City Council - Regular Meeting

button. Sorry, it's a black button to turn it green. There we go. Okay.

Black, not green. water supply and Esmeralda development. Um, first I trust that contracts are in place still uh for diesel operated backup generators for our water pumps. That was the case back in 2019. I trust it's still the case. two, I trust that uh the city policy is still for 85% of the water towers being filled and that jumps up to 90% fill during um red flag warnings. Also, in the past when it appeared that growth um in the city could be hampered by an almost maxed out water supply, the city actually partnered with private firm Bear Republic and that was back in 2014 to drill two new wells and ensure both business and residential growth could be accommodated. And I trust that with the massive Esmeralda development that uh capital expenditure funds are being provided by the developer as well to ensure that water supplies are maintained for residents of the city that are already here. Uh furthermore, uh I'd like to conf like to see that the city is working with the federal government on overturning P Gen's attempt to tear down the dams that are threatening both the agricultural livelihood of residents along the Russian River and as well as ensuring Cloverdale's future water supply, especially with the new developments that are coming in such as Esmeralda. That's it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Rob. Any other public comment? Come forward, sir. Hi, I'm Sergio SS. I live at uh on South Foot Boulevard and I was wondering how Cloverdale or even the county can actually put on uh residents on a contaminated site. Everything I've seen, the wells are not capped. They're not. And what does Esmeralda bring to Cloverdale? It's supposed to be a gated community where only the people that live there are going to be able to go in there. Uh we have failures on our infrastructure as it is with sewer and all that that haven't been addressed. And yet we're inviting somebody else and just like the gentleman prior to us to to me where we they're going to get the water. Who's going to regulate them? I don't believe that that having a gated community where nobody has access they're not going to pay, you know, the city taxes cuz they're far enough away that they're not going to be able to contribute to the well-being of Cloverdale. We are we're already having issues with businesses not being able to make it, you know, because we're not the city itself. We're not there's not enough here for us to keep us alive and then we're going to have try to have somebody else that's not going to do anything for the community and uh you know invite them into a space where we like I said it's it's by the airport but I believe it's county

but I want to know how this can be addressed. Like I said, I've I've seen the o the pictures of the oversight before the bypass came through and all I've read up on the contamination that's there. And I'm just wondering what do you guys, you know, you guys are going to let them come in and just have free will with our our uh, you know, water that that Lake Pillsberries, you know, they're trying to take down all these dams. We're not going to have the water. And then they're going to suck the water table dry for the farmers that are here. You know, we already have that with with the vineyards, okay? We don't need more people pulling from a source that's insufficient.

Thank you, sir. And one thing I want to mention is we do have a full town hall that will address those questions on February 5th over at the veterans hall. Please be there and come and Esmeralda is going to give a presentation, answer most of those questions for you. Thank you, sir. Any other public comment? Okay. Yes, ma'am. Can I get a microphone? Can I get a microphone? Oh, yeah.

Does that sound okay? Okay. Um, thank you city council and to the people of Cloverdale for being involved and caring about the future of this truly great Californian town. I keep bringing up this point because I think it's an important one and speaks of the unique situation and challenges developing the former Masonite site presents. Myself and others have only been able to find one other property in the United States that was once a former wood treatment facility contaminated by pentaclorophenol reszoned residential. This site is in Missoula, Montana. It was also a state super fun site like the former Masonite property. What I find interesting is in the first article I came across about the Montana property is this. states in 2016, the Department of Environmental Quality ordered residential level cleanup on about 10 of the 19 acres. What I'm at a loss with with this is how it was determined that the Masonite property was at residential level cleanup in the first place. Was there an agency that ordered residential level cleanup on the Masonite property? Did anything like that happen? What tests were done on the former Masonite site to show it is safe for humans and housing? Or was none of this required because of the changes made to the SI Cloverdale's general plan, which from my limited understanding of allow for some exceptions to be made on specific properties. Because of its specific plan status, it also sounds like Esmeralda Land Company will get to use old or previously approved environmental impact report and environmental site assessments done for the exa Alexander Valley Resort. Can the city require Esmeralda Land Company to

do a comprehensive soil analysis at depth? There's only been two soil testing events I have found and those happened in 2007 and 2016, both which were only shallow soil samples of a foot or less, which tells us little about the contamination that remains outside of the deed restricted area. If so, I'd like to propose an independent citizen advisory council to research and select environ an environmental consulting firm and also uh a place where people can easily find like a like information about these reports if indeed they are using them. Like I want to make sure that I'm looking at the right stuff like if I'm trying to figure out what they're using. That's it.

Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. Thanks. Any other public comment? I'm seeing none. Okay. Into uh we have written comments if you guys would like to read the written comments. There's a couple of them that just came out right here. They are in the agendas that are posted online. Also copies of the agenda down here. Um all right, let's move into the student liaison report. Go down. Go down. A great report by the way. I read it. It's awesome. Thank you.

Thank you. Hello, my name is Valyriano. I am the student leansen. Today we're going to start off with in January High School's focus on academic planning for the upcoming school year. Cllorto High School hosted a course fair and course information night to help students and families explore classes and graduation pathways. Students received course request forms and will submit them by January 26 with parent signatures required. On January 21st, Cloverdale High School welcomed eighth grade Washington school families to campus for a bilingual parent information night and course information events. Families learn about graduation requirements, academic expectations, available supports, and new course offerings. These events support informed academic choices, and straighten communication between families and educators, college financial aid, and scholarship support. The counseling department is actively supporting Cloverdale High School seniors with post-graduation planning and financial aid access. Key opportunities includes FASA, cash for college workshops, and access to local regional scholarships through updated Cloverto High School scholarship list programs such as 10,000 degrees, career and workforce development opportunities. Cloverto High School students are being encouraged to participate in hands-on career programs, including a representative from Clover from Santa Rosa Junior College culinary department, visited campus to share information about culinary pathways and post-secary opportunities with students. North Bay Construction Corps, a three-month training program in construction trades and job skills for high school seniors to learn basic constru construction trades and job skills. Skills taught electrical, plumbing basics, concrete work, heavy equipment, operation, tool handling and safety, blueprint reading, and applied math. Paid paid environmental leadership work

experience applications due February 15th. These programs provide opportunities for students to learn about pathways beyond traditional college routes and promote workforce fitness. Family and community engagement. Cloverto High School is straining family partnerships through monthly bilingual virtual workshops on Yao's mental health hosted by the Sonoma County Office of Education and Community Partners. Parent resource materials to support student access from home. DAC meetings to engage families in school decision making. School climate and student life. Winter sports season is coming to an end and school community is encouraged to come out and support student athletes in wrestling, soccer, and basketball as they finish their season strong. Student clubs and leadership groups remain active and engaged. Latinos O'Neally during lunch, providing spaces for student connection and culture engagement and academic achievements. As spring approaches, baseball, softball, and tennis programs are beginning signups and highlighting continue opportunities for students to participation in athletics. The junior class is hosting Casemies fundraiser to support prom planning and student activities. Upcoming school closure, Cloverdale High School will be closed from February 12th through February 16 in observance of President's Observe Holiday and Citrus Fair.

Perfect. That's it. Thank you very much. Uh that was an outstanding presentation. Well written too. Thank you. It's a DAS. Anybody on the DIS have any comments? Thank you Valeria for the very uh extensive and complete uh report. It's really important that our community hears about some of the future job opportunities, educational scholarships for students. It's a great time when when everyone's here to to hear that information. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh just one last thing. Yesterday, Cloverdale High School's wrestling team unexpectedly lost the life of their wrestling coach. Uh he was uh young. He was in his 40s. An amazing guy to our our kids of our our community. They loved him. They've been working with him for about a decade now. And I just really wanted to give my condolences to all the people that have been involved. Everybody from his family to the family that he had on the mat. uh they were they loved their coach and he's can be dearly missed. So, please pass on our condolences. Thank you.

All right, let's get into D1, new police officer introductions. Officer Dal and Officer Eubank Chief Mayor, council members, city manager. Uh I kind of give you a quick picture of what their journey was. Uh which started about a year ago with their application process and the hiring process. They went through a background process, joined the police, we hired them, sent them through the police academy in July. They graduated in December and now they're on their eighth week of FTO. um with our agency and should they're on schedule to get off of FTO which is field training um in April midapprilish. Um so that's kind of the broader picture of their journey so far. First I'd like officer uh Dao to come up. I'll introduce officer Dao. So, officer Dal, he's he's Brit. You can step back.

He's British. So, I told him the first day he started, we're going to have tea and he just said I digestive biscuits doesn't sound that great, but uh it's a thing I guess over there. Uh so, we had tea and biscuits. Uh, so Lloyd is a graduate of the SRJC 218 basic academy and enters law enforcement at age 36 as a second career. He lives in Cloverdale with his wife Gabriella, their two children, Esme. Did I say that right? And Frankie. Before law enforcement, Lloyd served 13 years in the British Army, deployed to multiple locations around the world, including Afghanistan and Ukraine. He met his wife during a training exercise in Coronado, San Diego, and moved to the United States permanently in February 2023. He arrived um after he arrive after After arriving, he spent nearly 18 months working in the IT department at Soma State University before deciding to pursue a new long-term career in law enforcement. In his free time, Lloyd enjoys physical training, golf, and spending much time with as possible with his family. Lloyd looks forward to helping make Cloverdale as safe as possible and serving the community in any way he can. Lloyd D. He's going to have his wife come up, I think, to pin his badge on him. You can just stick them.

Officer Dal, don't don't go too far. Uh when we get done with both of these, we're there's going to be some pictures, so stand by. Uh Officer Eubank, if you can kind of hop down here.

Don't don't hurt anything on the way down. As you can tell, these are two great great cops. You know that uh they fit our community just perfect. Uh so Mikey Eubank senior is a devoted husband, father, and a man of faith from Southern California, raised in in Corona. He was a standout football player at Sentinel High School and was and went on to play Arizona State as their quarterback where he actually met his wife Elizabeth who is a great who is his greatest teammate in life. After college, Michael played professional football in Germany, Mexico, and Mexico before answering a different calling, law enforcement. a lifelong protector of problem and problem solver. He was in inspired by bo by by both his upbringing and his desire to serve others with integrity and compassion. Michael is a proud father of three uh l Emma Grace and baby Michael Jr. who was actually born while he was in the academy police academy. Uh and deeply he has deeply values deeply family values faith and community. The Eubank family is honored to be this to honored by this opportunity and Michael is proud to serve and protect Clo the Cloverdale community with humility, dedication, and heart. Um, I will give you a quick uh I got an email from a person he contacted this a couple weeks ago. Um, it was a good email, but it kind of uh shows the kind of character he is. And it was from a mother of uh a traffic stop he did on a

16-year-old boy um who was just, you know, he never got in trouble. He was uh really distraught when he when he was contacted, which is the worst thing, getting pulled over by the cops for his window tent. So, unbeknownst to officer Eubank, uh his son called his mother while he was during the traffic stop and left his mother on speaker phone when he came up and contacted him. So, during the contact, so his mother explains to me, you know, that he was very caring, uh kind of coached the kid to calm down. He's safe in a safe environment and came back a few times to to reassure him he's going to be okay. Um so, he ended up with a warning. Shame on you. Um he gave him a warning um and then uh ultimately told the kid, you know, sit for a few minutes cuz he was crying before you go to school so you can compose yourself and um completed the traffic stop. But that's the kind of character, you know, that we embody as as Cloverdale police officers. Um you know, so we try to make the best of a lot of context. He's going to have his lovely wife come up and pin his badge on him. 10 kids.

She's a ham. Uh you you want to take a photo with that? Yeah. Yeah. Just see if we have any comments. Thank you both of you. Uh the new police officers, you're joining a great group of uh of officers, great leadership in this town. And uh good luck. You look like you're going to be an outstanding match for Cloverdale. So uh I want to bring it to the DIA. Anybody else have any comments? Uh, welcome to the department, uh, Officer Da and Officer Eubank, and, uh, congratulations on the newborn.

Congratulations and thank you for serving Cloverdale. Gentlemen, welcome aboard. I've got one question for Officer Dao. I I know, Chief, you said he was from England. You speak English? Yeah. Welcome aboard.

Do you do have an accent? Uh, first, Officer Dell, I want to say thank you for your service. Uh, and second, I want to say welcome to the family because that's what this is here. Cloverdale is all about the community and sounds like on your traffic stop, you already recognize that and are part of that. So, I'm excited to have you guys here and so, thank you so much for everything and thank you for your service on our police department. All right, let's do some pictures. man.

Um, probably one slide. about Give it a try. This one first.

One, two, three. One, two, three. That one. Guys, congrats. You're about the only one that gets close to that. All right.

Okay, we're all clearing out here. I know, right? All right, we'll move into item F, consent calendar. All items under the consent calendar will be considered together by one action of the city council unless any city council member or member of the public request that an item be removed and considered separately. Um, thank you, mayor. Um, I did ask for item F5 and F7. Okay, F5 and F7. Anybody from the public like to pull an item? Seeing none. Okay. Um, I'll make a motion for F1 2 3 four and six.

You have a second. I'll second that motion. Okay. Roll call vote. Mike. It's going to throw me off here. Council member Laski. I. Council member Marquez. Hi. Council member Morgan. Hi. Vice Mayor Lance. Hi. and Mayor Wheeler. Hi. All right. I'm probably going to mess that up tonight. I apologize. Okay, we can move into discussion on item F5. Go ahead, Council Member Mart.

Okay. Uh, I just wanted to pull this item from consent calendar due to a potential conflict of interest that warrants public discussion. Uh because the contract involves an immediate family member of a city council member, I believe it's important that we clarify conflict of interest compliance and recusal before proceeding. Okay.

