City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to today's city council meeting, Monday, January 12th, 2026. Happy new year, everyone. And we now call this meeting to order. Roll call. District 1, Council Member Casey, present. District 2, Council Member Vieiraa, present. District 3, Council Member Otero, here. District 4, Vice Mayor Martinez, present. Mayor Lopez, here. Please stand for the invocation by Tim from Big Valley Grace, followed by the pledge of allegiance by Rebecca, if she is here today. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to be here with you today. Uh as the year starts, I'd like to just say this. There was another start that we find in scripture and it was when King Solomon took over reign. The one thing he asked for was wisdom. Wisdom to be able to discern the difference between right and wrong and to administer the people in his role justly. So tonight, I'd like to pray that over you, each one of you, as you lead faithfully, as you lead with integrity, as you lead with great character, that you would lead with incredible wisdom and discernment to act justly and to make decisions that are right and good. So Lord, we ask that exact thing today. We ask that you would be with the leaders of our city. We thank you for the city that we get to live in. We thank you for the leaders that lead so faithfully. We thank you for the time they spend, the sacrifice that comes to their family. Oftentimes, the fishbowl that they have to live in. And Lord, we thank you for the way that they do it so well. Not flawlessly, but they do it with integrity and they do it with care and they do it to the benefit of the people. As we start a new year with new agendas and new things, a new um a new course that's ahead, Lord, I'm going to ask that you would give wisdom and discernment to each person, each one of our council members, each one of our administrators, each one of our heads of departments and then on down the list as they do the work that they do so faithfully. Would you give them discernment? Would you give them wisdom? Would you help them to know always the difference between right and wrong and that which will benefit the people and the families of the city. Give them strength and courage to make those decisions that are difficult and hard even when it doesn't seem like it'd be in their own best interest but would be in the interest of this city and of the people of this city. So bless them Lord. They're going to need your wisdom to carry out the duties that you've given them. And so we thank you for

this. We thank you for their service. We thank you for our city. We thank you that you are a God on high that looks at all people. In your name we pray. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. Today we do have a special presentation and this is recognizing our outgoing planning commissioner David Johnson. Are you here sir? You ready for us? Okay. Councils. David, I really do want to say I do appreciate all your work that you have done for the city of Siri. With your help and your input, you have provided a a lot of progress for our city planning commission is a very important part of the city of Sirius ongoing development and progress. So David, on behalf of the city council, your dedicated eight years of public service as planning commissioner with sincere gratitude presented this day on the 12th of January, 2026. Congratulations.

Number one, thank you guys so much. um to be able to do this for eight years and watch the progress and the growth which typically we don't like to see growth in the process but growth in process is good you know we we change um sounds stupid but I see two gentlemen sitting in this room in uniforms years ago I met them as young officers one's a chief chief, one's lieutenant. Progress is good. You know, things change. Um, and I've talked at the meetings before. You know, growth is coming and, you know, you don't have to like it, but man, we got to be prepared for it. But I've been blessed to be able to serve with this city for eight years. Uh, Mayor Vieira appointed me. Mayor uh Lopez, you know, has been here at the end um to serve with Bob, Lori, Gary, Cooper, you know, a number of uh people that are here. Um just thank you so much. I appreciate it so much. Last

Citizens Communications. While the city council welcomes and encourages participation in city council meetings, adopt the rules allow no more than 5 minutes. Resolution 2007106 for expression of non-aggenda items. Matters under the jurisdiction of the city council and not on the posted agenda may be addressed by the general public. However, California law prohibits city council from taking any action on any matter which is not on the posted agenda unless it is determined to be an emergency by the city council. Citizens are entitled to address city council on any agenda item subject to the five-minute provision. Anyone wishing to address city council must adhere to the rules of decorum. The rules of decorum are posted outside the chamber doors. And we will start off with any representatives if there's anybody here. Uh, good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council, leaders of our community, and citizens present from our community. Welcome. Happy New Year's. My name is Pete Sego. I'm the commander of the American Legion, Post491. Today I would like to present a certificate of appreciation from the American Legions. This certif certification of appreciation is greatly gratefully presented to Joby Chavez from the city of Series. and recognition and secure appreciations of outstanding service and assistance and which contributes to the achievements of the American Legions program and activities dedicated to God and country for your continuous support

of the American Legions and all our veterans. Department of California series post 491 signs Steve Whitney agitant Pete Samuel commander Joey would you like to come forward Thank you. Thank you very much. Is there anybody on Zoom with their hands raised?

