City Council Sends Crowds Home Happy with Decisions on Rent Control and Dialysis Clinic

The council chambers and Capitola City Hall were packed with residents on Thursday night, on hand to witness the fate of rent assistance at local mobile home parks as well as the appeal of the rejection of a permit for a dialysis clinic to be located on Clares Street, both decided in City Council public hearings. In case you weren't in the building, see below the five most important moments of the meeting.

• With rent set to go up and residents facing eviction in three Capitola mobile home parks, the City Council moved to apportion $193,000 in rental assistance per year to low-income mobile home park residents for the time being. All council members voted in favor of the assistance plan. Mayor Dennis Norton, however, voted against rental assistance, as he wanted more time for the plan to be hashed out.

• Although the planning commission advised against it, the City Council unanimously approved an appeal on a previous denial of a permit to open a dialysis clinic at 3801 Clares St. Following comments from nearly 20 residents in favor of the clinic, Councilman Michael Termini adamantly motioned to approve the appeal.

Termini: "A facility like this is every bit a part of the fabric of the community as a park, or a church, or the mall, or our schools. It's what we do. So, I would like to move to overturn the planning commission's decision and pass this project on." 

• Three elementary-school-aged boys stepped to the podium to announce that through a bake sale they had raised $300 for flood relief. They handed a bag of cash to City Manager Jamie Goldstein, who said he would deliver it to the Capitola Flood Relief Fund. 

• Goldstein announced that the Capitola Police Department, which has been displaced since the March floods, will be "up and running" in its normal, remodeled location by June.

• The council, with the exception of Kirby Nicol (abstained) along with Mayor Norton, voted to support SB 568, a state ban on polystyrene to-go restaurant containers. Polystyrene has been banned in Capitola since the late 1980s, but California is just catching on.