So, for those that don't know on F5, this is a contract that is for my brother for a I think it's a $12,000 contract for an electrical job. Um my brother is a sole proprietor. I have no financial interest in any of this. I have made a point with the city manager to uh not be part of any conversations for family members that have possible contracts and I met with the city attorney to make sure that I was clear and did not have to recuse at this point. So I'd like to on the record ask for him to speak. Uh thank you vice mayor. So under the political reform act uh a public official has to recuse themselves from decisions in which they have a financial interest. So maybe it involves a a source of their income or their real property. Um and based on what you said, you have no financial interest here and so there's no requirement to recuse yourself under the law.

Okay. Thank you. Any other comments from the council? Hold on. I think study manager Derek, do you mind coming up and just summarizing uh you selected the electrician?

Yeah. So uh um this is a result of the the purchase of the two um buildings, the portable school buildings and um you know it is often that we do these smaller contracts and I get asked who, what, where, why and when. So uh the big determining factor was uh availability and background. this specific contractor had already worked on these exact units for the school district and and done some some additional proono work and so he was very familiar with with these units. So I identified that would expedite the process and he was uh he had current um insurance with the city which is a kind of a you know sometimes I'll contact electricians and they'll say well I don't have this high level of insurance currently. we'll get it and then we'll, you know, push your job down the road. Uh, him having it, you know, currently could expedite that process. So, that's why we wanted to, you know, ju just go with someone who's familiar and who who could who could get it done.

Okay. Any comments from the council? Mark, I have a question. Um, because it's a smaller job, is that's why why you didn't get other bids or Um, yeah, I'm just curious why. this because the background and we're we're kind of attaching it to the the larger project. None. I want to say thank you for pulling it. Yep. As a matter of transparency, I wanted to make sure that was on record. I would have pulled it if you didn't. Yep. So, thank you. Y Thank you. All right. Let's uh bring that item to vote. Bring it back here. Oh, you're going to have to get a motion for motion. Yeah. I'll make a motion for F5. I

have a second. Sorry, guys. I second that motion. Okay, Mike to vote. Um, we can go back to the old fashioned way if you'd like. All in favor say I. I. All oppose say nay. Motion passes. Passes. All right. Now, let's move on to item F7, which was also pulled.

Yes. So, um, my, uh, comment on F7 is I would like to see us adopt the tentative schedule. Um, I like kind of like the way that we did it last year. If if there was a no need for a meeting that we canceled it, I think adopting the tentative schedule kind of keeps the public in the loop a little more where they don't feel like they're going to get surprised by a a meeting that they kind of have to check in constantly to see if if if it's going on, at least if they know a tentative schedule. Um, they know at least once a month to check in to see if there's going to be a meeting. makes it easier for the public to participate. So, um I would like to uh amend uh that to adopt the uh tentative schedule. Okay. Any other comments? I have a comment. Yeah.

Um you know, we all voted to have sub well, I mean, some of us voted to have subcommittees, but um I'm having an issue with subcommittees. Um I think they're great because it's more of an intimate setting. Um but my issue with subcommittees is sometimes things go to subcommittees that I think should really be a decision made by all of us instead of two of us. And so um my comment is I think any major decisions this year really need to be um kicked back up from the subcommittee and made to all of us. Okay? Rather than just two people deciding on something like say oh if we want to buy that parcel we have to get a grant. Well two people shouldn't be deciding on that. It should be all five of them.

Well, and that's how we were doing it right there. It's the subcommittees and and then a lot of the subcommittees come up and then at the end of the subcommittee meeting, they're always given to full counsel. That's how we that's how subcommittees work. It's just an idea of us and then it's only two of the members doing it. So, we bring it up to full counsel for adoption or approval on that. So, I agree with you. Yes, they do need to come up to everybody and that's why we do it that way. So, any other comments down there from council member? This this was one of the options that we had on the table and I I'm totally for that amendment. So, I have nothing wrong with that. So, if you wanted to make a motion with that amendment, I would second it.

I'll wait for you. So, I'd like to make a motion to adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Cloverdale adopting the 2026 roster of subcommittee joint committee and regional board committee appointments in the 2026 meeting schedule uh to be amended with inclusion of the tentative schedule provided. I have a second. I second that motion. Okay, Mike,

just for full transparency on the schedule that part of that resolution was the 2026 meeting schedule which included the cancellation of the first meeting in July conflict first meet or the second meeting in November and the second meeting in December. So with that, we will likely not have cancellation notices since that's just the meeting schedule for 2026. All in favor? I. All opposed passes. Motion passes. All right. Cool. All right. Let's uh no public hearing. Let's move into new business. Uh consider appointments of citizen oversight committee for sales tax and utilities user tax.

Thank you, mayor. This item is the uh proposed appointment of the citizens oversight committee for both DD, which was recently passed, and the sales the UUT, which is about two years old. um both require the establishment of an oversight committee. So, we're going to do both uh together, which is uh more efficient. Obviously, we are they're both they're comprised comprised of three members. We did do uh quite a bit of advertising online and and asking people in the community if they were interested. We did get three applicants. So, we got Craig Carney, who's the current uh planning commissioner and a former business owner, Robert Maddock, who's an attorney, and Mike Mike Nixon, who's a local business owner. Uh, this is your opportunity if you'd like to ask them any questions about their uh interest or if you have any interest in them, now would be the time to do that. If you're okay with these uh three folks, then we have a resolution that you could adopt and we can move on with our uh oversight committee. Any questions from the DICE?

Seeing none, I'm familiar with all three. They're uh wonderful members of our community and I'm excited to have them on our team. So, thank you guys for putting your name in the hat. Thank you guys for being willing to take the time to do this. Uh I'm I'm familiar with two of them. I'm not familiar with you, sir, but I will get to know you. Um I'm familiar with Mike. I'm down there about every Friday. So, yes. Thank you. And uh Mr. Carney right there. I've been on some boards with him. So, I think we got some outstanding folks in here. So, thank you very much for stepping up and doing this for us. Appreciate it.

Is there any comments from the public on this? Seeing none, thank you. So, we have a motion. We motion for this item right here. Uh, do we have a motion for this? I'd like to make a motion to adopt the resolution of the city council of the city of Cloverdale appointing three citizen members to the citizen oversight committee for sales tax and utilities users tax. I would like to second that motion. Mike bring to a vote. All right with the motion second. All in favor say I. I. Oppose say nay. Motion passes. Motion passes. 5-0.

Thank you guys so much. Really appreciate it. Looking forward to it. Appreciate your continued service to Cloverdale. Thank you. All right, H2. Let's move into street maintenance funding update council dire or go ahead. So, we Derek Montani, our public works director, has a presentation. I think our goal tonight is really to start getting start the conversation about the use of measure DD. Um, and

yep. Um, so I mean that, you know, the the measure did include parks, public safety, and streets. I think tonight we want to focus mainly on the streets. I think we just we're, you know, we're looking for direction tonight. So, we're going to be uh proposing some ideas and we'll come back as we start to develop those ideas as we know as more money comes in. We've only gotten one quarter of of payments so far. So, um, there's that. So, I'll just turn it over to Derek. Excuse me. One second mayor for the presentation. Number four on the list.

Yeah. In the packets, the presentation and then um also there's kind of a rough guiding document kind of the rough checklist of um you know to help council with direction on choosing these streets. There's also some um some quotes on some some soft cost, design costs that we'll we'll cover in the presentation too to give you an idea of what you know what it entails when we start to see these streets that have um ADA amenities that need to be upgraded along with the uh paid surfaces. Only get 3 minutes.

Yeah, 3 minutes. Speed run it. Reset this up so the screens are set that way. Yeah, that's why that looks good, Mike.

Yeah. So, the whole purpose of this is kind of a a rough guidance and an overview of available funds, projected funds, um possible use cases for that. So, um just this this first slide is just provide a high level overview of the major DD funds and then offer guiding uh suggestions for selecting street projects. And this is not by any means the the the final list, right? And we're going to come back, we're going to bring this list back with council input at another meeting and and use that as a guiding document for our future budgeting. So, uh, just background on it, what we're using is the voter approved, uh, 3/4 of a percent tax. It went into effect April 1st, 2025. Um, the, uh, it's collected and distributed with existing sales tax and the revenue forecast may vary based on, you know, spending for the residents in town. We're usually what we see is a a higher uh, amount during the month of December for Christmas purposes. um the pro uh projected annual revenue which I think in the study was projected at 1.6 million and we're projecting a usable revenue of 1.2 um because of the the quarterly dispersements of that money um and then the time they fall. So, so far as of now, as of December, we haven't got as of December, that doesn't actually include the month of December, right? So, as of December 2025, we have $365,66.70 from our measure DD money. And then we're looking at supporting uh pavement rehabilitation and ADA compliance in these places where we're going to redo the pavement. Um so

project selection uh you know we what we have is a good guiding document. I I put it in your guys's packet. It's called the PTAP, right? It's the the pavement report that we do every two years for the city. And with this DD money, we really need to set up kind of a a programmatic approach. You know, what what what maintenance items are we going to do? What full constructions items are we going to do? and why are we doing those items, right? So, street conditions vary quite a bit. Um, and then we have to take into account, like you keep saying, the ADA, curb ramps, upgrades, things that can be triggered, other mandatory triggering items when we choose streets to be repaved. um for the best outcome, we're going to combine that with, you know, pre already in place um projects to prevent and to protect the good streets. So, um I'm I'm on this slide right now. Mike, um so, uh guidance suggestions on how to do streets, project readiness and delivery. Um we we already have a few projects that are you know we're funding pay as you go projects that those are good projects to receive DD money to kind of fill in the gap of years. Some projects we work on every other year or we we'll skip a year to save up funds to do it and then so this could fill that gap to make that project be a continuous you know project. Um that's fits. We need to uh consider ADA ramp requirements. That's a big thing for city of Cloverdale. We have a lot of corners that you know don't have ramps, don't have, you know, full ADA access and and all the engineering and planning that comes with it. Um public benefit and visibility. Uh that that that's a large determining factor. What what the people want, what what people

are going to see when they come into town first, the high h high traffic areas. um you you know streets that are dilapidating that are surrounded by brand new streets, you know, filling in those gaps. Um and long-term cost effectiveness, right? We don't want to uh neglect street maintenance projects to do complete pavement projects because then we'll end up the maintenance projects we skipped will have to become full projects. Okay, next slide. Um so the delivery method uh largely governed by the the California cost accounting code cucc um so uh and I've been over this with with um multiple people multiple times about you know in-house work force account stuff so it really boils down to city staff and city projects were kind of limited by that $75,000 mark. That'd be what you call the force account work. Uh anything beyond that up to $220,000, we're going to do an informal bid. And then anything above $220,000, we do a formal bid process. So those are kind of the guidelines. Um and then um to get into these, it doesn't happen very often, but sometimes we will have to split projects up, but we can't split them up for the intent of uh meeting a lower bid requirement, right? We have to show that we're splitting the project up because it needs to be split up for uh other purposes, not just to meet a bud a bidding requirement. Okay, next slide. All right. So, some possible uh already um listed projects. We have what we call the SB1, local streets and roads funding. So, Jefferson

Street was on that list. It was slated for, I think, in the 2030 era because it's a a small amount of money we get and so we have to project those projects out by quite long. So, Jefferson Street has came up multiple times and and council has shown interest in in in making sure that that street gets gets uh repaved. Clark Avenue is the current SB1 list fund recipient street and we're doing a full uh water, sewer, pavement, storm, everything. And it's going to be from South to I think Blair um or Alter I could be it could be back to Alter, but so there and then we have First Street, which is the the section between Cloverdale Boulevard and Maine. It's uh kind of a a poor section street that that w wore very very poorly. So that that probably needs to be ground out. We we we have some preliminary work done on that and that's kind of a key arterial in the city. It gets a lot of use. Um it does get a lot of heavy foot traffic with the amount of events we have here. Um and and it would be nice to to smooth that up again. Um, so that being said, uh, major DD can can help fund these gaps or or they can expand these projects, you know, that when when we when we get a paving project and we're going to go into a neighborhood and and we if we lengthen that project, you know, using DD money as a as opposed to trying to wait longer and use SP1 money or or or other grant funded monies. So just next slide. So this was I I wanted to include this just for everyone to get an idea. This this is a a section of road. It's t it was a tarman drive between Brookside and

Hillview. It's one of the poorer streets in town. It's it its connection to Rosewood too is really bad. But this is a good example because it includes uh four ADA ramps and it's only about 450 ft long. So that gives you an idea of the soft cost we'd be looking at that that comes with these paving projects. Even if it's just a grind and a and overlay, we we still need to we still have quite a few front-end costs to bring it up and um for these ADA requirements. So, I just wanted to u give everyone kind of that yard stick to measure off of uh when deciding streets and funds and and and and what we can do. It's it's it's not super large cost, but it is a significant amount of the monies that we do receive.

What's that number? Mike, do you mind? 59,390.

59 390 Um so as we do with other streets and roads SB1 goma money and measure in money we uh we do uh public information you know we we take into account that what community posts what what people want and polls and um um we do local engagement and then we try to provide as much transparency as the project we're working on um and we will be copying all of those standards for this DD money even though it's not mandated. Uh it's it's a best practice for us. So in your packet you have the major DD sign layout. Um our uh Bobby Spagnola, our engineering tech, did a great job. He designed these um and so he's given you three options to look at. And these are the signs we're planning and we're going to have them produced kind of like we do with Measure M signs. And then we'll

next next slide, Mike. Oh, I'm sorry. Two one more slide.