There are no hands raised on Zoom and there were no emails received. And before we move on, if there's anybody in the chambers that would like to speak, now is the time. Seeing none. You said there was no emails. Okay. Thank you very much. Citiz communication is now closed. Is there any conflict of interest from the council members? Seeing none. We'll move on to appointments to board commissions. We'll start with a with the first item. Select an interview format for upcoming planning commission interviews. City clerk Fallon, this one's yours.

Thank you. Uh this is a routine item that comes before the council. um the first meeting of every year where we um present you with the mayor's recommendations for appointments to boards, commissions, and committees. Item B, I'm sorry. We are on We're doing both, right?

Okay. Going back to the planning commission interviews that are going to be taking place next week. I got a little ahead of myself. Uh we recently concluded uh or closed the recruitment for a planning commission vacancy. um it ended December 18th. We have two applications and so this is a routine item as well um where council just needs to determine if they want to do an open meeting interview format or if they want to do the subcommittee interview. So I will turn this over to the council to discuss and make a motion.

Thank you very much. We'll go ahead and start with the public. Is there any members of the public that would like to make a comment on this item? Seeing none, anybody online? There are no hands raised and no emails received. Okay, I'll bring this back to the council. Vice Mayor,

thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, I would make a recommendation that we do a subcommittee. Um, I feel like the last two times we had individuals who were able to, you know, watch the the process on Zoom while the other one was interviewing and then we had one where people showed up but didn't feel the need to speak because they didn't have to. So, I feel like at least in that one-on-one uh where it's a committee with two council members, there's a little bit of conversation and you get to know them a little bit. you get to hear some of their answers because it's not uh as stressful for them to speak. That would be my recommendation. Council member Terrell,

my recommendation is to keep the the format the same that we've done it the last two times so we can allow the public to be present during these uh interviews. Um, and also I just want to make sure that if we do go that route and we give an option for somebody to attend on Zoom, um, that that's considered or we just have it where they have to. They're required to attend in person. Thank you very much, Councilwoman Rosland.

Thank you. Um, I'm with Otto on this. I think it's important for us, especially since you want an endorsement of the other council members, for us to be part of at least be able to hear, not necessarily even um answer questions back and forth or engage, which I do like about the closed session when you're one-on-one, you're able to engage in those conversations. Um but I think we need to be transparent to the public and the community. And I think that it still needs to be open access to everybody. And um I think that's essential. And so I would like to keep it like we have been as well. Mr. Casey.

Yes. I'd like to also keep it that way. And but I I would add that it's okay to be on Zoom because just like last time a person made plans already, you know, months months in advance not to be here. And so it it would be okay with me uh to to have it the way we had it, but also but not to penalize someone because they can't be here. Thank you.

Okay. Looking for a motion. I'll make a motion uh for item number B, selecting interview format for upcoming planning commission interviews to have the interviews held in person. I'll second that. Or at least sorry, to have the interviews held publicly in person at a council meeting. I'm happy to second that. Roll call, please. Council member Casey, yes. Council member Vieiraa, yes. Council member Otto, yes. Vice Mayor Martinez, no. Mayor Lopez, no.

Motion carries 32. Moving on to item number C.

Yes, you introduced the confirmation of the appointments. Go ahead.

