bold about it and you too Bruce just shaking people down in broad daylight why don't you just use the word why don't you you wanted to use every other word but Shakedown that was a Shakedown last night maran's trying to ge
t it done Paul's trying to get it done the old the council member Stewart seems to be the only calm one up there yeah you added a bunch of craziness to what was a simple move the skate park over 10 ft plant some trees is now turned into this what five page settlement agreement that's got a bunch of other stuff that never has ever come up until now and I wonder why because I have a feeling that City staff and city manager has no plan on ever building building a skate park I see this as a sabotage
from within the city so you get to hold it Bruce if this skate park doesn't go through it's on you it's on you Bruce and Steve for not making this happen thank you thanks Amish next speaker please Joe Drummond Joe you're on hi there can you hear me got you um so firstly I'd like to know why there were no disclos ures and also why Mr granti has not recused himself given everything that I've written and Andy just talked about I'd also like to mention the final eir that was studied for constructio
n and development of the sub subdivision including potential use of lot seven as ball fields or a skap park that is defective if you're going to be adding all of these trees and all of these things that were not in the original e or any of that so I think you can find that defective and stop his build his his his projects if that's the way you're going to get this like someone should have managed this better so that the skate park could be built before he started his projects you know like that'
s this was just not managed properly the the trees and the seeds and all of that they're not going to be good for the skate park and and changing all of the the levels and the angles I I just don't believe it'll be safe for the children as well as the parking it's not going to be safe for the kids so I think you should just there is no agreement now he's not going to sign it anyway just go through with the appeal next week deny it and just see what happens I'm sure it will not go to a lawsuit it
just can't I don't think he could do that he doesn't have a right legally and it will put his own homes in Jeopardy so I don't think you you should worry about that I think just go ahead and approve it next week and they can start building thanks thanks Joe anybody else Howard redy Howard you're on Howard you there can you hold on can you hear me now gotcha Okay so what could have what should have what might be what happened in the past what's even happening tonight I think you guys have to loo
k at it this way this is a skate park for the kids it's not what our adults thing or want or need it's what they want and need and desire and it's been going on way too long if we have to bite the bullet a little and Scott has to bite the bul a little I think you guys should negotiate in public tonight get this thing done and let's stop this because at the end of the day again it's all about the kids there's all these kids that want this skate park thank you thank you Howard anybody else those a
re all the raised hands okay thank you very we'll close public comment just come back if they want to get you we can bring you up back to the council can I I I would like to ask Mr Gold a question and I want a yes or a no and not another word if you can do that if you can't answer yes or no don't get up and answer at all okay the question is having gone out of the room and come back now is Mr Gillan prepared to sign this settlement agreement if the council approves it without changing a single w
ord yes or no yes okay thank you okay anybody else Paul now that we know that I'd like to move the settlement agreement but I think it's probably premature so I'm going to I'm going to go ahead and ask that we get the skate park designer available again please so I can ask him and can we get also the the uh comparative skate park the drop that people are talking about on the [Music] screen and is a designer of available yeah can you hear me great I I have a question for you the height where the
gentleman is standing in the in the slide titled current condition what is the difference between where the gentleman is standing and the bottom of the drop in point in feet 5 and a half Fe if you look at the proposed condition drawing that's underneath it what is the difference in that picture it does appear different in this drawing and this you have access to the to the elevations what is the difference um I do I could look it up but I will say that this was a sketch that was initially done b
ack in November to show how we could initially we were looking at reducing all of that shoulder burm and and moving the skate park over and we hadn't coordinated yet with our civil on the drainage to make sure that that lower elevation could drop and since then we have done that which is why we're confident that the original elevation can be maintained back in November we we didn't know we were looking for any potential resolution and we thought we know we can push it we don't know how much we c
an drop the lower elevation but at this time we do know that that 5 and a half foot elevation that's shown in the original design can be maintained at the exact same height in the proposed condition is that correct that's correct thank you very much will it be maintained not that it can't St it's my time to talk I'm not done I apologize please go ahead pleas yeah let me know thank you very much can I get the landscaper on the phone please present great uh I don't think I've ever seen a lemon ber
ry what do they look like a lemonade Berry lemonade berries um they are are in my opinion a rather attractive evergreen shrub um 8 to 10 feet they do have um flowers uh light pink to white flowers and a small Berry as this is no noted and what can we talk about the small Berry does the berry have uh pits in it or or stones or anything like that uh yes it is a material that you would not want on a skate park surface however I would note that this uh the Roose Integra foli is proposed on the perim
eter of the park uh many feet away from the skate park itself it's one of the shrubs um that 600 spring is proposing on on the perimeter okay so some of those would be on the Northern wall though correct okay and there are some larger things on that Northern wall also what are those the other uh species that 600 spring is offered are the Ceno theosis as well as the Ro and those are the only two species that I have um not withstanding the the trees if you had tree specific questions I'd be happy
to answer that as well so are the lemonade berries a larger would that be a larger shrub or are these the little ones that are going to be planted many of them I would consider that a medium to tall shrub okay and um sir I I might note that 20 ft is uh ex uh my opinion a rare circumstance to get that tall right and we would be trimming them I would imagine anyway all right uh I have thank you very much thank you let me find my place and ask my other question uh is there a okay we don't have a Mr
Gold will you please um come to the podium you've just said that you're willing to sign the document as written is that correct Scott is yes okay is there anything else that I need to know about that oh we would appreciate if you would not put it in the agreement but proceed with this uh administrative plan review to go to 14 ft but you don't have to put in the document but we appreciate it think it would be and the administrative plan review would be to make the the to allow the shrubs to go u
p to 14 ft rather than limiting to 8 ft and the shrubs at 8 ft are already 2 feet higher than your wall correct they would be yes at 8 ft and and the uh okay so I'm I'm still trying to figure out what the two changes you originally had were well that was that was one we'd like to have the administrative plan review and then we wanted to limit the indemnity to the validity of the agreement and to any actions with respect to the um administrative plan review and and not to anything else because we
're not involved in anything else and it's we're not getting the entitlements that's when you get entitlements you typically indemnify the city and people seem to be confused about the state of of what's going on over on the other side of the fence as people are talking as if you haven't even started construction over there but I I I have a distinct impression from looking over the fence that it's pretty close to done that is correct okay all right thank you thank you anything else Paul done Tre
vor quick question the comment has come up or the question has come up regarding recusal is is there any validity to that this is not a public hearing so disclosures are not required to be taken before it if there is um if there's a conflict of interest or a source of income um that would require you to recuse yourself it be the same as any other item I'm just saying that they I mean have you considered that do you think there's a need for recusal I'm not aware of any source of income for any of
the council members from the uh from uh Mr Gillan or his company at this time we and I'm not aware of uh other circumstances that would require recusal at this time okay anybody else Doug um if I could start off let's go if the skateboard designer come back on the uh audio and if I could get a picture of the uh element that we've got before and after because I think Andy L had a good uh question now that I see it um uh I know the designer has said we have the same park before and after but he b
