Area Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, everyone. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Lakeport City Council this Tuesday, March 3rd. We are going to start with a roll call. Yes. Council member Costa here, Council Member Parlet here, Council Member Price here, Promatina here, and Mayor Disney here. Okay. Well, first off, we are going to start with the pledge of allegiance. Our city manager, Mackenzie Anderson, is going to lead us. City manager. Sorry. City attorney. That was the one thing I had to get right. You got promoted or demoted.

All right. Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, McKenzie. I'll just say McKenzie now for now. Okay, so uh now we are on to the urgency items. Do we have anything tonight, Kelly? Uh we don't have any urgency items, but we

No, no urgency items, but just one change. The um the presentation um of the uh the fire department's uh K9 program will be moved to 317. Um I believe that uh the handler is uh teaching a class tonight. I said, "Well, that doesn't have anything to do with the dog. Why can't the dog still be here?" So, but no, we'll we'll we'll do that on the 17th. Got it. So, that is item C. We will move to the 317 meeting. Okay, with that, uh, we'll move on to acceptance of the agenda. Mr. Mail, m make a motion to accept the agenda as posted. Second. Got a motion in a second. All in favor?

I.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Next, we move on to the consent agenda. The following consent agenda items are expected to be routine and non-controversial. They'll be acted upon by the council at one time without any discussion. Any council member may request that an item be removed from consent for discussion following the regular agenda or under the regular agenda. First off, uh item A is an ordinance wave reading except by title of any ordinances under consideration at this meeting for either introduction or passage per government code section 36934. Item B, approve the minutes of the city council regular meeting of February 17, 2026. Item C, approve application 2026-011 with staff recommendations for the 2026 missing and murdered indigenous people's day event. Item D, review and file the second quarter 2526 financial update. Item E, adopt the resolution of the city council of the city of Lakeport approving application for the 2025 state CDBG funding and authorized execution of related documents. Item F, approve a resolution rescending resolution 3021 from 2026 approving a 12% increase to the police officer traininey classification and revising the master salary schedule in conformance with the California code of regulations title 2 section 570.5. And last up on consent item G, approve amendment number two to the agreement for legal services with Koulintano Highmith and Watley PC designating McKenzie D. Anderson as city attorney and David J. Ruddman as assistant city attorney and direct the city clerk to administer the oath of office to McKenzie Anderson. Would any council members like to pull

an item off consent? Not seeing any. Is there anyone in the room that wants to speak on any of our consent agenda items? Nobody in the room jumping up. Victor, anybody online? No hands raised on Zoom. Okay, Mr. Mayor, if there's nothing further, I'd move for approval of the consent agenda. Second. Got a motion in a second. All in favor? I.

Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. Next section of the agenda here is public input. So, anybody in the room can come up or online, you can raise your hand to the uh microphone here if you're in person and speak for a couple minutes. Uh if it's something that is in the city council's perview, come on up. See if there's uh anything on your mind. Nobody in the room. Victor, anybody online? Uh no hands on Zoom.

Okay, so that'll be it. will close public input for this meeting. Next up is proclamation uh proclamation designating March 2026 as National Nutrition Month. We have a rep in here for that. I don't think so.

Okay, I'll still read out the proclamation. uh proclamation designating the month of March 2026 as nutrition month in the city of Lakeport. Whereas food is the substance by which life is sustained. And whereas the type, quality, and amount of food that individuals consume each day plays a vital role in their overall health and physical fitness. And whereas better nutrition is related to improved infant, child and maternal health, stronger immune system, safer pregnancy and childirth, lower risk non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and cardiovas vascular disease and longevity. And whereas there is a need for continuing nutrition education in a communitywide effort to enhance healthy eating practices. And whereas the theme for National Nutrition Month 2026 is discover the power of nutrition. The theme focuses on the ability of nutrition to help improve uh help people and communities flourish by embracing balanced culturally diverse and accessible nutrition. We empower individuals and families across our state to thrive at every stage of life. Now therefore be it proclaimed that the city council of the city of Lakeport does hereby designate March 2026 as National Nutrition Month in the city of Lakeport encourages all citizens to join the campaign in an effort to achieve optimum health benefits from the transformative power of food and nutrition. Okay. Does that mean don't eat donuts in March? No donuts. No.

Yeah, we're not. Don't get don't get crazy with it. Not going that far. Uh, okay. We will move uh we're on item C, which is pushed to the next meeting. So, on to item D, the public official appointment. Kelly, come on down. All right. We will administer the oath of office to our new city attorney, newly appointed. So if you raise your right hand, I Mackenzie Anderson do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States

and the Constitution of the State of California the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic. against all enemies, foreign and domestic. that I will bear true faith and allegiance that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California and the Constitution of the State of California that I take this obligation freely that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion or purpose of evasion and that I will well and faithfully discharge and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to the duties upon which I am about to enter.

Was that similar to your wedding vows?

I mean, have you ever read state of constitution? Congratulations, Mackenzie. Thank you very much. It's really an honor to serve you all and work with you all. Um, my firm is very grateful for the continued opportunity to represent you. Um, and now I can fill out my form 700. Thank you very much. Careful. Okay. Well, we're going to move on to the first item of council business, which is from our city manager, letter of supports for the Lakeport Fire Protection District. I see we also have board president and chief in the room.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Honorable council members, uh the next couple items are kind of both related to um the um annual kind of community project asking through both the Senate and the uh congressional offices. Um, I do believe that Chief Wrights uh will he'll be able to provide some more details on it. And I think he is going to um uh request a couple changes um in both the ask and then also um looking at um uh a letter to uh Congressman Thompson's office as well for their fiscal year community project. But I'll let him speak uh to a couple of those. Um, this mainly uh is in regards to exploring the purchase of a new property uh directly across from the existing fire station with the intent of securing the site uh for a future replacement fire station. And I believe uh Chief Wrights will also come up here and talk about um potentially extending the ask to include um an additional project for a new fire engine as well. Uh to help fund the land acquisition, the district plans to pursue 1.8 8 million in federal community project funding uh through the Senate appropriations process with both senators Padilla and Senator Schiff's office. Uh the fire district has asked the city to provide letters of support as part of their application package. Um I believe um that the uh the board of supervisors also approved letters of support today during their um regular meeting session on the same topic. Uh these types of letters are commonly requested uh to demonstrate local and regional support for the project uh being submitted through the federal appropriation process. Uh the item before council tonight simply authorizes the mayor to sign those letters of support. There is no financial commitments uh from the city associated with these letters. Um addition to the two Senate letters. Um as I noted, Chief Writes is uh here to to talk a little bit about extending that request to the congressional uh side of things. uh uh suggesting a letter to Congressman Thompson's office as well. Um so with that, I think it's probably appropriate to um ask the chief to come up and he can add any additional items um um in

regards to the subject. Great. Chief, would you like to come up?

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'd like to apologize to Chief Stoy. Uh at the last meeting, we all walked out when you were getting ready to give your statistics report. Um, that was not my intention. It just worked out that way. So, my apologies. Uh, I'll make sure I watch that uh on the replay. So, thank you very much. Um, nope.

Mayor and Council, thank you. Uh, a number of things. It's been a very interesting day, including um our adviser calling us at uh 20 minutes before I was supposed to appear before the board of supervisors meeting and telling me that there was a cha there there's a challenge to our uh request and that is we're requesting $1.8 8 million uh for property purchase for new uh new fire station, which I believe most of council is well aware uh our outdated fire station is somewhere between almost 100 years old in its oldest portion and over 60 years old in its newest portion. Um it's not uh standing up well and uh the city can attest to that. Uh you are our lease holder. Uh I believe we owe you about $14 in back payments right now. So, um

I was going to include that in the letter, but

we probably should pay that up before you submit the letter, right? Um but, uh that being said, the there's some question as to whether these requests will fund property acquisition. We are hearing both yes, they will and no, they won't. And to the point that the congressman's office says, "Yep, throw it in. We're going to take a stab at it." So, we're asking for the letter of support specifically for the property purchase uh at $1.8 million. Um we are in negotiations with the Guerrero Brothers property uh currently and it is somewhat dependent on funding obviously. Uh the second request uh to that is because of the question of funding vacant property or property purchases for future building acquisition or building projects. We were asked to submit a second project and in doing so I had about 5 minutes um to make that determination what that would be and make one phone call to get a ballpark figure what we were looking at. So, we are adding a request for a type one engine uh to replace to extend to our fleet uh to replace our oldest engine uh so we would continue the circulation uh because our oldest oldest engine is actually out of service life. It's over 30 years old. So, want to make sure everybody's aware of how this works. But, um we are asking for a $1.4 $4 million request of a unequipped engine and or a $1.8 million request for an equipped engine. And the difference is everything that goes on that engine, all the hose, the compartments, everything to be able to equip it. Um,

it's going to be a stretch at 400,000, but we're hopeful. So, that is our request. We would like the letter, we would like a third letter to Congressman Thompson's office and it has been requested that the it be amended that all three letters be amended to CC the other electeds offices if we could to make sure that they're aware that we've put in those requests with the other offices as well and I'll take any questions you have of me. Great. Any questions from council? No, just you know way to pivot. you know, that's kudos to you for coming up with plan B so quickly.

I don't know of any fire department that has any problem finding ways to spend money. Um, especially fire departments today that are so strapped.

And when you look at the age of our fleet, um, we've been very creative in the last three and a half years. We've been able to uh fund uh the remounts of ambulances rather than paying for brand new ambulances. So, that saved us approximately 25% on each unit. Uh, looking at other alternatives, we did get a an $850 request from Senator Maguire's office to refurbish our ladder truck. Purchasing that truck as a new replacement today is going to be about $2.1 million. Build time on those trucks is estimated to be four years. The waiting list just on our refurb is over two years because everybody else in the country has figured out it's cheaper to refurbish a truck than it is to buy new. Um there are several investigations both state uh state and federal. uh state of California is not conducting one that I'm aware of, but I believe the state of Texas is and several other states as well as the feds are reviewing the cost of fire apparatus right now because it's uh we've been told you know figure on about 8% a year uh which is already exceeding the rate of inflation. the what we have been seeing for new apparatus is actually somewhere in about 12% plus a year and then we're seeing these really extended wait times for uh our build time. Um we've been told today as of today if we order a certain brand of firetruck build time is 1,000 build days from the time the order is received. Not they don't count the time that it takes to build the bid. So, um, we're still 2 and a half, three year, well, 3 years plus out on getting it brand new, uh, type one, even if we get the funding

today.

I can certainly attest to the, you know, the kind of fluidity that you have to have in this this process. I mean, um, you know, working with Congressman Thompson's office in the past, I mean, there's a lot of, you know, this is kind of the first stage. He's only allowed to recommend 15 projects, you know, through his district. So there's a whole different waiting aspect and and you know you kind of put it in and then you know they do a great job of figuring out uh you know the best programs and routes for it to stick. And so it is it is best to have a couple different kind of avenues sort of going at the same time so that as things change you know in that in that discussion you've got things to go in there and and you know you you ask for the high number and then you you hope that just something sort of gets in. So, I mean there's there's a lot of steps in this process. So,

and and projects that aren't necessarily funded may be referred to other agencies for assistance. So, there it you know, maybe it's a lowinterest loan through HUD uh with maybe some down payment money, you know, for the property if there there's there's opportunities there. the district is I can't speak for my predecessors, but I can say, you know, it's taken us three and a half years to get to this point to where um the district is able to respond to these earmark requests and these and and get starting to get aggressive with grant requests. So hopefully this is just the first in a line of me standing up here and requesting these types of letters. But I do appreciate council's support. I appreciate city manager Ingram's support. We've had many, many conversations over what's going on. And then um I have to blame Paul Harris uh for doing his walkabout around town who pointed the Guerrero brothers into our uh direction for uh interest in their property. So thank you so much for all

of course. Thank you, Chief.