Okay. Thank you once again. Um, this is another uh routine item that comes before the council, the first meeting of each year uh with the mayor's recommendations for the 2026 appointments to boards, commissions, and committees. Um, so at this point, I will turn it over to the council. I would like to point out one uh typo on attachment B. Um, the column does say 2025 recommendations. That is should in fact say 2025 appointments. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. So, we'll open this up to the public first. Is there any members of the public that would like to make a comment on the appointments? Seeing none, anybody online?

There are no hands raised and no emails received.

Okay. So, I'll go ahead and go back to the council. Council members, if there's any input on committees, whether you can attend or if anybody has any other recommendations, now is the time. Council member Otero, go ahead. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, mayor, for uh making these suggestions here for the 2026 committees. My I just want to make sure that the comm the selection is fair and that everyone gets an opportunity to speak as to which ones they're interested in. I think the public deserves a fair representation on every committee and sometimes there might be other council members that either have experience pertaining to one committee or maybe they want to continue serving on another. Um, so I just want to share that that is important as we move forward and determine the selections for the 2026 committee.

Thank you very much. Is there any additional comments from the council? Mr. Casey, go ahead, sir.

Yes, Mr. Mayor. Uh, I, you know, I'm proud to be on the council and I'm okay with these committees that you've chosen me to be on, but I just think somehow maybe in 2027, uh, you could talk to the council members about the committees and, you know, maybe say, uh, would you like to be the just like council person uh Darl M mentioned it it's a little maybe maybe some input from the council members I I accept the ones that you've chosen me to be on and I'm proud to represent the city of series thank you

thank you very much Mr. Casey, I think the only time that I'm able to speak to everybody at the same time without violating the Browns Act is here on on the dis and um as as far as uh the committee appointments, uh that is one of my my duties as the mayor to make the recommendations. And this is an opportunity for us to delegate whether or not you can be on it. I understand that people have um full-time jobs and sometimes you guys are not available certain hours. So, I think this is the right time to to make note. Um but Mr. Casey, I'll I'll duly note that. Thank you very much. Is there anybody else? Okay. And if there's if there is no changes, I'm looking for a motion.

Make a motion to approve the 2026 mayor appointments to boards, commissions, and committees. I'll second that. We get a roll call, please. Council member Casey. Yes. Council member Vieiraa. Yes. Council member Otto. Yes. Vice Mayor Martinez. Hi. Mayor Lopez. Yes. Motion carries. 50.

Thank you very much everyone. And uh just so all the council members know just like last time, city clerk, you will be contacting all the council members on times and all those those great things, right? We'll notify the committees on as to who will be serving and we'll include um those council members on that email so those committees can then reach out to the council member letting them know days times of meetings.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Moving on to consent calendar. All matters listed on the consent calendar consider routine in nature. It'll be acted by a single motion unless otherwise requested by an individual council member or public for specific consideration special consideration. Otherwise, the recommendations of staffs will be acted and acted upon by a roll call vote. Is there anyone in the council that We'll start off with. Is there anybody in the public that would like to pull an item? Anybody online? Anybody in the council that would like to pull an item? Seeing none, bring this item back for a motion. Make a motion to approve the consent calendar. I'm happy to second it. Get a roll call, please. Council member Casey, yes. Council member Vieiraa,

yes. Council member Otto, yes. Vice Mayor Martinez, hi. Mayor Lopez, yes. Motion carries 5-0.

Okay, thank you very much. We'll move on to council member referrals. Is there any council members that have any referrals for today? Mr. Casey, I Casey, could you push that button one more time to see if it's actually working? We'll dy dy know. Hold it down. Julie note that uh to the tech. Oh, no actually. So the top button, Mr. Casey, just making sure. Okay, Mr. Casey. Go ahead, sir. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to make a referral about the P planning commission guidelines that's in our municipal code. Maybe it needs to it needs to be reviewed. It has in there um it's made up with a a student since I've been on the council that we've never had a student on there. So part of the confusion sometime in government is we we have rules and then we don't follow them. We have instructions and we don't follow them. So, I I would just like staff to review the uh the makeup of the council, the planning commission rather. Also in there it it mentions that uh if a commissioner misses two meetings in a row uh they're automatically expelled except with the approval of the absence tees by the president and the other council commission members. So, we've had a particular council person uh missed two meetings in a row twice and the absentee was approved by staff.