rings brings up an excellent point and I wish I had a red pointer uh as you look just to the uh edge of the proposed condition the ramp up to that is very small as opposed to what was there previously which looked like a long Runway beforehand um is that material or are we reading this correctly because you're saying there's no no change but this looks like a change um are you talking about on the right side or on the left side if you look between like I said I wish I had a pointer um if you loo
k at the uh ramp between the uh human figure and the tree on the uh current condition there's a long Runway to that point where that's not the the difference though okay it's a hill it's a hill I'll call it a hill the ramp is the Earth yeah that's earthw work the the skate park Surface starts where the Fig f is and goes to the left okay but the is the uh Runway between the stick figure and the tree is that an element in the park or not no it is not okay all right thank you um I want to make a co
mment about uh the Landscaping I hear there's an administrative hearing is that when the actual Landscaping is finalized is that when that takes place or is this are we committing to it tonight Richard or whoever the the Landscaping that consists of a hedge up to 18 ft and Trevor please jump in here if I misstate anything uh the settlement agreement proposes a hedge of up to 18 ft behind eight sorry eight and the trees at 14t the 14 ft and then up to 25 with the approval of the city right that w
ould be under substantial conformance the the 600 Spring Street folks what they're asking for is that instead of a 8ft hedge it be a 14t hedge along the fence line and in order to go from 8 to 14 ft that's what the administrative plan review would be for all right but what does it do about the selection of the actual uh Landscaping elements the the trees or the bushes or whatever we're picking up out and I'm the world's worst one to ask about Nursery questions so help me out it's my understandin
g that the tree species um that's something that would be approved as part of the substantial conformance and if we if the city settles on just 8 ft on the hedgeline then the species would then be also approved as part of the substantial conformance I I hope I'm answering your question I think I think you are I just want to know when the when the determination of what the plant goes is made um let me also say I have very little experience at skate parks I think I made the comment before I can I
can snow ski I can water ski but I can't skateboard or surf so I've I'm a outlier on this so um I don't know what I don't know what the right combinations are elements and so forth but I do know the skate park up at Santa Barbara and it's got palm trees all around it and flowers and trees and all kinds of things so uh as Maryann mentioned you know you get sand down at the beach at Venice and the skate park at Santa Barbara is right on the beach it is right by the bicycle path so you know it's a
it's part of the scenery if you're going to have a beach beach route I do think uh you know it does take some serious cleaning up before anybody goes in there with the uh board and um uh that's no different than playing on a tennis court next to the beach you got to clean it up first um now let me just make a few comments here I hope nobody loses sight of our objective especially tonight and that is to get this skate park built as designed and as soon as possible that's all we're trying to do an
d uh you know I don't want this to be a political football I know there's been some comments on next door which I do not read next door anymore so if you send things to me on next door might as well forget it I'm not going to look at it um but the point of this is we need to get this thing built get it done for the kids one of the things I looked at as I was reading the appeal document it has been 10 years almost of the day since uh this project was approved originally approved I mean we've got
people that probably were glider's age that are now almost in college or older than that are actually uh in having kids of their own so it's ridiculous that we're still taking all this time I also want to point out that the theater of approve or not approve the settlement agreement is it's probably consistent with what's gone on in the whole 10 years you know never miss an opportunity to negotiate one of the phrases I've used before in real estate is escrow is just another phase in negotiations
well the settlement agreement is just another phase in negotiations until it's approved and signed so you I'm disappointed that uh you know you guys came back to bite the apple one more time um I don't find that very uh Charming to say the least uh I will say that the settlement we have before us tonight as I read it uh it covers what the council asked for these are the points we wanted and I thank Trevor and the attorneys for the uh appellant that worked it out and got us a document here this i
s what we asked for this is what we wanted I also think that IT addresses while addresses the concerns of the developer uh it's only got minor changes to what was originally approved by the Planning Commission and it doesn't set precedence these are minor things 10 ft here uh take a 2T off off this element over here it's minor stuff and I hate to say this I'm agreeing with Hamish should have been done a long time ago you know these are so minor that even the planning director said it wasn't mate
rial enough to have to change any of the approvals prior approvals we're doing this almost as an administr Administration administrative uh item it's no big deal let's get it done and I think we also need to point out the fact that the cost of doing this is being born by the developer next door so he's asked for changes we're accommodating his minor changes and he's paying for them and if this is what it takes to get the skate park started and going then I'm all in favor of it uh I know Paul sai
d it's not time necessarily to put a motion on the table for approval but uh I'm willing to do that when the time is right or be a second to it that's all I have mayor thank uh Richard quick question if we approve the agreement and it's it limits the height of the foliage against the wall to 8T can that be changed can that be changed anytime in the future from a planning perspective from any perspective can that be changed then Trevor if I may have your help on this is there going to be some leg
al language that would prevent because in general no unless there's something recorded uh that would prevent someone from coming in to for to ask for a modification or an approval Trevor can that be changed can the 8ft height be changed to a different height that's the question yes under the settlement agreement it could be changed through an amendment to the settlement agreement or if the um the vegetation fails and dies after 10 years and it's not replaced by them then um the city wouldn't be
bound to um do so when you say an amendment to the agreement how where does that Amendment come in how who have to approve that it would just be a contract it would have to be approved by by the city council okay so as long as we know if we if we approve the 8T that can't get changed unless the city council changes it is that correct that's correct agree with that Richard yes we would respect any sort of legal agreement that's on the property that affects the city issuing a decision anybody else
maranne comments I'll make a motion to approve the settlement agreement second okay Bruce I don't know if Maran has any com coments other than a motion or she's going to remain silent just a comment just in a motion so that's what she said I have I have comments on the motion but I'd like to hear the her prop her advocacy for it before I respond I think that it is a crafted agreement that will settle this and get our skate park built which is what our community wants Okay so I wish we had had t
he hearing on the appeal last week if not sooner than last week because we would know whether it had been approved as was as the staff is recommending we wouldn't even be here tonight if that were the case um or city council could have mandated that these types of changes be made in order for the approval to occur and that could be in the works and be done as well um I want to see this approved not not the settlement I but maybe I'm going to approve vote to approve the S but I want I want to see
the skate work skate park approved and I want to see it built post haste said that before should have been built by now U by the way this is the first time I believe that the skate park is coming before the city council that Stephen Paul and I have been any of us have been here on this Council so we're not the ones that were responsible for whatever happened over the past 10 years um Mr Gold in his presentation actually appreciated towards the end when he went through that Litany of Good Neighb
or we want to see this build we're in this together all that and and that they're just asking for an accommodation that a good neighbor should provide but that's not how this started and that's that's what troubles me I said this last time what troubles me is that that's not why we're here tonight because those comments could have been accommodated but by Good Neighbors either um in the in this in the appeal hearing but we're here tonight on a settlement of threatened litigation because Mr Gilla
n got up during the Planning Commission meeting and not as politely or diplomatically threaten to sue the city and I would like to have that threat played since we're what we're here to do tonight is to approve if we do a settlement of a threat be nice to have the threat on the record so could we please see the thread itself so we understand what we're what it is we're we're being asked to resolve Stop's putting it up now good evening um you know I'm not sure what to say other than what's alread