No. Any further questions from council? If not, we will open it up to the public. Anybody in the room have a question or comment on this item? Come on up. Ken Leavine, 55th Street, the neighbor to the property that the fire department was looking at. Um I've got tenant that is uh has heard that there's something taking place and I was curious is as to a time frame um if there is any or if it has any thought of absorbing um the other two parcels in that block. It would seem reasonable to absorb the whole thing. um the smaller parcel in that block has not been for sale for 10 years or 20 years and it remains that way right now which would incomp would cause that block to be incomplete. Um if the chief can uh answer to that that would be wonderful.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you Kent.

Chief would you like to come up? Um, yes, we were actually approached by the Guerrero brothers. Uh, and this I'm not disclosing anything that's not public information. Uh, understanding we are in negotiations for that property. Uh, however, we have not had any further discussion. Um, we haven't been approached by the other property owners. we have not uh taken it to the next level to consider those other properties. Um I would encourage uh I'm sorry Mr. Levine

Leavine uh and any other any other interested parties to uh contact me directly and uh talk about it and then possibly get in front of either the negotiations committee for the board which is director Brown and Director Gabe uh and we would have uh an or possibly the entire board uh for consideration. So I I wouldn't rule it out. I can tell you that there was some discussion as to well do we need an entire block? Do we what do we how do we do this? So there are there but there's always room for discussion. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. And chief, while you're here, what's the date and time of your board meetings? We are the second Tuesday of every month at 5:30. Okay. At the fire station. At the fire station. Perfect. Unless you're attending uh Mr. mayor, then you're going to change time and a date, a location that's more suitable. Perfect. One one other question he had was timeline. I'm sorry. Time. I know you don't know it, but one of his other questions was timeline.

Um, funding is an issue. Trying to uh trying to secure the funding and what that looks like. Obviously, first it would be property purchase and then secondarily it would be uh planning, demolition and moving into construction. The last set of numbers that we have that are, you know, the thumbnail uh or back of the napkin numbers when we attended the fire station design conference two years ago was to anticipate a 12 to$16 million fire station and to anticipate that those costs would be going up at up to 25% per year

and it would take a couple years to build. We have no the actual construction process. I mean once once funding is secured and planning is done um because there we're being told planning is going to take probably at least a year and fire stations are very specialized and then of course we have to come to the city and go through the permitting process. I can tell you that fire department uh permitting approval will be done before the city sees it. So um but uh we will have to have city approval and then uh actual physical construction will take approximately one year.

So is it fair to say that this is the hope right now? This is the focus right now. This particular property acquisition and securing funding for that but it isn't you know it still all remains to be seen if it comes together as a package.

It's not there's there is nothing right now that is a sure thing. This is our best opportunity and granted we have the Lakue property. Larraq property is not well situated um it to be our best option for a replacement station. The hopes, dreams, wishes uh for everybody involved is to try to keep the station downtown. and the idea of having to figure out a temporary fire station to demo the existing location plus we'd have to take do some property acquisition immediately adjacent to the fire station to um to get the station we are looking for and that we need for 50 years going into the future that you know this gives us our best option for that and you know we've we've we've looked at plan A plan plan C. We want to stay downtown. To be able to move directly across the street, have access to the the waterfront is hugely important now that we have our jet ski program. To have the space available to uh spread out a little bit to incorporate, you know, our Tuesday night trainings and to be able to have enough to be able to do all the things that fire departments are supposed to be able to do on a headquarters station. It would be really, really nice. So, Chief, do you have an idea of when you should hear back about the funding as to whether that uh was a yes or

um I I I trust most people have been at least somewhat paying attention to the dysfunction that's going on in DC and I think that's putting it lightly. the, you know, we we sat through what happened with Doge last year and what that could possibly look like and granted a lot of that funding has been restored through everybody suing everybody else and going through the court system. Best case scenario, we would hope to find out probably about September of this year. Um, we may we would have some heads up probably June Julyish uh as they work through the budget process, but October 1 is the start of the fiscal year for the feds. And so we would hope that we would have some answers about then. And then of course it's everybody negotiating, bargaining back and forth, closed doors, and then who knows what's going to happen with the president's office, you know, um, and his pen. It's just uh there there's a lot of challenges and with everything leading up to the midterms um it's it's anybody's guess right now. We would hope and then I will tell you if you paid attention to this last budget year we we didn't know until December for some of the funding and January actually and in fact some of the fire service funding stuff they just now funded 2024.

Yep. And we're looking at this is a 2027 what they call 2027 request. So it's, you know, I and it's like mating elephants in Washington. If you don't know that joke, I'll tell it to you later. I look forward to that. Thanks, Chief. We're still in the public comment portion on this. So, anybody else in the room want to come up and speak on this item? Oh, not seeing anybody jumping up. Anybody online, Victor? I'm not seeing any hands raised on Zoom.

Okay, we will bring it back to council for discussion or a motion. Well, if there's nothing further, I move to authorize the mayor to sign letters of support to the Lakeport Fire Protection District fiscal year 27 Senate appropriations earmark requests supporting land acquisition for should we put the shift land acquisition and or um a new engine for a future replacement of a fire station at 440 North Main street or a future replacement of a firet truck.

I believe there's also a request to add a letter to Congressman's Thompson's office if that's you want to add that in your motions. I also move that we tell me that add a letter for Congressman Thompson. Yeah. Yep. Second. Okay. I've got a motion in a second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? The motion carries. Good luck, chief. Thank you very much. We appreciate the support. Of course. Next up, we move on to uh number two here for the city manager, the fiscal year 2026 community project funding partnership. Kevin,

thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yes. Uh this item um is requesting council support to resubmit uh the South Lakeport Regional Water Resiliency and Fire Protection Project to Congressman Thompson for consideration under the fiscal year 2026 community project funding program, very similar to uh the fire district's request. Uh council may recall that we submitted the same project uh last year through the same program. However, due to the federal budget impass and the broader congressional budget debates, uh the 2025 uh fiscal year community uh funding process was ultimately cancelled. Um and so no projects were advanced from Congressman Thompson's office uh from last year's program. Uh we didn't receive uh notice uh that they would be redoing this program again this year until about a week and a half ago with a very short uh turnaround deadline of getting projects submitted to Congressman Thompson's office uh for March 6. So, as you'll note that there we didn't make really any changes uh to the previous request. We didn't make any updates to um you know the actual the we didn't take into any account any of the inflationary aspects in regards to the the project ask. I think it currently is sitting around $7 million. Um we don't anticipate that we would be funded for that whole portion. So, there really wasn't a need to to go and and change those numbers up um entirely. Um, so I think that the more important piece is to kind of, you know, keep it on the queue with the congressman's office. Uh, continue. Um, I think it's a lot stronger. You keeping this, uh, project, um, being something that's being advanced by both our city council and the county board of supervisors. The county board of supervisors took action today and made a recommendation, um, that this, uh, this project be advanced to Congressman Thompson um, in addition to four other projects um, uh, on their item. Um, so it does include 8,000 feet of municipal water line along South Main Street, um, from the existing city limit

boundaries all the way down through Sod Bay Road. This, uh, kind of matches up very closely with the, um, South Main Street road corridor project that has, um, after, you know, decades of, uh, making its way through the process, phase one of that project, uh, going roughly down to the junction with Highway 175 and slightly south is fully funded. Um the Lake County Public Works is um moving forward with a number of other requests to try and uh get additional allocations of money to complete the project um from that point uh further south along Soda Bay Road um kind of where the the transfer station is just short of um of Manning Creek uh there. So as as the fire uh chief noted, I mean there's a lot of unknowns um in this process and it's a very fluid uh piece. it is likely to to change through it. Um we are making no change in regards to our continued action um in regards to design of waterline uh that would potentially go in in conjunction with the portion of the project the road project that is funded and we are actively working um with the uh Lake County Public Works and special districts um on that that aspect uh you know to make sure that you know if we are going to get a water line in it just makes good government sense to get it in at the same time as the road rather than coming back day three or four years later and tearing up a really good road to get um needed public infrastructure in there. So, we continue to work very closely on that. Um realistically, even if federal funds were secured, uh they would likely not be available into after construction of that first phase of the corridor improvement. So, because of that timing, we'll continue exploring other funding sources to help uh construct this first stretch of the pipeline uh roughly, like I said, from the current city limits to just south of uh Highway 175 junction. Any federal funds that might be secured

uh through this process would likely um help extend the network of hydrants and water infrastructure uh further down the corridor as the county advances the remaining portion of that roadway project. Uh there's obviously a broader policy uh uh conversation related to annexation in this corridor which council's aware of and we're continuing to work through. Um regardless of how that uh conversation evolves, um the immediate focus of this infrastructure project is improving regional fire suppression and resiliency in that corridor. This area area currently lacks um any uh public water system and no fire hydrants. Um, outside of formal annexation, um, any extension of city water would be limited to fire suppression purposes only, uh, with domestic service tied to annexation if and when property owners pursue that option. Uh, with that, staff is recommending council adopt the resolution, uh, supporting submission of this project to Congressman Thompson's office and also noting that the the board took similar action today at its regular meeting as well.

Great. Thank you, Kevin. Any questions on this from council? Okay, we'll open it up to the public. Anybody in the room want to come up, supervisor? Thank you.

Yes. Good evening, council. Brad Rasmus and District 4 supervisor. Yes, we did approve uh this pro we did approve submitting this project earlier this afternoon along with four other ones plus the uh sign in the letter for the fire department as well. Um, I appreciate the city manager's comments. Uh, we are um continuing to work hard to try to secure more funding for that whole corridor. As you've been advised a couple weeks ago, we did get $10.5 million from the state CTC for the first phase, but we also just a couple weeks ago got confirmed that we got 850,000 from the federal uh funds from one of these previous submissions probably a couple years back now. So, they do take time, but um definitely in support of that project because we do need to um get the water and the fire hydrants all the way down to Manning Creek. So, thank you.

Thanks, Brad. Anybody else in the room want to come up and speak about this? Not seeing anybody. Victor, what about online? Uh I'm seeing no hands raised on Zoom. Okay, yeah, come on up.

Sorry about this. This particular project is one that was submitted last year and it did get some traction, but ultimately there was no funding. But our federal consultants also advised us today that some of these projects get identified and moved to other agencies where there is funding already sitting there and this is one that uh we think could get moved over to one of those sources. Awesome. Yeah, good news hopefully.

Okay, so we'll bring it to the council now for any discussion or a motion. Well, this goes back, I think, one of the early days when Stacy and I were here together back with Margaret and we've been talking about the loop line and now that the countyy's on board and the necessity, I mean, there's a bunch of propane fields and all that kind of stuff. And I was kind of um surprised to find out that a fire hydrant is like $25,000. But anyway, looking at the bids, um if projects are based on public safety and public benefit, I I I can't imagine this not being high on the list. and whatever we get out of it, if whether it gets moved to another program or not, I don't think anybody can look at this and and be honest with themselves and not think that this is a great project, especially since we're working with the county and the city together.

Well said. Um if nothing further, I'm prepared to make a motion. Um, I move to adopt um a resolution supporting submission of the South Lakeport Regional Water Resiliency and Fire Protection Project for consideration under the fiscal year 2026 Congressional Community Project Funding request process. Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? I.

Any opposed? Motion carries. hopefully with better results this time. Uh, next up we've got theou for a tobacco retail license. Yeah, you're stuck with me one more time, but not for long. We have we have members of public uh health here to also, you know, speak on this item. So, this item um is requesting council to approve a memorandum of understanding with Lake County Public Health uh to administer and enforce the city's tobacco retail license program uh that council adopted in December of 2024. Um, as council will recall, when this ordinance was adopted, there was discussion about partnering regionally with the county uh to implement the program rather than building a separate uh city enforcement structure. Uh, the proposed reflects that direction. Uh, under under the agreement, Lake County Public Health and Environmental Health will handle the day-to-day administration of the program, including license processing, inspections, uh, compliance monitoring, and responding to complaints. Um, importantly, a significant focus of the program has been education and outreach uh to retailers. Over the past year, public health staff have conducted visits to um retail establishments across the county, including in the city of Lakeport uh to explain the new requirements, answer questions, and help businesses understand how to comply uh with the ordinance before enforcement activities begin. Um, in fact, during the initial implementation period in 2025, public health staff uh conduct conducted site visits to retailers. part of that roll out um and and um you know helped them kind of you know kind of did mock inspections and kind of showed where where there were deficiencies and uh you know prior to to coming in uh with formal enforcement action. Uh county staff as I noted from public health um are here uh this evening and can provide more detail um on both the memorandum of understanding and then their ongoing

education efforts. Uh from the city's perspective, uh this partnership allows us to administer the program efficiently at the regional level. Um and the costs of administration are recovered uh through licensing fees rather than impacting the city's general fund. So approval tonight would allow the county to begin formal inspections and program implementation uh within the city of Lakeport uh bringing us into alignment with the broader countywide program. If your council decides to take um action in approving this this evening, it would still need to go in front of the board of supervisors uh for for their approval. Um but um at this point um I'm more than happy to turn it over to public health um if they've got any other aspects that they want to add.