We'll have these um out at the job site where where that major DD funds are being located. That way the community knows where where it's being spent, what what it's what it's doing. Um so, and he did a great job designing these. So, if you um just at council's direction, give me give us some feedback and we can get choose which one you guys like. Next slide. Um so the steps from here we are requesting council direction on providing a streets and projects list. Um I want you to you know take in the guiding document information and all that and u kind of decide where you want us to point us to start streets and projects I put in there because you know if it's a sidewalk project we need to do before a street or any any other pressing projects we need to do. Um we'll develop that list uh match it with major DD funds. We'll return to a council meeting and then we'll use this guiding document uh to to set our budget for the 26 27 and 2728 um fiscal years which we're on a fiscal year budget now. So, and then uh in the back I just put the reference documentation that I included in the um packet. Um the the PTA report's always good to look at that TAR plan. Um the project list is also in there for the the design and then the California uniform cost accounting code is in there. It's a dense read and I can give you the highlights if you want. So that's it. Um, so if council wants to kind of, you know, come come up with some, you don't have to provide us with a list tonight. Just take this guiding document um and um employ it in in your future

decision for creating that list. And then once that's provided to us, then we can kind of critique it and give ideas of projected stages of of to get all these done. and we can come back to council and see if you guys like that timeline and the prices for things. Questions? Any questions? Go ahead.

Uh thank you, uh Derek. I I really appreciate uh meeting with you, talking about this extensively. Uh I think you're doing a great job at leading everything and and things look like they're falling in just a a great place. Um one of the things I'm just kind of thinking about to consider is um that we have sort of a projected phase. Um and there might be some things that are next up in line is sort of if we can have um a second tier of of operations that you know people can maybe expect that once these things are done they see that they're next up in line. Uh so uh which

yeah we're hoping to uh with this document it would be kind of a a multi-year large project list kind of like our projected CIP list um because we do do a two-year budget. So, we we need to kind of be beyond that two-year budget for sure. And that that's where the uh the street project list would Yeah. So, yeah, people see that if they're not in that phase, they'll they'll be in the next phase. And y uh but things look great. I do like the uh measure DD local tax dollars improving our community sign as as my choice for for the sign. So, I I would select that one.

Any go ahead. Um, I want to thank you for putting together this presentation and I know the people of Cloverdale will be very happy once we start really working on the streets. So, with all that being said, Derek, I know uh a lot of people have come forward and you know, me first, me first, but I think we have to extrapolate back just from beyond the paving if the sidewalks and or the curb and gutter are in disrepair. Uh, and then they're in disrepair because of the trees.

I mean, we have to look at all of that. So, I mean, I I saw your first slide for, you know, $60,000, but it didn't include any of, you know, beyond beyond the paving, right? Well, that that um $60,000 that's just for engineering cost, right? Right. Soft drawings. That's not project cost. So that that would include I think it's it's multiple ADA ramps drawings curb gutter but but like I say some in some of the neighborhoods the sidewalk being pushed up by the trees and even those roads are you know horrible

we have to start somewhere and uh in California law we know that the sidewalks don't belong to the city so in a lot of neighborhoods those sidewalks are in disrepair so it's a kind of a unknown battle behind the scenes on why my street's not getting paid because your sidewalks, right? Yeah. I mean, that could be a council decision if you guys choose to do a larger project like we are doing the Clark Avenue project, right? And uh with a full reconstruct, it does include um 88 ramps at the corner and sidewalks and things of that sort. So when when you tend to do these large full reconstructs of sidewalks,

if we have if we have an ordinance that says, you know, a tree beyond 12 in can't be cut down, we might have to re revisit that because a lot of the trees are 30, 40 years old and their diameters are already pushing up sidewalks. Yeah. And I I think we could kind of get to that with some resident outreach, right? If you have a neighborhood where it's the the the trees are a nuisance to the resident and they're a nuisance to the city right away, um there could be some common ground there. So yeah, I'm just thinking out loud everything else beyond just, you know, I want my street paved, right? Thank you. We always try to build in that contingency. Yeah. Thank you for your presentation. Yeah.

So, measure DD came around basically because we never had any money to pay for repaving and maintenance. Uh it was what was it? Under under 300,000. I'll just use a good round number. It was under 300,000 per year that we actually had to spend. I know it was a lot less than that, but I'll just use that as our number.

Um this gets us into the 1.4 range. 1.2 to 1.6. I'll say 1.4. But we have to remember that this was this was also put on your your your taxpayers. So, they're going to want more than First Street redone again because you look at Rosewood, it was paved in 1964. It had It is literally crumbled down to dirt. And I can I would hate to play a video in one of our meetings of the person that can't hold her cell phone as she's trying to drive down the road at 7 m an hour. And so, we have to really look at I understand the maintenance portion of it. I understand updating ADA, but we have to look at how are we going to affect the people that have waited and have destroyed their own vehicles and their own uh uh property trying to get into these places. And I know I know you're not going to say it because I know where you live, but you so but I'm looking at my list of things that I've I've sold this on because I was the one that went door to door. I'm the one that went to every meeting and I'm the one that said we will do our damnedest to give you what is necessary to make your lives better and it can't be repaving only first street or I I Jefferson's awesome. That's on my list as well. But we have to focus on more than that. We have to look at the worst of the worst. Even if it is just the grinding and repaving, even if it is the lipstick on the pig, it's better than what they're dealing with. Uh, another thing that we talked about when we first knew DD was going to pass is we brought in a financial adviser and said, "Is this something that we can loan against the money and save money in the long term by doing like a 5-year plan hiring the company?" And your your uh save savings would be bigger from the percentage that you pay on the loan versus the CPI.

Mhm. And I think that we should revisit that with some interest rates going down to see how close it is because it was really close at that point and so they've gone down a little bit lower. So I think that we should actually revisit that a little bit to see if uh a loan against DD you know even if it is a 5% your CPI is going to go up more than that over the next 10 years down a little bit.

So it's something to think about um because it was going up pretty drastically but I'm not the smart guy with that. So that's why we you bring in somebody to say, "Hey, here's what it would cost you and see if it would work." So we could do multiple projects and then your contractor would know that he has, you know, let's say seven roads and he'll do them for 20% cheaper when he has seven versus one because you're not mobilizing and demobilizing and things along those lines. You use their engineers. I looked at this engineering report for the soft cost. I I I'm going to be very nice and just keep quiet because this gave us a $60,000 uh price tag for them to design four ramps to come off of your sidewalk. No geotech, no rightway survey, uh no design assistance during this, no lid designs, nothing. So, it it gives you nothing other than four drawings on a piece of paper and a topo map that I can get for free. So, I'm very disappointed in what they're offering and I know that there's a lot of companies around here that would do a lot more, especially if they had a a bigger project scope that they were looking at.

Yeah, it's the little peacemeal projects that are cost effective. Um the the PTAP report does lay out some good large chunks of multi-year projects. Um I think the the last one was like a $36 million like all-in project, right? which is not feasible for us, but it does it does lay out multi-year um projects. I think that I think that $36 million project was was over 5 years. So, we could we could kind of take what they're trying to do there and scale that down. Yep. Absolutely. I'm sorry. Go

ahead, Mayor. Is that okay? You know, I I think we the one thing the PTA misses, which is great. I love that report. I love that we did it. It's it's phenomenal for what we're going through. Uh we should have the knock your teeth out report as you drive down the streets and see which ones knock your teeth out faster because you know Jefferson Hail School Street these things you cannot go over 5 miles an hour without losing control of your vehicle. So we really need to consider that when we're looking into these

Derek. Thank you very much and uh all great comments. I'm kind of on the same thing and I've been preaching this the whole time as granted I've only been in Cloverdale for eight years, but North Jefferson has been mentioned to me I don't know how many times people have told me it's all over you know social media. Yes, that's one I think has as one I'd like to highlight. It's highly traveled, but also like the like everybody's saying, there's a lot of roads here and I agree with that analogy of the vice mayor here is let's do a knock your teeth out report. That's there's some roads in this town that just need it. You know what I mean? And I guess uh I would like to see it. I'm also very disappointed when I see that. I mean, when it comes to those engineering reports, are we looking at that cost for every project we we bring on every street if it needs 80? I mean,

no. The larger the project we get, we get a better bang for our buck, you know. Yeah. Okay. And there's no way to mitigate or or figure out how we can do that at a cheaper cost to We're always trying. Oh, yeah. I know you are. All right. Thank you. I agree you are. Also, uh, how long if we do put stuff out to bid, how long how long what's the time frame for the bids? We bid it out for 30 days, then we do our 30 days. Okay. Yeah.

Cuz I guess we get going with this all building up is, you know, the people at Cloverdale are chomping at the bit and then, yeah, everybody wants their street done, but we all know which ones really need to be done and what are we looking at for a possible start date on some stuff, you know? Uh, I mean, we we'd have to identify the projects first, right? Once once we give you the list or we come up with a list of ones we want to go to. What's uh what's the time where they're where they're grinding and pouring and doing all that good stuff? I mean, probably summer of 27 for smaller projects. Um, cuz we're looking at baking it into the budget in 26 of June. Okay.

Right. you guys passing it in July and then u we're you know foot on the skinny pedal with engineering design and the the list you give us all the way up until the summer of 27 where they can break ground. Yeah. I'm just thinking is is everybody sitting up here is going to be you know I know we've all been asked these questions as long as I got something to give people and and light at the end of the tunnel is what I'm looking for. So

it all depends on the severity of the project. Like if if you guys were to say um you wanted to do a full reconstruct like on a street in Tarmament as we're learning in Clark, you know, with the the aging underground infrastructure and what it's made out of, it it just is just a timeconsuming process to mitigate all of that, you know, you know, full full um water, sewer, storm, all that. So those take an incredible amount of time. grind and overlay, you know, they they can be more expedited. Gotcha. All right. Thank you. Yep. Great presentation, man. And so what? Oh, yeah. He needs some direction here. Oh, yeah. I would like So we can get them going.

I'd like to Hey, mayor, if you don't mind. Um, you know, measure DD was was also for parks and public safety. Yeah.

So we could have a discussion that we want to dedicate, you know, 80 or 90% to roads for the first few years. Then we could try to quantify what that would be and then we could come back with the a scenario that we can we can look into the loan just hypothetically if we got a loan for 5 million just I have that's based on nothing but then we can get many projects done with economy of scale that Derek described. um and then just determine how much say 80% of DD like what kind of loan servicing that would accommodate so we could do a little more research. Um I don't know I just wanted to mention that it it was for parks and public safety. Not to say you have to do that but I think majority of it should go to roads obviously but um I don't know Alex you want to say something? No, I I was going to say if the council wants to go, you know, exploring uh, you know, capital financing a larger amount like that doesn't preclude that will take a little bit of time. That doesn't preclude you spending, you know, the first year's money now while you work on gathering that information for the other years down the road as well.

Just add the comment. uh you know there was numbers that came up regarding a possible loan and I I do like the number of five years. I think that's not too far ahead and that's something uh I would like to also support being explored. I just want to comment before we wrap up this subject on one street that really really needs help. And the reason it needs fixing um is it's triplet and I know when um we have floods then the main entrance to Kings Valley Senior Apartments gets um barricaded off and people have to go down triplet and there's a lot of seniors that live at Kings Valley that say don't have cars but they do have walkers and it's really hard for them to get a walker down triplet.

Okay discussion. Yeah. Any other comments? Mark, how do you want us to direct to make the list? He says staff or council. So, we're looking for the I I'm wondering how you want us to direct. I I heard Council Member Marquez, did you say a five-year term would be what?

I certainly think that uh the number of five years for me sounds good. I think that makes a lot of sense. I generally was leaning against sort of getting into a long-term debt if it was something that was going to be beyond seven. Uh I think five years is is really a good amount of time that if that works out financially that we're going to overall get a better deal. Um I would certainly lean into that. And um on the on the other subject as far as the split between safety and parks and streets, I think um you know from the residents, streets seems to be kind of at the top of that priority. Um so uh talking to our park superintendent as well, um there's some funding that might run out in three years. So maybe things are a little better now. I certainly don't want to neglect safety either. Uh but I think streets seem to be at the top of the list there too. So

y any other comments?

Yeah. So something to think about. Uh the financial adviser knows what he's doing with this and when we had the discussion last time it was broke down into different years and different percentages. So, I think that we we're getting ahead of ourselves by trying to choose a time frame versus say, you know what, let's see what they have to offer right now because 5 10 15 30 it might not make a difference because the percentage is is not worth the money. So, we should just really do the check-in. If we use the company that we used already that we already paid for, they can probably just update what the percentages. It'll take them an hour and send it to us. It'd be a very simple document for them to do, and I'm sure he's willing to do it. Y well if we if we took 80% of the revenue and figured out how much debt service that could service over certain periods of time and what the rate is and try to break it down a little bit so we can bring that back. I just say 80 I mean it could be 90 or and then we would could leave some for public safety and parks if that's the direction. Y um

let's go ahead and Yeah, I'd say with the comments now, let's go ahead and explore that and and I know uh if we're talking to the same gentleman that came up with our bonds before, I think he's a he's outstanding and he'd be worth uh getting in touch with again and see how this plays out, but yeah, it's worth running by him. So,

maybe also we could have um a PGO, a little more detail on a PGO scenario. They did that in the first breakdown. I don't know if you uh saw it or were part of I think David was on that one. Uh however, it it's a good document. He's he's highly intelligent adviser and will is not afraid to give you the the breakdowns, the payo and you know what what he would expect. And when we did it, he also wrote it up for uh where you could pay off early uh with no penalty. So there was lots of ideas that were thrown around that were premature on that part, but it's something to explore. Um, so my question to you again is, mayor, how do you want us to handle this regarding a list of streets or projects? Do you want to do that or wait until we hear other information? And I'm just

I think we should uh I should we should bring this to bring it up for a future and put it on the agenda um and have this uh we can have discussions then and figure out and with all five of us here and we can figure out exactly what roads we want to do and we can present that to Derek and also explore the uh like like we've had comments on maybe long-term loan and we can get some more projects done more bang for our buck. Also, is there any public comments on this, Rob?