y been said other than I'm a little insulted by the the statements that I made that are just flat out they're just not true uh we've never opposed the skate park I donated the land I think these guys don't understand the value of what the land is it's $1 million I gave you a million dollars they probably don't know that we're the big bad developers I live here 36 years raised my family here it is ridiculous they were arguing over some dirt I don't I'm not a skater I don't know what it what it wh
at it does to lower the park by two you know 2 feet I know that if if some of these kids that are 6'4 and 6'5 scale over these raised you know monuments I'm going to come they're 6 feet in the air above my six foot wall because you're going to raise the grade by 5T it's unfair where the developers it's it's not cool we're the big bad guys it's just you know the consequences if you don't accommodate what we're trying to do you should tell the kids what's going to happen you should tell the staff
that we've attempted to to discuss it with them on multiple occasions shut down put out there's no discussions there's no negotiations so when you don't pass it they're going to look at me like I'm the bad guy and I'm going to point to the people who didn't respond to our request I will then appeal it and then I will sue the city and I will stop it in motion or you can make simple accommodations I'll take 25 Grand to the 73,000 I already offered you and you get 100 Grand I'm pissed you guys are
just you're just so wrong you're wrong and you know you're wrong that's it thank you so by the way that that that's everything we know about the threat and litigation there there hasn't been any explication since that point of what it is we're exposed to just I'm going to appeal and I'm going to sue and and in contrast to Mr Gold's presentation tonight about being good neighbors and working things out in a friendly way that's that's why we're here tonight as opposed to why we'd be hearing the ap
peal so fundamentally I substantively I've got no issue because I'm not hearing any reason why the skate park Can't Be Moved 10 feet in and 2 feet lower I have some issues with the Landscaping but I've got I've got no issue with the major thing that's being sought other than on principle that that I really don't think we should be here tonight Cal toing to a threat of that nature and I don't think we should be settling a non-existent claim okay um I've got two issues one is with the process but
that got us here or the other is with some of the provisions that I'm actually hoping that my fellow council members will will listen to what I have to say about some of these Provisions that have been drafted in here that we never previously had an opportunity to discuss as a council because there are some Provisions in here that are problematic I'm going to skip over what I was going to talk about with what I believe to have been a brown act violation said it before um I will note that the um
District Attorney's um Integrity unit is looking at how this has come to play how why we're here tonight and we'll see what happens with that I'm not saying when that anything will come of it but it might I'll also say I know that our city the attorney cannot state that the that the interpretation of the brown act language that I have is incorrect all he can say is he reads it a different way because there's no judicial Authority one way or the other and all he's doing is supporting the way he's
always done this so of course he's not going to acknowledge that there could be a problem with this process because it's the process that our City attorney has followed since time in Memorial but in any event I'm going to get to the substance um I've got a problem with the parking I'll come back to that but the the one that I'm hoping others will take into account and this was never discussed before is section one of the draft agreement titled withdrawal of appeal states that the appeal shall b
e deemed withdrawn 90 days from the occurrence of either of the following the planning director's approval of exhibits A and B as changes that do not require amendment of C CDP or further permits or entitlements or to the city obtaining any required permits or entitlements or amendments required to make the changes described in exhibits A and B however if a legal challenge to the settlement agreement or the actions described in this section is commenced within this period of time so it's over th
e next 90 plus days the appeal shall be deemed withdrawn I'm sorry if a legal challenge to the sement agreement or the action described in the section is commenced within this period of time the appeal shall be deemed withdrawn upon a final resolution of such challenge that upholds the validity of this agreement okay so what does that mean as a matter of law when a CDP is approved by the Planning Commission and an appeal is taken to the city council the C the effectiveness of the CDP is stayed i
t's not operational and lesson until it's heard by the city council and the appeal is denied when there's an appeal to the coastal when there's the ability to appeal to the coastal commission the same thing occurs the CDP granted by the city doesn't have any effect unless and until the coastal commission says it does so right now we're here because the CDP that was approved by the Planning Commission has no effect until either this appeal is withdrawn which reinstates its Effectiveness or the ci
ty council enters into a settle or I'm sorry where it's Deni where the appeal is denied if the appeal were to be denied the park is approved and it goes for forward this settlement does not provide that if we sign it and we're we're being asked to do this for expediency this doesn't provide that if we sign this agreement tonight or approve this tonight the the appeals withdrawn and the CDP goes into effect what it says is if there's a lawsuit filed by anybody prior to 90 days following the appro
val plus whatever time it might take to get the action done um until that appeals resolve I'm tell until that lawsuits resolve resv this appeal remains pending and and we we will have stipulated to that we will we will have put ourselves in a position where we can't hear the appeal if we want to hear the appeal because we signed away our ability to do it and we may have to wait a year or two years for this litigation if it's brought by some other person to wind its way through the judicial syste
m before the appeal will be deemed withdrawn the way this has been written and blessed by our attorney and I've heard from our city council members until maybe they'll read it now and think about it until now they've all said that these Provisions all look fine so we're being asked to do this in order to get the gate park built and to and to get the approval as of tonight let's move forward now a week from now we're going to hear the appeal if we don't settle and if we deny the appeal that'll be
it we can move forward if we um Grant the appeal but specify what's necessary to satisfy it that's it we can start moving forward if we sign the settlement agreement and Frank Angel files a lawsuit on behalf of somebody until that lawsuit is resolved this appeal remains pending and we cannot begin to move forward with the skate park so I've got a problem with provision one and I would hope that the other members of the council have that same problem and don't agree to that provision the appeal
should be withdrawn immediately in my view if there's a settlement it should provide that the appeal is deemed dismissed concurrently with the execution of the settlement agreement which is actually what I thought we were going to be was going to be given to us based on prior discussions this 90-day thing just came up um otherwise the settlement risks adding materially greater delay to the construction of the skate park is opposed to eliminating the remote Prospect of Delay from the conclusory t
hreat of litigation the city should not bear the risk of a lawsuit indefinitely delaying construction of the skate park the children should not bear that risk rather 600 spring LLC should bear the risk of a lawsuit successfully defeating the settlement if a lawsuit is filed I mean this this appeal should go away immediately upon sign signing of the settlement agreement if there's a lawsuit that's not our problem also last week Richard provided a lengthy and detailed explanation of how all change
s set forth in the proposed settlement agreement can be processed administratively and promptly he repeated that again tonight more succinctly but section one again contemplates the potential that the planning director's approval of changes could require an amendment to the CDP or further permits or entitlements it says that apparently 600 spring LLC is unwilling to Bear the risk that Richard is wrong as Steve has actually stated he believes to be the case the city council shouldn't be willing t
o Bear the risk either again if it turns out that any further process Beyond administrative review by the planning departments required for any element of the settlement to be implemented the city's obligations to satisfy that element should be deemed released the city should not bear the risk of the settlement delaying the construction of the skate park when the sole purpose of the settlement is to eliminate hypothetical delay rather 600 spring should bear the risk of losing the benefits of the
