 Good evening, Capitola. And welcome to the candidates forum for Capitola City Council and Treasurer. My name is Tony Castro and I will be the moderator this evening. This forum is a service to the citizens of Capitola and is sponsored by the Capitola SoCal Chamber of Commerce. The chamber does not support or endorse candidates. We are here to facilitate questions, cover as many issues as we can in the next two hours and learn more about the candidates. For those of you who are in the audience this evening, please turn off your cell phones and enjoy the refreshments provided by the chamber in the back of the room. This forum is televised live by community television of Santa Cruz County to Capitola residents and will be rebroadcast on channel 25 and 71 on the following dates Friday, October 12th through Sunday, October 21st. It will be on every day, different times. The questions asked this evening of the candidates have been sent in from Capitola residents. If anyone in the audience has a question they would like asked, fill out a card in the back of the room and give it to Joyce Murphy who is sitting back there. And she will bring the card up to me and the question will be asked if time permits. We have quite a few questions this evening. We strongly encourage everyone to get out and vote on Tuesday, November 6th. Your vote can make a difference. I know in a few elections ago a candidate won just on a matter of a couple of votes. So every vote in Capitola counts. And your vote can certainly make a big difference. So please vote. And now the forum rules. Opening statements from the candidates will be two minutes. Closing statements from the candidates will be two minutes. Each question asked of the candidates will be given a two minute response. So everything tonight is two minutes. Each question asked of the candidate, I already said that. I would like to introduce our candidates at this time. Running for City Treasure, we have Kim Duit. Running for City Council, Jock Bertrand, who couldn't be here this evening because he's in the hospital and we wish him well, Ed Bortoff and Dennis Norton. I would like to introduce my staff who's helping this evening. I said Joyce Murphy in the back collecting questions. We've got Gloria Beeman here, the question sorter, and Dave Payton, the timer. So we're going to go ahead and get started. Everybody ready? The first question. Oh, I'm sorry. Thanks, Dave. We'll start with opening statements. Kim. Well, hi. My name is Kim Duit and I am running for Capitola City Treasure. I've been pondering the idea of running for elected office for quite some time and I figured this year is my year. So here I am. I am very excited about this opportunity and I look forward to serving the city of Capitola with my fellow council members. I believe this position is of great importance to the residents of Capitola. I intend to serve as an advocate and a voice for the taxpayer to clearly and accurately communicate the financial position of the city. I want to ensure transparency of government spending and also provide financial insight and recommendations and guidance to my fellow council members, especially as they are the ones who will be deciding how the money is spent. One of the toughest challenges that cities face today is declining revenue. And this is certainly true for Capitola. Capitola's faced other financial hardships, the flood, for example, and of course, legal fees related to rent control and the like. I have hands-on experience working for both the non-profit and the for-profit industries. And I bring this experience to the table and I think it will really be a benefit to the residents of Capitola. I have worked with these organizations who have faced very challenging financial conditions and economic downturns. And I also have dealt with companies who are experiencing exponential growth. So I really think that bringing this to the table will be of benefit. And I do believe that in all economic times the city council has a responsibility to the citizens of Capitola to prudent with their tax dollars. And to accurately analyze and evaluate the expenditures before committing current revenue levels as well as future revenue levels. Thank you. Ed. Hi, my name is Ed Bodorf, and I'm running for Capitola City Council. I first want to put out all my best wishes to Jack Bertrand, who's not here. I would have liked him to participate in this. I know he's very serious about this position, and hopefully that won't work against him. As far as myself, I'm new to this town. The newspaper has already called me the newcomer, and there's nothing wrong with that title. I've been here three years. My first plan when I came here was I retired, I came here to play golf, learned to surf, and got involved in building a float in the Bagonia Festival. After having fun, someone suggested I get involved in the parking and traffic commission. And there was one vacancy, and I was the only one that applied, and hence started my career. I had a lot of fun on that parking commission. I actually work with a lot of very influential people that kind of gave me clues about Capitola, its history, and its value. And that pretty much set the hook for me. I was interested and I wanted to get involved. I next was appointed to the General Plan Advisory Committee, and placed with a challenge of trying to find a vision for Capitola for the next 20 years. I find all of it exciting. I took on another role with the Bagonia Festival as their head fundraiser for this silent auction, and the two years I was involved, we made the most money ever for that event. I bring new energy, new ideas, and just a will to make this town a better town. I am retired, I'm available for this position full time. It's what I want to do, I want to make Capitola a better place. I'm asking for your vote to help me accomplish that. And I will always have an open ear and be willing to listen to all of your comments. Thank you. Thanks, Ed. Dennis? Well, I want to get my best to jock site. I'm hoping that this is being live streamed. So he can watch this from the hospital, not the best place to be for anybody. I'm Dennis Norton, our manager for Capital City Council. And first of all, I want to thank the Capital Chamber for putting this on. This is a good exposure for the community and for the candidates. I've been a resident of Capitola for 42 years. I have a BA in community studies and environmental design. I've been a self-employed building designer for 32 years, and my business has always been in Capitola, although I operate all the accounting. I have three children that grew up in this community and were schooled here. And I have presently, I've served 12 years on the Capitola Council, and three years as Capitola's mayor. I've served five years as a planning commissioner for the city. During my years at council, I served on a number of regional agencies as Capitola's representative, and one of them is the Santa Cruz Regional Transportation Agency I served for eight years. And where I was an outspoken advocate for the public purchase of the Union Pacific Corridor. And by the way, it's going to close and go to public hands by the end of this month. So major asset for the city. Santa Cruz Metro Board, the Air Quality Control Board, and Ambeg. In 1999, I was honored as Capitola Chamber's man of the year. Presently, I served in the Capitola Chamber Board of Directors. And also, I served on the Board of Directors for local non-profits save our shores. Capitola is known to us as a great place to live. It is known as a small town feel, it's sense of community, and it's human scale. It is a safe town to live in, it's convenient and it's walkable. We are blessed with a remarkable environment, and your city is well run and services well to this community. There's a bucket list of projects that need to be addressed in this community during the next four years. We need to replenish our reserves accounts. It is not good business to operate the city without a backup. We need to approve Propo for city's health and its stability. We need to preserve our neighborhoods. Preservation should be the highest priority. Time. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Okay, first question. We'll start with Ed. Do you support Measure O? If not, why and how would you build up the emergency reserve account? Well, I do support Measure O. So maybe that means I don't have to answer the no part. I'm a fan of Measure O because the city unfortunately, they went through a lot of calamity in the past two years. You know, the final closure on rent control, the taking over of moving the families out of Pacific Cove and the flood, and the recession in general has hurt the city a lot. Measure O is a measure or a way that we can restore funds right now. I know there's been talk in the past about making improvements in the city with regards to the streets and other projects, and maybe some of the city residents feel that the city hasn't fulfilled a lot of those obligations. But I want you to understand now that when we went through those times, the tough times, it drew a lot of our reserves and we don't have any. I'm not saying that we're not going to be able to get back on our feet in time. But the point is this will expedite how we accomplish that. I'd like to see that the money from Measure O spent on the roads right away. I think it's time for lack of a better term. We show capitol the money. If we're going to collect the money, we need to show them how we're going to spend it. And the thing they're asking for is roads. It's not very glamorous right now. And I know that a lot of times we talk about other projects in this town. And there are other projects we need to take care of. But it's time to get back to basics, put a little money in the bank, pay down our debt a little bit, and improve the roads. Thank you. Like I said, Dennis, do you want me to repeat the question? No, I have the question. Thank you, Tony. Yes, I support Measure O. And we're in a vicarious position right now as a city. We have depleted our reserves. And it looks unlikely that we'll be replenished by our insurance care as well as zone five. So in that pretense is that we would be operating within the next two to three years with no reserves. If we had any kind of disaster within our community, we would have trouble. And so that along with this community is used to a level of service you living here expect the city to provide. If you want that level of service to be maintained, we need to pass Measure O. OK, this is a follow up question to Measure O. And Dennis, we'll start with you. If Measure O were to fail, what adjustments to the city's budget would you propose to ensure the long term fiscal stability of the city? Well, I think everything is on the table. From your policing to your public works to your recreation program to your road maintenance, they all will become under consideration of having to cut back in probably every department. Ed? You know, it's pretty much basic economics here. We have two choices. We can either increase revenue or we can make cuts. And the choices of making cuts, you look at our departments right now. I just given an orientation of our city departments and public works department is running down two people. Our police department is down one. You know, we're already asking people right now to do a little bit more in their job to get by. And I think that a lot of the employees are willing to do that. But nobody wants to do that for a long period of time. When you go into a restaurant, if there's two waitresses on duty and one takes the day off, you're not going to get your food as fast. And as what already was mentioned, people in capital are used to their services that they get. And we want to maintain those services. So the option of cuts is the easiest when the people jump on. The other one we have is to find other sources of revenue. Now, granted, we've got a target coming in. And we're not sure about how much money that's going to be bringing in. But it's definitely going to be a boost. So the challenge, even with, measure, or without, is to try to solicit new businesses to come in, encourage our tourism, which draws people to this town, and find ways to just support our budget. Thank you. OK, Ed, describe the city's current budget scenario. What are your concerns and priorities? Well, the goal of every budget is to have a balanced budget. And again, following up on what we just talked about, it's a fine balancing of expenditures and revenue. I haven't had a chance to fully