Great. You guys want to come up? Anything? Okay. Oh,

Liberty Francis Lake County Public Health. um tobacco program coordinator. Um so I can speak on the education process. Um our team went to all of the retailers in Lake County that currently at that time had a state tobacco retail license and we gave them not only the state regulations, but we gave them a copy of the ordinance that was passed in each jurisdiction. um showing them that we are going to be a united front throughout the entire county and that um all rules will apply the same. Um we gave them tools to um better understand the flavor ban. Um make sure that all of their point of sale registers had stickers that identified that they have to be carted if they are under 21. Um and also um at the time there was an emergency order for um intoxicating hemp products. Um so we made sure that these things are um brought to their attention to make sure that they are current on the websites and where to get information to be a successful retailer in our community that sells tobacco. Um, at that time, like U. Mr. Ingram had said, we did what was considered a store observation. So, it was not to penalize anybody in any way, shape, or form, but it was mimicking the compliance checks that we're doing now. And um we let them know this is this is the areas that we have concerns about that they are not in compliance. And um even though our um tobacco retail license locally was not in an enforcement mode um they are still

required to follow state law and so a lot of our retailers were out of compliance at that time. Um so we'll continue education. Um and I'll let Craig take over about the local enforcement. Hi, Craig Weby, Lake County Environmental Health Director. Uh, yeah, I'm the bad guy. Enforcement. Nobody likes doing enforcement, but I got the job.

So, uh, this program went into effect January 1st, 2025 with the first 6 months being earmarked towards education. Um, we didn't want to come in heavy and fine people, uh, give them notices, violations. Uh, it was all about education on the front end. uh enforcement was to begin July 1st of 2025 and our office completed all uh uninorporated inspections from July 1st to December 1st or I'm sorry December 30th u and I'm happy to report that many facilities were in compliance however comma there were dozens of violations across multiple uh facilities uh again all in unincorporated What we're asking today is theou to continue to do this work uh that we're already starting and already uh implementing and moving forward with uh so that we can do this here in city of Lakeport. We are also bringing a similar one uh sameou with city of clear lake so that we can continue to do that work there as well. Um no formal enforcement has been conducted so far. While we are in the aail we are able to do enforcement, we are still working with our operators to make sure that they understand what these what this ordinance is and how to stay in compliance with it. And we've had outstanding results so far. Um we do have a few few there's always going to be a few that are going to challenge us but uh by and large most of the operators are you know they're trying to come into compliance. to trying to understand and they're doing what they need to do and working uh with corrected on-site uh violations that we can close out right then. So, it's a it's a progress.

Great. Thank you. Um was there anything else to add, Kevin, or should we open it up for questions from council? Okay. Any questions here from the council on theou? Okay. Well, then we will see if there's any questions from the public. Thanks you two. Anybody in the room here have a question on this item? Not seeing any. Victor, what about online? I'm not seeing any hands raised. Okay, then we will bring it back to council for discussion andor a motion.

So, I guess I do have some questions. Just um Sure. I'm wondering how it went, you know, like it I remember I don't have the ordinance I memorized, but it was fairly strict. Um and um it sounds like you did six months of training and some um businesses still failed. How did that go?

Um yes. So, uh, yes, we did six months of training up in front and we started inspections again only in an unincorporated, uh, because we do require thisou in order to do this work here in the city. Uh, same with city of Clear Lake. Uh, we want to respect the jurisdictional lines there. Um, there were violations. Um, it's not surprising. Education gets you so far, but once you have your first notice of violation, an actual inspection, um, that does tend to get people's attention. Um but no formal action was taken in terms of fines and penalties. Um it was an inspection that was done and they were given notice of violations so they are aware of what the violations were. Additionally, they were given copies of the inspection reports blank and filled out so they knew exactly what we're looking for and we went over each of those items with them during those inspections um so that they were better informed and they could make the choice and understand what exactly we were asking of them. So they had plenty of time to get it right without having to pay a fine.

That is correct. And then some were fined. None have been fined so far. Okay. We even though we have the ability to do enforcement at this point, we've still been very soft in working with the operators because there was some question. One of the number one violations came with flavored products. Um and in the ordinance it refers to them as presumed flavored. That's a very difficult thing to enforce.

Okay. Um, and the state has been very helpful to us in helping us identify flavor products, but at the same time there was a there was no singular point where you could identify products as flavored or not. Um, so we've been working with the state. They now have a list provided to us which is much very helpful. We've been using that to educate operators as well without issuing them fines but giving them this information again. So we've been working with them. Um, we are now at a stage where if we have people that are continuing violations, it's kind it's a knowing violation at this point.

Okay. That I just remember the ordinance being very um quick to find and not a lot of discretion, but I'm happy to hear that it sounds like you're using some discretion to make sure that the owners understand it. Yeah, we are using these first inspections. Okay.

Uh to operate discretion. What we have is a graduated series of enforcement. That's our standard operating procedure in environmental health. We use that across all programs, whether it's retail, food, or whether it's uh hazardous materials, Koopas. Um we start at the lowest level to gain compliance. And if I can get compliance by saying please and thank you, I'll do that. Um we don't go to fines and penalties unless we have to. And we do have that ability to do so with this ordinance. and we will be moving in that direction if we if we do find that we need it. But so far we're working with the operators to give them the opportunity to understand this ordinance better.

Excellent. Thank you. On that note, um, having been a tobacco retailer for over 55 years, um, I was very outspoken about it and I thought it was extremely ownorous and as indicated, um, you had zero people that passed on the initial flyby and after some of it, you're only at 87%, nine are fully compliant. Um, and then the things that, and you mentioned that you have, and I pointed this out originally, that the ABC, you know, you sell to a minor and the person that does it gets fined and the next time the store and the person gets fined, and then the third time they get fined. My biggest concern right out of the shoot was one strike and you were out. and and I look on your on your report, 78% were for uh zoomed flavored which was caused by our suppliers not knowing what was presumed because we got it from them and they said is this all legal and they they thought it was and then there was a change and then check ID posters which we have ID posters for you know and and food stamp and check we check uh for alcohol and you So that was uh 33% people failed that. I mean that's an instant correct it on on site. I'm sure when that happens

it's a very easy one.

And then price which is very dynamic um both because the prices change but also because things get moved and they're not in the right place. When I saw that one I said whoa dude. Um and in the stake act which I'm sure you're familiar with stop tobacco access to kids enforcement. It says in there that if they are presumed to be um under 21, you have to get a California ID. Your ordinance, the one that we all jumped in on, um said you must card every person, which I thought was ridiculous and I still do. So, um I I just wanted to know when you said you have a tiered system, that did not appear to be the case when we were introduced this. It was one strike, one violation, 30-day suspension. So, just to bring it into light, we would have all of the 46 inspected sites would be out of business for 30 days and be fined the the the $1,000 under the ordinance as written, but now you're saying you have latitude, but it depends on what the mood or whatever. I just I I'm not comfortable with that. And so what I'm asking the council is I am all about the county doing this. I am not and never been in favor of a one-sizefits-all. I would like to see if there's interest in re um visiting some of the most ownorous ones and say that these may be fined. this may constitute um they may be suspended because in the stake act and the p in the penal code neither one suspends until and even in the third violation it says may ours said will be suspended that I thought was over the top especially when 80 78% of these

violations are regarding signage and prices the object of this law was to stop kids 21 under 21 from buying tobacco. this seems like we're being for, you know, and and grocery store owners have thousands of things to do and worrying about signage on tobacco and and yet we put the sticker up, somebody cleans the window and they take it off and now $1,000 fine 30, you know, and I appreciate that, but I would feel more comfortable if we ourselves were able to say um and Kevin and I had a conversation that the fines and the suspension and so forth. The suspensions I don't even think should be on the table until someone has completely been belligerent and uh out of control. But I believe that we might want to entertain the idea that we have more. It should be commensurate with the crime. And if someone sells the 21, I mean under 21, fine. But some guy like you walks in, may I see your ID to sell you, you know, cigarettes? It's it's preposterous and it's counterproductive to service, especially regular customers. Um, and I I just think that I I would like to see us make our ordinance a little more friendly. I'm not particularly concerned if it matches oneizefits-all. I would wonder if anybody be because I don't want to run our tobacco people out of business. Um, whether they have, you know, they have the right, but maybe they won't, maybe they will, I don't know. And if they're problem, they need to go. I get that. But I would like to entertain the thought of possibly reopening and making some some minor changes um about maybe fined up to $1,000 instead of making it shall be and it sounds like they're using a little latitude here and I appreciate that but

I would like to feel like it's in the law uh or in the ordinance that we control that we can could deem that you know egregious for a fine for sign 78% of the violations. I don't even know how many of these would have been, you know, selling to a minor because nobody likes to do that. And actually almost no kids buy the cigarettes, they buy the other things which we don't even sell and if someone doesn't sell it, they shouldn't it shouldn't be a big deal and because cigarette is not a big deal. So anyway, I would like to see if anybody on the council would be willing to look at it one more time and maybe soften the blow. I'm all about theou. I'm I'm really happy. Um I just don't like the bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo bo boiler plate that was sent down and I think it's way heavy-handed and I would like to see us maybe soften it. So just say May in in numerous locations and eliminate um the one strike out suspension because we're not trying to run our people out of the cigarette or the tobacco business. That's that's all I'm saying is would anybody be open to that? Because I've talked to Kevin and he said we could rework it. um with some minor changes and we could vote on it again and make sure we're all in consensus. That's all I'm asking.

Well, I'm fine with that. I mean, we're lucky to have you because I feel like you're doing a good job and showing discretion the way that you're treating the businesses. But if you weren't in that job and someone were to take it literally and um absolutely, you know, act on every shall then, you know, that could be um that could feel a lot different to the businesses. Would that change in the ordinance affect the way you're able to do your job?

Yes, it would. Um, what it would do is set up a separate inspection process for city of Lakeport versus county versus city of Clear Lake. So, I would have to have a completely different inspection sheet, different process. Um, the way we do enforcement would change. Um and it would create an unlevel playing field for businesses across the county versus just businesses in uh city of Lakeport.

Um it's not that it can't be done. It's just it does change things a little bit and it's something that we would have to work with. Uh and I agree. I understand the the severity of the ordinance as it is written. Um and that is something that we have addressed or have looked at specifically. Um it's it's a very challenging ordinance uh to enforce as it sits, but it does have teeth in it for a reason. Um those teeth were put in there by the boards uh yourself, city of Clake, and the county boards. Um they do mimic other uh counties, other jurisdictions around the state. Um in fact, it was boilerplated from a lot of different uh areas. And uh yeah, I've put a lot of effort into education upfront because that's what environmental health does. We are education first and then we enforce if we have to.

It's it's even in the way we wrote our mission statement. Education comes first. Um and that should be the standard for how we uh interact with the businesses as well. So one question for you. Yes, sir. Don't we already have the penal code and the stake act that prohibit the sale of cigarettes or tobacco to minors? That's to minor. Yes. This goes beyond just minors. This is talking about uh pricing, consumer protection, making sure that people know exactly what they're paying for the product that's in front of them. It's about making sure that flavored products which are banned in the state are no longer offered for sale. But they're also they're offered on a daily basis at all of the local casinos. You know that.