So, just re that's the way it's going to be. It should be rewarded. So, that's a referral. It really goes back to staff also. Uh I've added this. I mean, I spoke about this before. Uh we really need to have hard instructions to our police chief, our commander of code enforcement to really work on this uh sales tax issue of vendors. When we had the Christmas parade at the park, we had all these vendors there and uh I took the advantage of purchasing some food. It was good food. There's no question about that. A computergenerated invoice. Uh no sales tax. So maybe maybe it's a Maybe that also needs to be cleaned up in our ordinances for the application of food vendors. But those that's two referrals. U that's it. Thanks. Thank you very much, Mr. Casey. Does anybody else have a referral? Seeing none. Moving on to reports. The only report I have is I hope everybody had a happy New Year's and very well spent Christmas with your family. I heard that the parade went very well and Christmas tree lane was also highly attended. And I just wanted to say thank you very much for the community members who participated in this and everybody participated in the parade and especially all the staff as well who put it all together and were involved in it. I also just have a a follow-up question to the city manager in regards to SASSA. We had a

conversation about that and I just want to see if you can update the community and the council on if there's any up andcoming meetings that are happening and anything else that you would like to mention. So, as the council's aware, uh there is a SASA meeting this Thursday. We're going to start talking about strategic planning. uh that'll be coming back, you know, probably a couple months for them to actually to finalize it or two or three, but we're going to start the initial talks uh on that and uh what changes need to be done. And so that will be starting at I believe 8:00 Thursday and going till 2:00 in the afternoon.

Okay. And if there's a possibility, depending on the time frame, if you can bring back an update to the city council, as long as there's a good information there for us to digest, I'm sure they will. And I I do recommend anybody who's interested in participating in SASA on Thursday to show up. I think that is very important that we do. Other than that, I have no additional reports and I know that the all the buttons were pressed. I'm just going to start from left to right. My apologies. Uh, Vice Mayor,

thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to thank Joey and his entire staff, the the department for the Christmas tree parade, for the entire event here. I know council members and her husband were here uh participating, council member VR and myself were also back here. Uh, I also want to thank Streets for the setup, for everything they had to deal with, code enforcement, the police department being out there, uh, Hudson for giving me a ride around in the SWAT truck as Santa Claus. Uh, and then also I wanted to thank Jessica. She did a fantastic job redeveloping the route, getting more participation. Uh, since I've become a a council member, this has continued to grow every year and I'm truly grateful for how much work goes into it. So, thank you guys all.