look over the entire budget, so I'm not really prepared to say exactly what cuts are going to need to be made. There is, like I said, there is the employees. There's the services. There's the commitments we make to other people. There's other agencies. There's nonprofits that we support. There's a long list of expenditures. And we have a $12 million budget that adds up to all those things we spend. If we don't have any additional revenue, we're going to have to scrutinize that, find out ways. One of the examples is the loan that they have on Pacific Cove right now. It's possible with the improvements that are being made there can be refinanced into a lower loan. Any way that we can seek to reduce our costs is going to help us get to that bottom line where we can balance our budget. Thank you. Dennis? Would you repeat the question, please? Describe the city's current budget scenario. What are your concerns and priorities? I'm concerned, like any jurisdiction out there, about long-term retirement and being able to provide for employees that have been guaranteed a certain retirement from the city. I'm concerned about the effect of having interim positions filled, not full-time. I give an example as our community development director. I think that needs to be a full-time position. It's a very important position within the city. Susan Westman is doing a great job. We just need to have a full-time placement there. We are cutting staff to a minimum to survive as a city. And we've done a good job of it, because we still provide the same services that we did in the past. We're required by law to balance a budget. We will balance a budget, and we will balance it this next year, regardless of how much money we bring in. It appears that our income sources are higher now than they were six months ago, and it appears that they will be even higher than that six months from now. And so I'm anticipating that we will be close to a full complement with employees by next July. Thank you, Dennis. Kim, this applies to you to describe the city's current budget scenario, and what are your concerns and priorities? Well, excuse me, having just received the budget recently, I'm definitely not in a position to suggest any changes or step in and offer immediate solutions. But as I mentioned in my opening statements, I think that all cities are facing revenue declines. And with the challenges, financial challenges that we've had, we need to be prepared to do things differently. And I think that what I would like to bring to the table is the experience that I've had in helping other organizations be able to continue to move forward with decreased or declining revenue. And oftentimes, yes, it does involve cuts, but also oftentimes it involves automating processes and using the money that you have differently. So I think that that's a very generic answer to a specific question. But again, I can't propose solutions to something that I haven't fully researched and educated myself on. Thank you. Dennis, what city taxes, if any, would you support being increased? City taxes? I think we're ready to move forward and increase our TOT tax. I would like to see some type of taxing of businesses that do takeout food. I think that they are a heavy impact on the community as far as maintenance, particularly in the village. I don't think that there's any other room for we can't touch gas tax or property tax. That's all around. We will see an increase in property values coming back. And that in turn gives the city a little additional revenue. But it's not an increase in tax. It's just basically the results of Prop 13. Thanks, Dennis. Ed? Once again, the reason I'm a fan of Mejaro is I think if we do support Mejaro, it allows money to come directly to Capitola. We're faced with a couple of initiatives on the ballot this year where the governor may get a quarter percent, which we will most likely see none of that. Whereas even though there may be different opinions about Mejaro, the fact is that the money will all come to Capitola. But if, in fact, Mejaro doesn't pass, then we need to seek other alternatives. And one likely one that we can start utilizing is the concept of benefit districts, where we create usage fees for special services, such as there's a concern about cleanliness in the Esplanade. And if, in fact, we want to clean that up, we could create some an assessment, which would be a tax to the businesses that would allow for that to be cleaned up. There's other benefit districts for lighting, landscape irrigation, things like that, or other avenues we could explore. But we have to be open. Actually, if O does not pass, too, many different alternative sources of income. Thank you. OK, Ed, we're going to start with you again. Regarding the thinking of some council members, including an incumbent running for a reelection who staunchly supported and voted to increase the city's TOT rate by 20% from 10% to 12%, and if they hadn't lost the vote would have saddled lodging and vacation rentals in Capitola with the highest tax rate of any jurisdiction in Santa Cruz County, despite the overwhelming protest of the business community. Please justify why one would place their own inexperienced personal opinion far above the opinions of those well-experienced business owners and managers whose work every day touches and relies upon the hospitality industry. Is it something more than just arrogance that makes them think they know better? The lodging industry does wonderful things for the city of Capitola. We've got one existing hotel, one new hotel on 41st Avenue. And it was great news last year when they had anticipated a certain amount of funds coming in from that. And the owners of those hotels actually informed us that we'd be getting, I believe, an additional $80,000 to $100,000 in revenue. So we need to really respect the lodging industry. I know there was some discussion to raise it from 10 to 11, and there was a discussion to go from 10 to 12. The county finally came out with a measure to go 1 and 1 half. Capitola chose not to participate. But I think the important part in there is through all those discussions, when we contacted the CVC and the lodging industry, they had actually made a proposal to us that they could live with, which was an 11%, a 1% raise. And I think that's the way you've got to go, is you've got to bring all the parties involved and get the opinions. And like I said, they came and presented themselves that the 1% increase was something they could live with. So I think that's the guiding that we should use. I mean, obviously, it's easy for us to jump on another source of revenue. And our plan is not to drive business away. My only concern with the TOT tax was I didn't want to be the first in this bay to raise it up. We've got Monterey looking at 10%. We don't want to drive lodging away. We want to encourage it. And I believe that the lodging industry and the CVC tried to make a compromise. Like I said, the direction it's going right now is the county is going to possibly, it's on the ballot for the 1 and 1 half. We're going to have to wait and see how that falls. But I still think that we need to embrace that relationship with the lodging industry and the CVC. I'm not going to respond to personal attacks. I don't need to. If that person needed to say that, they could have kind of, we had a public hearing discussing that they could have said at that time. OK. Thank you. OK, Dennis, is there a better way to balance parking in the village among residents, business people, and visitors? Yes, there is. This is an issue that has plagued Capitola Village for 60 years. It hasn't gotten any better. And hopefully, we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel moving that way. We need to provide a parking garage, a multi-story parking garage right behind the city hall here. And then it relieves the pressure of parking in neighborhoods. It relieves the pressure of actually having to have so many cars in the village. And it will certainly make Capitola Village a much more enjoyable place to visit if every car does not have to drive through there. It's a win-win situation for the city. It's a potential source of revenue. And it solves a lot of problems that give us an opportunity for the village to improve, for the property owners to improve their property, and to release some of the pressure from the neighborhoods. Thank you. Ed? Let's see, the simple answer, yes. But I'll expand on that. The fun part, as I mentioned when I first came here, I was on the parking and traffic commission, lots of hours. And our committee is very active. But prior to me, there was a blue ribbon parking committee. And the history shows that the parking problem in Capitola goes back 50 years plus. And it's not just a parking problem. It's a parking and circulation issue. It's near and dear to me because I live in the village. I live right downtown across from Bellaroma Restaurant. And sometimes just pulling out of my carport is a challenge. And the thing is, be careful what you wish for. If you choose to live down there, that's part of the deal. But I'm really seriously committed to finding a parking solution. And that's the term I'm going to phrase is parking solution. And I think there's a number of ways we can accomplish that. And I'm hoping that right now, the acquisition of the Pacific Co-Poverty or the reacquisition, I should say, cities already always owned it, is going to allow us to put another couple hundred parking places down there and test if, in fact, having 200 more parking places in the village relieves the congestion problem. And once we quantify that and realize that it does work, then we can start solving the problem with the congestion by putting some better signs. Unfortunately, we need to use some universal signs, I believe, the standard parking signs that people recognize. And the goal for me is to get people off the freeways and into the parking lots. We don't want them circulating through the village. We don't want them adding to the congestion. And once they know, for sure, that there is sufficient parking at a designated location, they're going to not be parking on Depot Hill and not be driving through Riverview and not be looking into the neighborhoods for parking places. We've got to give them a place to park and then we can analyze if that justifies us building a larger structure and opening up that property for other uses. OK, follow-up question. What is your long-term vision for the lower Pacific Cove area, Ed? My long-term vision is three things. It's right project, right place, right time. And right now, the right time is to put in a temporary parking lot there and to evaluate if, in fact, parking 240 cars in there solves our problem. Once we get that and once we, like I said, we quantify that, we're going to be able to decide any number of uses for Pacific Cove. And that ranges from restoring it to a creek, making it a park. I believe there's talk of a new city hall location. And I'm quite frankly not biased towards any of those. I think that's a big decision for Capitola to talk about. What fits into the neighborhood? What's in the best interests of the neighbors? What's in the best interests of the village? In the meantime, we can be parking cars there. We can be generating revenue. We can maybe putting some of that revenue aside. It's always going to come down to the balance, the balance of revenue and expenditures. And for right now, the best use is temporary parking. And I say the word temporary because it would be a shame to cover up almost four acres of land with parking lot forever. Thank you, Ed Dennis. I'm a little afraid of the process. We're advocating to do a temporary parking lot down below in Pacific Cove. But at the expenditures of $1 million, I can almost guarantee you that it'll always be a parking lot. So I'm willing to concede to a temporary parking lot if we have some assurance and demand from this community that regardless what the situation is, it will come out of temporary parking and go to public land. We can't afford to pave any more of this planet over nor this Capitola over with parking. Every time we turn around, we're looking for any vacant lot or any place else to store cars. It's time that we start dealing with spaces for people. That's what makes this community nice, not parking spaces. What makes this community nice is the parks and open space that we have here. That should be park and open space. It's four acres of usable, wonderful land down there that we don't need to put into parking. Now, I'm