I don't have jurisdiction over that. I know. But I'm just saying. And and and there's been tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars have left the coffers of the county and cities because of that ban. I understand that. Okay. Yes. Um I just want to remind the council that um when we started this process introduce yourself again. I need to be closer. No, just introduce yourself again.

Oh my apologies. I'm Anthony Arden, health services director. Um, Craig and I have been working on this for over two years. And I just want to remind the council that we started on this process almost two years ago. Um, and uh, we got together um, with the city of Clear Lake, city of Lakeport, and the county uh, to try to have a unified approach on this and that is why all the ordinances are very similar. Uh, to change the ordinance now and to have different uh, as Craig indicated, that's going to add administrative cost. Our forms are going to be different. that's going to drive up the price for the the licensing. Um, and it's not just about trying to prevent under 21 from getting their hands on tobacco products. It's about improving health outcomes. It's impossible, the flavor bans. Um, there was no inspections happening uh prior to these ordinances getting passed. Now that we had these ordinances passed, we are getting some state support and they have been coming into the county now because we have a unified approach. We've been a model for the state of California. The county of Lake has been a model for the state of California. How cool is that? We went from having zero enforcement, zero ordinances on the on these issues to having a countywide ordinance with all participating jurisdictions. And um almost everybody voted yes for this. So minus one person. And those and the what the concerns that we did have Craig's been addressing. He heard they want that there were council members that wanted to have, you know, that first year heavily on education rather than law enforcement. So that's why we are being a little bit more light-handed this first year. And then we want to continue to ramp it up so that way we can get that enforcement and we can get uh the good actors uh rewarded and continue to sell and prevent these products from getting into the hands of our youth.

Thank you. I I have a question about process for us right here tonight. I see that the uh council member Parlett's um thoughts and um his suggestion is somehow is linked, you know, in a way to this enforcement issue before us, but it is it seems a different issue. And so I'm not sure how we go about um

I liken it to the cannabis discussion we had last time. we have the the one item in front of us, but while we're on the topic, we're kind of having a broader discussion about the ordinance. So, what's on the table is theou, but what council member Parllet brought up was going back to the ordinance. Is that something that the rest of the council wants to re-evaluate? I do agree that that the approach that you guys have taken is is great. You know, um a education focused, a slow roll out. I think what I'm hearing from council member Parlet is this approach is great with you guys running it, but what about when there's somebody else running it and they come down too heavy-handed on

uh on a new business that just that just started in in our city. So that that's I think what we're talking about. So I guess some comment thoughts just to offer for thought here is that I think no matter how the ordinance is written. It it's almost like discretion can be your friend. It can also be your challenge because if you get too much discretion in there, you don't have consistency and then you don't have uh equitable treatment of people across the board. So whatever the the ordinance lands on has to have uh some reasonable interpretation, but it has to be enforced. And I think you know what I've what you've been council member Plet has been consistent in saying you know he did he did not like and disagreed with the fines and such and that's that's a fair um recognition there. Um for whatever reason those were the those were the um consequences that were voted in by all the jurisdictions. So it seems to me that maybe without saying never, we say for the moment, let's let this thing go forward, get ground, get everybody working to see how how that enforcement rolls out, how does that look, and it could be like anything else in in a year, in two years. It could be that all of the jurisdictions with feedback from u about how the program is going overall and how the enforcement has um shaped up to be could re-evaluate whether those ordinance are whether we all would like to um or even I see the problem with just one jurisdiction changing. So we could re-evaluate at sometime in the future I would think. Well, I'd like to point out that I sincerely and absolutely disagree that there was enough outreach with people that were working in grocery for any length of time that would look

at that and said, "Oh, yeah, that's fine." Um, if you had a meeting and say, "Come in. We're going to tell you about the new What do you think?" I'm talking about when you go in to IG or when you go into Bruno's or when you go into um Upper Lake Market and you go in there and they said, "What do you think about these these um illegal actions that you could be um convicted of and suspended and fined $1,000?" And you're going to tell me that unilaterally everybody just thought that was peachy keen? I cannot believe that. I would love to see the um the interviews with those people and what they thought really because what I seemed what I'm thinking is you went to Clear Lake, nobody owns a grocery store on their council, nobody you you went to the county and everybody's cool with it. We Oh, sounds great. Sounds wonderful until you try and put it into a business atmosphere with a constant turnover of all kinds of young kids and other people and they're moving around and you're going to make that $1,000. You're out on first defense. It It was so ludicrous. I cannot believe that you went around to 15 or 20 real grocery stores and they said we're fine with it. I'm questioning the input at the beginning of the one-sizefits-all. I think the whole one-sizefits-all should be changed. I think the overall ordinance should be lessened and rewritten to put in the very thing I'm asking for, the very thing that you're doing. You're saying we're going to tear it in. That's the way it should be. It's done in the stake. It's done in the penal code. It's done in the ABC. And you guys came out so heavy-handed. And if you're not there next week, and we've had several changes in the county health department leadership, I was here in in COVID and I remember and when you're gone and some hard-nosed former smoker comes in and he

said, "No, it says that in the ordinance, we're done." And all 46 of those businesses are gone for 30 days. That's my concern. And all of them in Lakeport are gone. And 78% of the violations are paperwork. I'm saying I don't care if that makes more paperwork for them. I'm saying is this right for Lakeport to enforce these ridiculous levels of minutia so that we can reduce Okay. And I'm I'm going to tell you something. 55 years studying health and nutrition and I could talk to you guys for 17 hours about germ theory and microbiology and all that. I'm really into nutrition more than you will ever know. I'm telling you, this is something that is not good for the city of Lakeport when we don't control it at all. They could just change in the wind. You know, next week they could both be gone. Better jobs in Sonoma County. That's all I'm saying. I would like to address this. And I was going to get this done here and go see you and say, "Can we just change it so that the discretion you're using is not discretion. It says $500 fine. Says $1,000 fine, $1,500 fine. consider suspension. I wanted to do that because I don't have a problem with all the little minutia. I have none. But what I'm saying is you can't start out going to the plate and you fell off a ball, go to the dugout, you're out. That's a strike. You're done. And that's a $1,000 fine. I It just think about it. What other thing do we have? All I'm asking is that we look at it, discuss it. If you want to stay with it, fine.

I I think Mr. Mayor, that one thing that when uh when uh council member Parlet and I were talking about this, one of the scenarios that we kind of looked at and I and maybe uh public health can help us out here. It you there they're varying different violations, right? I mean, selling selling to a minor certainly is a higher um you know, degree than the signage being, you know, in the not correct location. And I think that was one of the concerns that Council Member Parllet was bringing up is that under the current license, there really isn't a distinction between those. Now, everything Craig's brought forward today and how and and I know, you know, in in regards to how uh Craig and his environmental health team work that they do they take that tiered approach on on all their different pieces. I think the concern was that it's not really um the way that it's structured right now, it it doesn't it doesn't allow that piece physically. I get the administrative aspect of it. I understand, you know, and I mean I think and that might be maybe that would be the direction to go is to maybe look at having all three entities uh look at is there a way to change this to to kind of take that to build the to build the tiered enforcement graduated series enforcement uh a little bit more into the codified uh you know perspective because I I get that kind of maybe doing one at a time is going to make it's going to make it very difficult to you're going to have to redo your paperwork and different pieces like that but I think What council member Parlet's kind of asking is is there is there an openness to look at that to make the ordinance maybe mimic what's actually happening on the ground a little bit more.

Okay. So again, I want to reiterate that we heard the concerns uh when we were here uh 14 15 months ago. Um we we listened to you guys. We listen to again the public and we decided to be education focused that first year and we will continue to do that until we feel like it's time where we've given them enough leeway to be like all right it's time to really start hammering down this is your third time where you're still out of compliance and yes I agree with council member like if it's a pricing thing you don't have you know you have a price over here on this pack but you don't have okay that's a small thing but if you're selling under21 or you're continuing to sell illegal products or flavored products Yeah, absolutely. So, I this is what I'm going to ask of you guys. Don't change the ordinance yet. Give us two years. Craig's not going anywhere anytime soon. I'm going to be here around like that.

Give us two years. Let us do our education focus and then let's get let's do a culture change because this is going to take time with our retailers. When I when we came and presented to you guys, we thought this was going to be a two to three year process. We're at like year one still. So give us two more years, continue to work with the retailers, let them get educated on how this works. Let them get educated on what enforcement looks like. And then if there is still a lot of disagreement, then all entities can come back to the table and look at our ordinances and decide whether where we want to make the changes. But to do it and fracture it, I think that would be again unsustainable for us. We run very short staffed over in environmental health. I I wish he had three more people so he could keep up with all the work that he's doing. So again, that's why we are making this a very positive approach with our retailers so that we can improve the health outcomes for our community while making sure that the kids and the products are not being sold to.

I'm going to make one more comment. When I when this passed in December, I went to the store and I said, "We are not selling tobacco." I I did not sell until at the end of March. I lost $29,000 in cigarette sales because that fine and the suspension was going to was going to get me. There's no way around it. And you just proved it with your with your surveys. You proved it that that you went out and everybody had violations and 143 violations in 46 places. The average three per person and there's no way that you're going to and like 25 ft. I was asking at the council, can we have 25 ft from an open door or window? Why does it have to be 25 ft? We can't even smoke out of the dumpster. And and that's just ridiculous. Why isn't it safe from an open door? And I like Kevin's idea that, you know, maybe we could propose some changes to make it where we don't have to wait around and then have someone say, "Well, we don't like that guy. $1,000 fine, 30-day suspension." And I am totally about compliance, but when it's mostly minutia, which is the only thing I ever worried about, I've shut down and lost tens of thousands of dollars because of the fear of the $1,000 first defense that's written into the ordinance. You can't erase that. It's written in there. And I'm telling my council, do you want that in Lakeport? And if you just feel like it, boom. And I'm not even in the city. I'm in I'm in the county. I'm just looking at our retailers and we may have more in the future or less after this. So

Craig, you had something?

Yeah. Um, at the end of the day, I'm a scientist, right? That's what I am. I'm a biologist. And in any scientific study, just like any social experiment, you have to have data. And that's what our first year has been all about. It's collecting the data. What is the status of retail tobacco sales in the county as we stand today? Right now, we're only using the unincorporated area. That's all the data that I have. But today, we know more about what the retail market looks like in terms of tobacco than we knew last year when we brought this ordinance uh into fruition. That's what we are doing. Every time we go out and do an inspection, we get another number of either somebody who is in compliance and is working hard or another business that is skirting one rule or another. Maybe not intentionally, maybe intentionally. We'll figure that out. That's, you know, an enforcement issue. But today, we know more about what the businesses are doing. And not for nothing. Um, I've had a lot of conversation with retailers, specifically uh some of the gas station retailers, people who I've known for many years. Yes, I am a Lake County local. I grew up here and I intend to stay here unless you guys find a reason to get rid of me. But they are just as confused and frustrated by what's going on. um because their vendors that were selling to them told them, "Hey, this is a perfectly safe product. It's perfectly good." Only to find out that no, that's flavored. It says mint right on it. It says strawberry.

Did not say mint. Both of them. They pulled. They were not yours particularly. I'm talking about another retailer. Saying that that happened to us, too. And they were green and red and they go the green and red have to go. And it's like they told us they were legal. Yeah. And that's exactly some of the challenges we had. Um, even so much so that when we did the initial research, it said flavored product. Two weeks later when we went back out to re-rearch it to be able to demonstrate the website had been changed to completely take away that what is the flavor of red. I don't know. It could be anything. It could be cherry. It could be cinnamon. Right. But that's the kind of challenge that we're faced within an in this enforcement.

As are we.