settlement if the implementation of those benefits causes delay okay that's one issue so I I I think that that provision should be either stricken or written to say that the settle that the appeal is withdrawn upon execution of the settlement agreement parking um I understand that 600 spring LLC claims it would be unsafe to proceed with its construction project without using the city's parking lot unsafe if they don't get to rent the parking lot um if that's the case and they don't get the park
ing lot they should just stop construction until they can devise a safe way of proceeding now that could cause the project to be delayed and may not otherwise fit the developers preferred approach but the city has no legal obligation to facilitate 600 Spring's preferred approach especially when 600 spring is threatening to sue the city if the city doesn't redesign the skate park so while it would be improper for the city to take retaliatory action in response to a threat of litigation it's perfe
ctly appropriate for the city to withhold a discretionary privilege to which 600 spring LLC has no legal entitlement if 600 Spring's ability to use the city's parking lot is sufficient ly important to 600 spring LLC then 600 spring should agree to withdraw its appeal of the skate park CDP as it immediately as a condition to Simply being allowed to rent the parking lot so it can get its project done so you know and this is the problem of negotiating in public I objected to us going into close ses
sion because I think it was not done procedurally correctly I don't think the city is currently exposed to any significant risk of litigation we don't even know by the way that Mr Gillan has the sole author under his LLC agreement as manager to file a lawsuit against the city he may need the support of members I don't we don't know that we don't know what their beliefs their feelings would be but if he needs that parking lot and we have the ability to withhold that which is a privilege not a rig
ht and the de the construction may be delayed as a result of that I would think that that would be a fair swap in and of itself and we wouldn't have to be making any changes now so getting back to my point we shouldn't be negotiating these things in public because we're five people we negotiate among ourselves and we have one person who's on the other side that person shouldn't get to see our internal negotiations among ourselves as to what we're asking for because they'll see where there's weak
ness so that's the point of the brown act allowing the city council to go into Clos session to discuss how to negotiate when there's a substantial risk of litigation so one I don't believe there was a is or was a substantial risk so the city council shouldn't have been going into Clos session but if the other members of the city council believe there is and they want to negotiate a settlement agreement they shouldn't be doing the negotiating in public they should be doing the negotiating after f
ollowing the proper form to go in close session in close session we shouldn't have to last week I said I don't think the city should have to pay to maintain the trees for 10 years it should be on the developer and I hear from over here no that seems like a fair thing now if we had agreed among ourselves in private to make that as a demand the developer wouldn't know there was any weakness on the city council on that provision but how can you possibly ask for something in a negotiation when you'v
e seen that city council members in public aren't supporting it so this process is bad I think that we could settle this tonight by providing the parking because again without the parking if as Mr Gillan says it's a dangerous situation a I don't think he can proceed with his development until he cures the danger the trees are a problem we've talked about them before I know I'm not going to persuade others that they're too tall um I'll just say it's a 14t requirement it's not a 25t requirement th
e city has the discretion in the future to allow them to grow to 25 ft but the requirement is 14 ft and the trees that are being proposed are trees that start out at 20 I don't mean they grow they start out as saplings at 20 but they're low low height in an average average tree is 20 ft for one of them 33 ft for another and by the way the USDA says that the um the one that our landscaper prefers grows to 80 ft and occasionally to 100 ft I have a hard time understanding how trees of that nature C
an Be Tamed to be only 14t trees without them being unhealthy and again the city's now incurring the cost if the trees are unhealthy and die even though we're not selecting the trees um I have a problem with the recital now I'm getting into the weeds but that's what lawyers do and this is the kind of thing that we should have had the ability to discuss in closed session but since we don't I'm going to discuss them now I have a problem with the recital because two of the recital are I I have no w
ay of knowing if they're true one of them is that in the absence of a negotiated resolution of 600 Springs claim 600 Springs intends to file suit against the city based on 600 Springs claim if the appeal is not granted I I'm not willing to agree that they're going to file suit if we don't settle because I don't know that they will again I don't even know that Mr Gillan has the authority to file that suit do do you have the sole authority to decide to file a lawsuit you don't need the approval of
any of your members okay could you come to the microphone Scott Gillan is the sole member and manager of 600 spring LLC so member yes are are there any investors who have consent rights pursuant to separate agreements that are not the LSC agreement or lenders I don't see how that's relevant but no well it's relevant because I'm trying to assess whether he's the sole member and manager it's complete authority over the decisions of the LLC okay and and will you if the appeal were heard next week
and it were denied will you file a lawsuit that depends oh so you may not we may you may and you may not okay what will the lawsuit assert what are the claims the claims are all in the appeal that's been already filed with with the uh City okay but the appeal is decided on a preponderance of the evidence and a lawsuit is file is is resolved a lawsuit would be resolved based on a substantial evidence standard right I I don't have to answer these questions according to council it's not there not a
hearing on the appeal or any of that okay well that's exactly one of my points we know nothing about other than having read each of us has individually read the staff report on the appeal you can sit down since you're not going to ask answer any questions I would expect the staff report on appeal excuse me sir you were given an opportunity to answer questions you've declined I don't have another question pending for you maybe somebody else will when I'm finished speaking okay so we're being ask
ed to settle a lawsuit the terms of which we know not the the claims of which we know nothing about we're being asked to settle an appeal which all we have is each of us has read a staff report but we've not yet got a presentation we haven't heard from the public we haven't discussed it among ourselves um one last point I'm going to make about the the process the two closed session meetings were convened for the purpose of discussing a possible settlement of the threatened litigation not I that'
s what it says in writing in the agendas not to discuss a possible settlement of the appeal however and Trevor can correct me if I'm wrong the city council's never been presented with any proposal to settle the lawsuit what we were what we were we presented with was a proposal to settle the appeal that's what it states I would disagree with that there's been an open threat at the Planning Commission meeting to sue the city and there was multiple proposals to settle that dispute okay do you have
a copy of the written proposal that was given to the city council there's only one proposal ever given to the city council in writing you have a copy of it I'm sure I do somewhere it doesn't say anything about litigation it says settle the appeal so that's what the proposal was that was presented to the city council to discuss in close session all right I know I'm I've lost my audience up here if I ever had them in the first place but the I have other points but I'm I'm not going to make them th
e one I think that is critical is section one which allows the appeal to be pending for the next minimum 90 days and possibly indefinitely if somebody files a lawsuit during that 90-day period to me ought to be unacceptable to every single member of the city council who's agreeing to the settlement if they do for the sole purpose of avoiding potential delay that potentially delays the building of the skate park indefinitely and what I think should happen is unless that provision is stricken the
um appeal should be heard next week and we should decide what to do from that point forward anybody want to talk about that restrict or striking that section I'd like to make a couple comments um there's a song that says What A Difference A Day Makes I'll put a different tune to that what a differ difference a week makes a week ago councilman Silverstein Bruce you sat right here and made all these statements about how was inappropriate for us to have a closed session you've just talked about why
the closed session was been would have been more beneficial had we had it you can't have it both ways now the other thing I want to talk about is you say you make it sound like the council members haven't done their homework I want you to see something here my notes on section one that's all highlighted I don't have a highlighter I read the thing all the way through I know what I'm I know what I'm agreeing to and as far as a week ago you said right here and said an injunction yeah they'll if th