willing to concede to a certain point that we can do over a year or two while we're in the process of creating a parking structure up on the Upper Pacifico. Remember, when you create a multi-story structure up there, you're not paving over any more land. What you're doing, you're stacking parking. And we're blessed with this wonderful area right in the middle of our city that has two entrances from it that nobody in the community can see. They can't see the structure that you can put this parking garage in or that solves so many problems for this community. But I will avidly fight any lower Pacifico parking lot until I get some assurance from the council and from the staff that we have a guarantee that it'll go to open space of some type. And I'm not guessing what it should be. I'm just saying that it needs to go to open space and it doesn't need, we don't need to pave that area over. Okay, I guess I'm just thinking as you're talking here. Does the Coastal Commission have any authority on parking? Yes, it does. In fact, we have not approved it as a city for any project down below. It needs to go through public hearings and a Coastal Commission hearing before it's approved. The Coastal Permit, excuse me, a Coastal Permit. Okay, so, and Ed, this is for you as well. If you put in a temporary lot, the lower Pacific Cove area, are you afraid that you won't be able to build the stacked up parking on the other lot because you've got the temporary one there and it might just end up being there forever? Either way. That's a question to me. Yeah. No, I think that the reason for the temporary parking lot is the validation of the structure. Right now we've got a parking solution and our best guess from the traffic engineers and from everyone else is that if we provide additional parking in the village, it's gonna relieve the congestion. And by adding the 240 places that are possible down there, we're gonna come really close to the numbers that would be the same if we were to build a three story structure. So it's a great comparison, it's a great test. Like I said, the land that's down there is valuable and the one thing I've learned walking around this town is there's very little open space left. So even though it's gonna solve a problem for us and it's gonna provide validation for where we wanna go in the future, it's valuable land that could have any number of uses in our future. That's where the term we're gonna use is the sustainability of that lot is we have to do something there that is gonna be the best for the long term of capital in the future. Thank you, Dennis. Well, right now, according to the Coastal Commission, we have a deficiency of 230 spaces, that we're 230 spaces short for the village now. If you provide 240 spaces down below, you've just gone to taking care of the deficiency. Now that certainly should be discussed with the Coastal Commission, whether that's a fair figure or not. But if you're talking about improvements in the village, it'll never open the door for people to improve their properties because one of the trade-offs of a parking structure is that you provide enough where they can buy into that structure. In other words, let me give you an example, a Capitola Mercantile. You'll always have that Capitola Mercantile exactly like it is until you give them an opportunity to buy in parking structures where you can use that property for something else but the automobile. And so we're not creating that avenue by just doing the lower parking. We have a temporary relief. The big fear is that once you give that temporary relief and you provide those 200 spaces, it may give some relief to the village and to the neighborhoods, but you will lose the emphasis and the importance of doing the Upper Pacific Ho. And so my feeling is is we should, just as a community, make a commitment to build that upper structure and go forward and do it now. Why even wait? And so there's a major difference between 600 spaces and 200 spaces and that's the difference. And so if we really want solutions, we need to build the multi-story. The down area will stay with that kind of investment. We'll probably stay for a good number of years. Thank you. Okay, Dennis. Streets in Capitola are an awful condition. What will you do to support and enhance the street maintenance plan to improve our streets? Well, certainly Proposition O would help us in doing, increase our overlays. There are sections of the city that we've conquered this year and actually done a lot of street paving this year. And we're in the process as an active council right now in taking care of that. Yes, we're behind and when we get behind, what happens is, is that the deterioration accelerates. So we do need to take care of that and that Proposition O and a commitment from the council this next year will hopefully get us back on track with that. Yeah. Yeah, you know, cities have been in a tough bind and because of the flood, they didn't allocate the funds to do the streets this year and that's what the citizens notice. The only funds that were allocated this year was about $90,000 to repave Cherry Street. And that's, you know, it's a great project when you walk on Cherry, if you live on Cherry, but it was the only street to my knowledge that was done. They just did a massive overlaying up on Depot Hill, probably at the same cost for the entire overlay as it did to redo Cherry. The problem we have is that, you know, if we go in and slurry seal the streets, we can do, you know, almost 10 to one as far as the number of streets, but when the streets are allowed to deteriorate to the condition Cherry was, they become awful expensive. You know, measure O money, you know, in my mind, you know, the reason I'm standing here behind it and I'm going out on a limb on it is, you know, I'm committed to seeing that, you know, the city manager has already signed a letter to his intent to repave the streets to use the money to get some significant repairs, something that you'll notice. But in the meantime, you know, if we don't have any funds and we have to make those tough choices, we're going to be limited to slurry sealing just a few streets doing a salvage program and the streets that are bad are going to probably continue to deteriorate. Thank you. Ed, what are your plans for the Pacific Railway Trail? I'd like to take the whole thing out and make a bike trail out of it, but I don't think that's in the plans. You know, I've been reading up on the rail trail, it's an area that's, you know, new to me and it's 10 times as complicated as the city's budget, okay, because there's so much that's involved to it. And I've been trying to follow the council reports on that and the fact that, you know, Iowa Pacific is, you know, trying to come and take it over and, you know, run the train on it again, they're going to run a low speed train so they can still ship their goods and they're talking about a passenger service from possibly Santa Cruz to Davenport. You know, the fact of the matter is, you know, I come from an area up in Walnut Creek where there was an Iron Horse Trail and this was pretty much a bike trail that they got from SP and, you know, it connected, you know, 28 miles that was a fabulous asset to the community. And this existence of, you know, whatever the right of way, you know, 25 or 30 feet that goes through there has that same potential. You know, there's just a lot of glitches. I read, you know, the recent reports about, you know, the fact that the bridges and trestles are made out of cast iron and as opposed to steel, that, you know, the capitol of trestle itself is a $4 million repair and the La Selva trestle is a $2 million repair. And, you know, we're talking about, you know, scrunching dollars here to try to get everything to happen and there's no doubt that that trail is an absolute asset and a benefit to all of us but, you know, I'm hoping that maybe there's going to be money from the state or grants or something that's going to add to that because I just don't see how we're going to finance that. So it's one of those things where the benefit is, you know, can't be justified by the cost because, you know, I just don't see how we're going to contribute to it but, you know, I'm a fan of it, you know, I'm going to hopefully, you know, learn more about it as I get involved and see how that proceeds. Thank you. Dennis? We're blessed in Santa Cruz County to have the Union Pacific Corps there. It's 26 miles of lineal trail, approximately 60 feet wide. Someday you'll be able to ride your bike from downtown Capitol to downtown Monterey or from downtown Capitol to Davenport. Can you imagine riding your bike from Capitola to downtown Santa Cruz in 15 minutes and not have to go through one traffic lane? That's possible. And so, if at any point on that rail line, that 26 miles had been broken, we would have lost it. 14 years ago, when I came on the council, I was appointed to the Regional Transportation Commission. I started the battle that year and I was pretty outspoken at the time. There wasn't a lot of people in favor of buying that quarter. They sell the same negatives that there are negatives and a lot of things, like I had said, to overcome in the meantime. It isn't gonna go in overnight. It's gonna go in over a period of years. 50% of the people that come to Capitol Village go to the boardwalk. Can you imagine that? 50% of people. Can you imagine being able to take them from here to the boardwalk by a small trolley or having a bike trail in between there for them to go there and coming to Capitol Village the other way and not bringing their car, but coming here on a bicycle. So it does provide a lot of alternative transportation modes for us. It's unbroken and there will be, like most railroad money, it comes down the pipe and there will be money to improve that line. Iowa Pacific really, what they're gonna do is they're gonna do a tourist train that goes from downtown Santa Cruz to Davenport to the dinner car. That satisfies the CTC, the California Transportation Commission, and they just demand that there be rail still on that corridor. They're not gonna take the rail out of there because there is some minor freight that comes through. I can't, can anybody tell me when they saw the last train come through this town? It's been a while, you know, there. They don't come through very often, but they do service the lumber yards. The cement business is gone. And they're- Time. Okay, the maintenance of the line requires that there be income and that company is supposed to provide for that maintenance. Thank you, Dennis. Kim, what are your goals as treasurer? Well, I really want to hear from the community. I think that community feedback and having a council that listens to what is important to the community is what I would like to see happening. And for me, I think it comes a lot from talking with different members throughout the neighborhoods of ideas that they have that seem very valuable, things that they've shared, but they're not listened to. And so while I can't impact or pass any new laws or be ushering in new services, I can be a voice for the taxpayers of this community to be able to share with our council members what their ideas and needs are. I don't know that that will change the outcome, but hopefully a very strong loud voice providing that feedback will help. I also think that as the city faces financial challenges, we're sitting here talking about raising taxes because we have a revenue issue. I think that I can look at our expenses and come up with some creative solutions to actually reduce costs. And I don't see that as reducing services. I think that the people of Capitola want and deserve the service level that they have, but I think that we can probably find some ways to do things a little bit smarter with the money that we have. So those are my goals for now. Thank you, Kim. Okay, Ed. Recognizing the requirements of the Coastal Commission and realizing there are only three major vehicular traffic crossings over Soquel Creek, Highway One, Soquel Avenue and Capitola Village, what would Walt Disney do to make Capitola Village more family friendly and pedestrian oriented while still protecting the integrity of the residential neighborhoods in our community? Walt Disney would put in a tram. We'd have the little buckets and we'd have a shuttle from the parking structure and we'd bring people down to the village, down to the Espanade via that. And then we'd allow them to get off there at the new hotel. Thank you, Ed. Dennis? We should bring back the elephant train. We have one at one time, bring back the elephant train. All overhead tram would work, escalator, an escalator from Pacific Cove all the way down to the village. You could do gondolas on Soquel Creek, bring people in by boat, maybe from Soquel. I think that's a good start right there. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Dennis. Should Capitola support improvement to expand the number of Highway One lanes from four to six? No. Should I go, should I expand on that? If you'd like to. I think that the widening that's being done now, they've gotten the easy part of it. I think the difficult part comes when it comes to Capitola. And so if they are going to do that, I think the condition of the city should be that we have a frontage road that goes on both sides of that freeway that takes us from 41st to Bay Avenue that gives us another way across town. That would be a more important improvement for the people of Capitola to be able to transcend from 41st Avenue over to Bay. And so if they are going to bring this freeway through here, then they need to do it so it benefits the people of Capitola and that's one way you could benefit us. Thank you. Ed? I think it's obvious or apparent to anybody that travels on Highway One, it's a problem and it's a problem that we need to solve and it's not an easy solution. But in my opinion, it's a regional problem. And the approach they're taking now is the incremental widening that's taking place because of the lack of the ability to secure the entire funds to do the lanes all the way to Watsonville. And I know that they're doing the one now and then another one is planned and after that there is nothing on the agenda. But this is where we're gonna have to keep talking, keep working, keep compromising. Sometimes people wanna say, or our job here as city councils, we wanna support the citizens of Capitola. And the important thing to remember is that not everything that benefits citizens of Capitola happens in Capitola. People who live here in this town, they get up in the morning, they've gotta get to work, and as soon as they get on in Bay Avenue, they're in gridlock. And the thing we do is by improving Highway One, by doing the widening, I think it's gonna relieve the congestion, it's gonna benefit the people that are coming home, they're trying to get across town, they're trying to get their kids to school. It's not an inexpensive solution to widen. I believe it's the right thing to do and I believe we just need to keep doing it incrementally as we get the funds from the state. Thank you. Okay, next question. Kim, I'm gonna ask, include you in this one also. City council members and treasures are required to not only attend council meetings, but also represent the city on various county boards and commissions. How will you manage your time given personal job and other commitments? Kim? Well, I took great care in asking about time commitments before actually submitting my paperwork for this position because I do have a full-time job. But I also have been known to pull off some pretty amazing feats in terms of time management, not only in my daily job, but also with volunteer work and other personal activities. So while I'm certainly gonna be limited in my priority during my work day is going to be on my employer. I definitely have the ability to, I'm an early riser and I can stay up late into the evening. And I also really enjoy participating in the community and getting involved in events and participating on other boards will be a lot of fun. So I'm not concerned at all about a time management. I challenge from that standpoint, especially given the information that I received prior to submitting my papers. Great, that's good to know. Thank you, Kim. Ed? As I mentioned earlier in my introduction, you know, I am retired and I think I've demonstrated my involvement with a lot of the committees that I've been involved on. And I try to make every meeting I can possibly attend and I realize there are other boards that the city council is expected to sit on. I still have plenty of time to do everything. The only rule I'll probably try to stick to is like everybody else here is whenever there's a swell, we have to be in the water. Okay. Dennis? You know, after a while as a council member, you learn to pick your battles and things that are important to you. But you have to fall into a lot of groups and you have to listen to a lot of different opinion from different groups. So regardless of how many committees you sit on, you're always in the hearing mode from what those committees are doing. So you must, as a council member, stay on top of that. And I started out on this council and I did a lot of regional type of issues because of my planning background. I've actually grown into like the little local things like the arts commission was really important to me, the commission on the environment because they directly, those small committees directly touched the people that live within our community. And that's who I am here to serve. Okay, great. Next question. Ed, why are you running for city council? Anything you haven't told us already? You know, I think on the button I passed out, it says to make it a better place because I think the message I want to send to the people of Capitola is that it was a real privilege for me when I moved here to meet all the people that I did and what kind of grew from that was, is it's got great people and it's got the ocean and it's got all the great things. And there was some struggling that was going on with solving some problems and getting things to happen. And the more I talk to people and the more I engage people and made friends in this town which is absolutely an amazing town, is they shared concerns about, well, I wish we could do this or we'd like to have that. And, you know, I'm kind of an action speaks louder than words kind of guy and I like it and involved. I mean, it's a challenge, it's going to be fun. It's, and it's just about, you know, making it a better place for everybody because, you know, I've been walking the streets lately meeting people and, you know, there's, even though I'm down in the village where I spend most of my time, there's, you know, 9,000 other residents in this town that all over parts of the town that moved here for a reason and they all love it for a specific reason and they've got opinions. So, you know, let's make those things happen. Great, Dennis? I'd like to be the person that makes the decision. I think I'm very good at that. I think I'm a very good community listener. I think I'm attuned to what is my community. I think we're in a time in city history where there's many land use, particularly decisions that are being made in the next four years. The general plan update, the theater property, Pacific Ove, upper and lower, the wristband, the library, the list kind of goes on. And I think a lot of those things are going to come to fruition within the next four years. I want to be involved in this app process. You know, I love this community. It's my home, it's my kid's home. It's special, the people are very special to me here. And so, I feel that I'm pretty good at representing them. I have been in the past and I think that four years is probably all I'm ever going to do again on this council, but I think that these next four years are going to be very important to the city. Great, thank you. Ed, what do you see for the future of the wristband mansion? You know, the wristband's an interesting property. I was fortunate enough to walk through it with the Public Works Director about a month ago and I can see why people had such high hopes for it because it's a unique building. And when you sit inside and look at it either from a curiosity point or architectural point or anything, you have all these dreams of City Hall, library, hotel, all these uses that have unfortunately failed. And the fact of the matter is that the wristband has become a huge money pit for the city and it's a nobody's fault. I'm not pointing the finger there. I think people were trying to make that all it could be and it just didn't pan out. And the fact of the matter is, as you look around, as I did the overhead survey and you look for those parcels of green in this town, there's very few of them. And its best use, and because of the limitations with environmental restrictions there, is open space. And the fact that the city has spent a fair amount of money to entomb the property makes it somewhat secure. Unfortunately, because the gates are up now that prohibits the public from going in there, the undesirables are in there using it. So my thing is, there's another reason for measure O. It's like, we need a little bit of money to help do some things. I don't want to be part of that problem of keeping throwing money at the wristband. But it needs to be opened to the public, but it needs to be safe. I've walked through it. There's numerous tripping hazards. There's not a clear path. There's no rails. But if we can get the public walking through there, that'll drive the homeless and the vagrants out of there. It'll make it your use. And there are some people on the private side that have expressed interest to possibly use it as a place for weddings, small, quaint concerts. And that's it. Public space, open space, small venue. Let's appreciate it, because we've pumped enough money into it so far. Thank you, Dennis. First, we have to take all those fences down. We got to open back up the public. It's shameful that the city has to fence its own property off and keep its own people off its own property. There's something quite wrong with that. We need passive use. We need to restore the pond. The walkways that walk around it need to be redone. The water tower should be restored. Some creative thoughts in the use of it is that you could use the side of that building and do your summer movies on the side of the building there. You sit up in the upper terrace there and bring your beach chair, and you watch a movie on the side of the building there. You could have classical music concerts. You could have a small opera down on that stage there. What's nice about it is that Perry Pathby and Ryan adjacent to it, that we already had the trail structure to go to the Riverview terrace side of the creek. So it's very, very central. That property is to Capitola. It's almost dead center in it. And plus, it gives you an opportunity on that property to actually deserve a great habitat down there that many people don't go to is the SoCal Creek and the Upper SoCal Creek. And so it's a very special place. And I think over time with passive use that other things could come around, maybe a bocce ball court someday down there would be nice. I wouldn't be afraid of a few picnic tables. And let the public over the next two generations make the decision. We don't have to make a decision on every piece of property that we have today. And so let it take its natural use. And let the public a year from now or 10 years from now or 20 years from now make a decision what that park is going to be. Thank you. Dennis, let's start with you. What is your opinion of the statewide PERS situation? And what is your understanding of where the city stands in regard to the statewide issue? Jerry Brown's got a problem. I don't think that he's doing quite what it's needed to do to take care of the state level. But I'll deal more with our local. Setting a cap eight years ago or six years ago that the city did was one of the smarter moves that we did. In fact, Mike Termini here is really the instigator of that. And what we did is we made a fair agreement with our employees that there would be a cap to the amount that the city participates and the amount that they put into their retirement. And so that's a protective level for our city and a knowledgeable way of dealing with it for employees too. And so to this day, we are now probably in the best shape of any jurisdiction in Central California without even any changes from the state. Now what's coming down to the state and what's going to be in we're going to see in the future, I don't really know. And it's kind of out of my level right now. Thank you, Ed. As was mentioned, the city is very fortunate to have a pension cap. What that essentially means is that if their PERS rate does go up, the employees actually take a pay cut to cover their own pensions. City is covered with a pension bond that is going to cover the cost that they are going to be expected to make for the next four years. The problem is is that when that