As are you. And we recognize that and we also understand the stress that this puts you under. And yes, that is partly why I do the enforcement the way that I do cuz I don't just go in there assuming that an operator is doing something on purpose. Um I don't think you're twisting your handlebar mustache and putting damsels on the track, right? You didn't intend to. But that doesn't mean that you can't learn and that we can't learn from each other. I've learned a lot from the retailers. I've been yelled at a lot. I can take it. Um, I've also been told that I'm doing okay. Right. But we can absolutely review this, but at the end of the day, we have to have the data. The data drives whether or not. And every inspection that we complete, every one of them tells us something about the ordinance. Either you're right and that ordinance is too tough, or maybe it's not tough enough if we still see the same violations over and over and over again. Right. So, that's partly what we're doing here. Well, stake just raised it to $1,000 as well. So, they understand for selling to a minor, but they don't have anything about I must card everybody and it's 25 ft from open window. They don't have that. I mean, I'm just saying there's a lot of stuff in there. The only how much more if we just say may suspend um and may find them up to a I don't see where that makes a big paperwork thing. It says, "Oh, we're in Lakeport." And we we write out the report and then you say, "Well, these guys may or" and then you're going to say, "Well, we're not going to do it now after all because we we're in this tiered system." But if we say May and someone gets fined um by you, you know, in a year and say, "Well, we" and and I I can't imagine exact scenarios because I know that I don't think most people are able to do all this because of all the rigomearroll and the minutia and I get that, but once you've been in there and they go, "Well, you got the sign there, you got everything five feet from the candy and

you know, we saw somebody smoking out front. Get, you know, you can't have an ashtray out there obviously and all these things." Um it's like I just the suspension thing and the one strike out is now we're just taking it on faith that oh we're not going to enforce that and we need to wait two years and then everything will be fine. I I'm I'm just not cool with that. I mean because there's so many moving parts in this thing and then with the state they just came out when I read the article a couple days ago they hadn't even had the list yet. It wasn't complete. And when you have retailer I mean wholesalers playing games which they do it said flavored and then they took it off and then you found out that it was presumed. So it is very very complicated but that's more reason why if we had the top layer where it said if you sell to a to a minor that's $1,000 these are minor infractions punishable by $200 per event or something. I would feel much better and I don't think that would be a big deal, you know, or 300 or whatever you want. So that I don't have to go to bed at night going, "Oh my god, I got those kids working tonight. They only been there for a year and you know, maybe they're going to make a mistake and I'm out of the tobacco business for a month, which means they're going to go somewhere else and they may never come back." So that's that's my concern. So the the minor infractions, if they were in a separate tier, Yeah. that would be big.

Yeah. Again, uh, council member, um, you know, I I hear you and I I understand your concerns, but I do want to just say when there are levels of confusion, things roll out differently from the state or there's definition confusions or whatever, we will continue to use discretion with our retailers and then only refer to enforcement for repeat violations where we made things very clear after they've gotten the education and then we will utilize that ordinance as, so to speak, the stick. So, we like when I first started this job, when Craig and I first met, I said, "Tell me your approach on how you do retail food inspections. Do you use education first or do you just go to shut down?" Because as a resident here, I want to make sure that we have tax revenue to support our government services. I want to make sure businesses thrive in our community. I don't want to run anybody out. Yes, tobacco makes me a little bit more nervous because it helps because it hurts health outcomes and it costs us all more money. But I want businesses to be successful here. That is our approach. So, it's an education first approach and then for those repeat hard offenders who are difficult, who want to debate everything, who need to get law enforcement involved or whatever, then let's use that ordinance for what it's there for and then look at those other enforcement mechanisms. So, that will be our approach while I while I am your health services director. Well, just lastly, when you read the ordinance, and I I'm not arguing with you about what it says because I know what it says. And that's why I quit selling tobacco because I knew it was going to be impossible to keep in conformity on all of the layers. And any one of them is $1,000 and and suspension. I mean, that's what that's what drives me nuts is it's like I'm not arguing with the fact that the sign got peeled off and now I've got a $1,000 fine. I mean, that's

Well, I don't I don't want you to be in fear of your business. Do your business. If you when and where you have questions, part of the reason why you pay that retail fee is to call us and ask that question. So, if you have questions or concerns, give him a call, give Liberty a call, we'll be happy to come over and walk it through and be proactive that way. And we'll I will and I extend that offer to all of our retail businesses. If there's something, if you have somebody coming over to try to sell you a product off the street that they say that's that's good, give us a call. Hey, can you run? Can you look at the website? Can you see if this is good? Or can you run over here real quick before I purchase $500 or $5,000 worth of product? We will be happy to do that for you guys. We're very customer focused, citizen focused.

Well, I appreciate that.

Uh, Liberty Francis again. Um, so I just want to um let everybody else know that is not a tobacco retailer that the unflavored tobacco list was established by the state and it was published December 31st. It is very userfriendly where you can pull it up on the website. You can put in the UPC, the description, it will tell you is it on the unflavored list, is it okay to sell or is it not? If it is not on that unflavored list, then they absolutely cannot sell it. So, it is very user friendly. Um, recently we went out and did some inspections with the state and a retailer brought that same thing up. What about this red? What about this green? What about this? Um, you know, whatever. And and how it how can you tell me that this is not able to be sold? Okay. Well, let's pull it up right here. Well, it's not on the list. Item not found. If it's not on the list, it cannot be sold. So, it helps um get rid of some of those uncertainties. And that list is going to be a work in progress because the tobacco companies and the manufacturers have to submit every single item they sell to the state and prove that it's not flavored. So that's part of the flavor. The other thing that I want to mention is that um this process to um build the ordinances for all three jurisdictions um was a process that we took into consideration for all three jurisdictions to have input. Um the consensus between the government officials in all three jurisdictions was they wanted um a united front. They wanted the retailers to understand that we're here to support them to get into compliance, but that we are going to expect compliance. Their first license is through the state, which with the

exception of the 25 ft um from any door, window smoking um that's in there. These policies are already in the state code. It's currently 20 ft statewide. we took it to 25 ft from any door operated window. Um so it's a little bit farther. So um but currently the state is 20T. Um the other thing uh that I wanted to mention is that during the time that inspections were being done in the unincorporated area. Um education is happening, compliance is you know check is happening. Um second inspections happen. Some of those retailers were trying really hard to get into compliance and we could see that they want to do the right thing. Okay, yeah, we were way out of compliance, but we want to do what's right now. And then we have retailers that are blatantly sticking up that middle finger and saying force me. So we have both spectrums there. So, um, we want that uni united front and if we have one jurisdiction that's lax and one jurisdictions or the other two jurisdictions that are like, "No, we voted on this. This is how we want to be." Um, united front throughout the county. Um, it causes the opportunity for inconsistencies, favoritism, allegations of such. So, just keep that in mind that um there are a lot of retailers in our community that are trying to do the right thing and we want to acknowledge that.

Well, for the council, I know that we are still um theou is what's in front of us. I think what uh we're we're discussing is kind of a bigger picture of looking at the ordinance. Um, I would say at least in my mind as far as that that other discussion goes, I do like the the way that you guys have been doing it. I think that um more than just what is written, but how you're actually acting is is a good way to approach this. Um, I like the United Front across all three. Um, but I do also like that it is our ordinance and we can change it at some point if needed. I'm not saying I'm not saying at this moment, but if leadership changes or if that uh approach that you're taking switches overnight, correct me if I'm wrong, but we could bring this ordinance back at any time before us to change it if we didn't like the way that the county uh had had changed their approach.

Yeah, correct. And and I'd also add McKenzie and I looked at I just want to that the theou does require um an annual report from public health uh to our council. Um I think it says in theouou written, but we talked about that how we we like having the opportunity to have them uh come in and and tell us about their program. So you it'd be our preference to see that, you know, being in. So that is an opportunity to um you know to evaluate that. Um, so I mean I think that's that's a possibility there as well. But I mean I think yeah, we we certainly have the ability to to change our ordinance or or you know or discontinue theou um at any time with council's um approval. Um and you know I think it's it's a good topic to take a look at. I in regards to I I agree. I think that the graduated approach and and as I noted, we we work with environmental health a lot on a number of different things and and I think their approach um you know, Bivik that that's that that's what they what they take. But I also understand, you know, council member Parlet's, you know, discussion here in regards to where that is. So, I mean, that's could be a potential is to take a look at how it's working after a year as well, but that's ultimately up to council. Well, I I think I just want to on that. Yeah, I think it's normal when you establish a new process, a new program that the process isn't done. The it's the feedback loop. It's the evaluating what's working well, what's not working well, what might we want to change. And so, I think um it's proper to keep in mind that we need to be doing that. So, the annual reports will be helpful. Um, and I I I think I get where council member Parlett's coming from because because it is it's a lack of fit with what you believe is is do working well right now. like you have very strong feelings about how it should not have rolled out that way and um so I

recognize that it has rolled out in a certain way and to get feedback on what that looks like in real life is going to be what we need I think to do any um next step questions about what changes we might want to make in the future and and then on top of that question will probably be would we want to pursue those changes only in our jurisdiction or would we think it better to to do it as a united front again with the other jurisdictions. So, it's a kind of a big question and it's an important question and that future evaluation has to happen and um you know the interview one year two years uh we heard from uh the group that you know give us please give us two more years because that's that was sort of the anticipated time frame and allows us to gather that data. So, I'm just recognizing that that's a very normal process and I think it will serve us well to keep that in mind.

Mr. Mayor,

um I wanted to let you guys know that um Council Member Price and I recently had a committee meeting with the school board and the superintendent. One of the first things that came up was the ridiculous use of uh vapes that it's just rampant and they're really having a hard time um getting a handle on that and it's you know definitely affecting the school and uh the whole scene. So um I know that they can still get them. there's other places to buy them, but that motivates me to see this forward, keep it consistent for now. And um and I I really like the report um how they're handling it so far. Um, and so it does give me hope that um maybe it's worth it to have the teeth and we see how it goes and um um if they want to come before a year and let us know um we I'm sure be happy to have them. But I'm great with theou and um let's see how it goes.

I'm really pleased with the attitude of the health department. Um, and I, um, being in the business, it is a really scary thing because it's so easy to be out of compliance. And if it weren't for the 30-day suspension, um, right out of the shoot, that just blew me away. It's just unprecedented in any piece of, you know, legisl. I mean, we got health department, we got with weights and measures and we've got, you know, the just goes on and the egg inspections and then all this stuff and then we got ABC doing stings and then you're going to come in and then oh my god, you know, here I've been working for all these years and now I'm suspended overnight. You know, it it's just it's terrifying. It really is. And um that's why I can't believe that you did outreach to the vendors and they were okay with it. I I really because I never was. So, but knowing the rules, the rules are are crystal clear, but um I'm I'm happy with your attitude and I appreciate you working and I'm willing to go along for the ride and I'm I'm all about the education. I think it's great. It just makes me very uncomfortable that that hammer or that guillotine blade is over my head and something could go wrong that and in case people don't know when alcohol is sold I don't think it's almost ever done except maybe in some of these ever done by the owners it's done by an employee and then they cost you big time and living with that for five and a half decades is really scary and so having that you understanding and you know where I'm coming from and you and I'm not fighting with you about um individual items so much. I just um I I just feel that our whole goal is never to sell to kids under 21 and that's our biggest thing and the signage and all that stuff. We're working all the time to do it. We had to redesign everything to get the candy and all the stuff away from the check stands where the kids are and get the stuff away from the cigarettes and all that stuff. So, I know it's it's

very difficult to do, but I appreciate what you guys are doing. So, good luck. Council member Price, any thoughts?

Uh, well, so I I like I said a second ago, I I like the keeping the ordinance the way it is for now to give you guys some um consistency on how you roll this out because we like the way that it's been going. I I do think and I hear what council member Parlet says that if uh as soon as that were to to change in a in a way that negatively affects businesses um maybe revisiting the ordinance but it's it's been a year and like you guys said a few years to really get this thing rolling. So, as far as the ordinance goes, um I think that uh knowing that we can revisit it, uh although at the time uh that it stands right now, letting you guys roll out the way that you're going to roll out, unless unless council, the majority of us feels differently, but we do still have theou on the table tonight.

Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion. If you're ready, I'll move to approve the memorandum of understanding between the city of Lakeport and the County of Lake Public Health Department for administration and enforcement of the tobacco retail license program pursuant to section 5.40.170 of the Lakeport Municipal Code. Second motion and a second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay, motion carries. Thank you.

Thank you guys. Um, okay. We've got a handful more items here. Uh, next up is from our planning services manager, the annual uh, housing element progress report. Awesome. Thank you, Mayor Disney, and members of the council. Um, for once, you guys get to hear me say something other than no hands raised on Zoom. So,

here we go. All right. So, what your council has before you today, um, as you might remember, it's that time of the year for our housing element annual progress report. This report is mandated by the state, um, to be reported on on our current housing element progress. Um, and this is due April 1st, so we're ahead of schedule on getting this before your review here tonight. to go over a little bit on the agenda. I'll be talking a little bit about the background um for this report as well as where we're at with our current rena progress and then what the remaining need is for this report as well and our rena progn progress and then essentially what the next steps are. I do want to notate the planning commission did see this report on February 11th. So they've reviewed it. They didn't have any recommendations or amendments that were required to be made for the report. Um but this is a non-action item. It's onlyformational only. The state does require that the planning commission or authority that um which is the city council reviews this before we submit it to the state. All right. So I kind of already went over this so we'll skip over that HCD requires um to report on this. HCD essentially has a standardized spreadsheet that we need to utilize in order to report on different elements. I won't go through into each of these tables. Um you'll notice that as part of the attachment, there were some tables that didn't have any information. Some of those didn't really apply to our jurisdiction. Um so like for example, low-income student housing jurisdictions are required to report on those. We didn't have any applications, so we we any any reports that we don't have anything to report on, we leave blank. Um, I do want to give a shout out to us as a jurisdiction in general. We were probably we were the first jurisdiction to start working on this. There was a lot of issues with the spreadsheet. U,

we reached out to HCD to kind of address those and HC recognized that we were the first jurisdiction to kind of point that out. So, that's kind of kudos to us, uh, being one of the first agencies to work on that. Um but a couple of the areas we do have to report on is any new applications that we receive for housing. Um which could be anything from single family to multifamily to ADUs. Those are all required to be reported in the spreadsheet. Um, HCD has a macro standardized into the spreadsheet that essentially calculates the reports based off of a formula um, which is kind of represented by the dates of when building permits are issued and that's when units actually count towards our progress. Uh, so in the spreadsheet you do see the regional housing needs allocation which I'll pull up in my presentation here shortly too. We also provide a status update on our housing element programs, kind of how we're doing on that. Um, and we also report on, you know, any units that were either rehabbed or um, converted. Um, which we didn't have anything kind of to report on that end there. But we did, uh, report on our locally loan and uh, lands and surplus sites. Uh, so we did include that in there with some of the properties that either we've transferred or we have kind of ownership of um, as well. HCD kind of likes to see that too and keep an inventory for their records also. Okay, so before I get started, there's a new income category um that is identified as acutely low. Um I think we might have updated your council last year. We knew it was coming down the pipeline uh but wasn't necessarily kind of in effect yet. Now it's been introduced with Assembly Bill uh 3093. The good thing is that this doesn't really come into effect until 2027. And Joey, our community development director, and myself have attended kind of different conferences and trying to

get an idea of what this really means. And right now, it's kind of up in the air. There's not really a concrete definition. We do know that it really represents income levels from 0% to 15% of the area median income. So, that's kind of what we're working on. Now, the reason why I wanted to address this now is you'll notice in the attachment they've included acutely low income in the reporting categories, even though it's not in effect yet. Um, so I just kind of wanted to make your council aware that that's that's in the mix, but it doesn't come into effect until essentially August 15th, 2027 is when the new cycle is um coming into effect for Lake County as a region.

Just think that's so dumb. Well, then the next year we'll get even lower. Acutely even lower. Yeah. What do you I mean it's just ridiculous. Yeah. And I mean we'll probably see like minuscuely low in the next low something along the lines I don't know 0 to 10%. Oh zero to 15. You can't get below. Yeah. You have to pay them to live there. Yeah. Right. Negative. Negative. Unless we can get to the negatives. That's

just owe money. Uh, okay. So, this table I've included in in your staff report. Um, this is kind of where we're at with our progress. Um, here, let me see if I can get my cursor here to work. Um, so at the top here, you have the different reporting periods. Um, and on the left, left side here, we have the different income categories that we have to report on. You can see the acutely low is grayed off here. So, that has no effect on our reporting period for 2025. Um, and then we do have extremely low, very low, low, moderate, and above moderate. Here, our current RENA allocation for the 2019 to 2027 cycle is 132 units. Um, we've done pretty good progress on our low income. We've actually met um our reallocation for low and very low. So, we're doing pretty good there. You'll notice that extremely low has a reallocation of 15 that we've completed or issued a building permit for. And you'll notice also there's 71 71 units in the very low. And you're probably kind of confusing, well 34 + 22 doesn't equal to 71. Um, so after a few hours of research to kind of explain ve technically we only have these income categories. So very low, low, moderate, and above moderate. Extremely low and potentially acutely low in the future are subcategories of very low. So any units that we allocate towards the 15 counts towards the very low. So that's why you see the 34 + 22 + 15 equals we have 71 units in the very low. That's a little confusing. It's just a subcategory of very low for reporting purposes. Um, we've done pretty good progress on our low to extremely low income. We still have 16 remaining units in our

moderate and then 49 units in our above moderate. So, we still have a total of 65 remaining units. On paper though, we've done 131 units out of the 132. U, but that's we have an influx kind of in our low uh income categories there. And this is kind of what I already went over there. Um, one of the kind of differences from this year on why we received a lot of units to be reported for this arena cycle is when the Parkside apartments went through the entitlement period, we did report on those units in 2022 2023, but as I mentioned previously, the the units don't count towards Arena until a building permit is actually issued. And so since those units for 64 units of the apartments, uh, those were issued in the 2025 reporting year. So that's why we're barely seeing those kind of have an impact on our low income categories. Um, so that's kind of the breakdown of what we have. Um, we already went over this and then kind of the parkside apartments there. Um, still kind of working. We did receive a couple of units uh that were single family aside from the Parkside apartment units. uh but those were in the low income category. HCD provides us a calculator on how to calculate the income. So, it's based off of the sales price and then the number of the bedrooms and then if it's rented or owner occupied because most of the units that are either submitted by an actual homeowner, they build the units and they don't sell it. We used the land valuation plus the valuation of what it cost them to build the unit and added those together to act as a sales price because that would essentially be the minimum sales price that they would kind of sell it for if they chose to sell it. And then we did the same strategy since my time here

2022 and HCD has had no issues with our methodology on calculating that um income level for the units. if a unit we don't have any of that information per HCD we have to um categorize that as above moderate but thankfully for this reporting period we did have all that information so we were able to calculate every unit appropriately and then you'll notice that one unit was considered moderate and I want to note that's the manager's unit for the Parkside apartments project project okay so I already went over the remaining need that we have here. Um, that's kind of the brief overview of the report. Of course, if your council has any questions, I'm more than happy to answer any questions that you might have. The next steps that we have um is we presented this uh today for the council review. And now, um, after your review, we'll be able to move forward and submit that for the governor's office. and uh they kind of changed their name. So now they're the Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation.

Um which I think they say Lucy for short. I think that's what we're rolling with now. Um which I mean, yeah, that's kind of catchy, but uh yeah, so we'll be able to submit. They do have an online portal on where we submit and then we do have to email it. Uh HCD has an online portal and then we email it to the governor's office for review. So that'd be the next steps. But yeah, we're on track. If your council has any questions, I'm more than happy to answer them.

I hate to ask any questions or say anything else, but um the extremely low was like 30% of the of the uh 60,000 plus or minus for Lakeport income and acutely low is 15%. Which is 9,000 a year. How exactly does that work? you know, somebody, you know, they're they work, like I said, three days each at McDonald's and that's it. And then they go in and they they want to get a house. And so, where does the money come from for the builder or the owner or how does that work? Or are you getting an ADU that someone's going to rent out? I mean, I I don't see a scenario where, you know, you you make 9,000 bucks a year and you're going to get a house. I I I I'm trying to understand how that even works.

Yeah. So the way that so HCD has kind of well the state has a breakdown of what they calculate as our area median income per region. So for Lake County I think right now it's like at what 85,000 for households of four people. So the Lake County area median income for a family of four person household is $93,000 900 93900. It's it's gone it goes up a little bit each and every year depart depending on the department of finance projections.

It's not a real reflection of Lake County. It is correct me if I'm wrong. It is the state has the lowest that in the more um lower income producing counties. They have this one plateau give to everybody. And so because the state is so expensive, they decide that everybody in Lake County and a family of four, that area mean uh median income is $93,000, which of course is nothing close to reality. Well, yeah, cuz I've read in a report that we were given here at the council that the countywide um was 57,000 and Lakeport is just over 60,000. And that's why I keep using the 9,000 number because 15% of 60,000 is 9,000. That's why that's why I was asking. I mean, so it's 20, whatever, 23. I don't know. Yeah,

but it's not very much. I'm just wondering how you get into a house when you don't make any money. I mean, you don't get up and Oh, man. I just got a job in McDonald's. I'm getting a house. A rental. It doesn't have Well, I know, but I mean, how it's got to be subsid,

right? Yeah. And I mean, as far as like where the funding comes from for the like the state to be able to subsidize these units, um, I'm not really too sure kind of where they get the majority of the funds. I know for like example there's like SP2. So any like document that you record on your property as long as it's residential, there's like a $75 statemandated fee that goes into that pool. Um but I mean I don't know if that's kind of the majority of the funding that the states gets to be able to have these millions of dollars to be able to subsidize multiple projects and then create a new category. That's just ridiculous. Yeah. I I'm just trying to understand it. Yeah.

And I don't I have another question for Victor. Uh so the four um for sale marketpric homes that are over there in that same neighborhood were they on the year before where they count I mean what where where do they show up? Yeah. So do you mean the residences in the same area the three correct that were there? So yeah those units were reported in the 2024 reporting period. We should have those included in those five um that are reported as above moderate. Okay. Yeah. Three of those five would be in there. Thank you. So there's no more prizes. That's it. Are we in questions?

Questions? Yeah. Any other questions from council? No. Okay. There's nobody in the room. Victor, what about online for public comment? Oh, Victor, what's happening everyone behind you? on and I get to say my favorite slide. No hands raised. Yeah. Uh then we'll bring it back to council if there's any further discussion. As Victor noted, I don't think there's a motion on this, but uh happy to have discussion while we're on it. Great report. Good job. So much work for

Well, and you distilled it down into the essential parts and I think that was good. And I do think it is nice that we have some numbers, you know, and some housing and um and given that the state uses that ludicrous number as our area median income, hopefully there are going to be a number of people who want to live in Lakeport who have reasonable income that will be able to make use of those especially, you know, it depends on the size of their family, right? So it's not uh hopefully that since all we're getting is subsidized income under the current realities, economic realities, hopefully there will be a lot of people who will be able to use that. It does continue to concern me and this is not a problem unique to us. It concerns me that um that this is the only way to get housing because I think it really shifts the dynamics the people who the the entities that own the housing, the entities making money off of those uh residences and for the 55 years to come with the nobody can own those residences. It's the corporations and the developers that have purchased that land and own those um those builds basically. I don't know all the technical terms for it, but it's it's groups of people who benefit from that money. So, I just I'm just concerned by this um reality for our state really and for what does that look like in Little Lakeport? Um that we're getting housing only of this sort. So, I'm just hoping that we can continue to think creatively about just different ways we might be able to add to this needed housing here. Add to this some ways where developers can

um build market uh rate housing and we can offer in our community um homes that people can afford to purchase and um not just be stuck renting with no hope to own uh for the future. So, it's a challenge. I hope we'll continue to bring ourselves to that. If there's nothing else from the council, we're back to Victor for the next item, the 2025 general plan annual progress report.

