MONTEREY — Monterey Mayor Tyller Williamson and City Manager Hans Uslar will be talking about affordable housing, water supply and community engagement among other things at Thursday’s annual State of the City address.
The event begins at 7 p.m. at the Monterey City Council Chamber, Few Memorial Hall of Records, 580 Pacific St.
Residents can participate in-person or online through Zoom at monterey-org.zoomgov.com/j/1609504673, or they can watch on the Monterey Channel, cable channel 25, or through the city’s YouTube channel, youtube.com/cityofmonterey.
Williamson will touch on major ongoing topics, such as housing, that the city council and staff have been working on. Uslar will speak about addressing homelessness in Monterey and how the city will allocate funding for different projects this year.
“I put the housing conversation into two buckets,” Williamson said. “So there’s the supply side, the need to develop more and then the other piece is the demand side and with 66 percent of our community being renters, there’s a need to move forward on something that allows us to address the needs of our renter population.”
Williamson added that he will be addressing the rental registry as well. The council has been moving forward with plans to create a rental registry that would give them more specific data on what renters are paying in Monterey. There has been a pushback from some residents, who feel this will lead to rent control, but Williamson says he is optimistic about this council trying different things, versus repeating old plans that have not improved the city’s issues with housing.
“I know there are a lot of strong feelings and a strong message of opposition around us moving forward with that,” Williamson said. “Is that a possibility of what could come? Sure, but I don’t think we want to jump to conclusions without looking at the information.”
The mayor will speak on Monterey’s water supply and how it’s a council priority to find solutions.
“We’re working with partner agencies to see if there are ways that we can obtain additional water allocation before any additional water is available through the Pure Water Monterey Project,” Williamson said of the expanded recycled water plant. “But regardless, the expansion project is estimated to be complete in August 2025.”
Finally, Williamson said he wants to express to the public that city staff are working on ways to streamline council meeting agendas and meetings, and wants input on how to get more engagement from Monterey residents.
“We’re going to be doing a survey and having some town halls (in the future) so we can really engage with the community in a deeper way about the budget process,” Williamson said. “The main point in all of this is that public engagement is key.”
The city manager will also take the time to lay out financials and development in Monterey.
“I will speak about the future capital needs of the city and where we need to allocate our funding toward, for instance, the rehabilitation of our fire stations, our community centers need financial infusions,” Uslar said. “We have a plan on the books to remodel the library that we plan to bring up this year, and a plan to replace the police and fire stations across from city hall.”