expires, we're still going to have to start making pension payments again. And right now, unfortunately, PERS is underperforming. So it's likely that there could be increase in the pension funds. So once again, I hate to keep referring back to this, but the reason I rally behind measure O is I think that it gives us a little bit of a buffer to anticipate some of the calamities that may happen. And the worst that happens is we put that money into reserves. And if it does come out that we have pension shortfalls that we are already obligated to, we don't have to find ourselves out to go out and possibly borrow money to cover that. So that's what I think becomes important. Thank you. Dennis, what do you see as the most important service the city currently provides to residents? And what is the least important? The most important is policing service, not a question. Safety, safety is the most important. The least important, dog catcher. We have enough dog lovers in town. We probably could take care of every dog group. I don't know what the least important was. But I think every service that we provide is helpful to the people that live here. So, OK. Ed. It's kind of a simple one. I agree with Dennis. I am so proud of the police department, and especially the new addition of our new police chief. When I was out walking the streets, meeting people over and over again, people would respond about how they had an issue, and they had contacted the new police chief, and how it gets right back to them, gives them an answer. Our police department, they do an excellent job, and they are well respected by most of the citizens in the community. There's not going to be everybody that's happy with them, but by and large, they love having their own private police department. And our least valuable service is the guy that walks around and empties the money out of our meters. Because I watch and push that thing, and it just hurts when I watch them been over and push it. And on the parking commission, we came up with replacing a lot of the meters with the pay stations. And the pay stations are working phenomenally. I think they actually increase our revenue a little bit. There was a learning curve about making them friendly, but they add so much in versatility. And I think that if we can get rid of that function that somebody has to go around and empty all the meters on a regular basis, I know there's a better use for that individual. OK. Should city council members be paid a pension? Neither Scots Valley nor Watsonville does this? No. Dennis? I don't think we have a choice. I think PERS is required of us, because we're considered as employees of the city. But I'll tell you that, and I think Ron's here, he could vouch for it, that the amount of pension that you could possibly receive over 20 years since yours, it couldn't be more than $100 a month. So if you'd serve the city for 20 years, yeah, you should get $100 a month from your retirement. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. We're only paid $100 a week to do this job. So it's not, there's no major accumulation or cost to the city to do that. But I think my answer would be is that we're required by law to take PERS. Thank you. OK, Dennis, the beach maintenance prior to the dam construction each year has really fallen off. What will you do to ensure there are adequate garbage cans and beach maintenance performed prior to Memorial Day each year? Good question. I wasn't aware until meeting with the BIA yesterday that there was a garbage can problem down there. But we, as a council, have directed that there be a continuous emptying of the cans when they're down there. We went from two times a day to three times a day on the weekends. And so if there is that problem, still exist down there, do it. Now we have a little problem with beach cleaning because of the Coastal Commission and requiring that we cannot remove sea kelp from our beach. We can scrape it and put it to one end of the beach because there is some connection between the sand fleas and the flies that are down there and habitat. So when that happens, it's kind of out of our hands. So if we're talking about our beaches being dirty, I don't think our beaches are dirty. I think they're pretty well maintained. In fact, I'll save our shores. I'll tell you the same thing. The capitol is one of the cleaner cap beaches in the whole county. So I'm not sure what they're applying to. But if we're not quick enough in emptying the trash cans, then we should direct public works to increase the service to do that. That's a very important part of our community. I would agree that our beaches are, by and large, for the most part clean. And I think that one reason that they are is because we do have a policy that prohibits dogs on the beach. As far as the garbage, the garbage is a huge issue. At the general plan meetings and the groups gatherings that we had, it was almost the number one complaint about the dirt and level of filth in the beach in the Esplanade. And I believe that that can be resolved with public works. I think that we just need to focus on them doing an extra pickup or providing whatever needs to be done and then ensuring that the owners of the businesses there maintain their garbage facilities and clean them out on a regular basis. That whole process is one that we're going to have to deal with head on. OK. Dennis, what is your position on making capitol a beach's dog friendly? I think everybody in the town knows my position. My position is I love dogs. And I think everybody should have a dog. But there are right places and there's wrong places for dogs. And the smallest beach in the county is not the right place because I will guarantee you. You have a parking problem in the village now. You make that beach an open beach there. You will have a major parking problem because there will be people coming from Fresno to take their dog to the beach. And so it's not possible to mix people use with dog use in capitol. We're fairly lenient in allowing people to go south of here down to the new Brighton Beach when the tide is lower and those type of issues. But it just isn't a good mix. Now, I'm a strong advocate for finding a place for a dog park in capitol where we can let dogs get off the leashes and be in an offence area where it's safe in public response. And so again, I favor dogs but not on capitol beach. Thank you. Ed? I didn't mean to peek ahead at your question over there when I answered the last question. I must have my Karnak hat on. No, the issue with dogs on the beach, as Dennis said, it came before the city council. And I was here at the meeting. I think the mayor was under tremendous pressure to bring it because of a campaign promise. But he did it and good for him. But at that meeting, there was actually only four residents from capitol that came and lobbied for their dogs on the beach. Most of them were outside dog walkers from Santa Cruz or other areas. And as was mentioned, there's a website called bringfido.com. And it would be on there that we allowed dogs. And we would have to build a six-story parking structure to the chagrin of everybody on Pilgrim and Burling to accommodate that. So no, in my walkings of the homes, which was always interesting, and I mentioned that a couple times, almost 50% of the homes in capitol have dogs. Because when the doorbell didn't ring and I knocked on the door, I found that out. And of all those people, only one person closed the door in my face when he asked the question, what do you think about dogs on the beach? And I said, no. So I believe that most people who live in Capitola that have dogs, they accept their beach the way it is. And I think it's only a small percentage that wants dogs on the beach. Thank you. Kim, what is your favorite thing about Capitola? Just being able to live here. I mean, it is an amazing place. And being able to walk down to the village from my home, enjoy dinner, know people on the streets, have this small town with a little bit of a large town feel. And I also love surfing. So being able to drive down there and drop off my board and then take my car home and ride back, those are great things for me. We are truly blessed. And it's one of the reasons why I'm actually running for city treasurer is because I want to be able to retire here. And I want my daughter to be able to grow up here and raise her family here. And I think that by being able to be fiscally responsible and look to the future and take care of this wonderful city, that's going to happen. You know, when you first come here, when I first come here, and like I said, I'm the new guy, it's easy to be overwhelmed with the ocean and the Espanade and the architecture, which is varied. And without a doubt, after being here for three years, it's the people. As I was walking the neighborhoods and if I get on all these committees and if I meet people at functions or go into restaurants, everybody is in this town for a reason. It's a lot of different reasons. And that will sometimes drive you crazy, especially sitting on this side of the table. But they're all here for a reason and they share a common love for this town. Dennis? Well, I love the garbage men, the garbage collectors. I think they do a great job in our town. I love the street sweeper. I love my neighbors that live next door. I think they're an important part of our community. I like Soquel Creek. I love the beaches here. We have the best climate. I could go on for a week, I guess, and I think everybody in this room shares that with me. So thank you. Thank you. How's everybody doing up there? Holding up OK? OK, next question. Ed, how do you see the city's general plan update supporting efforts to enhance the Capitola village given the constraints posed by the California Coastal Commission? Wow. The general plan is a tough task. I was excited about being appointed to that committee. And the guidelines are as they redo it every 20 years, so you're trying to provide a vision for 20 years. And I think that for most of us in maybe private business or even in our lives, trying to plan three to five years is a challenge. There are some dynamics about the village. It's a unique place and it's near and dear to everybody from the possible discussion of closing it down to access. As was mentioned earlier, the Coastal Commission dictates almost everything that will happen in the Esplanade, whether it comes to parking, inhabitation, any kind of construction we do. And even though I'm a huge fan of a hotel down there, it's going to go back to the thing I said, right project, right time, right place. And it's going to take a lot of creativity to embrace the Coastal Commission to meet their restrictions. There's always a concern about sea level rise and beach access. And those two in themselves are going to make it a very challenging project for anything in the village. But with that being said, the Coastal Commission approves projects all the time. It's about just taking the time and making sure that when we present the right project, we've got the right builder, the person that's motivated, and a great plan. Thank you. Dennis? Could you repeat the question, please, Tony? Certainly. Thank you. How do you see the city's general plan update supporting efforts to enhance the Capitola village given the constraints posed by the California Coastal Commission? Well, I don't think we've seen the Coastal Commission's hand in this thing yet. And I don't think it's going to be pretty. I think that we're going to have some major building restrictions of anywhere in the lowland of the village that we're not even really anticipating at this point. As far as the general plan update, I think they're beginning to address the key issues, parking circulation, and a possibility of a hotel, the issue about a parking facility up there. But I don't think they've quite dealt with the thought of tying all those together. In the year 2000, we had a village master plan that was completed by the citizens of this community. And you see the results of that in phase one, which is Capitola Avenue and the street improvements there. I think that we've got to bring this back to the table real soon and go ahead and move forward with phase two and three and bring it all the way around the Espanade. And so with the relief of the parking situation, I think that the property owners in the village will get an incentive to upgrade their buildings. And that's part of it, part of what you see. Again, a hotel, I don't know. I'm not claiming what size or what mass, but a hotel