Oh, sorry. Oh, is it on? Oh, yes, it is. Please state your name for the record. My name is Annabelle Burke. Okay. And I live in Cloverdale. Okay. Um, when I when you were talking about the streets, the first street that came to mind was Triplet. And I thought that of it um as I don't go down there. I walk around a lot and I don't walk on that street at night. And so I thought of the word of the street triplet. So I thought that was funny. Thank you.

Uh Rob Klowski. I live here in Cloverdale. And uh one thing I'm a little bit disappointed in was uh we've known about um the need for this list for a long time. In fact, it was Todd who convinced me to vote for the sales tax back when I was a little bit reticent about more taxes, more taxes. But uh as the money comes in, I would have expected tonight to see a more comprehensive list uh from the city about what's being done for people that have had crumbling roads. Also, um, uh, what I am happy about was the city has moved forward with an oversight committee on DD, uh, the sales tax revenues and and whatnot. So, that's really good. What I'm disappointed in is talk about, you know, loans to fund this versus pay as you go. We went through this with the water uh, sewer situation, and we ended up with a multi-million dollar loan. Uh, we haven't seen what the interest payments have been to date and what that's doing. And that sacrifices capital money by paying interest um uh sacrifice capital money for projects in water and sewer. In fact, the loan was used to pay for solar panels um for HVAC systems and stuff like that, not for uh the water and sewer projects. So, I'm very leerary when I hear might be going down this second approach to get loans versus pay as you go because you're now getting the money. We don't have a list and now we're talking about potential for loans. that doesn't seem the like way to go. Doesn't seem like sacrificing money coming in by paying interest on a loan. So, let's pay as you go. That would be my take. Also, from a bigger picture point of view, I understand the roads are important, but one of the things that was talked about from the city council and the residents when we had the town hall meetings on tax increases was a good split between roads, and I'm glad Kevin brought it up, parks and public safety. So in my mind I was thinking maybe 1/3 1/2 kind of mixes for the uh the three different areas. So we could don't want to forget that. And in

terms of a road list it dawned on me with uh is Chief Parker still here that we could get also based on safety coverage visav police accident reports are there certain areas where we might need road fixes or lights or more stop signs where there's a high incidence of traffic report. So, I think the police can be a key part of this list. Um, and I guess that's it. So, again, thanks for the oversight and uh I really applaud your efforts and let's get this list done because we've had this tax coming in now for almost a year. Thank you. Thank you, Rob. Talk about the report. Yeah.

And so, we can work on a preliminary list and give you a couple of options of the kind of the highlighted streets and some of the worst streets. um and then some some of the streets that have made it on lists before and then um continuous projects within a certain radius of that that give us that cost effectiveness. Um so we we can kind of work on preliminary lists and circulate that to the council for for um for you guys to look at and then you can come back with a more critiqued list.

Got a comment? Go ahead. Um, are we going to do what our engineer Vanessa suggested, which is fix some of the not so bad streets first so that we save them so that they're not going to end up being really bad to kind of save us money before we go after the really bad streets? Um, I guess that would all depend on the council's critiquing process and the list and how much uh funds are devoted to it. But that there, you know, we we do have a maintenance aspect that we do need to take care of, but it's not going to be a sole maintenance endeavor.

Yeah. The PTAP report, we've been going over that in in subcommittees for a year and a half now. So, that's our guiding document right there. Um, but there's also the the concern of the taxpayers coming in and saying, "Hey, we got DD money coming in. Yes, we understand a PTAP report, but this has been mentioned for the last 25 years and it may not be the worst road, but it's something that needs to be done. It's a high profile, hightraveled road. So, which is where the list is you're looking for for us right here kind of combining. Correct.

Yeah. And the list will help the council identify kind of pitfalls where if it's a pay as you go, it's going to be this continuous uh continuous project. You want to avoid saying we're going to do 3 miles of this road and we're going to pay this much a year and it's going to take 10 years to see a result. You're going to you you're going to identify those types of pitfalls. You're going to be able to make, you know, stopping points where uh a pro you can get the best bang for your buck and and and things like that where it's not you do a large project that's going to be multi-year before you see results.

Yeah. Right. Any other comments? Yeah, economy to scale is a big thing. It really is, especially in construction. Uh mobilization cost, engineering cost, they're going to quadruple, triple at least if you do it road by road with an RFI on every one of these. And a new a new person coming in every time, it's going to cost you so much more money as a pay as you go. You can look at CPI, you can look at the soft cost, you can look at the mobilization and demobilization, you can look at the engineering fees. All this will go drastically higher if we do it pay as you go. So that is why you have to show have the financial advisor show you the numbers and say do you save or do you not save? And if you do save, it's a smarter path. If you don't save, it's not. the the the uh general contractors, the the developers you talked to like right contracting, those guys will break this down. They'll say, "Here's what it costs to come in. Here's what it costs to leave. And here's what we're going to charge you for 100t street." They'll also say, "Here's where you save if you do 1,000 ft of street versus 100 ft." They will break it down any day for you because they know that that's how they get their contracts. And so, and also make no mistake, Mr. Klowski, we all have lists. We're just not presenting them and and fighting about them and scratching each other's eyes out tonight.

Also, on the pay as you go versus loans, I don't disagree with economies of scale. However, one thing to keep in mind is um

I I I do think there is a good balance to strike between u you know getting into debt and also making sure that we can benefit from the economies of scale. Uh I think to add on with the uh preventative maintenance, you know, if that's something, you know, keep it under that $75,000 threshold, if we can even increase that and uh lean a little bit into the in-house work, I think there's a great um sort of value there, especially preserving our roads. And when the residents see any road work getting done on their block, that's one way to kind of spread it around and and get a lot of smiling faces. Yeah, that that that's also involved in this list too is that's why I wanted to identify that force account amount because that we are going to be able to peel off a certain amount of the maintenance style work that wouldn't be um impacted on this DD budget

and some of that uh preventive maintenance is those are kind of some of the things that maybe we can get started on a little sooner than some of the big projects that might be pushed off if we lean into preventive maintenance. I mean the guys are they're out there trying to stay ahead of it. It's just, you know, it's it's hard to stay ahead of. Um, we got a limited staff, but they're doing a great job trying to get to it, but we're going to kind of ramp up some of some of this more force account work. Okay. Thank you, Derek. I appreciate it. Great presentation. All right. Let's move on to

just before we do, Todd, the comment was on the pay as you go. Did is it a success on what we've done with pay as you go for the water uh sewer loan that we took out? And that would be a good learning point I think to justify it going forward. So I haven't seen the date on that. I sort of asked for it. We don't have. Okay. Thank you, Rob. All right. We're going to move on to item H3, discussion of the city council retreat workshop options.

Thanks, mayor, council members. At the December 15th council meeting, uh we were directed to bring back a couple of ideas for a retreat. We did consult consult with our much more consulting firm which is someone that we use for HR purposes and they were able to give us um a proposal for an all day retreat which they would interview each council member and uh have activities and a written report at the end and that was 5700 for that. Option two is Redwood Law could provide us a workshop. Um we can talk about what the scope of that would be. Uh we are currently uh very under or under our legal budget for this year. So that would just be paid from what's already budgeted and so um Alex might be able to speak a little bit more about what that scope would be, but those are a couple options and we're just looking for some direction tonight.

Comments?

Um yes, I'd like to make a comment. I was the one that um requested this discussion at the last council meeting and I had said that um I really wanted to use Talia. She's from um practice human systems and we used her last time and I think we all felt like it was a really good workshop but our only comment was that um last year la well well it wasn't last year it was a couple years ago that um we had in that the city staff had been included and that we wanted to do it another workshop in another year or so but we did not want to include the city staff. So um anyway I'm hoping that we can get an estimate from Talia and um to me you know if we want to do like a legal workshop to me that would be like a separate thing and um you know like this one would be more for um working on communications and those kind of things and that was um you know my thought and my desire of what a retreat would be like the one we had last time. So um my thing is if if we want to do a legal thing I would think it would be a different workshop and at a different time.

Okay. Um well my comments on this item really the goal here is to increase coordination max maximize efficiency and reduce conflict. Uh I would like to choose a solution that has the buyin of the full council. Um, if an option works for my four fellow council members, I will be in support of that. Mark, you keep collecting those thoughts.

Uh, I know we used Talia twice in the past and as much as I liked her, it didn't seem to get the message across or aid us in any way. I don't know if it was because of the people that were involved or if it was just uh the tactics or how it was held. Um so with that being said, I think that a full retreat it'll it has to have full buy in. And uh it usually doesn't change if the stripes on the people. So, I think that a workshop is the best way to do this because sometimes the hard conversations need to be had and I think that we need to look at how we're going to spending our money to so that we can remain uh in the positive on our budgets and not be spending money that uh doesn't actually benefit us in the long run.

Yeah, I think the uh the learning workshop versus retreat has a little you know misnomer in there on the actual meaning. uh uh like in the uh when we do our call outs uh Councilman Marquez and myself just went to the League of City the uh workshops there and what they present and we've all been through the training. What they present there are uh great learning tools that we should bring back to council and uh put forth in our everyday uh usage of our time on the council. So, I'm just kind of a little bit on the fence about spending money where we've already spent the money to send us to Sacramento to get the tools that we need for uh proper governance for the city. So, that's kind of where I'm at.

All right. I'm the same. And I've been doing uh I've been doing retreats and leadership things for years, including Talas, and have never really seen, in my opinion, a real positive. you sit there for a day, you uh for lack of better terms, you do kumbaya and everybody's happy and they leave and and like you said, it doesn't change anything right there. So, I'm I'm kind of opposed to to going farther and spending money on that type of stuff when I don't think I am 100% on board. Um, and this is with some conversation too with with folks on on bringing in and just getting the the the down and dirty from a workshop, just a a legal workshop to come in, people tell us for a day what's going on. Um, and you know, we would come up with the scope of that. And I think that's going to be a heck of a lot more beneficial and keep everybody on track. um define roles and uh and clarify roles on on things for people. And uh I think that uh that's where that's where I'm headed. That's my that's my where I'd like to go with this also combined with the rest of the comments here. So I'd like to make a comment. To me, this seems like a daisy chain, which I um brought to our attorney's attention earlier in the day. And um I think we really need to stop doing daisy chains and discussing items on the agenda with three people before we meet. Um I think it's against the Brown Act and I think it's really detrimental to five people coming together and observing the Brown Act and acting legally.

What uh Daisy chain are you talking about? I'm talking about I knew that you guys were going to do this even before it happened because Mike had talked to all of you and you guys obviously talked to each other. I mean, you before used to talk to me. You used to talk to um um Mark Lasi and um I just think we really need to be really clear in the future that we're not knitting daisy chains. And I just think it's it's not okay. And I just want to call it out that this appears to me what's going on here.

Okay. But what happened I Mike I've I've never spoken to Mike about this. I spoke speak to Mike about everything but none of this. So just to get that out there and also when I do speak when I having conversations with people I'm talking with our attorneys. I talk to the attorneys about that. These guys can form their own opinions. So that's how that's where we're at. I just know in the past things Can I add a comment? borderline not legal. So, for for everyone here, I mean, the truth the truth is there's a lot to be worked on. Absolutely.

There's a lot to be worked on. Um, that's just kind of what it is. if if there's maybe a step that we can take that would maybe not be the giant commitment of maybe committing to one or the other. maybe there was a small step that would help us get in that direction cuz the truth is there's a lot to be worked on and um you know you can if if if there's not an agreement that everyone agrees that hey let's try to understand one another a little more or maybe waver a little bit and be open to one another just a little bit we can come to a consensus for a direction. Um, so I I don't want to see things go the direction that they did at the last meeting. If there's a small step that maybe staff would recommend, um, one part of the council uh, training that we uh, took last week in Cal Cities is uh, it's also for relationships with our staff and there is things that staff can help out with. So, I'm kind of maybe going to reach out to our staff and see if there's a recommendation that that you guys may have for us um to maybe take a step, small step without the big commitment. And then maybe at least we can all get on the same page to find a solution really to just Yes. Again, increase our coordination, maximize efficiency, and reduce conflict. It's it's it's we don't have to all be friends, but we got to work together and we got to communicate and we got to collaborate. And that's really all I'm trying to get done with this. Uh if if if we can get some help with staff, I'm throwing a call out. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Uh I just wanted to make a quick clarification just so the council's aware of my role with the agenda. Um I communicate with along with our, you know, city attorney, city manager, with the mayor. I communicate individually with all of you um to provide factual publicly available information or procedurally clarification or agenda on agenda items but I do not advocate request or suggest or attempt to influence how any of you vote to avoid serial meetings. I just want that to be clear on the record since my name was brought up. But if you've taken it in a different matter, please address that with me because I'd like to make that clear that that is not my role and that's not my intention.

Yeah. And my my my problem, Andreas, thank you for the comments. I agree. But um I think that ultimately we're giving direction to staff and we we do sit down and talk to the city manager. We talk to the city attorney, but ultimately that decision has to come back to be approved by the council. Okay.

So that that No, hold on. That was my So my comment to going with different workshops or retreats and I think that's where I was going with that is if we have a sit down with and do the legal part of it and I know you guys learned this in Sacramento so did we but we need to whether part of that process and part of the mending and part of the working together like you said we don't have to be friends but we do have to work together is clarifying and absolutely defining roles in this council right here. That's it. And that's going to be done legally. That guards all of us. That guards every one of us sitting up here from having serial meeting or having uh you know stepping out of place or whatever that defines your roles and gives you parameters there to do. That is why my decision and my my personal opinion right here regardless of what the rest of council says my personal opinion is I think that's the best route to go. Then everybody knows their role and everybody can start mending from there. I'm not sure what you mean by role.