ey'll come in and say you're going to stop the Pro File lawsuit and file an injunction it'll be frivolous it'll be denied and I said you know what it stops the project it isn't about the injunction you put a lawsuit in place everything goes cold so here we sit and now all of a sudden you're saying that it's going to be a showstopper to have a lawsuit you can't have it both ways Bruce now I'm still in favor of approving this uh uh settlement agreement I real I that there are weaknesses uh in ever
y settlement agreement as the old ad each goes everybody has to walk away looking like they would have wanted something differently and a good deal and you take what you take what we got on the table our attorneys have worked diligently to put this together they had instructions from the city council about what we expected and this is what we got back so that's all my comments I'll turn it over to somebody else Mr Mayor may I respond you go ahead and I want to make a response also okay I just ju
st to the two points that Doug made um there because there's no in consistency um the brown act prohibits the city council from meeting in closed session unless the city council has determined that the city has a substantial exposure to litigation what I've objected to from the beginning and repeated again tonight was that the city council never made a determination that the city has a substantial exposure to litigation so there shouldn't there's there's no reason to be discussing a settlement a
t all if there's no exposure to l no substantial exposure to litigation and there's no ability to meet in private what I said was if the city council wanted to go into private into Clos session to discuss a proposed settlement which is the only place they should discuss it they need to make that determination first and I know I believe that others not me have the view that there is that exposure they've never articulated that publicly but I think they believe that so they need to make that decis
ion go into close session and then discuss what terms they want for the settlement agreement so there's no inconsistency there there's subtlety Maybe subtlety escapes some people but there's no inconsistency the other point is that I never agreed that I said last week and I agree that the the denial of the appeal even if a lawsuit were filed would not stop the progress of the skate park because absent in injunction it goes forward Doug said Prudence would dictate not moving forward I don't agree
with that actually I would still move forward but that's not inconsistent with what I was explaining tonight so in the highlighted language that Doug the language that Doug highlighted that he understands so well it says that if a lawsuit is filed the appeal is not withdrawn well that wasn't the case last week when I was talking about what I was saying is if we hear the appeal and the appeals denied the skat Park goes forward but now the council is being asked to sign a document that states tha
t if someone files a lawsuit there is an injunction because it says that the appeal is not withdrawn if a lawsuit's filed until the lawsuit is over and what that means is third parties people who aren't even in this room are then in control of the timing anyone can file a lawsuit and if somebody files a lawsuit before the appeal has been withdrawn so they have n minimum 90 days because that's what it says it won't be withdrawn for 90 days if anyone files a lawsuit then we're stuck in limbo and c
an't proceed because we signed a document that says the appeal still pending so there's no inconsistencies there's subtle differences and subtleties matter thank you Bruce look I like everybody else I like to see the skate park it built okay I I I have not been through the process of trying to stop it down but let me just take a moment and sort of bring us back how we got here all right uh and just recently I got a copy of the appeal that or the staff report for next week's meeting which deals w
ith the appeal and in that report I learned a lot of things things that I had not heard before right there's stuff there there's information in that report which we were never told about in our close session meetings or any of those meetings uh and I I think Trevor should have done that I can't I mean this this staff report was ready a while ago and we just never got it but let me go back and just take you through this and I want to just get a brief summary of how we got where we are today in 20
in 2020 in 2021 the city held a number of Parks and Recreation Commission Public Works commission and skate park Enthusiast meetings in which the final design of the skate park and the park amenities were finalized Scott gillan's team from the neighboring case development attended all those meetings and it was the city's understanding that the Gill team approved the final skate park design recommended by these committees and that statement is straight out of the staff report that we got for the
appeal and Scott team did not bring up in demands for design changes until 22 and 23 a year later the skat Park design went through a number of reviews on October 11th 2023 the environmental review board considered the skat Park and reviewed the design changes demanded by Scott Gill's team the environmental review board rejected those demands as having no merit the 12,500 ft skate park was analyzed in the final eir the report again considered the changes requested by Scott gillan's team and re
also rejected them for example the report determined that noise impacts would be less than significant because the daytime noise would be dominated by the traffic on nearby Pacific Coast Highway on November 30th the Planning Commission considered the skate park project and approved the existing design once again rejected the changes proposed by Scott gillan's team and on February 27th City staff prepared a staff report addressing Scott Scot Gill's team's appeal of the Planning Commission decisio
n and that staff report also rejects Scot gillan's team's demand for design changes as having no merit so at this point we've got six City bodies six rejecting design changes Parks and Rec six rejecting the design changes Parks and Rec commission Public Works environmental review board the environmental impact report the Planning Commission and the city staff they all determined that gillan's demands had no fact had no basis in fact did not improve the design of the skate park inist simply assis
ted Gillan in selling his houses despite that three members of the council voted to ENT enter into a settlement agreement with Scott Gillan so in summary Scott Gillan filed an appeal threatened a lawsuit made meritless demands all reviewed and rejected and delayed the completion of the state park already by at least three months maybe more in return we said thank you and in the settlement agreement we give him everything that he wanted and what did the city and the skate park enthus Enthusiast g
et in return the answer is pretty much nothing matter of fact it's less than nothing the agreement allows Scott gillan's team to plant oak and Berry trees that can grow to 60 feet in the skat Park and pres that presents a number of problems Dead Leaves and berries can fall into the skate park and if not removed can make skateboarding dangerous the oak trees need to be cropped to 14 ft first of all you need permit to crop oak trees in California and too much cropping is going to kill them but tha
t's not Scott's problem because the agreement says that trees die in the first 10 years the city has to replace them at our expense we negotiated against ourselves finally a couple of meetings ago I was accused of calling some council members Pro development in fact that never happened that accusation resulted in a lengthy rebuttal with multiple reasons why the term Pro development was not was unwarranted that response reminded me of the quote from Hamlet they do protest too much I do not call a
nyone Pro development in that meaning and I'm not going to do that today I want encourage everyone to read the city staff report for the appeal then watch the vote and you can decide for yourself thank you I would also like to make a motion to change that item in the first one that says once this once this settlement agreement is done it's done I have one other question I believe in the last meeting we said that if there's a lawsuit Scott gildon has to defend us yet when I read the indemnificati
on in the in this agreement it says they will were indemnified except for lawsuits resulting from gross gross negligence and will misconduct of the city so if there's a lawsuit dealing with the brown act are we does he have to defend us against that Trevor there's a specific carve out for the brown act allegations based on um what was what has been the history here and um what was St at the last meeting that we were not willing to agree to um a the indemnity provision without that car V out say
that again so here here's my question the city council when we we met last time we said here's what we want and is the brown act covered would he have to indemnify us against the brown act lawsuit there's a carvo it says the duty described in this paragraph shall not apply to a laws lawsuit brought solely to allege the city has violated any provision of the raim brown act so that was a carve out that I verified with the the motion maker to make sure that that fit with the intention of the motion
otherwise who's the motion what do you say otherwise this is ex is the exact language that's used in a coastal development permanently the D language as requested by the council but that's different than what we asked for right no I confirmed that this met the intention of the motion maker so if it is not the you did in the meeting if this is not the if this is not what the council wants to do then it can it has the ability not to approve this agreement or to make an alteration to it and and wh