Thank you very much. Uh, Councilwoman,

thank you, Mayor. Um, just to add to that, I did see Modesto Fire out during the holidays with the fire truck and playing music, and that was a kind of a nice thing to see in series. and I think maybe council member Vieier might have seen the same thing. So, I appreciate that. Um, additionally, there is a survey out on the website right now and I do encourage everyone to participate in that um just so the city can better understand how you want your tax dollars spent. Um, also recently I did get in contact with the city manager. Um I noticed on the website the there's several financial documents under the um financial page that are not there. Uh he's going to work with city staff to get those documents uploaded. So I do hope to see those uploaded promptly. I think that's really important when it comes to transparency and information that gets out to the public. Um, I also just want to encourage my colleagues to reconsider bringing the fin forensic financial audit forward uh sooner rather than later just to ensure there is accountability when it comes to these types of items. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilwoman Vier.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I know everyone's touched on Christmas. Um, I'm out usually out at Christmas tree lane almost every single day. I want to thank everyone. I enjoyed the new route, Joey. I thought it was helpful to have it less congested. We were able to have a lot more people out there this year and it seemed to flow a little better. Um I do like the new route. I do like to see the additional people that were out. Um and I hear fire and I know um Chief is here. Um I heard the older fire truck is being remodeled and hopefully they'll be able to bring it out next year. I'm just letting you know, putting that into the world here. um that I heard that hopefully next year you'll be able to also have a uniform and Santa may be visiting that older fire truck from what I'm hearing is currently being updated. So, um hoping that he does make his route in two series next year as that gets finalized. But, um I heard he was in working on it. So, I appreciate your guys's communication with us about, you know, what you guys are doing and being out there with the community. And we've had a couple businesses open, so I'm really happy to see. I know we've had some that closed as well, which is a little sad, but we did have the Sargon 2 um Vietnamese Fusion on Whitmore open as well as Lawsome Grooming on Service and Mitchell. So, I was able to visit both of them, talk to both of the owners, and I'm very happy to have them here and being hopefully successful here in series. Um, this upcoming week, we do have the EDAC, which is the economic development action committee. Um, it'll be myself and I believe Julian that will be attending. They're going to be doing a comprehensive economic development strategy. Um and they're going to be looking at expanding investment ready sites and infrastructure streng strengthening um our economic base which I think and and having working on ways to diverse the economic base as well. um as well as building and working on inclusive workforce and small business systems and looking at growth and local collaborations with the county and a presentation on Stannis 2030 this 30 Thursday 9:00 a.m. here at the community

center will be the garden club. So if you're interested please stop by. Um, now the SHA, which is the Stansel's homeless meeting, is actually cancelled this week, but that's because this month is our annual point in time count, which is January 29th, and they are still looking for volunteers. The deadline is the 18th. Training is provided, so if you want to come out, get engaged, and find out what's going on with our homeless situation. Um, anywhere in the county, please sign up and volunteer. Um, there's more information online. Um, it looks like the city manager had mentioned about the animal shelter. I know that we got a lot of emails on it and I appreciate the update and I look forward to hearing additional um information as it comes forward. I was part of the initial conversations about how to update the strategic plan and different ways that we can possibly improve. I work in the department of agriculture. So I work in the vet with vet techs. I work with veterinarians. I see what it how long it takes to spay and neuter animals because we do it at MJC. So I'm interested in seeing how this plays out. Um because I definitely think that we should be at least spraying and neutering as many if not more here in the county shelter as we're doing at the college with college students under the supervision of a veterinarian. Um and since our city manager is actually part of that those meetings, I look forward to having updates. And then lastly on here, I didn't know if we can get an update on Lazy Wheels as well as Tuscanyany Village cuz I saw the garage doors were closed again in Tuscanany Village, which means they're supposed to be open, I thought, and the windows open. So, when stuff changes, um, it kind of alerts me a little bit that there's something going on in there. And I saw more gates were missing again. I think we're down to like four gates left. And so, I just wanted to see if some point I can get an update of what's going on out in those two locations. Thank you. I can give you an update now if you'd like.

So, um I was gone part of last week, but I understand there was a fire at Lazy Wheels. Uh no one was injured in that fire. I think there was some speculation that there might have been somebody in there, but there wasn't. Um the city is in the transition between it being a trailer park with the state and the owner taking it back over. Uh but it's still private property. it's posted as long as the signs are still up. Um, so anyone found on that property, the owner's given us permission to arrest them for trespassing. So, um, if they are found, we will we will arrest them there. Now, at Tesin Village, um, we are continuing to have people trespass uh on that property. It's continuous. Um, I've given an order to the officers. anyone found on that property uh it was just marked again by code enforcement uh will be arrested especially after the incident that they dumped the oil uh in the drain. So um I'm also looking at a way and I I've talked to city manager this might be a ways out but I would like to place a lean on that property every time we go out there for our uh uh our staff because it takes up a lot of our time. we have to go search every house and that takes a long time. Um, and it's time that we don't have. So, I'm been talking to the city manager to see what we can do for that.