Role as in a council member. The uh right back to legally going over the um our our new um governance manual.

Governance manual. I was going to say, excuse me, I had guidance in my head. Governance manual, which everybody should have read. It's uh have read. The council has approved it. I've looked at it. I hope everybody else has. That's part of being on council. then you know so then that helps everybody work together right there. So that's the legal part that I'm going for and that comes from our attorneys cuz I know people do talk to city attorneys and do this. If they come in and say yes, this is it. Here's your roles. Here's your guidance and there this is implied. This is the governance manual. This is what you use coming up here and you should know that by now. If not, then that's the problem. You know what I mean?

One of the things I'll mention, I I may put this on a future agenda item is to have a presentation on our governance manual. So this was adopted at our last meeting. um I think you know dist distribution of physical copies and maybe a presentation to the council presentation to the public uh because it is a new governance manual that I think was about from 2011 the previous so you know it wasn't something that was uh updated as it went along and we made a big change uh I did work with uh city clerk Maloney quite extensively on our code of conduct that was something that we did not have in our previous governance manual is something from the beginning of my tenure on this council that I wanted to have in place with repercussions because we we didn't have that in the past and I saw um sort of environment that a lot of people didn't want to get involved with. So I understand about code of conduct and I think it's one of those things that we can do that outside of this retreat and and learn that as far as the retreat. I think that's really building on our interpersonal relationships. There certainly are things that uh um a mayor uh can do to help facilitate their team. Uh there's things that staff can also help with to sort of help us build relationships with one another. So those kind of things if that can be done outside of this retreat, sure, then those things should be done. Uh but what we need to do is sort of break down some of the walls that exist. you know, some of the assumptions that folks have of one another. You know, the the ways that we communicate might be different. The ways that uh um you know, we want to things that we want to accomplish just like, you know, having our goals be established, like what do we all want to work on? What can we work on together? Um that's where I'm really trying to get. So, if if there's a simple step that we can all agree on, I would

definitely be in support of it. Thank you. And also on the goals, thank you for bringing that up. Also, we are coming up on budget season. And there's going to be a council goals in there. That's one of the main things. Any other comments?

I I I'm just going to stand by thinking the workshop with the legal is the best. Um over the past few meetings, I've seen things that prove that we need to really understand legally what we can and can't do, what our roles are, and make sure that we are safe by law before we work on our personal relationships. because the the nuts and bolts of this is you have to do your job before you have to be friends or get along. And there's a lot of missteps that this council has been making. And I really think that we need to bring in the bigger gun to put people in their place and educate them on how how it is to be done and what you're supposed to do and what your roles are, what the code of conduct just like you're going through. I think that's first and foremost is understanding your role before you get into the rest of it. So that's why I said the workshop.

I think a lot of us have already learned like legal rules that were supposed to follow with the Brown Act. It's one thing to learn them. It's another thing to actually follow them and I think that they're not always being followed and that concerns me.

So do we have a consensus up here? We need to bring this to do we need Yeah. and I will bring it out to the public and after I'm done, but um we need to come to consensus. What do we want? I know some people want to retreat. We can sit up here and argue all night. I know two people, myself, I am going the legal route on that. I know the vice mayor is going the legal route on that. So, I need people to jump and we need a majority of this council to come up with a decision tonight. So, I'm open. Okay. You know, I'm I'm open. I'm route. Yeah. I'm not holding a hard line. I think what whatever we can do to get a whole council buy in and and and get a start, I'm all for it.

And and the thing on this legal thing too is it's and I don't know I don't want people to think that we're going to have somebody come down here and we're going to sit there and listen and we're not going to get anything. There's going to be questions and that's part of the building process right there for everybody to come in. If you have a question on, hey, this is you presume this is happening, then we can ask, we can ask our city attorney, our senior city attorney to come down and say, okay, no, this, and it starts building where we're at. That's part of the building blocks right here to get us to all, like I said, we don't have to be friends. We do have to work together. And I want to make sure we're covered legally here, the council, all of us, before we start moving into stepping forward and building up after that. So, thank you.

I I I appreciate it. I'm open. So I think with discussion maybe between the other four council members. I'm willing to go along with whatever you guys want to do. So workshop or we headed towards a workshop? Yes. Yeah. I I I'd be on board for a workshop. Okay. There. Council direction right there. Kevin, let's go ahead and or I'd like to bring it out to any uh comments from the public on this. Apologize. Yes, ma'am.

Hi. My name is Annabelle Burke. Um I was I came here for the first time um quite a few months ago and I felt intimidated by the process that you're kind of going through right now. And I think of it as a representation of what our culture is going through kind of divisive and I um kind of shocked by the process. I've been like a a when I've had Could you step up a little bit please to the to the microphone? Thank you. Um pull it down. There you go. Like that. Thank you.

Okay. Um, the kind of process that I'm used to is consensus decision- making, which I kind of surprised I brought it up today, but I really feel that that is a process that makes everyone listen to each other and slows things down. It takes the any kind of aggression, speed, anger, it all kind of like levels out. And I don't know what the rules are that you are working with. I'm not familiar with them. I'm familiar with something called the Robert's rules of something or other. And there was always someone there who had the job of pointing out when someone wasn't doing that.

So it was sort of like someone really clear and smart and quick and they could just without any kind of judgment say, "Hey, you're, you know, you're going in the wrong direction here." And I have no idea what you're doing. It's sort of was mentioned to me that it was a law that the state has decided that everybody has to do certain things and vote a certain way certain way. And um actually doesn't really work to me. It seems more kind of the way that you decide. Some people are still going to be upset afterwards. So, um I'd be interested in finding out what that is. You said you were going to show it to people. Um what those rules and laws and how you'd make decisions. You're going to So, that'd be interesting to me.

Okay. And um anyway, thank you. Thank you. Any other public comment? Seeing none. All right. So Kevin, on that one, the direction is going to be um let's go ahead and work towards that workshop, schedule it up, and we'll we'll come up with a date on that. Sounds good. All right. Thank you. We just had a discussion, but we didn't have a vote. Correct. Do we need to have a vote on that? We had four, Alex, do we need to It was just to uh provide direction. So there's not a need for a formal vote. I think it was

clear from the direction that there was a majority that supported that direction. All right, let's move on to H4. Future discuss or uh discussion on the uh flag policy. Kevin or Mike, sorry.

Yeah, no problem. Thank you, Mayor. Um so this item was, as you can see in the agenda report, um in 2023 and 2024, um council adopted a city flag policy. Um, and on June 25th of 2025, council member uh Marquez requested an amendment to the city flag policy under future agenda items, and it was as followed. Request to display a commemorative pride flag at the location of the Cloverdale Regional Library flag pole between the time period of June 1st and June 30th. Um, the mayor at the time requested the discussion item go to be agendaized at the beginning of 2026 when we set the uh meeting dates for the year, which would be tonight. Um, so tonight what we're looking for is also relative direction from the council not to go discuss the language exactly, but whether or not you want an item if you want language to to amend the uh policy on a future agenda for approval or not, or if you want to keep the language as is. Um, so it's really up to the council kind of to deliberate, um, but not to necessarily discuss the specific language, but

So, if I may add, um, would just add that that would be annually. Yeah. So, yeah, it would be amending the the policy. Um, and I can I can bring up the policy or I can, uh, go into a little more detail what the policy currently states, but ultimately in summary, we do have we had our original flag pole at city hall. city council approved an additional flag pole which became a commemorative flag pole and that and our policy currently states that the uh flags on that pole was where pride flags and other commemorative flags would fly and they wouldn't be flown anywhere else um without the direct direction from the council. So basically we'd be looking if you're interested in amending that policy to allow it to fly in other locations

for it to be adopted at a future meeting. comments on the council council. So my I'm understand that the agenda would be to amend the policy currently to have any other flag flown at alternate locations other than the commemor commemorative flag policy. Yes. Well, the suggestion from council member Marquez, and you're welcome to speak more to it if you'd like, but was to have um there was um I don't want to speak for you, but if there were community members that were interested in that,

this was brought forward uh as a community request uh that we are the only uh library in Sonoma County with a flag pole that doesn't uh fly the pride flag for Pride Month. Um the amendment to the flag policy would just be to have that pride flag uh flown at the Cloverdale Regional Library between June 1st and June 30th on an annual basis. So it would just be the amendment to add that. So does that doesn't that flag fly at city hall on the commen commemorative flag pole right now? Correct.

This would be no change to city hall. It's uh there's other flag polls that are under the jurisdiction of our flag policy. So, it's not an amendment for I think you know the senior center is also one of the locations I believe and um city hall senior center uh library and what is there another location? No,

under our flag just just those three. So just a as far as like um you know so if we choose to uh somebody wanted to request a commemorative flag at the senior center then we would have to make an amendment for that flag for the dates and you know for the location. So this would only be an amendment to our flag uh policy just for this location for this flag for these dates.

Good. And the policy currently states language in essence that it says um the policy establishes standards for the outdoor display of the United States flag, the California state flag, the commemorative flags at city facilities, including approved locations and time periods for commemorative flags. The policy provides that commemorative flags are displayed as an expression of the city council's official sentiments and may be authorized only by city council action. Under the current policy, commemorative flags are displayed on the designated commemorative flag pole in front of city hall unless the city council expressly approves an alternative location. So, with that said, the pride flag is identified in the policy as an approved commemorative flag for display during the month of June. on the commemorative flag pole in front of the city hall. Um, with the request that's being considered right now, um, it would be basically whether the council wants we're looking tonight whether council wants to determine if they would like to revisit the f the flag policy and amend it to include that request, which we would put if if you're in favor of that, we'd put it on consent item at the next meeting.

Yes. for approval or or denial or you can provide alternative direction to staff tonight. Council Morris, you got any comments? Um, I'm all in favor for amending it. Okay. How many flags currently fly at the library and will the poll support another one? I'm not sure. Um, we can find that out though. That should be the first thing we check in to see if this is even a possibility. Number one, uh we worked very hard on this flag policy when it came out. I don't know. I don't think any of you guys were on the council at that time. I don't remember. Were you? Oh, yes.

It it was uh very um I don't know. It It was nice in here. We had some good heated conversations, which was uh a good thing. And we worked very hard together to uh purchase a commemorative flag pole. It is not just for one flag. It's for everything that we that we choose to put on there. And so I if we do choose another location, we're going to have to do all commemorative flags. It can't be just one because we can't discriminate against the others at the same time. That is why we did the commemorative flag poll so that the city controlled it. It was one location. Um, a lot of the discussion around then was around the LGBTQ uh, population and they were very supportive of this the way we had it because it gave them their their place to reflect like they like they wanted to and this and that's why we even held the the pride celebration and the raising the flag on June 1st this past year. So, um, everyone in the community worked hard making this uh, flag policy the way it is and I kind of like it the way it is. Obviously, I was part of the writing. So, I I I like it. I like it the way it is. But I will follow suit with what you guys choose.

Um, just to add, uh, I don't think it's fair to marginalize a community to say that they're just one decision represents a whole community. Um, the amendment is the flag policy was set up that if somebody, you know, people, the community requests something, it would have to go through a council member. Uh, the community made a request. They didn't make 20 requests. They made one request and uh I I'm in support of that. So this isn't to put 20 flags somewhere. That's not what the request is. This is just for one flag at one location to amend it. It's also to keep in line with the rest of the county that every single other public library flies the pride flag that has a flag pole. And people might look at Cloverdale to say, you know, why why aren't we in support of that if if if we're not going to support it? Those are the questions that are going to come up. Yep. They came up. They came up before. But remember, you will be discriminating against the others if you do just one flag. It has to be all of our commemorative flags. If we're going to be changing our policy, it is going to be fair and equal for all.

So, I resent the fact that you're saying I'm going to discriminate. that's against our code of conduct that we just adopted. Uh it's good that you know maybe know the code of conduct, know our roles, but um let's stop accusing each other of stuff. Okay, let's do a point of order here. We're not going to go for this anymore. U point of order. Uh point of order is that a code of point of order. A code of conduct was violated and I'm pointing it out. Okay. Um now that I'm going to bring that up, let's do I'm not No, I'll bring something up later on that code of conduct. All right. So, um, any other votes on this? We're not going to do this again.

Go ahead. Council member Laskkey, what's your opinion on the or what's your vote on the I just want to make one more comment before we uh before I vote? So, are we flying two flags, one on the city of commemorative and one at the library at during the month of June? That that would be the request. Amendment. That that'd be the amendment. That'd be the amendment. Okay. Are you looking for me to I mean you in said you you are you for the amendment or are you how are you at with the flag policy now?

Uh I'll be I'll be for the amendment. Okay. All right. Okay. We're going to follow suit right there and uh go ahead Mike. Let's bring it to a future Jessen for an amendment. Sounds good. And then just for clarification, do you want it just really quickly, do you want it on the consent calendar or do you want to be able to discuss the language and look at the policy and make amendments specific to it or do you want us staff to do that and just go on the consent calendar since we've discussed? I'd like to put it on the consent calendar. Can I clarify is the direction for just the one flag or for all commemorative flags? It is for all commemorative flags. I want that in there. If we have our commemorative flag list that we have approved right now, we must put the all every one of those is going to have to fly.