en you confirmed that when did you confirm that in the meeting no after the meeting I want to make sure I had it correct so okay so there was the council said here's what we want to do and you confirmed with one city council member to change what the council asked for is that correct that is not correct what what that's what you said told me yes I mean we we said we want to be indemnified against any lawsuit that occurs regarding this project and a brown act lawsuit is potentially something we'r
e going to get hit with and I just want to make sure and that's what we asked for and then apparently that got changed didn't get changed as any result of any discussion of the if I have if the language is incorrect from the council's intention then I apologize this was the the direction was to include the general Indemnity provision that is attached to Coastal development permits I don't remember that language being talked about but okay I would like to to make a Bruce's motion that says you kn
ow this the the deal that says if there's a lawsuit the appeal stays in place is there any appetite to try and change that and anybody in the city council I would have the appetite yeah know you and me both anybody else okay so we're saying we really want to get this skate park done however we're willing to put some speed bumps in place in case these guys don't like what we're doing is that what we're saying apparently what we're saying is that if this gets approved tonight which I suspect will
be by a vote of 3 to2 and somebody files a lawsuit and the skate park gets delayed because of that we'll all know who was the reason for it being delayed and you can bet your life a lawsuit is coming just take take it to the bank be so nice to live in a community where we don't settle everything by lawsuit and accusation we actually show up to Council meetings and state our objections or opinions at the public di as we all are given the right of our first amendment but instead choosing to sit be
hind screens or other means not communicate no you're just saying that a lawsuit's going to be settled I just wish that any makers of those lawsuits would come forward and express those concerns and issues here at the council so everybody in the public can hear them that's all I'm making a First Amendment statement of I have a couple questions of the council or the staff or such um if there is a lawsuit and this gets um paused can the city still move forward with engineering plan check funding a
nd releasing of the RFP to obtain a contractor yes the city can would be able to move forward at its own risk okay what does that mean that we that work can still continue um with getting the park designed from the engineering standpoint getting it through building safety plan check getting the funding approved by the council in the budget and looking setting out for an RFP in order to hire a contractor but we can't start building anything is that what you're suggesting Trevor that depends on th
e lawsuits because that's what doug that was the argument Doug made can't touch it it would be this the same situation as if Mr Gillan filed a lawsuit and um in that case the CDP also would not be final if the city wants to proceed before that is final that would be at its own risk wait a minute you just said the CDP wouldn't be final that is incorrect the CDP would be final it would not be final if there if it's been challenged in court what what legal provision states that if it's if there if
the if the the the case sorry the the permit is still being challenged in court so it is not finalized until that res until that um challenge has been resolved as to whether the action approving the coastal development permit was legal so you're saying just like when an appeal is made to the city council and the CDP is stayed that would happen if a lawsuit was filed because that's not my understanding uh sorry repeat what what you said okay when a CDP is granted by the Planning Commission and an
appeal is filed to the city council the CDP is dead in the water it can't Pro it's not granted yet correct if a CDP has been approved the CDP is approved at that point in time but it's not final it's not effective either you can't you can't act on it because an appeal has been filed we is a matter yes the appeal has been filed so the the CDP is not final and and um and sorry I'm I'm I'm conf that's that's that's an administrative rule or ordinance under our under our municipal code and or our l
ip right yes okay does it say something like that about if a lawsuit's filed after a CDP has been approved by the final decision maker in the administrative chain I would have to pull out the provisions but the CDP itself is not final it's the same as our as any is any uh is the city's going to calculate out any dates for extensions or expiration of the permit those don't come into place until the permit is actually final okay would would a if a if a resident of Malibu got a CDP to build their h
ouse and all appeals were final and somebody sued them would they be allowed to start building their house if they chose to Richard do we allow them to proceed while the liation still pending at their own risk we allow them to proceed with the engineering reviews as far as uh shovel in the ground I want the one that's coming to mind on Broad Beach I believe we because of the nature of the injunction we did not issue permits because of the the the was there an injunction there was they the uh the
appellant attorney file made it filed and I believe while it was pending and Trevor I if you recall this one was on Broad Beach Road while it was pending the litigation was pending no construction took place I don't remember this one okay all right I I actually think we're getting misadvice but I just two look we're not going to get anybody else to join that Steve just two other comments um because I'm just I always am disturbed by the way the legal service to the city occurs there's no such th
ing as going to one council member after there's been a vote to find out what they meant by their motion and then apply that to the council's vote I I mean it may be that if you had gone back to all of us we would have agreed to that interpretation but you it's it's just nonsense that it's the intent of the maker the unstated intent of the maker That Matters To The City attorney after a motion's been made without that intent stated and voted on you you just can't do that and the other thing just
the last point I'll make and I'm content to vote is um it's inconceivable to me now that I've read the staff report on the appeal that the appeal would be granted and the reason I say that has nothing to do with the substance of it it's the very fact that the staff is recommending the denial of the appeal not I I I can't remember well maybe once but um the majority of this Council and I don't put myself in that majority but a majority of this Council does not reject the staff's recommendation a
nd Grant appeals that the staff is recommending denied and that's a very powerful fact that everybody should be aware of and understand when they're considering whether this is really speeding things up or slowing things down yeah I'll make one last comment to me the most secure way of making sure the skate parks gets built as quickly as possible is going to our next meeting doing the appeal deciding where that comes out and then if we want to after that come up with a settlement agreement to ta
ke that CLA out of there otherwi look this thing has already been delayed more than three months somebody files appeal God knows how much longer it'll be delayed and I don't think that's what we want to do I think you know and I understand this deal that says you know I want to I want to settle this agreement and get this done and be it may sound good on the surface but underneath it doesn't guarantee that the skate park can start ASAP to get built so that's you know my motion would be let's don
't sign this tonight let's do the appeal next week and then decide it what the settlement agreement is after we figure out what the answer of that is at and sure I'm not going to get many seconds on that sucker can I just ask a clarifying question uh you were pretty adamant that the risk in us uh taking this approach on this 90 days is that somebody's going to sue us well let's see Mr gillo can't sue us because he's agreed to the settlement City's not going to sue ourselves who's got standing wh
o's got an issue what what do you know that we don't know about what somebody's going to sue us about there are puppets on the township Council ah can we call the question Mr Mayor I'll I'll second Steve's substitute motion but I know it'll be denied but I'm I'm happy to give him a second is the substitute motion is to don't sign the the settlement agreement tonight let's go to the appeal get that decided and then after we decide that we can decide if we need a settlement agreement so it's the u
h this motion that is to uh continue this to a this uh consideration to a a next week next week and to be heard after the appeal that's that's the motion correct I thought the motion was to change the 90day rule no I'm well I you can do that if you want pick one my no no no my first one says that i' like to have I would like to make sure that we what we vote on guarantees that we will build a skate park period that's all I want to make sure and and the way to do that is to do the appeal get that