Yeah. Thank you, Mayor Disney. Let me Okay, there you go. Yeah. So, as kind of similar to the housing element uh annual progress report, we also have to report kind of where we're at on our general plan. I'll be going over kind of the same material, a little bit of the background, the general plan APR itself, a little bit of a summary, and then the next steps, which is very similar to the housing element APR. Um, so the California Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, Lucy, requires all jurisdictions submit an annual progress report on the general plan. What's a little bit different about this report compared to the housing element is HCD doesn't provide a template. They kind of leave it up to the jurisdictions to create their own template on how to report. At least the good thing is they provide uh a guidance memo of what elements they're looking in the general plan APR. So, we did follow that. Um, and if your council might remember last year we went ahead and created a new template which is the one kind of you're reviewing today as well. There isn't much changes to the report from last year with the general plan APR. um I wouldn't really see kind of yeartoear there would be huge changes um for that report there as it's kind of a more larger document that we need to report on rather than kind of actual housing units that are being constructed that do change kind of yeartoyear. Um so you'll notice that it's very similar to last year's report as also kind of with the housing element annual progress report. This report is also due on April 1st of each year. Um, as mentioned, we have included kind of different um, categories that we need to report on for that. So, we did include a little bit of an introduction just to kind of give the state kind of what what our jurisdiction really entails, what different

committees and commissions we have, how do we participate in those. So, we kind of provided a little bit of a format on that on the introduction. I'm not going to go over this item again. We with the general plan APR, we also have to report on the housing element annual progress report. So, we just provided a little overall brief summary of where we're at. Um, which seems a little counterintuitive to kind of report on the same thing in this report when we were already submitting a housing element annual progress report. Um, but we went ahead and just provided a brief overview um to be compliant. And then we also reported on our progress with our general plan. uh you'll see a table in the actual report where we go with each element that we have in our general plan in order sort of kind of highlighted uh events or actions that we have taken in that. Um I won't go through those individually. Of course, if you are uh if your council's curious or has any questions on any of those elements, um I'm more than happy to go into that. But for example, we have our land use element, transportation element. Uh we have our climate element, open space element that we um provide a little bit of information on that as well. Uh where we did add a little bit of a change is we for context when we did the report last year, I went ahead and kind of backdated a few years on our reszones that we've done in the past. I think we go as far back as 2020 with reszone applications that were submitted either the city did as a city initiated reszone or were submitted by a private land developer. We just wanted to include that in there and keep it consistent to keep it in there just kind of like a checklist and we'll add to it every year as we get more applications. But we didn't have any reszones that were submitted in the 2025 reporting year. So we had nothing to update there. We did update our entitlements or major development applications that we've included in there. We actually included um the Disney boat rentals project. Uh

so we were went ahead and included an update on that and indicated that it is under construction. So we went ahead and included that in there, but other than that, there really isn't much to report on that. We did send this report last year to the governor's office and we didn't receive either a confirmation, a yay or an a on if the report looked well. So, I mean, kind of how we look at it is no answer is a good answer on our end. Uh, so we'll kind of do the same thing this year and see if uh we're in the clear for another year um on the enforcement there. See if Lucy gets back to you on it.

Yeah, we'll see if Lucy responds. But yeah, we're planning on taking the same approach. Um, that is kind of the basis of this report. I know I kind of kept it brief and short, but um, if there's any questions, I'm not sure if it seems like Kevin might want to add something in there.

I just want to give a big shout out to both Victor and Joey for this. I mean, this is I mean, the the housing element one is a beast in its own. There's a bureaucratic element to it, but it's only one element. This is a very large one with all the other elements. um of the general plan. And I think that the time that's being spent on this is um well uh intended and and I think it puts us ahead of the game because this is how the housing element APR started and then they started adding uh you know pieces to it and compliance aspects of it and using it as a measure uh to squeeze us on on different legislative pieces. So anticipating that that's the case. I mean we're putting a lot of um this this baseline effort um will help us keep you know kind of those compliance cuz we kind of see we see that kind of trickle down effect of you know some of the housing element stuff being you kind of put in there and and you can be put on you know double secret probation or whatever in regards to you know not meeting your housing element uh pieces or getting your uh file reports. and we're seeing the same kind of tiered approach with the general plan one. So I I think that um this is this is an effort well put because I mean it's that's just the direction it's going to be going.

Sorry to throw that dark cloud in there. It's a really great Thank you. Any questions for Victor from council? No. Okay. We will still open it up to the public. I know there's no one in the room. Victor, are we going to say your catchphrase? Yeah. No hands raised on Zoom. Okay. Bring it back to council for any discussion. Is anybody on Zoom? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Silly

Uh my only my only thing on the um report is I I don't like the last line, the very end. It has Joey's signature and then his title on the only thing on the next page. But yeah, if the formatting clean it up state doesn't even acknowledge that they received it. So fine. Yeah, absolutely. Only thing on the whole thing, but good job you guys. Yeah, thank you. Actually reading. Yeah, I just scrolled to the end. Yeah. Uh, okay. Next. Because that was uh no action, right?

Yeah. Next, we've got uh the annual comprehensive financial report, the ACFR. Danielle.

Yes. Uh well, thank you, Mayor Disney, and members of the council. Uh tonight, I'm pleased to present the city of Lakeport's annual comprehensive financial report, or the ACUER for fiscal year ended June 30th, 2025. This is the city's official audited financial report and represents the culmination of the past fiscal year's financial activity. The acter is more than just a set of financial statements. It's an important transparency and accountability document. It communicates the city's financial condition to you as the policy makers, to our residents, to bond holders and rating agencies, to granting agencies and other external stakeholders. It is prepared in accordance with governmental accounting standards board requirements and it includes both currentyear data and historical trend information. The city's independent auditor JJACPA has issued an unmodified opinion on the financial statements. While that doesn't sound exciting, it's essentially an A+ in terms of audit soft. An unmodified opinion is the highest level of assurance we can receive and it means that the financial statements are fairly presented in all material respects and in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. The auditors did not identify any material misstatements and they reported no significant difficulties in working with management. Uh from a financial highlights perspective, the city's overall net net position increased from 32.8 million to 34.1 million during the fiscal year. Governmental funds ended the year with a combined fund balance of approximately 15.8 million and the general fund balance increased from 6.8 million to 7.7 million. Uh the acter is organized into three primary sections. The introductory section which includes the letter of transmitt and general information about the city. the financial section which includes the independent auditors report management's discussion and analysis, the

governmentwide and fund financial statements um as well as detailed notes. And it also includes the statistical section which provides up to 10 years of historical financial revenue, debt, demographic and operational data to help place this year's results into long-term context. In addition, because the city expended more than 750,000 in federal funds, a federally required single audit was completed and is included as a separate attachment. This audit evaluates our internal controls and compliance over federal programs. Uh in summary, the fiscical year 2425 act for reflects sound financial management practices, compliance with accounting standards, and a continued commitment to transparency and fiscal stability. It supports the council's priority number three of good governance and fiscal stability and provides a solid financial foundation as we move forward into the next fiscal year. Um, both reports, the ACT for and the single audit are posted to the city's website for anyone to view. I'm sure you've read it all Governor, right? Um, and with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Great. Thank you. Any questions here from council? Well, I remember back in the old days um the caffer that they used to have um they changed it and they we had to put our pension uh obligations on the front page for um the unfunded acred liabilities. Where do we see that ugly number that and um is that not in this summary? I I don't have the caffer opened I mean the afer but um where where is that and what is the outlook for that for like next year the change so far? Well, our Kalpers's unfunded acred liability is actually um it's we're higher funded than actually most jurisdictions of our size. I think we're at about 85% the last that I saw. So, while it's still a fairly bleak outlook for a small organization like ours, it's uh it's not quite as bad as it was originally projected, we are still expecting um increases over the next couple of years, but we should start to see that plateau thanks to some well some good investments done by our our Kalpers um account holders.

Those take a couple years to filter back in. They they wait to give us the bad news and then it goes in and then when it's good then then those take a couple years as well. Correct. Okay. So, we're not as bad as Mur, right? We It could be worse. Could be. We know that because we paid it down twice. Yes. Any other questions? Great job. Okay. Open it up to the public. All right. Nobody in the room, just for the record. Uh, anybody online? No hands raised on Zoom. Okay. Bring it back to the council.

If there's nothing further, Mr. Here I'd move to accept the and file the act for for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025. Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Good job, Danielle. Yeah. Yeah. Well, tons of work. Tons of work. Yeah. Maybe you'll get an award. She got submitted. Okay, we will move on to the next item coming back to our finance director for a mid-year budget adjustments.

Uh well, before we discuss any um of the actual adjustments, I just want to briefly step back and emphasize why a balanced budget principle is so important to the city and what the term balanced budget really means. Um it means that we're adhering to the basic budget equation which is just financial total financing sources equals total financing uses. Um and you can see the graphic on the screen there. Um what is comprised on each side of that equation. So of course it starts with your fund balance available which is carried forward from the previous fiscal year. Um, in addition, it would be any decreases to obligated fund balances, which would be um reserve cancellations that we've decided were necessary to fund um any expenses for the year. And then um estimated additional financing sources, that's just a fancy term for our anticipated revenues. On the total financing uses side, our estimated financing uses of course are our appropriations for expenditures and increases to obligated fund balances which would conversely be uh any funds that we decide to set aside and reserve for that fiscal year. Uh a balanced budget is not simply a best practice. It's a foundational principle of public finance. By ensuring that financing sources equal financing uses, the council demonstrates fiscal discipline and adherence to statutory requirements. This protects the city's financial integrity and reinforces public trust. When ongoing expenditures are supported by sustainable ongoing revenues, we avoid structural deficits which can erode reserves, create service instability, and lead to difficult uh corrective actions in future years. So by maintaining balance today, we can reduce future risk. Uh just a little bit of the methodology that was used for me to uh create this adjustment that's before you today. Um each line item of the budget was reviewed individually to assess where spending had exceeded 50% at the halfway

point of the fiscal year to determine where additional appropriations may be needed. Likewise, accounts that were under 50% were assessed to determine if savings had been realized in the in the fiscal year. Those savings were then used to cover a portion of any necessary increases that were being proposed. And then lastly, revenues were analyzed to determine if the trends that were originally anticipated held true. Um and in the areas of sales tax and interest earnings in particular, uh we saw a rise in the trend um that was sufficient to cover um the remaining uses that were being requested. Uh so thinking back to our budgeting principle from slide one um that ongoing expenditures must be supported by sustainable financing sources. It was important to distinguish between one-time items that were being added and any potential ongoing increases. Some of those um particular one-time items were of course the purchase of the new police pursuit vehicle which was previously approved by your council. The adjustment has been added here for the sake of efficiencies. um some new appliances at the Habatan snack shack. Um an ADA sidewalk project that was being funded by the Blue Zones grant that we've been hearing Ron uh inform us about. And we also had a large um cloud conversion for file storage um which definitely had an impact to our overall IT costs for the year um that we don't expect for that to continue. Um some of the ongoing increases that we've noted um were of course the merchant banking fees um which the city is actively working to try to reduce as much as possible. Um but of course we also saw some benefit cost increases um an increase to part-time and overtime payroll costs. They were um attributed to some staffing changes and of course I think we can all relate to some increased electricity costs.

Um, so lastly, here's a summarization by fund which further demonstrates the city's dedication to maintaining a balanced budget. I didn't have a slide that has all the detailed line items because you all have that information. I don't need to talk about each one, but I would be happy to answer any questions about those individually. Um, but each increase on the expense side was matched dollar for dollar and revenue adjustments within each fund. Uh the revenue increases are attributed to both one-time revenue sources such as the district for discretionary funds, the blue zones grant, and insurance proceeds um or with overrealized revenue within routine revenue sources such as our interest earnings, building permits, and sales tax. Um as shown, total financing sources equal total financing uses in the amount of $251,00055 uh with no variance, preserving that structural balance across all funds. So, if you have any questions, I would be happy to discuss those.