would make the village a little more year round and give a little emphasis to local merchants to improve their stores too. Thank you. Ed, what can be done to secure better insurance for the city so that the unexpected can be covered? We are on a river and on the ocean, yet our policy did not cover water damage. You know, it's unfortunate that the policy is not responding the way that they had expected. I'm going to believe that when they secured that policy, they had every reason to believe that the things that would happen were going to be covered and we're finding out that that's not the case. So in one avenue, we learned a lesson the hard way on that. So when we go out to seek another policy, I think we can ask those questions up front about all the possible ramifications of what might happen and if that's going to be covered. And I think it's just going to be a better selection process next time. Thank you, Dennis. I really don't have an answer to that. This is the first time we've experienced it where we've had an insurance company pay us off in this type of situation. It's a lawyer's battle. And so as a community, it's real difficult or even that council members to get their hands around this thing. We hire a city attorney to take care of us on this end, but it's really, we're looking at insurance companies that are sitting in high rises in New York City trying to analyze what happened to us in this village and make heads or tails of it. And certainly, their first motive is to not pay us. And so where do we take this? Well, we take it probably to the point where we financially can fight the battle. And then at that point, we move on. But I'm not so sure that there is another insurance company out there that handles these type of claims, particularly with flooding, any different than what we have now. Thank you. Dennis. This past year, the city council violated the zoning ordinance when they allowed ideal homes to place a model home on the Grimes property on Bay Avenue. The zoning ordinance requires all commercial uses slash sales to be wholly conducted within the principal place of business in the CC zone. The model house is an outside display. If you are elected, will you allow this illegal use of outside displays to continue when their one-year approval comes up for renewal? The auto plaza is in CC zoning. They display automobiles, not a lot different than what we do. We allowed one modular to come in there. It's temporary. It's a one-year review. And it's been a vacant lot for a number of years. They gave us an adequate site plan and landscape plan to allow it over there. I don't find it offensive, and I'm in that business. I mean, it's not my favorite structure. But it certainly doesn't hurt the city to promote some kind of sales in a lot that's vacant. It's set back from the road. You don't really see a lot of public access to it. And again, it's a one-year deal. Thank you. Ed. I'm not specifically familiar with the went into placing that home there. The one concern I do have about inconsistencies is I have noticed some of them, whether with the Planning Commission or the City Council. And one thing I'm going to hope to bring to this is if we have an ordinance or a policy that's in this town and it doesn't work, then we need to change that ordinance or policy. And I don't think we should continue to amend the policies or make exceptions. I think it's better just to take the time and redo the ordinance or the policy and then live by it rather than making lots of exceptions. Thank you. OK, Ed. The city used to have a sand sifter to clean the beach. Will you support acquiring a new one or arrange to borrow Santa Cruz's sifter periodically to better maintain our beach? This is kind of a follow-up because I think Dennis, in your comments, because of all the rules that we have to follow on the beach with the seaweed and the flies and all that kind of thing, is that why we don't have a sand sifter anymore? I don't have an answer to that. I don't know why we don't or why we haven't brought one in. I think we do do that occasionally. I'm not sure that we do it on a regular basis. So I don't have an answer to that one. Sorry. Ed. I'm going to jump with Dennis. I used to walk down in the morning and the sand sifter was there and you can't miss it because it just picks up the rocks and circulates them and wasn't aware that it was gone. So if Steve Jesper was your direct question to him, where's the sand sifter? And I don't think it's a seaweed and environmental problem. I think that's a good, great question. OK. I'll call him tomorrow. OK. I will look into that. Dennis, do you have a position on plans for a desalination project? Desalination. It's not a desalination project. Yes. You know, I find it ironic that this is going to vote in the city of Santa Cruz, but not Capitola. Consider, we're in Soquel Water District and they're part of this program. I'm a little confused to why we're not involved with it. It really hasn't been a community discussion. And I don't know why that is because we're serviced by Soquel Creek, who is going to be part of that program and pay for it. So it will affect our rates and our sources of water. In reality, in many ways, it's a growth issue in Santa Cruz County. And so that battle has been going on since Lighthouse Point. And so I think we're going to see some kind of decision by the residents of Santa Cruz and will come back to us. I don't really have a position one way or the other on it, but I think we should be involved in the process because we're in that district. I've been trying to follow the articles on desalination and there are two water districts involved. And it's probably the largest regional discussion we're going to have other than the trail. My only concerns about the desalination is there's a plant that was open that I can't think of. It was in the south a little bit. And it was so expensive to operate that they weren't able to, that it's closed right now and it's rusting up. And I know there's new technology with desalination and I know there's another plant in San Diego that was scheduled to open and there's other numerous permits along coastal cities to do that. And my only reservation is there's probably lots of bugs to be worked out in desalination and I would just wish that we wouldn't be one of the pioneers in developing that. I'd like to see a couple of plants operating, functioning before we jump on board with that. Thank you. Ed, how would you plan to accommodate the number of new homes for low and moderate housing required by the state? OK, well, back to our green space and our open space. We don't have the luxury of Watsonville have fields to start meeting our requirements. I know our housing numbers, housing element numbers are down somewhere in the range of 400. I don't have an exact number. We're not under any pressure by the state right now to meet those numbers. It's a quota that we're supposed to try to maintain. The only answer I have to that is, as the city has been looking into the secondary use homes behind properties, they've allowed smaller sized lots to develop and the one word that's going to get us there is density. That's the only solution where we're going to be able to do that because we don't have open space. It could be certain projects like people talk about on Park Avenue, the apartments there, where they could increase the density there and meet some of those numbers. But the simple answer is it's only going to be accomplished with either adding another home behind someone's house, another mother-in-law unit type setup, or increased density somehow. But my information right now is that we're not under any extreme pressure to meet that criteria. Dennis? You know, it's funny that density is such an issue when you come to existing neighborhoods where, and rightfully, people do not want to see density in their neighborhoods. But if you take the density and you put it over on 41st Avenue and you put it along a new corridor, let's say along 41st Avenue where you had commercial, take the Bank of America and spread that frontage along there and you put commercial downstairs and you put residential upstairs, where people who work in that community can live there. You could provide quite a bit of housing and not have the impact or it may be more acceptable to our community than to do secondary or higher density projects within our urban areas. I think we're probably dense enough in Capitola now because of the size of the lots that we shouldn't look at expanding that type of use in there. There are a few that allow for secondary units in the backyard and we have pretty tight controls on that. But the areas that do allow to, and it seems to be more community acceptance, is what you do over on 41st is a whole different thing than what you do on Bay Avenue or do in Capitola Village proper. So I do think there's room for some increased housing along the major thoroughfares on the 41st and Capitola Road corridors. Thank you. Ed, do you support the construction of public restrooms near the foot of the wharf so we can get rid of the portable toilets that are unattractive and unsanitary? Short answer is yes, but I want to expand a little bit. I used to live in San Francisco for five years and I have quite a homeless problem over there. And because of that, finding a bathroom if you're driving through San Francisco can be almost impossible. I know that we have certain areas in town that where we agreed on certain projects. And I want to, for example, is a new Brighton school and Monterey Park up there. The park was put in with the agreement that there would be no bathrooms. And I think we're a better society than that. I think that one of my things, if I'm going to hang my hat on it, is we need to provide bathrooms. We have a wonderful bathroom down in the village at the bandstand. Part of the lower Pac Cove parking lot problem, why the costs have gone up a little bit, are to provide a bathroom there, putting them on the wharf. Again, if you don't give people the option to use a bathroom, they're going to find their own source of relieving themselves. And I think we're just a better town than that. Dennis? Well, I've been to this process as a council member and we did discuss this on a couple of different occasions. First of all, a public bathroom at the beginning of the wharf is in the public view shed. It has a major consideration that people live around there, but also anybody that goes out and use the wharf. But we do have a public bathroom that's on the wharf. And the city owns all the buildings on the wharf. We really can do whatever we choose to do with those buildings. And they're getting pretty close to the time that we should do a major remodel on what's out there. And one consideration is that if you think about the public bathroom that's out on the wharf, has the best view shed of anywhere on the wharf? What you're doing, you're actually taking one half of the restaurant view and you're given to a public bathroom. What you do is you make that whole area there all the way around a view shed area from the end of the wharf. And you move the public bathrooms on down maybe where the boat storage is down a little lower than that. So it's a little closer to the beach, but it's still within the buildings. You should do a new bathroom and make those buildings in those businesses a little more viable than they are right now. So I support a bathroom on the wharf, but not at the beginning of the wharf. Thank you. Ed, what is your position on the senior housing development proposed for 38th Avenue? I'm a big fan of the senior housing development. There's a definite need for senior housing in this town. That project, to me, is a perfect location for seniors to be. It has proximity to the mall. And if you're in that area, the building that was presented the first time was, I believe, four stories and 57 units. And it's been whittled down to three stories and 27 units. And I think they've got another architect and they're trying to present a plan. City really needs to embrace that project because it's needed in that area. And going back to the other comment I made, we don't have a lot of other places to put senior housing. You know, there is a possibility that we could get some increased strip businesses in the mall on some of the over-parked spaces and maybe have some occupying spaces on top of that. But the choices for senior housing are not plentiful. And the people with that project are motivated to put that project in. They're not asking for a