We'll bring suggested language for the consent calendar. I do think that um Vice Mayor Lan's suggestion to look at what that flag is, its capacity is is definitely important in the conversation. So, we'll look at that and see if it's even possible. Sounds good. We'll come also. Can we get hopefully next meeting if we have to fly two flags concurrently? Uh, can we get a cost for additional flags? What's the cost of procuring additional flags? It's very Well, okay. Yeah, but it was still it still needs to be public comment, right? If we're spending money on an amendment, let's uh make it a public public know that this is what we're doing. This is what it costs.

Yeah, the item will definitely have the uh the fiscal amount that it would that would cost the city. We'll look into the flag code too because if they can only have they can only have two, there may be provisions, you know, if you have to have the American flag and the state flag that maybe you can't have another. So, thank you. But we'll bring back for uh consideration on the consent.

Sir, any comments from the public on this item? Come on down, Susie. I'm Susie Cummings and I have a question. Um, are there a certain number of flag poles in Cloverdale that are under the control of the city or like the library or does that belong to the library? Has My question is, has anybody asked the library? Can't they just fly the flag if they want to? If it's their flag pole, Susie, there's three three flag polls. There's one at the um senior center

under control of the city. There's the library under the control of city and then the one commemorative flag pole in front of Okay, here. That's that was my question.

Yeah. And according to the according to the flag policy that we have right now, we after our last couple years of deliberation and and talking and arguments and all that good stuff, we came to the conclusion that we wanted a flag pole to name that the commemorative flag pole, giving us our second flag pole in front of city hall. So that is the flag pole. That is the commemorative flag pole. This is going to be an amendment because council does have to approve those city where it's flown on city controlled flag poles. So the library which is why council member Andreas or Marquez put that up. Yes. I understand to amend to bring to a future agenda.

So it sounds like you want to maybe do the same thing with that flag pole that you do with the flag commemorative flag pole outside of the city hall. Correct. With the language in there looking like we were discussing is make sure the flag pole one can accommodate it. Extend the flag policy to the library. Correct. Simple. And for clarification, the Cloverdale Library building is city is a city- owned facility. Yes, it is. We have aint center is too. Yep. Correct. We just we have a joint power agreement with the county. So, they run the facility from the interior, but we own and operate the exterior. So, the flag it does fall under our jurisdiction. That makes sense. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Susie. And to note, the request did come from our library director.

All right. Any other public comments on that? Any other comments on that? Okay. Let's move on to H5 and that is going to be the update on Potter Valley Project. I'll I'll kick it off um before turning over to the the vice mayor. Um, as the the council knows at the council's direction, we did file previously a motion to intervene in and comments on the Potter Valley um application and the P gen application to surrender their license of the Potter Valley facility. Um, that at a high level that touched on really three points or comments. um that P Gen had really failed to meaningfully consult with with many people including the city of Cloverdale. Um that the application doesn't fully identify or or study the full range of impacts especially for I guess lack of I guess is accurate phrase downstream communities like ourselves. um and that they have left so much left in the application for further studies and further applications such as you know mitigation of all of these impacts they're identifying. Um so that that's uh what the city has filed in that proceeding for now and of course that proceeding is still um ongoing. So with that I'll turn it over to vice mayor. So, for the past three years, I've been uh working with Potter Valley Project and all of our officials. Um I'll go through kind of a quick rundown of some of the people that have been involved. Um now that some of this is starting to come to light, I can give a little bit more information as to what we're doing. Um,

a lot of this has been kept quiet because the best defense is giving your defense your offense. And so you can't tell them what you're doing. You can't tell people that will push against you uh whether it's uh from um other environmental groups, your your own people in your in your town or uh around you. You have to be very careful with what you say sometimes because they will turn around and and uh hurt you in the long run and be a detriment to the city. So, I'll kind of give a quick overview. Like 3 years ago, our county supervisor came to Cloverdale and had a meeting with myself and the city manager and a couple others and basically let us know that these the Potter Valley dams, the one that makes Lake Pillsbury and is on the Eel River that diverts water into Lake Menescino for our water supply. Those dams are going to be decommissioned and torn down and a new facility was going to be planned and built in their in their place. Uh when we asked about water supply, the supervisor told us, "The days of you having your own lawns and gardens are over." And so for a community like us that thrives and and basically actually basically just kind of survives off of our own gardens, uh that's a tough a tough deal to take. And so we pushed forward and started asking questions. The city manager then, uh David Kelly and I were working together. We were asking all the questions that we needed and the supervisors kept coming back that uh basically it was a done deal. There was nothing we can do. We needed just be quiet and keep trying and and trust them that the process is going forward. Um during that time I worked with not only Supervisor Gore, I worked with Supervisor David Rabbit. Um the conversations behind the scenes were always different than what was behind the podium as to our security. And so knowing that we were going to be

in a bad spot, but that wasn't something that we could bring to light uh completely, I looked to other people to help us since uh the supervisors weren't quite as willing as I would hope. So I turned to Snowmo Water who is the the agency that is creating what they call the Herpa. And with Herpa and Snow Water, they were using the same talking points. They said the the dams are unsafe and uh this is just what it is what it is and we need to move forward. It's a done deal. As I discussed things with with Snow Water, um, we brought in Congressman Huffman and Congressman Huffman had a round table with us and found out that he was basically the one that was spearheading this and it was okay. Uh, but Snowmo Water let him know that Cloverdale was going to be in a bad spot, that we were going to be short on water with his design that he was pushing forward. So, that congressman decided that he was just going to start calling us conspiracy theorists. uh say we spread misinformation, things along those lines. And the hardest thing for him in his life and it kept him up at night was knowing that those dams could possibly fail someday. And so when I asked for the seismic reports, they told us that we couldn't have them because they were a federally protected document. So with PAS and FOYAS, the Freedom of Information Act and the uh Public Records Act, I ended up getting the seismic reports and they showed that the dams were safe up to an 850year event. So with that being said, P Gen no longer said that the dams were unsafe. Congressman Huffman quit talking about them and the whole talking points and idea has changed now. it it revolves around fish and environment.

So, Congressman Huffman isn't willing to help. Our local supervisors aren't willing to help. So, we started going to the state officials, Senator Maguire, uh Chris Rogers, Jim Wood, Damon Connelly, uh they weren't too helpful. They would tell you they would do things and then nothing would happen. So, I used some uh people that I know and had him pull some strings and we met with the governor and the governor said, "You should meet with the head of Department of Fish and Wildlife because he's the number one in charge of this." His name was Chuck Bonham and this these are the this is the information that we've been keeping close and confidential because this is the stuff that you can't let out because it's just going to burn you in the long run. So now that we're at a higher point, this it's okay to come out. So Chuck Bonham would actually come to Cloverdale about once a month and meet with a few of us. Uh and we would go over ideas, plans, water storage, uh different reservoir ideas, different things that we can do for Cloverdale. uh his first conversations were trying to do the you know convers the same talking points that everyone else used that this is a done deal and that that uh he understood that we were going to be in a bad spot. He wanted to help us with water storage which was great. The second time he came he wanted to debate about why we needed it. He said, you know, our information was wrong. And so we gave him our facts and and pled our case. And the next time he came, he said, "Okay, I agree with you guys. What do you want?" And the first thing that we wanted was a letter from him and Sonoma Water stating that we're right because you can't go back on that. And so the head of fish and wildlife and the head of Snowoma water wrote us a letter saying they're going to do everything they can to work with Cloverdale.

And so uh at that point Chuck Bonham said, "What do you need?" And so we we had a list of water projects that would make Cloverdale solvent with water and we provided it to him. The list was approximately a billion dollars. And he said, "You know, this is a little too much." And we said, "Well, no kidding, but you asked what makes us solvent." So, he took that list, asked us what we thought our priority uh projects would be so that he could start looking into ways to get some type of funding and grants and things that he could start looking into to start compiling some money towards water projects. We we discussed different storage options, uh aquifer recharge, all of this. And then uh the I think it was the fifth time he came to Cloverdale, we were talking about the a couple projects that we had in mind and I asked him about the reservoir money from a 2014 bond that California had. It's a 7 something billion dollar bond that we all paid for to create new reservoirs in California. No reservoirs have been built in California. And Chuck Bonham says, "There is no money. We spent it." So I said, "Well, is there any money for anything that we can do here?" And he said, "I don't know. We're going to have to look into it. We're going to have to try to find some money. There's no money for these projects." When I got out of that meeting, I left and I went to Yukaya to the meeting and he gave $18 million to her in that meeting. So, I knew where we stood as Cloverdale and what we were going to get out of our state. At that point, I turned to social media and I started making it known a little

bit about where we were and being a little bit more vocal and I caught the ear of some people through the federal government and they said, "You know what? We see that you've uh had some troubles. Maybe we can help you." and so they wanted to know more about it. These people, uh, I'll go down the list of a few of them. Um, Aubrey Bettincourt, she's the chief of the NRCS. It's the National Resource Conservation Service. It's it's very high in our federal government. Uh, Secretary Brooke Rollins, the head of the USDA, the Department of Agriculture, she uh was part of my conversations and we had meetings, uh, lots of Zoom meetings. Congressman Doug Lamalfa. He actually had uh great meetings with him uh before he passed recently, unfortunately, unexpected. There's another one that we talk about tonight. Um Congressman Lamalfa was very helpful uh knowing that this was going to affect agriculture and ranching uh drastically in our area along with our water supply. He wasn't even our congressman and he was still willing to help out on this. And the last conversation we had, he said that uh he had a bill prepared to go to the Congress floor when we had the decisions finalized of how we were going to handle this. Uh Congressman Mike Thompson is another one. He's out of Lake County. This is part of his district, but we aren't. But he still wrote letters and was on our side and helping us in any way he could. Tate Bennett, she's the head of the American First Policy Institute. uh it's a very high uh group that they pull a lot of their uh secretaries and uh people under your federal government uh uh when they bring in all their different secretaries and everybody needs help. That's where they come from. um going down my list. The next meeting I had was with uh the Department of

Interior. Um the they're the director of oversight for everything that goes on in our federal government. Uh it has like James Comr, Katie Wolf, and these people. everything that you see when they have the congressional hearings and they do all of that that you see on TV on your news channels. They're the ones that bring the things to the floor when they see that uh there are some wrongs being being had when things are being done for the wrong reasons and taking away the rights of people. That's what that was their plan or is their plan moving forward on some of this. They're still talking about wanting to have a congressional hearing regarding this the water and taking it away from people like us. Going through this list, as you can see, I've reached out to just about every single person that I have that there is. Uh I've I've worked with several P Gen reps. We have a lot going on with this right now through P Gen. There's a lot that I can't tell you about what's going on. So, I'm going to kind of go a little bit more with the federal government. I have a lot going on behind the scenes. Uh Secretary Rollins invited me to Anaheim uh two weeks ago to go meet with her personally. I flew down to Anaheim. I had the meeting with her. We did a full round table with a couple other people involved in this which included a lot of Lake and Menescino County supervisors and myself and then uh and along with uh Brook Rollins, Aubrey Bettton Court, Tate Bennett, they were all there. And when we were done, we did a full press release and press conference. There was about 30 news agencies. Uh they asked all the questions like you see on TV with all of your federal government. and I was on stage with her while we did this. Uh questions were asked and answered. We've done a lot of interviews and podcasts and things along those lines since that point. Uh it's about a 6-hour day right now trying to keep up with just those interviews. Things going on with P Gen. I have to keep it very

confidential because there they don't want to know what uh the conversations that we're having. But I will I can say this, Patty Poppy, who is the CEO of P Gen, went to the California Farm Bureau Association conference and stated that they were willing to work with anybody regarding these dams. And so with that said, there are some private prop uh private parties that have come in to play. They want to have something to do with these dams and have made themselves known. So that's another option that is out there right now. The tribal members I've been working with, I can't tell you who they are because they will get in trouble with their tribes. And it's several tribes in our area. It is not just the Round Valley. There's a a big group of people from Lake Mesino counties and Humble County that are also helping in this cause. Um, as of right now, we're in about the best seat that we could be. Everyone is willing to work together and negotiate to do what they can to provide enough water for Cloverdale and the lower part of uh the river until you get to Dry Creek to make sure that we're solvent. Under the new diversion plan, if you look at it and read it, it does not provide enough water to refill Lake Menescino at any time. Currently, Lake Menescino is at 95% full and we've had over 140% of our average rainfall. So, with the current diversion, it won't fill completely when necessary. The new diversion diverts less and it only diverts during seasonal uh times. It will not have water being diverted during the summer when you need it. I went to the biological opinion done by Sonoma County. the biological opinion only focused from Dry Creek down into the ocean. It never went above Dry Creek. So, our section of

the river was not part of their biological opinion. Uh I don't know if that says anything, but it does to me. And so, I'm going to be looking into that further. So, under the new diversion is called the two basin solution. If you don't understand it, I'll kind of give you a quick rundown. The Round Valley Indian tribe and this new group called Herpa, they created a chart and matrix of when you could draw water and divert it into Lake Mescino out of the Eel River. The times are are changed and the amounts of water that are in the eel before you can divert are different per month, but what it does is the first time it floods in the river and they the floods are measured by a certain uh cubic feet per second. The first set of that is called a flushing and it's the flushing of the river and it clears out all the bad contaminants, everything in it. You can't you can't divert water during that time. You're not allowed to. So you have to wait for your second major storm. It puts you into a flood stage and then you can divert 20% of the overages once you go over into the diversion numbers. And if that doesn't make sense, I'm sorry, but like if you were at you say 300 cubic feet per second, you couldn't draw anything until you hit 20% above that and then you can't take you can only take 20% of what it offers to you. So you have to hit like I think it's 364 CFS before you actually start drawing on a 300 CFS uh matrix. the water continues to go less, but the diversion goes less. And so you you will not be diverting water if you're not having these floods. So if you look at what we just did, you look at 2526, we've had one rainstorm. It put us at 140% of our water, average rainfall. We would not have been able to draw water off of that. So we have to wait for our next rainstorm. So, as of