Thank you. Any questions from council? Um, one little question. Do you do does the city of Lakeport pay public purpose programs? Uh, that little line item on the PG& bill or do you know? I don't know. That's a good I wonder seen one and

because um talking to the wineries and talking to motel and hotel owners, it's very very high and the rural rent is is actively trying to eventually get commercial people to be able to pay a flat rate because like with the city as in a grocery store or a winery in the summer, your bill goes up four times and sets it's a flat percentage in our case. I don't know if it is for the city. Your expenses for a published purpose program which you did not sign up for can go up 400%. And be very very expensive. Like with Clay Shannon, it's like in the tens of thousands for each location that it can go up. And same with a hotel like you know World Mart or something like that. I just wonder if we're because that's all the more reason why I'm trying to get the new chamber and these people to put pressure on our legislators to have a flat rate. Why should you pay four times more in July doing the same thing? Um the fee should be the same because you're getting screwed by or you're getting hurt by the PG& and you're paying three times or four times more. Why should that rate that you paid in January and February go up 400%. To give it away to people that want new refrigerators and window seals and, you know, microwaves and stuff like that.

So, we'll we'll take a look. I mean, it's a good question. I I don't know, especially when you have a big bill. It's it's traditionally somewhere around 7% that and it's not interesting. I want to know. I can definitely check on that.

Any other questions from council? I'll just add before we go into discussion just just some big kudos to Danielle in putting this together. I it's her first go through it and she you know was a learning piece on her trying to get the but I mean I think she's uncovered uh quite a number of you know items and you'll you'll see like she mentioned the merchant banking fees. That's an item that's going to be that we're we're looking into and identifying as a an area that we need to to give some some more attention to and that's going to come up in a a future agenda item. uh looking at those things um and identifying you know not just you know the issues but um very solutionoriented and I think that that's going to be you know a huge a huge piece going forward um you know identifying those areas and and we'll put some action plans in place so we're not uh seeing some of those things. Another big uh uh kudos is to Paul. I mean, he just completed $8 million in capital improvement projects to water and sewer, and there's not a big giant adjustment uh needed in here before you today. I think that's that's phenomenal. Um especially, you know, we we know, you know, looking at this that the you fund is always, you know, really, you know, kind of it's it's pretty level. you know, our our expenses and our, you know, costs equal each other and there's not a lot of playroom there and and uh you know, finishing those huge uh capital improvement projects over the past couple years and not bringing forward a giant adjustment to to your to your council, I think, is is worth noting as well.

But it was $2 million over the engineers estimate uh the on the water and the sewer. Was that or was that the community center? That's a different one. No, it it was something like 6 million and the bids came in at 8.1 and 10 and and

Yeah, but I mean but but there but we did adjust those in there and and I mean and not having to to go back to to go back and and read I we we kind of we played with those pieces and you know probably did mean you know less of of this or that but I mean to to come in there without having you know to have our water fund in negative I mean is a phenomenal accomplishment and that that that belongs to Danielle and Paul Great. Way to go. Um, I think we'll open it up to the public, Victor, since there's nobody in the room. Yeah. No hands raised. Okay. Bring it back to council for discussions and or a motion.

Okay. Well, if there's nothing further, I move to approve the proposed budget amendment to the fiscal year 2025 2026 budget as recommended by staff. Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Uh last up, we move on to council communications. We'll go around the room like we always do and start with Joey. No report this evening, Mayor.

Wonderful. Chief, um yeah, I just want to share that uh Intelv AI is in town this week and is finishing the installation of the remaining uh public safety cameras, so they should be online and operating tomorrow. Wonderful. Just be careful. Great. Paul, any report tonight? Okay, Danielle, anything else? I think you heard enough for me tonight. I have no additional report. Thank you. Thank you, Kelly. No report. Okay, Victor, no report on my end. Right, McKenzie? Nothing beyond thanking you all for approving the contract amendment. Um, it's a great night for me. Um, that's my report. Thank you, Kevin. Yes, we're very happy that McKenzie can now fill out her form 700 appropriately. No, it's it's fantastic.

Appropriately. Good luck. No, it's great having McKenzie here and she's been phenomenal and and I mean and just to CHW in general, they the the depth of uh you know, we start with McKenzie and she can reach out there and and you'll find things that she can as well. So, very happy with that program. Um, I'll leave um anything else in regards to the collaboration meeting we had with uh Lakeport Unified School District to both council member uh Matina and Price. But I will mention that the board did officially take action uh to put um a bond measure um on the next um on this on the June uh ballot. Um I know that they've been getting some public information out there. uh they seem to be kind of trying to take advantage of they have one bond that's coming off the books and they're trying to take advantage of having that there without realizing um you know a physical tax increase there. At least that's their their approach. Um and then I don't know um officially but I think in that discussion too um it was made known it sounds like Mendescino College um board might be also putting another um measure on there. So, those are the the two um measures that I think uh locally we might see on that June uh primary ballot. Um and then I'll also I'll leave um LC our stakeholder discussion to to the mayor. He can cover that piece. Um, you may have seen I mean there was some there's been a couple of items on the board of supervisors agenda um that have been uh gaining some uh some momentum and kind of push from some of our other agencies including Clear Lake and other special districts in regards to the Teeter program. We talk a lot about sales tax here because that's our lifeblood, but um property tax also um is another revenue component. The Teeter program is a

program that's administrated by the county in in paying all the the special districts and cities um our our property tax pieces. Bore you with that um the whole component pieces there. But there has been the the county program has not been being made whole over the past few years. And so there has been um some notices going out to the different entities um in regards to how much the county is behind and and they're looking at potentially uh taking action ongoing and trying um going and getting some of that lost revenue back from the entities because they kind of pay us uh in advance. Um so you might be hearing some of that. Some of the districts have some high ones. We do not. Um the city of Lakeport, I think we have an actual bill to the county of $21 in that. Um so, but I know that there are some other entities, the city of Clear Lake, uh Lake County Fire Protection District, I think Hidden Valley, um CSD, uh both have some pretty large ones. So, that is going before the board. And, uh you may be asked, um you know, about that program. I just want to give you the number um that the city of Lakeports is I think currently $21 that we owe in that program. I checked in with Chief Wrights to see what his was. I think he said his was roughly about 4,000. So for whatever reason uh this side of the lake does not seem to be uh facing that effect the same uh the same as some of those other entities. So just want to give that information to you if you if you do hear that going from some of the other thefts that you interact with.

Can I ask Kevin a question about that? Yeah. So when we had the the uproar when um I think uh the city manager from Clear Lake came down was complaining that we had properties from 1981 and um they have property taxes and the Teeter fund play pays for it while it's not being sold and there was some issue that they weren't doing enough to try and you know take these properties and then sell them to somebody else and that was the big discussion and that maybe they were sitting on their hands and were not doing their work and then we got accused used by one of our council members towing somebody under the bus. Um is there has there been any progress on that that you know of?

They're related. I mean that's that I mean a lot of it comes down to those those tax property sales. Um you know so they advance the money to us and then in return they collect uh the monies on um you know late payments and things like that. So the long-term effect of not going after some of those does have that cumulative effect. Um, and so if you look at the tax sale um, listings each year, you'll you'll notice that I mean we only have like one or two or three on there compared to you get into the Northshore and and along um, you know, Clear Lake in the east, there's a a much larger number. So that's that certainly is impacting um that why you're seeing those costs uh, you know, much higher for those entities. So they're related for sure.

Thank you. Okay, Council Member Costa.

Uh, the only thing that I have to report on is the continued um planning for the splash in which is June 3rd, I believe. And so it's coming right up. Um, and it's kind of exciting. I'm working alongside um some other women who are actually kind of heading the effort to put together the youth activities. So, like other years, there's going to be the pilots and the education and the technical stuff that the pilots all want to know about. And there's going to be some classes aimed at uh youth that are interested in aviation. But beyond that, um over there at the Skylark is where it's being hosted. They're going to they're putting together interesting fun things. One thing, there's going to be a flight simulator that people can come and and um um spend time with. Um, also things like um making kind of fancy paper airplanes and then there's going to be a runway like how far does it can you fly it and there's going to be sort of a cornhole comes to mind but it's not kind of a device with holes in it that you can aim. So h how how accurate can you fly your plane? So there's going to be these little contests going on. Um, plus things like a little area we're trying to identify for the littles where they can just pretend that they're planes, you know, and they can get little wings on and play. So, we're just trying to come up with things for them. There's probably a Lego table, some arts and crafts, um, youth activities, and then I think this year they're going to have the pilots do what was apparently um, something popular. They have a target out in the lake and then they bomb something onto the target like a watermelon or something. I'm not sure how that works. So, they're going to do some things like that. A couple of demonstrations. They're going to have pictures with the pilots. You can take photos. There's going to be a band there. So, um they're trying to just really make it more familyfriendly. And

um I'm excited to see how that goes. And the next piece of that is we need we're going to trying to identify youth who can come and help in the booths that will be set up. So, if you guys happen to know any youth that might be interested in that, shout out. Um, yeah. So, that's what we got going. Great. Thank you, Council Member Parllet. Any report tonight?

Um, I'd just like to thank um Victor and Danielle and and Paul and and Joey for all the behind thescenes work that shifts. You know, you come in here and and you get the floor for 5 10 minutes and there's so much work that goes into that. And I just want to thank you guys for the great work and and making it as brief as possible because some people just carry on during the meetings and it makes it but thank you so much for all the work that you guys all do and the chief with his reports a while back. I I I just want to let you know that we really appreciate that we have such a solid team here and we talk about the culture. So thank all you guys for the great job you do and it isn't very often that it gets seen. I mean that a furer is usually just beautiful but I don't think that many people you know go through it. I know Stacy does and probably

so thank you to the end council member Price. Nothing to report. Hey Pro Tim Matina uh just to add to the committee meeting with the school board. um they are working really hard to get the scoring up and having some success and um we are uh working with them to with some of their honors groups to try to get the volunteers. So um we might want to make that request before school's out. Okay, you can help me with that.

Yeah, for sure. Um trying to think is there anything mostly we've had a hard time coordinating with that group so I was just glad to all sit down again. Um yeah that's it.

Great. Um so my report I just have a couple things. Uh couple weeks ago I attended the clean water program. Um, and one thing that came out of that, uh, is that the county through the clean water program has a trash cleanup grant, um, that will expire, uh, at the end of March next year. Uh, they currently have $43,000 in that grant that needs to be spent before uh, we have one year uh, to spend it. That could be used on disposal fees, staff time as well. uh for cleanups. Uh like last year, I worked with um uh Brad and uh Marie with Discover Lakeport to uh put together the uh downtown cleanup. We didn't utilize any of that grant, but it's it's something that we're I'm kind of considering um because if we don't use it, we lose it.

Yeah.

Uh the other thing was the LC special meeting we had last week. Uh it was our stakeholder meeting to talk about um Mount Kanakai specifically and the trail network that is being proposed up there. And it was a really a a great meeting. We also had a representative from the state park um out there who runs the uh Clear Lake and more region for the state park. In the end, we would love to and the plan is coming around to have a trail network on Mount Kanai. They're upgrading some of the trails in the state park and the state park has land on the other side of Soda Bay as well. So, the goal would be to connect

Oh, cool. state park and Mount Kanakai. Awesome. Um, they had a I mean, they had done some work on it. Yeah. you said a conceptual plan and when you saw it it was like it's a lot more than conceptual. That's awesome. Yeah. So, so some cool things uh coming through there. I think that some sort of trails on Mount Kaki are are more and more becoming a reality. So hopefully we we get that moving sooner than later. Um but everything I've learned from being up here is it's never as fast as you think it will be, but it moves. Uh, was there anything else from that meeting, Kevin, that I I forgot?

No, I mean, I I think we would have liked to have more regional partners there, but I think the message was uh put out there that I think that that will come. I mean, it it was it was exciting to um to see that. And then I think what that we also learned that um Lake County Public uh services did get Oh, yeah. a donation a donation ofundous thousand or something for for kind of trails development up there. So I mean that there's a little bit of money behind it and plan in place. Yeah. Sweet. And that's it for my report. So uh this meeting is adjourned.