lot of support from the city. And in that location, when you actually stand there, I've walked around many times. It backs up to orchard supply, which is not really a wonderful site. I think we've got to get past micromanaging sometimes the buildings that people present. I think that buildings, if they meet someone's design and they're reasonable, we've got to work with them. We're not going to have every building be a masterpiece. People are allowed some of what they want to put into the building. There's neighbors there. One of the neighbors on one side is just the storage facility. I think it's a great project, and we need to make that happen there with maybe some little modifications. Thank you, Dennis. Tony, I apologize, but I really shouldn't comment on this. I have this comment coming in from the council in about three weeks, I think. And so I'd rather not answer that question. Thank you. How about this question? The entrance to City Hall is shabby and should be repainted to present a better face to the public. Can you find money in the budget for this? Face to City Hall. You know where we're in right now? We're in an old parking garage. See these bays that you see here? Did you see each one of those bays? That was the doors that opened up, and this is where they fixed the public works trucks. And so pretty major remodel at that time was done, but the building really wasn't meant to be what it is today. So if you were to go to look at a redesign, maybe a complete redesign probably is in the works. I don't know that I think it's clean. It may be outdated, but it is clean, and public works does a good job of keeping the landscaping up out there. I don't have one commitment or feeling one way or the other that we should allocate money to it. OK, thank you. Ed? I think what you're describing is a band-aid to the building. It's going to need a lot more than that. And at this point, I cannot support anything that spends any money on things like that. I think that sooner or later, we're going to have to make tough decisions about where we allocate our money. And I think if we were to ask the citizens of Capitola if they cared about what it looked like, I don't think it's in the top 10 or top 20. OK, thank you. Dennis, the public garbage cans in the village are old and dirty. Is that the impression we should be giving our visitors? Absolutely not. They should be replaced and maintained. And it's certainly the most important piece of property we have in the city that needs to be taken care of. So if they're old or they're dirty, they should be cleaned or replaced. We have two types. We have the temporary cans, which are the aluminum cans. They're brought on and off the beach. Those are very little costs. The ones that are along the sidewalk are very expensive. So probably at this point, it would probably be better just to do some maintenance work on them and to get them back in shape. There's still some confusion between people on recycled cans and non-recycled cans. And maybe to make that a little clearer than we have it. Yes, I do think that there should be some maintenance on those cans. OK, thank you. Ed? The simple answer to that is yes, we need maintenance. All the discussions that came out was that people have really had it with the dirt level and the espionage. And it shows poorly for us. The discussion that we had was that there needs to be some more cleaning down there. And the cans need to be replaced. But let's be realistic. Every time we say up here, let's do this or let's do that, everything has a cost associated to it. And the thing we're going to have to do is just figure out what are the priorities? What are our real priorities? And what are we going to take care of first, second, and third, and make sure we get it done? Because it's easy to sit here and say, we're going to fix everything. And I'm looking around up here because I always thought there was money hidden up here. And that's how they solve problems. And I haven't found it. So there's a lot of great ideas. And I know that the citizens, they speak out about the dirt level and the espionage and the garbage cans. And like I mentioned earlier, I believe this is going to be one of those shared responsibilities where maybe the city steps up their responsibility and the business owners in the village take on a little bit also because they're going to benefit from that cleanliness. And we're going to keep our constituents happy. Thank you. OK, Ed, since Capitola is almost completely built out, what is your vision for the future of Capitola? The vision is that when I came here, it goes back to that one of the questions about, why do you want to run for city council? I said, I'm saying, this is a great town. It's got so many things going to it. People drive for two or three hours to come here. And yet, we don't have a lot of money, OK? It's not that we're going to build out Capitola. It's that we're going to take what we have and take care of it. We're not taking care of the Espanade. We're going to clean that up. It hasn't come up yet in anybody's question. I don't know whether it's in the bottom of the pile there, but I keep talking about this hotel. And I think I'm kind of a softy for this. I came to town and went to the art gallery next door to where I lived and had an old picture of the hotel in there. And it's like, this used to be here, OK? In fact, there it is. This glamorous hotel was here many years ago. And I'm a big fan of bringing that back because I think that's what established Capitola is the unique community that it was. And I think we've got a better fire department. Now we're not going to burn it to the ground. And I think what it does is it brings in a different type of person to the town. It'll be something we can be proud of as a community. It's, to me, I look at the Espanade as like a mall. And the mall needs an anchor tenant. And the anchor tenant is truly going to be the hotel. And whatever that number is that we all agree on, and whatever the Coastal Commission allows us to do hopefully to get that there, that's going to be the shot in the arm that's going to revitalize that area and allow us just to bring in some more revenue from TOT and look around our town and make Monterey Park a better park and improve the roads and do some other improvements that just make it a better town. But we're not going to build it out anymore. It's built. Good. Dennis? Well, certainly we have to take care of infrastructure issues within the city. I don't expect 10 years from now this city looking any different than it is today. I would hope that we put some energy into revitalization of the village. I think that's in need because it's been need for a number of years. And it'll make it a better. We identify ourselves as members of this community with the village. That is kind of our heart and soul. We come capital, we always think we're working capital, but we're really from when people say capital, they think they think of the village. So it is our identity. So as a resident here, I think everyone takes pride of how that part of the community is kept. I think 41st Avenue will maintain itself. I think we're still the only regional shopping center around. There isn't room to put another one anywhere else in the county, really. There isn't any word of anything to happen. So I think their retail sales will do well as time goes on, as well as they're doing now. So I think if you walked away from this town now and you came back 20 years from now, you'll probably see pretty much what you see now. Hopefully some changes. Hopefully you have a parking garage right up here. And you won't drive down in the village. You won't be able to drive down there anymore. You'll have to park up here. You'll have to take a little staircase or tram that takes you right down to the village. Those kind of people changes. I think Capitola will become more walkable over time. It is pedestrian-oriented now, but it has some room for improvement. I think that's what we're going to see. Thank you. OK, Dennis, do you have a position on a potential new elementary school at Jade Street Park? I do. We had an elementary school and a junior high school located right next to each other. It worked very well because parents who had kids at both levels, they dropped their kids off at one space. You see every morning, if you go to New Brighton Middle School, or just go up to Bay Avenue right here, you see the repercussions of every parent having or feeling that they have to drive their kids to school. If you put an elementary school over Jade Street is, not only have one stop on town, they'll have two stops in town. It has a major impact on that neighborhood. Rightfully, it's their property. They have the right really to do what they want. But I don't think that we need to spread our schools out. They can do a two-story structure or put them over the same place. We've offered to give them Monterey Park or part of it in exchange for it or use it as a recreational field. So there's solutions to the school problem without spreading it over town and causing it. And let's say they find a means to start getting kids out of their cars. And parents just don't seem to be comfortable with that. You know, an interesting phenomenon that's happening in Southern California is that junior high schools and high schools, it's a big craze right now for all the kids to ride their bikes to school. And so I'm hoping that catches on a little bit here, because I picture the day that the kids going to New Brighton Middle School will be riding their bikes again. And once you get enough kids on the street, it becomes safe. It's only when there's two or three and nobody watching them that becomes dangerous. And so alternative transportation may make it possible for Jade Street. But at this point, I think it's too much of an impact in that neighborhood in our community to spread the schools out. From what I'm told that there's no demand for another elementary school, because there isn't major increase in enrollment. So that's my stance. Thank you. Ed, what is your vision of a permanent library in Capitola? Do I get that question? Yes, you get that question. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I had myself. Can you repeat that? Do you have a position on a potential new elementary school at Jade Street Park? Sure. It's more of a philosophical answer, and that is I'm a big fan of the inevitable, OK? And what we need to take account of is there's certain things that are going to happen. We just witnessed over a long period of time where rent control finally went away. It was something that was destined to go away. The city fought a great battle to protect people's rights. And after millions of dollars, or not millions, probably a million dollars that they put into that, they lost. And I know that there was the same kind of battle over the preschool that was just built up there on Jade Park. And the fact of the matter is that that property belonged to the school district. And the one thing we have to remember just in our country is that if somebody owns property, unless they're going to do something detrimental, they probably have the right to build on that property. And we fought the battle. And like I said, I'm definitely not pointing the fingers to what happened. But the fact is that preschool is there right now because it was a school's property, and they built it. And I feel that if the school district owns the land where the park is, even though we've had the luxury of using it as a soccer field, and all the kids love it, if the school wants to put district deems that they need a school and they want to put it there, it's their property to do that with. I think we need to look at the properties we have and trying to take advantage of maybe Monterey Park and making it more of a facility. It is our park. But what I don't want to do is I don't want to be in a position of getting involved in more litigation to fight something that's inevitable. And I'm hoping that the lesson was learned on the last one, like with rent control, like with other projects, like with maybe even with the wristband, where money was put into a project over and over and didn't produce anything. Thank you, Ed. Okay, Ed, what is your vision of a permanent library in Capitola? Well, we have a permanent library in Capitola. It just happens to be smaller than what we had hoped for. Back when it was built, the plan was for a 12,000 square foot library and because of monetary constraints, ended up with 4,000 square feet. I went to