now, we still haven't drawn any water out of the eel if we are under the new two basin solution. And if we don't have any more rain, it means you don't. And if you do, it's very minimal. The first 80 years of this diversion, they they would release 150,000 acre feet into the Russian River from Lake Menescino every year. We are now down to 39,000. The new diversion would be an average of 30,000 released, but only during your seasonal releases. So, it would not be when you need it. The last thought, which doesn't affect us as much because it's more of the Potter Valley area. These dams were not only created for hydroelected, they they were created for flood and drought control. So basically, Lake Pillsbury fills up when it's flooding so that the eel river doesn't flood as much and it pushes and fills up Lake Pillsbury. In the summertime when the eel runs dry, the Pillsbury runs the other direction and supplements the eel river so that it doesn't run dry and the fish don't die. Without Lake Pillsbury in this in this diversion, you will be going dry in the eel. You will absolutely go dry in the Russian River in our basin. Lake Menescino will be on uh the chance of having a drought and running dry every single year and Lake Sonoma will end up with the same problem because in their long-term plan we will be drawing off of that and that will make that uh affected more in the future. Water storage is very expensive. It's it's a great plan but to for us to get you know uh say 9,000 acre feet into into our river doesn't work. So we have to look at what it supplies for us. So we need a thousand acre feet that we could store and that's a lot of tanks. It's not going to happen and it's you know 2 million a tank at least 2.5 million a tank right now. So that's it's

it's that's where the billion dollar price tag comes in. The next steps are us to continue working with the federal government because they are helping us work with the state leaders. I am still working with our snowmo. I spoke to them today. Um, we have through, that was through, uh, James Gore and through our county and working with Sonoma Water, we have about $200,000 coming right now for geological studies for uh, deeper wells and so that we can do aquafer recharge and get below the water that is regulated by the state and pull water out of these wells in the times of need, in the times of drought because it's deeper in our into our basins and it's not regulated. It's dirtier. It's harder for our treatment plant to treat it. However, it's it's a less chance plan. Another thing we have done is Lake Menescino and Snowmo Water. We have a contract going through to purchase water out of Lake Menescino for just Cloverdale. It's kind of a farce in my opinion for the most part because you can't take it if they don't have it because they refuse to give it to you if they don't have it. Um, so you can only take the water when you really don't need it that much. Uh, however, it's all right and we're going to own that water uh for a minimal price and it it's worth it because if something bad happens, we know that we actually have an a way to refill storage and things along those lines during different times of the year that we can take it from that lake. Have I hit everything that we've talked about that you guys know of? Because I know you guys don't know everything either. Um, I've tried to give you as much as I can as to where we are, but we're moving forward with state and federal leaders

and P Gen. And, uh, the the city of Cloverdale is not saying you only have to save the dams. That's not what this is about. It's about saving a water supply for our community. And so, it doesn't matter what the plan is. We just have to make sure that we actually have enough water in our water supply. And this is one of the first things that I brought to Congressman Huffman is I said, "Can you just guarantee us the amount of water that we get now currently? Can you just at least guarantee us that?" And then as population grows by percentage, our water increase goes by percentage so that it's equal and fair. And they said, "No, we can never guarantee you any water. So, we have to fight on our own." And so, I'll leave it at that. I'm going to look for questions from our council and I will answer them the best that I can. Um, and then we'll see see how everybody does in the public.

Um, thank you, Vice Mayor Lance. I do appreciate the work that you put in. It's been a lot of work. I know it's like there's council members in other cities that are affected by this that really are not even active at all. Um, I think it's one of those uh situations that we need to reach out every single opportunity and any kind of help that we can get, we need help. There's a lot that we don't know about this. Um, I do have also some work that I've been uh working on and and some suggestions and things to think about. Um, one one of the big questions that I have is really for um, as the end result, you know, if the federal government does come in and somehow there's there's a lot of this talk that's u sort of with this uh, is it the save Lake Pillsbury coalition? Are is that the name of the group that you guys are with with Brook Rollins? Is there a name of that coalition?

No, there's not a name there. There's multiple coalitions that are going on in the Potter Valley Basin or in Lake and Menescino County.

I know there's the uh the Safe Lake Pillsbury Alliance is one. They've been working for a long time. I didn't know if there was another name for the group that that went down to the uh a meeting. Um so, one of the questions that comes up with any sort of um alternative plan like this is uh you know, who steps in, what agency comes in, uh how does that affect the uh the the end user and the direct rateayers. So that's certainly I think one of the um parts of that that uh direction that needs clarification you know um sort of evaluated against what what is existing um can I respond to that before

so with that that is part of the confidential conf uh conversations that we're having. Okay. Um there are names on the table. I'll just say that. However, they're being kept quiet because we do not want people to uh try to

try to u destroy this before it really happens. When you talk about cost, uh I'll just do that one real quick as well. The cost to put in uh as the independent engineering study was done in 2024, it was uh about 10% of the cost to rehab the dams and put in a fish ladder than it was just for the decommissioning. Uh P Gen confidentially has said the decommissioning of just just taking out the dams portion is going to be1 billion to $2 billion depending on how long it takes and that comes out of the rateayers. All rateayers will be paying more money in their bill to pay for the removal of the dams which supply your water. Then this group called creating a new group and I'll just love the acronyms. It's called NERF and they are going to be focusing on the two basin solution. from the two basin solution. They won't give uh an estimate of what it is going to cost. Uh right now they're saying $50 million, but they're also behind the scenes saying upwards of $500 million. And then you also pay $1.75 million a year to the Round Valley Indian tribe to take the water with the diversion that you put in. So the cost effectiveness when you're talking less than $200 million to rehab and create a facility that will generate hydroelectric and actually be upgraded to uh fund itself. It is the definitely the smarter and more efficient way to go.

So yeah back to what I was saying uh that's uh that's part of the deal. I think one of the specifics behind that that we have to look at is uh you know there's direct users that might be on the line to pay for a government solution with PG& when you say rateayers it doesn't always mean the direct users rate pairs those rate pairs might be spread out through California so it's one there's some of these things when you say um you know let's take a a billion dollars you know some of that billion one solution might have a billion dollars spread out across the state one solution might have a billion dollars that we directly pay for. So um something that is uh traditionally happens with some of these government projects is the direct users are responsible for it. So um we really have to take that into account when evaluating all these options. Um, I think one thing to be aware of uh with the federal government that there is sort of a direct connection with uh Brook Rollins and uh Republican propaganda through the American First Policy Institute. uh some of the rhetoric that's coming out through u America unwind uh key cavell was uh sponsored through an incubator uh by Michael PAC the palladium pictures incubator uh which is uh he was appointed by Trump for the to be the CEO for the US agency of general media. So there is a direct connection um propaganda through a think tank that we have to be aware of that a lot of these connections that Brooke Rollins is um aware of Keely is not organic. It's it's all baked and so that's something just to be aware of.

Absolutely. And I'll just tell you this this started under a different administration and that administration was not willing to help. So I don't care who is putting their name on the line to help Cloverdale with their water. It doesn't make a difference who the who they support, what policy they they follow, or which political party they are with. I don't care. I've asked I can go down this list. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 at least 14 on the on the left side. So,

so I'm just telling you that doesn't bother me. I don't care. It's water isn't partisan. Water's life who starts it or who helps us. It it's they can have all the propaganda on a website or on a on their Instagram page as a as a journalist out of out of LA. I don't care. She's a journalist out of LA. She's not part of this process other than that.

No, it's you're right. Water is nonpartisan. I'm not making a partisan issue. I'm just stating facts that there's connections uh with um Brook Rollins and some of this uh rhetoric that is not organic. It it was baked. U the Trump administration was around uh previously. So these things do go back to then. Uh you know, I'll take all the help we can get. Certainly, I think that's a good way to look at this, but um I wouldn't be confused about the connections. That's all I'm saying with that. Um and if we're not getting help from certain people that it's maybe a certain attempt I can't say that that uh those any avenue is exhausted. Uh one of the recommendations that I would have uh as far as our region goes is um possibility of creating anou uh eventually leading to a JPA with our region. This would sort of be the Alexander region. Um, I do have an update with the Russian River's proposed Alexander Valley Water District. They are going to go to present to LFCO in March. I think it's very important that we are diligent as a community to make sure that our needs are met if they're going to create this new water district there. We we certainly have to be oversight in that process. So, um, Yukaya Valley does have a group form, the JPA with the uh Inland Water and Power Commission. Uh it's a a group that is uh involves the county, involves the city of Yukaya and and the uh the um unincorporated uh water district. So, I think one of those things that we can do uh instead of kind of not going around and looking for help where maybe we're not going to find it. Of course, we should do everything, but uh one of the things that we can be active on is building this relationship to maybe look at this kind of formation within our region that uh it would maybe

include the city of Cloverdale, city of Hillsburg, uh Alexander Valley Water District, uh the Linton and Dry Creek Rancheria. And so this is all the water users within this district that uh we can maybe invest in some of these solutions that might be the raising a coyote dam. It could be the pipeline uh second evacuation point from Lake Soma that we need to get involved in this early so when this comes down the road as solutions um that we're a part of it. We're going to get our rate payers are going to get the best rate for water possible. So certainly I think uh I I I want to applaud you for your efforts and I think that we should all of the arms of our council and our city need to go out in every direction to find a solution for this. Uh but I think there's a lot to gain from building positive relationships with our neighbors. Uh looking at blueprints that have been successful and trying to implement some of those here. Uh, one of the other questions I would have for our city attorney, uh, city attorney Mog, uh, regarding the purchase agreement with Sonoma Water, uh, right now, because we're not buying any water with from Sonoma Water or the same thing with Alexander Valley area, um, do they have a legal right to represent our area in conversations and in talks? Is it sometimes they're speaking for the greater region, but that's one of my concerns that if we do uh pursue a purchase agreement that maybe we don't necessarily need, it's good to have these things in our portfolio, but would that open us up to be represented by Sonoma Water when we do not have a seat at some of these tables?

No. And I guess I would say to the extent it would not change the status quo. You know, Sonoma Water is a countywide organization. You know, our member of the board of supervisors is on that board, but an agreement with them doesn't make them subject to that. So, there are people who in the southern county who get almost all of their water from them who, for example, may have filed their own motions to intervene and things like that. So, it doesn't make us beholden to Sonoma water in any way.

Okay. So really sharing this information so we can take some steps forward that um that we can work together. I would really like to get involved with my fellow council members uh work on a strategy that's going to get us some results. Um you know I don't want to come back in another year and say we haven't accomplished anything. Um, one of the other things that I want to propose is, uh, this was one of the items I did propose last year and, uh, then we talked to a fish and game, uh, official and then they throw out the idea and we follow up is having our list, our water resiliency program assessment initial project list. Now that we have this, I think we should expand it. And I think we should also prioritize some of the items um in maybe a tier system, but at least this way, these are the kind of things that we need to act on that when a funding opportunity does come through that that we're going to secure it. Uh I'll I'll pass it back. So, you're right about the list. We have a general list. we in a future meeting it will be something that I would imagine we would be bringing back but I don't know if it's to that point yet. We just got it from the engineers. Um I do want to make a quick comment about working with our neighbors. It is something that we actually do pretty well and take pride in, but we have to be very cognizant of something. There's a lot that isn't put out into the public about the agreement that is out there with the Round Valley Indian tribe and our water source and and things that go on. And one of those things is that when we go into drought conditions, the state does it. The state imposes the drought conditions on you and suspends your water rights. And so even though we have the pre-1914 water rights which is the oldest in the state other than uh certain tribes the state doesn't take them from you.

They suspend them. When they do that under this new plan they said they are going to bring all water users to the table and make you negotiate for water and so everybody's on the same playing field. So this is why Alexander Valley is making a water district. So they now are going to be stronger than the city of Cloverdale and the city of Hillsburg with this. So we can play well together, but we have to also be cognizant that we have to protect ourselves. I'll just leave it at that. That that's there's a reason for what they're doing. It is not to benefit Cloverdale. That's exactly the point. Even though I support it.

Yes, that's exactly the point I'm making is uh um working as a liaison with them uh and building a good relationship. you know, I have the point that we can talk about these things and I did have this conversation that, you know, um, we got to look out for our interests. We got to participate. And so, when they have, uh, their their meeting with LAFCO, I know that there's a lot of concerns that LFCO has about approving their water district. So, I don't think it's certainly going to be easy for them. But um part of that conversation was making sure that um that we are diligent and that you know we can keep our relationship up and they kind of know that we have to look out for our interests as well and and have a a good oversight with that. So, um, that's really why I want why I'm meeting with this group and and attending their meetings so I can bring this information back, make sure that we're all on the same page. And, you know, we I I am very cognizant of what folks goals are. And so, that's why I'm mentioning that we should be a part of uh the process as well. And I I do would love the opportunity to work together. Uh I think we are two of the most active people working on this uh water situation. Um I would might maybe like to revisit uh um a uh ad hoc thing or maybe just open it up to the whole council that we could all work on this thing. And um I just uh want to make sure that our city's official uh position kind of reflects what we all wrote within our um letters to FK. you know, there was four of our council members in his city, and I think there was there was a similarity that I think all of our letters that we could 100% agree on. Uh all the the the points that we were making in those letters. So, I kind of I really like that as um as an official statement.

So, we have to be very careful because those were personal letters. I I'm not disagreeing. I'm saying those were personal letters. But in we do have our motion to intervene that was from the council and that is something that we could use as our our guiding document in my opinion. Um yeah, I'll I'll stop right there because something was said that's kind of screwed me up, but I'll leave it alone. You know, I did I did notice that with all of our statements, even though they were personal, we were all on the same page.

