City Council news

Susan Goldbeck
Aug 25
4 min read

by Susan Goldbeck

On August 20, 2025 Mayor Nick Smith opened the meeting of the Pacific Grove City Council and they took the following actions:

Agenda item: 2-A

More than twenty friends, relatives and members of the diving community here urged the city Council to install a memorial bench to the three men who perished in a recent plane crash off Asilomar beach. Former Chamber of Commerce Director Moe Amar spoke on behalf of the group.

The Council agreed. The bench will be placed near the crash site at a location selected by the City Manager who showed a photograph of the picturesque area where the bench will be placed. One of the members of the diving community offered to pay the expenses associated with the bench.

8-A check register was produced to the City Council showing recent expenditures by the City. This is an ongoing reporting at each council meeting. The register is part of the Agenda materials on line for public review.

Agenda item 9-A The Council passed unanimously the award to Spectren Engineering for its work on the Public Works sidewalk improvement project. This project will result in continuous sidewalks from the Middle School on Forest and Sinex, down Sinex to Congress culminating at Lighthouse.

Agenda item 9-B The City Council unanimously approved a contract for the slurry seal of streets and repair cracks at various locations in the City.

Agenda item 9- C The City Council considered a recommendation from the City’s Traffic Commission for installation ol stops signs on the western corner of Lighthouse and Congress.

Council member Cynthia Garfield led the discussion which ended in a unanimous vote to refer the matter to a traffic engineer. He was tasked to consider not only the recommended stop signs but to give his independent recommendation as to what the traffic controls at this dangerous intersection should employ and prepare plans for City Council consideration.

Council member Walkingstick noted that a stop sign entering downtown would slow traffic down coming west down the hill where the speed limit is 25 m.p.h. to prepare for the more the more congested downtown business district where there is a fifteen mile an hour speed limit.

Agenda item-#11 The City Council voted unanimously accept the recently certified referendum related to their giving themselves raises earlier this year. It then took another action which rendered that moot. The Council voted unanimously to reverse the ordinance it created allowing for pay raises for the Mayor and the City Council. They voted to direct City staff to bring the matter back with suggestions as to the language of a new ballot measure on whether the public approved of the raises. This time the public was to be consulted before the council voted for the raises. All the council agreed that the public should be consulted on the issue.

Agenda item #12 The City Council reviewed a plan by City staff geared to improve and simplify the reporting to the Council by the City’s boards, committees, and commissions.

(B.C.C.)

After a lengthy discussion the Council agreed to the plan with a reporting quarterly rather than twice a year. They also included the caveat that the issue would be reconsidered after the first of the year when there was an opportunity to see how the new plan works.

All of the members of the Council were in favor of this result except councilmember Walkingstick who voted no. His suggestion was that the Council could simply review a list of projects the BCC was working on and in fifteen minutes or less figure out what the priorities should be and let the BCC know.

Many members of the public complained that this new reduced communications scheme was an attempt to stifle the ideas of members of the public who usually presented them first at the committee level. Nobody spoke in favor of the plan being considered by the Council.

Agenda Item: 12-B The Council considered and agreed to City staff’s suggestion that the Architectural Review Board and the Historic Resources Board be combined. Council directed that the staff prepare the ordinance and return to the Council for further consideration.

Agenda item 12-C: The council agreed with Councilmembers Chaps Paduri’s recommendation that the City prepare a report establishing its Artificial Intelligence policy and send it back for consideration and possible approval.