Thank you. I appreciate the update immediately. Thank you for the update, Chief. Council member Casey, sir, go ahead.

Thank you. I would like to add that the the Christmas festival, the parade, all the lights at the city that was done very well. The staff that worked on it was great. Uh this I add something else came up this weekend. Uh on Friday, uh a vendor set up uh a pretty good size food display dispensary with propane tanks out in the open. Uh they were there Friday. I was contacted by several people asking me to contact code enforcement. Well, um it's not I I contacted via a text to our city manager and a picture of the activity. Uh and it continued on Friday and it continued on Saturday and it was gone on Sunday. Uh it didn't seem necessary to contact someone because it's it was so obvious. But and maybe the code enforcement took care of it or maybe they just didn't work on Sunday. things like that uh that were happening on Mitchell Road. Uh we don't need to have them happening in the city center of our city. Uh and just to tag on to what council person Serena mentioned, I think it's important that we do this forensics audit. Maybe not go back 10 years. Let's just go back the last five years. I think it's important to find out where we are really financially and uh because as we all know last couple years we've dug into the reserves and before that we used ARPA money. So thank you.

Thank you Mr. Casey. I know council member said she had a followup. Yeah, just Yeah, sorry. Just really quick. Um, for the city manager, would you mind giving the council and the public an update on the old Kmart property, please? So, the old Kmart property right now, um, Julian's been able to contact the property owner and they're working with him to clean up the old Kmart property and because of the rain, it was postponed a little bit, but they're in the process of doing that now, I believe. And then keep in mind the OKR property is actually five different parcels and so talking to the individual people and uh trying to get them coordinated is a little bit tougher job. Uh right now the business owner that is trying to come in uh it's my understanding they're having some financial um hardships and so they've put their building I think on hold and uh once they come out of that hardship then they'll they'll resume trying to get in uh install the storage facility in that area. That's where we're at right now on that.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Let's go ahead and I know city city manager you were already talking so do you have any additional updates or comments?

Just uh continuing with what uh Chief Johnson was saying about Lazy Wheels real quick. So I contacted Lazy Wheels after the fire to see if it was now our city responsibility and it was no longer a mobile home park. HCD being HCD uh informed me that uh we had to change the zoning uh of the property and I said there'd be no problem. That was done in 2018. It's now highway commercial. So I sent them a map. U then they said, "Well, we have to have some proof." So I sent them a resolution. So they're good with that. Then they sent me another email back saying that the property owner has to get in contact with HCD and they have to come out and check and make sure all the utilities have been turned off. They inspect the the site and then they'll send him a letter saying that there is no longer a mobile home park. So until all that is done, it's still considered a mobile home park. Uh code enforcement is well aware of this as well as the police department and uh our economic development. They're contacting the owner of the mobile home park to get him to contact HCD because it all is now in his court to get this done and he can actually save money if he goes in there and starts turning out the turn off the utilities, get HCD out there so we can bulldo everything down and get it cleaned up.

Thank you very much, city manager. We'll start off with the left side as far as our department heads are concerned. Any additional comments or seeing none on the right? Seeing none, city attorney. Good evening, mayor. Nothing to report tonight. Thank you very much. I appreciate everybody. We will now adjourn. It's our uh new finance director's first meeting with us. So, I just want to say welcome to the city of Series. Congratulations. Finance director. You want to make a comment? at least some good juju for the year. Nothing to report but thank you so much for the big welcome.

Thank you very much. We'll now adjourn this meeting and go to a close session for conference with legal counsel for nation of litigation California government code 549569 or one case in addition to a conference with legal council for existing litigation. This is 5495.9. Name of the case is Ashley Wo versus the city of series and Santa Claus County Superior Court. Case number CV25009856. Is there anyone in the public that would like to make a comment on this item? Thank you very much. And after close session, I will return to report out. Thank you very much everybody and God bless.

Welcome back everybody. Direction has been given. Thank you.