resolved and then start building the skate park and we've got this this agreement that we have okay and I would pull out that if we're going to if we do the appeal and we still think we need a settlement agreement I would make the change in that settlement agreement to yank out that thing regarding lawsuits all right I just want to be clear what the motion was versus what have been on the table before thank you so I I got a first and a second Council M sign you second to the motion to what cont
inues to the following week to be heard after the appeal sure give us a roll call the motion is um whether to substitute this motion for the main motion which was to approve the settlement agreement staff's recommendation Christine give us a roll call please council member Silverstein it's the mayor's motion I'll vote Yes mayor Stewart I mean sorry mayor uring yes council member granti no council member Riggins no mayor protm Stewart no the motion fails okay we have another motion the motion on
the table then is to approve the settlement agreement as attached to the staff report any changes anybody want to make any changes I just would like to offer a friendly amendment that the um section one be amended to provide that the appeal is deemed withdrawn immediately upon execution of the settlement agreement it's the only change I'm requesting even though I think there's many others that ought to be made if we are going to make that uh even bring it up for consideration I'd like to ask the
uh uh Gillan team if they would agree to that they're going to tell you no that's why do we keep cow Towing to these guys don't no just wanted it on the record thank you and and I would ask others to consider why is that why would they not be willing to have their appeal withdrawn upon execution of the settlement agreement if the whole point of the settlement is to settle the appeal mayor can we have a question please sure anybody else any comment are you are you willing to accept that as a fri
endly Amendment no I'm not okay R call Christine council member rins yes council member granti yes council member Silverstein no mayor protm St yes mayor uring no motion carries okay moving along item 1B Wastewater recycled water rate study and proposed rates uh Doug or I mean Rob I think this is yours right br's all right whichever one good evening mayor and council tonight we have a presentation on the upcoming Wastewater and recycled water rates um tonight I am pleased to introduce Brandy Ael
a she's been working really hard in public works and she's taken this challenge of managing this project this is a purely Financial kind of um project that she really excels in um she did a fantastic job on this so I I want to give her the opportunity to kind of present this to you and move forward and then um I I'll be available for it to answer questions but I want to just give this opportunity over to to Brandy and have her 10 minutes and in the the light here good evening mayor urine uh mayo
r proen Stewart and council members this evening we're before you to present the 2024 Wastewater recycle water rate study um we have San Jer here from Water Resources economics to present the um findings thus far in addition to that we're asking Council to authorize the mailing of the prop 218 um notices to the affected property owners and then direct staff to schedule a public hearing for April 22nd um for the council's regular meeting to establish the race water recycled Water Service rates fo
r fiscal years 23 25 25 26 26 27 as well as 27 and 28 now these rates will generate Revenue necessary to offset the um future operation and maintenance cost of the city's Civic Center water treatment facility in November of 2023 the city contracted with Water Resource economics to prepare the update from the existing rates that are currently in price I introduce to you sanj thank you honor mayor city council staff public it's my pleasure to be here to talk about the Wastewater recycled rate stud
y update um today's presentation is to go over the rate study overview talk about some of the key assumptions that we did in our analysis to determine the rates that are appro rate show the proposed rates talk about the schedule next steps and of course discussion um throughout the process if there's any questions you may have during the process definitely interrupt me and we can talk about them or you can talk um ask your questions at the end what's the goal of the study the goal of the study i
s simple is to develop rates for four years as mentioned for Wastewater and recycle rates that provide Financial stability to pay for the cost that's legally defensible and is Equitable to the customers um this provides supports ensure the race is successfully adopted through the prop 218 hearing process I'll be talking a little bit about what prop 218 means and the legal framework associated with that but before I do that let's talk a little bit about how we do a rate study the rate study typic
ally has these steps where we talk about the framework of the rates we evaluate what the rate methodology we ask ourselves does this methodology still work the answer is yes um the second question is is in the financial plan how much cash do we need on a annual basis to fund this Enterprise this is a basically a business you're providing a service and we're just generating the revenue to pay for this cost of this service this is not a tax this is a fee and I'll talk a little bit more about prop
218 um a little bit more the next step is the cost of service which is the proportionality to make sure each customer pay its fair share we do that based on the edu equivalent dwelling units um we ask ourself what's the appropriate rate structure we're keeping the same methodology of the rate structure and then we develop a document ation that helps with the legal defensibility also helps with customer understanding um that's a deliverable that we'll be providing we've already provided a draft t
o staff prop 218 basically um water and wastewater services are property related through legal court cases that have been um conducted and rates need to be proportional and not exceed the cost of providing that service so that it's a fee and and city council could consider the adoption um we look at C customer classes we ask ourselves that c customer classes don't subsidize each other and it's recommended to do this cost of service at least every 5 years which you've been doing um so that's the
Imp the methodology the procedural requirement is that the rates need to be adopted at a public hearing um this is the first step in the process where city council um looks at this authorizes the prop to at notice which is the notice to send to each of the parcels that will be rendered this service um that is a 45 day noticing at least um if none of those if we don't have a majority protest so if we don't have that then city council could consider the adoption at the proposed public hearing this
is the schedule um we've presented our information to the public works Commission on January 24th so we have received input from the public um today we're here to present uh information to you on March 14th then um before that we would send out the notice um our plan is to have the public hearing April 22nd um and then there's a second reading associated with that for May 28th this um these fees are on the parcel rle so we need to have them imple um adopted by city council before July 1st so th
at's why we're looking at um July June 10th so that we meet that requirement of of being on the parcel role your current fees are are shown right here um as I mentioned you do have a fee called based equivalent dwelling units so larger properties have more more um edus smaller properties have less edus um the edus are shown right here the the monthly fee you also have a recycling rate um the Wastewater generation does produce recycled water each customer is sort of allotted um a certain amount t
hat's at 14 um edu if they go above that then they pay the marginal cost of producing that recycled water and we do have it available for outside um people who are outside the assessment District so far um the Revenue hasn't generated any Revenue um but it is an important part of the process so what are the key assumptions associated with the study the big one is the IPC engineering contract treatment plant operator you have a thirdparty vendor that operates a treatment plan that's going to be c
oming up um for Renewal and we estimated what that cost is there are also some minor um Personnel costs other operating costs basically on average it's a basically a 5.2% % there's a one-year jump that's in 25 26 that's when the operating cost of the treatment plan comes on bid and we estimated what we think that is um but that's the biggest jump but on average is a 5.2% per year in addition we do have some growth occurring minor is a minor area in the Civic Center area um some new edus are comi
ng online um so you currently have um 379 then we projecting um that to go up to 387 by 2526 it's important to have reserves on hand to fund these um the Enterprise the cash flow of this is that we receive the revenue twice a year on the property role but you have expenses that occur on a monthly basis um also just in case increase operational costs emergencies we do recommend 1.5 million just in case something goes wrong we have that money and helps with the stability of the r R so with the fin
ancial plan we've looked at the cost we looked at the increase in edus um basically what we're proposing is a 2% increase um basically we're just covering operating costs that's what we're suggesting so just keep it mild keep it even do a 2% each year and that basically covers the increase that we have if you notice I said 5.2% earlier um but because of a modest increase in growth that counteracts CU we collect more Revenue there's more growth so that's why we just need a 2% increase based on th