the library joint powers meeting just the most recent one they had. They were discussing that. And I actually spent last weekend driving to every library in the county just so I could get an idea about what all the libraries looked like and what they had to offer. And I think everybody in the town would like to have a library in their town. And I'm just gonna say that dollars have to be spent wisely. And if somebody gives you a good idea, you at least have to listen to it. And I know that there's money being set aside for a library. And then somebody suggested to me that there's a fabulous library about a mile and a half away from there that after doing the tour is probably the best one in the system located in Live Oak. And then the other one in Aptos is another wonderful library. So I wonder about, are we better off building more libraries and then building them and then finding that we don't have the money to keep them open and they're only open four days a week? Or are we better taking the libraries we have and increasing the hours and making them so they're available to people on a regular basis? Cause when I did drive around you I just kept on a certain day and there's a lot of closed hours on the libraries. And with all the constraints we're talking about, money-wise, I don't know where additional funding is gonna come to open those libraries. So, I'm on the bubble with that library. I think it's great for the citizens of Capitola. But we really gotta look at every dollar we spend. Thank you, Ed. Dennis? Capitola needs its own library. It's always had its own library and it needs to maintain its own libraries. It's really no difference than having its own fire department. Being able to have proximity for people to get to and easy to get to. The two adjacent libraries are fine, but they're not within walking distance of people in this community. Fortunately, the proposed, I was sat on the library advisory board, by the way. And fortunately, the wristband property, or adjacent to the wristband where it is now, is very central to our community. It's in walking distance for almost everybody around town. It also works as not a daycare center, but a study lab for after school. And so, it's being used for that. Yes, I agree with that, that we need to see as many hours as we possibly can. So, I'm hoping that our long-term goal as a community is to build ourselves a library. In that library, we're very well could be a community meeting room, which we don't have right now. We've given up. This is our only community meeting room. We had one adjacent here. We gave it up for office space. So, in that library, it becomes multifunctional. What the definition of as a library today is in question. Is it a depository of books? Or is it 300 laptops? Where every kid really has access to a computer or for information in that manner. So, the use of libraries is in transition now and what we define them as libraries, certainly people still hold on to the book theory. And maybe that will still take its place. But in all, I think Capitola deserves and should have its own library. Thank you. It was brought up earlier about the potential hotel being built in Capitola Village where the Capitola Theater lot is. I know plans have not been submitted yet for that particular project, but I'd like to know your thoughts on how you feel about having a new hotel come to Capitola. Dennis? I think that the Capitola Theater site is an excellent place for a hotel. What's in question is size and scale and how it affects not only the village community but our whole community as far as traffic and circulation and usage. It's a, you can't put aside, it's a revenue source for the city, yes it is. It's sales tax, it's also, it's also TOT tax. And so there is a revenue generating force there, but also if you look at doing a revival within the village that that hotel will also help pay for the parking lot that we have on behind City Hall. So it changes the parking and the circulation structure by that coming there. But it also gives, it gives a different clientele or maybe possibly a more year round clientele to that village and which benefits restaurants and retail together. So I think it's a win-win situation but I think we're a long ways from making that decision and certainly size and scale is a big question with that. Ed. I think I mentioned it earlier. I think I finally got to this question. And you know, I'm a big fan of the hotel and I think it's essential to the revitalization of the village. As Dennis mentioned, it's definitely gonna be revenue in but it's not just about revenue, it's about a statement. You know, there were hopes when the RISP and was being developed that it would be a hotel. You know, and I'm gonna even say, I don't think that would have been the right place for a hotel. They just redid the hotel. I'm blanking on the name in Santa Cruz just opened. But you know, I asked some people there, you know, and even from the hotel, the joke is that you can't see the ocean unless you're looking out at Ocean Avenue. That's all you see. And you know, what we have here is a unique space. Okay, what we could put there, not every room is gonna be an ocean view, but there will be some ocean views. And that draws people. People wanna come. They wanna have a hotel. They wanna have, you know, room service. They wanna have a nice dinner. There can be some shops in there. I mean, it gives us a chance to entice more people to the village because over and over again, people say, you know, we just don't want t-shirt and sandal shops in the village. We want, you know, higher scale stores. And you know, people wanna make money when they're in business. They don't think they can sell their goods. They're not gonna take the risk of opening a business. And the hotel's gonna draw the kind of people. I mean, you know, we can have a small conference room in there. You can have, you know, businesses from the other side of the hill bringing their groups over here for luncheons. It just, you know, oozes success. But it's gonna take, you know, getting the two people that own those properties there to get together, and that's gonna be a challenge. And the other thing is that, you know, when we talk about parking, you know, it's, I wanna just hope it's understood that the hotel is tied to the parking structure because the hotel's gonna demand the parking places. And that's what's gonna justify and make the parking structure viable. And it's also that the fact that, you know, we can't do any more village, I mean, developing the village until we provide additional parking. Thank you, Ed. Okay. Are there any other questions from the audience this evening? Okay. Are there any issues that we have not covered this evening that either one of you would like to speak about? Okay. Very good. I think it was quite informative tonight. And I thank you for participating and it's now time for closing comments. So Kim, let's start with you. Well, I would just like to say that there were several topics that came up that really, I think that I could have a lot to contribute. One of the things that we discussed that I wasn't asked to comment on was insurance. It's one of the responsibilities that I've had in the last five jobs that I've held. And there actually is a lot that we can do in examining those policies and developing the relationships that we have with the insurance agent that we're working with and by diving into questions, asking them questions and actually having them help us navigate all of those different avenues. So to just shift the responsibility to a city attorney or such, we can actually work collaboratively to find a policy that really can benefit the people of Capitola and make sure we're not put in that situation again. I have a wealth of business experience that expands just be also beyond the financial sector. And I am really looking forward to bringing again my experience, my ideas, sharing ideas, finding solutions and offering creative ways to do things differently. It sometimes takes really stepping back being open to new ideas, open to change to find solutions that can be very, very positive and beneficial without increasing costs, without losing services. So I'm really looking forward to working for Capitola. Thank you, Kim. Ed. I'm gonna kind of go a little bit off that. The phrase that's coined often is thinking outside the box. And I think that's what we need to kind of do here a little bit. There's been people that have dedicated themselves to serving on this side here. Dennis has done this for years and a lot of people have been on the council for years. And I think it's just time to take a step back, think outside the box, bring some new ideas, look at things a different way and see if we can get some things done. Not to go back on the same issue again, but I am stuck on it. Measure O is a way of bringing some money into the table right now. I know that there's a little bit of trust that's been lost by some of the citizens of Capitola with future councils. And I just wanted you to know that to get things done it takes additional revenue. And although there may be ways that Kim's mentioned, to look at things and trim things, to get the big projects done, to make a positive move, attacking the streets, which I believe needs to be the first project, it's gonna take some additional revenue. Along the way, yeah, we can tighten the belt and we can trim away some of the fat. And I'm not saying there's a lot of fat, okay? This isn't about picking on the previous council, but we can probably be better if we work at it. The one thing I wanna bring, I wanna close with is that I am the new guy here. I bring what I think is common sense and I believe I bring an absolutely unbiased look at this town. I have no agenda. There is not one item, except for maybe the bathrooms in public, I have no agenda that I'm here to fight for. I'm not a single issue candidate. I'm not trying to get one thing. I'm not hanging my head on any one issue. I believe the issues in this town all tie themselves together. And if we look at them and see how we can weave them in to bringing them together, we make Capitola a better place and that's why I'm running for city council. Go ahead, Dennis. I feel privileged to actually serve the city for 12 years as a council member and five as the planning commission. And over that period, some things that are major have come to fruition and that I was involved in. And I'm proud of those things. Union Pacific Corridor being one of them. That we just happen to be in a time in history right now when we need creative thought and we need a to-do council. We need ones that want to get things done. And I think we have great staff within the city right now. Our city manager is most excellent. In fact, a lot of the things that are on the plate today for us as council is because of our city manager not afraid to tackle with them. He's not a bureaucrat. He does think outside the box. And I feel the city feels very progressive at this point. I think we have a good ties with our business community. We have good ties with our nonprofits. We have good ties with the citizens. We have one of the most public processes that people can participate on any jurisdiction within the county. If you think of a Capitola, Capitola is the ideal size community. You have 10,000 people. You have a good tax base. You have an excellent police department. You have a good city hall. And it's one of the most beautiful places on earth. So we have a good here. And so it's difficult to bring out things you're going to improve on. But you do is you make what we have here flow better and to take care of some of the projects that have been in process for us. And I think we discussed a lot of those projects. And I feel that the next four years will be crucial. And if not completing them, but to certainly get those things in happen. So I want to be part of that. I think I've been a good council member in the past. I've represented you well. I'm very reachable. I'm here every day. I don't leave the city. My office is here. And I will maintain myself as being a very reachable council member. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you all for participating this evening. We wish you lots of luck in your election. And once again, don't forget to vote on Tuesday, November 6. It's very important. Like I said before, every vote counts. And it's your right as a citizen of Capitola to get out there and vote. So to the audience this evening, thank you for coming. And good night, Capitola.