at we're showing you the proposed rates schedule over the four years this would be in the prop to1 18 notice and this is what um city council would consider at the public hearing and where individuals could protest against that um so today we're seeking your authority to proceed with the prop 218 mail out the notice um and um and then consider an adoption on April 22nd anything else any questions I'll have some questions later are there any there is there's no any public comment mayor we current
ly have no speaker cards and there are no hands raised on Zoom okay we'll close public comment Bruce yeah I as I read this we're being asked to receive a presentation which we just did authorize a mailing which needs to occur in order for this to move forward and direct the sca staff to schedule a hearing which o needs to occur F go forward we're not substantively agreeing to anything other than setting a process in motion so I I'll move that we do all these things a second aren't we hold on a s
econd aren't we uh setting the numbers to go in the notice so we've got to agree to the numbers that are in the notice okay that is correct I do think there's a little bit more here than just uh agreeing to the notice going out okay it doesn't say that in the recommended action but I hear you okay uh if I someone else got questions or I have one we let you go first go ahead okay I'll I'll plow the field here um first off is this a standalone entity and the reason why I asked that we've got the r
eserves at a million and a half dollars is this something that the city is on the hook for at the shortfall or is this uh like a a standalone assessment District how how does this work are we are we backstopping it or are we funding it I yes is question we primary secondary or tertiary you want me to answer it yeah so um we're funding it and it's been already funded so we have the money in in the reserve okay but this is let's put it the different way this is on the city's books not a separate e
ntities books it's on the city's book corre but it's separate from the general fund it comes from okay that's separate separate but it's in the general fund no it's not in the general fund it's separate be used for this purpose but it's it's part of our bucket the overall overall okay um one of the things that always makes me nervous is when we're looking out in this case four years actually if you think about it today versus you know it's almost four and a half years um the contract that we hav
e is that a fixed price in other words how certain are we on the contract I'm looking at page three of5 as an example the key assumption as I read this is how much is the contract and um because that's the majority of the expense over half of it looks like are we sure that that number is Right a great great question that's something that we'll evaluate and and look at when we go out to bid for this um Services you know however I I think what based on what we've dealt with with this vendor and si
milar vendors um we think our values are pretty pretty pretty accurate on what those projections will be um keep in mind that um the timing of this these rates we also Co kind of correlate with how we move forward with phase two and once that project is set and completed we'll have to do this process again for with all those new property owners for that get into properties for phase two so this will this will come in and and be a gap until we get phase two operating then we'll have to do this ag
ain with the entire group with phase one and phase two okay that was my going to be my question when you do phase two you're going to reset the rates for everybody so they're not getting a guaranteed four years they're just getting best estimate for four years correct okay um and I was going to ask a question I think you've almost answered it how confident are we on these assumptions it sounds like you're you're pretty far along pretty confident right it's so we've been operating the treatment p
lant since 2018 uh we have a pretty good understanding on what is really needed to operate and maintain the facility our operator is is absolutely amazing and does a really good job of kind of making sure we're sticking with the budget and keeping those rates kind of low and and keeping that so um we have a really good understanding on what is really needed and we can project those out kind of farther out with cost and what those percentag is to get those out okay you know as we were just talkin
g a few minutes ago about uh closed sessions you get to find out what happens in the back room uh you don't expose your cards but when we have a meeting like this and we tell them what we think the cost is going to be if I was on the other side this would be this would be payday so uh that's a side comment that's all my questions thank you anybody else actually I was I was thinking the same thing it's like we're setting our floor um just want also I just want to comment I meant to say it earlier
um I forgot your your name I'm sorry on the end one who spoke SJ sanj I a lot of our Consultants come in here make very technical dry presentations that I don't really follow unless I read did the report that was a great presentation I really appreciate it right one quick question and somewhere in the back of my mind I remember conversation that I think you brought up that talked about setting some reserve for future enhancement or future maintenance of the wastewater treatment system that we h
ad to put start setting a reserve up because somewhere down the line we're going to have to fix things is is it where does that stand that's that's what we're adding in for this for this race is having Reserve it's going to be covered with that Reserve right okay so that's I believe when we first started the plant and did the rates we initially said no we didn't need Reserve because it's it's brand new it's brand we didn't need anything a lot of the warranties were for all the equipment were sti
ll valid now they're past du and so but it's good to start having having reserves just in case something happens no I agree with you I just remember you bringing that up at some point in the past and I just didn't forget that so that's okay good anybody else can I get maryan um you guys mentioned a certain amount of edus currently online and that you anticipated going up to 387 what is accounting for that increase that would be the case cart properties once completed in construction so has there
been any evaluation of the city's properties adding additionally use during that time period no that's this is not adding any additional capacity for um any other additional City properties so what happens if we're proposing development on those properties do we need to um understand that during the design of those properties of how much Wastewater we'd be entitled to so we're in the process of developing a Wastewater allocation process to where we can allocate some of the Wastewater um in the
ioki lot over to different properties we have so if we wanted to transfer um 300 gallons per day from the ioki lot over to Bluffs to count for the future Snack Shack and restrooms we can there'll be a process on how we can do that but what about the actual development of the I lot also that lot has a substantial amount of allocations like probably 20 to 30,000 gallons per day and it's a lot okay um and oh um there there's recycled water you said people aren't using the Recycled water now can you
explain that so the city is using the Recycled water to irrigate Bluffs part and are we able to utilize all the the water or is there leftover that's still getting injected or is it a so the injection Wells for uh um disposal of of the treal waste water we have to do daily flushing of those Wells to make sure they're still operating what happens if you don't operate those Wells on a consistent basis the screens that are within those Wells they get clogged up and it costs a lot money and time to
kind do it so that we've developed a process of a certain amount of the generated waste water to be treated to be doing there it it's not a substantial amount there's substantial amount to be used for irrigation but it's just there's just that initial amount that has to go to those injection Wells to be used okay but right now everything's balancing out where we're able to do the maintenance on the injection Wells and still have recycled water for the park correct and is there any excess or yea
h I believe that there's some excess too that are and that's you that's being generated okay right that's all I have thank you well I I just want to take a moment to thank Rob and Brandy and Sanjay for coming and prompting fond memories of my years on the Public Works commission and what a pleasure it is to have something that is understandable and makes sense especially to me I will say and I can hardly wait for us to take the recommended action so I'd like to Mo make a motion that we take the
recommended action which is receive a presentation which we've done authorized the mailing of the proposition 218 notices to the affected property owners and direct staff to schedule a public hearing for the April 22nd 2024 city council meeting to establish Wastewater and recycled Water Service rates for fiscal years 2024 25 2526 2627 and 2728 my my short-term memory tends to be not very good these days but I believe I made that motion and you seconded it already oh let's call a question then go
ahead everybody in favor I opposed yeah eyes have it okay we're going to ajour make a motion toj thank you that was unanimous right that was unanimous okay
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