Absolutely. But also at the same time we have to be very careful because if if we're holding all these meetings in in the public like this then a lot of it is going to get lost because it's going to be defended before we leave the room. So that is why I had to I still keep a lot of it in confidence and I and I will continue to do that because it seems to be getting used against uh me or against us as a city and and the I have to keep the best interest of the city in mind when I'm doing this. It is not just about making sure everyone is privy to everything because they feel like they should be. I'm not sure what exactly you mean specifically. Kind of confusing.

I'm good for now. Whatever you want to do. Any comments? I would like to thank uh Vice Mayor Lans for all the work that he's done on the water, but um I too wish that somehow this whole uh project could be more transparent and the five of us could be informed more often and um yeah, that's it. Thank you.

Yeah, I want to thank uh I want to thank Vice Mayor Lans also. I know the amount of work that's gone into this, the amount of time that's gone into it. I'm not uh I don't know if we are going to bring up administrations and old things and things aren't organic and all that stuff. I don't agree with that. I think Brook Rollins is in a position to where she can really give us some help on this. Um so I'm not going to discount the amount of work, the time, and hours that have gone into uh this. I personally uh have stepped away a little bit on this and let Vice Mayor Lance take the lead because of the connections that he has fostered, that he has grown and that he has used. These are connections that your average Joe are not going to be able to get. And it's taken years to get these up to close to three years, two and a half, three years to get these. So, um I'm not even getting any of the uh final updates. when they say there's stuff that's not out there, guess what? There's stuff that I don't know right now. And working in a partnership with Vice Mayor Lans here, it's why I said, "Hey, take the lead. This is your thing." And he is extremely smart at it and extremely and extremely aggressive. So, I'm going to sit back and listen to these and uh and and and trust that we know what's going on. I've seen the people he's talked to. I've been in a couple of those meetings. I've seen how confidential you do have to keep some things. You can't just put it all out there or you're going to get blindsided. So once again, thank you very much for your report out. That is a a lot of information. I was privy to some of it, not all of it. But uh thank you. Thank you for what you do. Andreas, thank you for what you do. You're make or or council member Marquez. Sorry about that. You are also putting feet on the ground and uh doing your due diligence. I really appreciate it. So, uh, working together, I think we can,

uh, we definitely can come up with, uh, hopefully we can pass information back and forth and it's not going to be all secret squirrel stuff here in the near future and we can get some water and be solvent for Toberdale. That's my opinion on that. That's my final statement on that. Thank you very much. Any comments from the public?

Good evening. My name is Lori Mahoney. I'm a resident of Cloverdale. I just want to again, everyone said it, but we hear you. We see you. We respect you. We We are so grateful for what you're doing for us. You have no idea. I want you to consider myself and others as probably the wrong word, but part of your army. If you need us, call on us. We really want to support you. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Any other public comment? Seeing none. What happened to Jennifer? She left. Y. Okay.

Hi, my name is Annabelle Burke. Um, you mentioned that there would be a time when this would go into law or they changed the rules. Is that set now or is that something in the future in terms of like if we run out of water? Oh, you're talking about like during droughts. Yeah. So, that is something that the the state will put us into drought mandates when it when we have no water from now on. Still anytime at any given time they can do that if there is no water. When did that start? It it's always been in effect. Oh,

and so I think it was 2023 we had drought conditions in Sonoma County and the state actually mandated for the whole state and we were uh told that we could only use 50 we we actually fought and got it to 55 gallons a day was their first minimum and then we got it to I believe it was was it 65 or 70? Sorry. I think it was even higher. I think it went up to I was going to say 104. It was not that was the third time. Okay. So what they what we do is we we try to negotiate with the state for for more need and why and we and we argue with them and debate with them. So we've I've already gone through this.

You've been through So basically what it does is the state will come in and say we can only use 55 gallons a day per person which is a shower or a load of laundry. So you have to decide on a daily basis if you can do a load of laundry, things like that. Okay. So it's not really changed from No, but it will be every year you will have this problem where you will have no water and it will be longer duration. So that you won't be able to have a lawn or have a garden. So is that what So that's what starts already. That's what started. Every year from now on, we're going to have less water. Correct. Wow. Okay. I really appreciate what you're doing. It's quite difficult. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other comments from the guys? And uh I think it's just good that we actually speak facts, kind of stay away from assumptions about this project. There's a lot of things that come out uh that are really not facts. They're they're assumptions. These assumptions should be backed up with studies and references. And our community can't just be gas lit um with this information. It's dangerous. Uh this is why we had such a group show up uh for the WSA at our last meeting thinking that there's going to be these dire consequences that really to say that is going to happen is is is false. So um we got to work to make sure that we're in the best predicament, but let's be clear on what we're relaying to the community that it's fact-based, not assumptions that we're making and and relaying off as as factual information. That's very dangerous. If you're trying to say that I'm giving things that aren't fact-based, you're wrong. And that is exactly why I have to keep information confidential because this is this is my opponent. This is the person that pushes back to the detriment of the city that sits and says things like this. Um, I I have no words other than that for you right now. that is so disrespectful and so out of line that I have nothing else on that.

Well, I'll I'll add I am not your opponent. I'm a fellow council member. I am allowed to speak. Uh to be framed as an opponent. Again, that's dangerous. U what I'm asking is that we don't give our community assumptions that are not based in fact. If if to say that things are going to end a certain way and this is how it's going to be is an assumption. It's not a part of a study. It's really just some madeup stuff and that should be known. Uh it's dangerous when people are given this information and they believe it. That's why we had such a group here uh at our last meeting that uh we're really not understanding about the water assessment that was done and uh and they're confused. So I think we need to be cognizant of of our messaging.

So can I ask you which part of what I am saying is a lie? Um well there's a lot but what what I'm talking about is when uh there's assertions that uh the river will be dry every single year that uh all the animals will die. Uh there was a podcast a west newsshour that you went on a few days ago and it was really a lot of these types of assumptions. So I I would say just listen to that podcast. um you can detail all the things that were said and not a lot of them can be referenced to uh a study or any other information directly. It was a lot of assertions and so um for for one example the the podcast is full of them.

Perfect. And this is why I keep it in confidence so that you don't have the detriment of the city uh by doing this. And that is why you were not selected for this committee or group to take care of the water. That is why I would never recommend you for it. And that is why I'm going to question why you call yourself a liaison for one of the our water uh groups when you we have a list of of uh our subcommittees and liaison and you are not any of them on that. that is part of our water program and that is not you. So I would love to hear talking about misinformation and passing things out that of why we're doing this and this is this is why I look at you misrepresenting yourself. It is untruthful. It's it's inauthentic. Um these comments you're making now are a detriment to the city because the the the more we debate and fight within ourselves, we're spinning our wheels and getting nowhere. And if you want to talk about nothing happening in a year, this is exactly how you do it. Um, we had this conversation in a meeting a few months back. And I was the mayor and I actually said we needed to be very careful about how we handle things and put things out as misrepresentation. And if it was necessary, we would push all the way to censure. And I did this in front of our city manager and in front of our city attorney so that we had witness as the mayor and as the council that we were already warning you. And here we are again. I I'm having a very difficult time. Excuse me.

Violated any code of conduct. I'm having a very hard time accusing me of such a thing is a point of order. To accuse me that I have violated a code of conduct is false. I have not violated violated code of conduct. And and and I'm making a point of order to state that. Okay. I'd like to say something here. We're going to go and this is speaking with the city attorney right here. Andreas Marquez, Cloverdale City Council. And this had to be adjusted, but this got put out on social media as the liaison. That is a violation of the code of conduct. What is

by putting this out and representing the city without getting your council approval on this? Am I correct, Alex? Correct me if I'm wrong. Is this a violation of the code of conduct? The the code of conduct requires uh council members to be clear when they're speaking individually and when they're speaking and authorized to speak on behalf of Exactly. So to how is it a violation as a Cloverdale city council member? I'm working as a liaison. You have never been listed as the liaison. I didn't specify liaison for the for the city. I said I am a council member and an individual council member. So let's be specific.

Okay. Just do a quick point of order. Can we have one person speak at a time? The mayor does have the sit up here and argue. All I'm saying is I spoke with the city attorney. That is our attorney right now. that is deemed a violation of the code of conduct. Am I correct? It's up to the council to decide if if that's a violation. So, can I bring that up for a vote to see if it's a What's my what's my recourse here, Alex?

Uh, so under our code of conduct there, an individual, any individual can make a referral to the city attorney about a violation and I would present a report to the council. So, uh, at a future meeting and the council would decide, um, whether there's been a violation on what process to take, you know, given what you're the circumstances you're discussing, I don't think there'd be any factual inquiry. It would be uh, you know, for the council to decide based on that post. Okay. So, just any council can make a referral. Yes.

I would like to make a referral as the mayor. And I have a a question for our city attorney. Um, so you're saying there's nothing factual behind this and this is u up to the council. They can punish somebody for whatever they feel like it. Um, in that post I said as a city council member um I'm an individual member. I never said I was working on behalf of the city. Is that correct? I think by so I so I don't have the the comment in front of us and this would be on the I come back to the council to discuss list and it certainly would be your right at that time to explain why it is not a violation or why it was not

if if I have the opportunity to do that I look forward to it. Thank you. All right any other comments on Potter Valley from the public or from the dis? All right let's move on to council member reports. Council members may provide verbal information reports regarding their participation in assigned subcommittees, regional boards and commissions and ad hoc committees and other community civ uh civic activities. Council member Laski.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh obviously it's been a while since we've uh reported it out. December was a busy month for all of us. I attended along with uh the mayor and the vice mayor. We attended uh Reese Wreaths across America in December. Uh just their their mission statements is to remember the fallen, honor those who serve, teach the next generation the value of freedom. Uh so it was an honor to represent the city as well as my chosen service, the United States Navy, to honor all of those who have served in our armed forces. So that was a that was a wonderful uh half day uh that we attended. And then uh just happened to be on that same day, Vice Mayor Lans and myself went to a meet and greet with former Congressman Doug Lamalfa in Santa Rosa. He was in town to speak on redistricting. Uh I appreciate the time and dedication he gave to his cons to his constituents. Uh may he rest in peace. Uh I would also like to uh commend other members of the council for for supporting the ribbon cutting ceremony that we all went to for uh pics. It was great to see the community gathering to support pics and uh as a council we uh we wish the owners in that business well. Uh the uh Christmas tree lighting obviously that was a big hit. no rain, great turnout. Uh we're just hoping that the uh based on retirement uh information that the Grinch might make an appearance next year. Uh I also attended my regional board snowan power and they are in the midst of uh

procuring some property in Yukaya to start uh their own solar form solar farm excuse me to uh generate revenue to help keep rateayers uh bills down. So that was a uh that was a win-win for everybody. As I said earlier, myself and council member Marquez attended the League of California cities with council members uh representing many many cities across California and you probably haven't heard of many of them. Everybody is like where's Cloverdale? That was uh yeah it was a little bit of a test for some people. Uh so the the uh the conference has covered uh you know anything from land planning uh social media etiquette uh obviously the dos and don'ts of that and the most important one keeping your city financially fit. So uh if you're not into math at the beginning of that uh seminar you sure are at the end because there's a lot of good information to uh make sure your city is financially fit. Um, so that that's all I got.

Did you have Go ahead, Council Member Marquette.

Okay. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Um, this is kind of a lengthy one. We have not had a meeting for a while. So, um, taking it back to December. Uh, on Thursday, December 11th, uh, attended the Sonoma County Tourism's Coffee and Collaboration. Uh this was an event where Iworked with fellow council members and staff, learned how tourism performed in Sonoma County in 2025 and how we're expecting tourism to perform in 2026. Uh on Thursday, also the same day, uh attended the EEL Russian Project Authority Board meeting uh where they discussed the integration with P Gen and potential schedule. Uh they adopted a resolution to submit an application and execute a grant agreement with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to receive approximately $9 million for the new Eel Russian facility uh known as NERF planning design and Russian River Water Supply Resilience Project. Uh following that meeting, I attended the uh Inland Water and Power Commission board meeting. Uh they discussed program components, beneficiaries, and potential funding mechanisms. Uh Thursday, December 18th, uh alongside with council member Morgan Stern, uh we participated in Sonoma County Tourism's Accredited Hospitality Professionals Tour of Cloverdale. Uh we did visit a number of businesses and want to highlight uh a few of them. Cloverdale House Inn, Soo Trading Company, The North End, Cloverdale Home and Garden, and Mavis and Mavis. All these businesses since moving to Cloverdale have expanded their footprint, and that speaks really well to uh uh our community community support and and how businesses can thrive here. uh on Thursday, January 8th, uh again and and and attended another

Menescino Inland Water and Power Commission. Uh this meeting they discuss water resiliency and storage options, groundwater wells that they're um not just going to put them all throughout the valley, but um they'll do some studies and those can be supplemental and also scalable in their overall um portfolio. This is for uh Potter Valley. Uh they discussed smaller tributary dams and the idea of flooding a portion of the southern part of the valley. They negotiated the benefits of cost and they ranked the options uh and spoke about diligence and presenting all options that uh when you're looking for funding even having some of these ideas that might sound off the wall that you're going to shelf you you keep it on your list and it shows that you've been diligent. Uh Saturday, January 10th was the opening, grand opening for the Cloverdale Graange thrift shop. Uh they had over 200 patient patrons uh visit. Uh want to highlight uh an article that was featured in the Press Democrat uh written by Mary Joe Winters. Uh speaks to some of the history and the work that went into that project. Uh that was followed up with the uh grand opening at Pix uh Wednesday, January 14th. Uh I did attend the Russian River Property Owners Association board meeting uh which I am reporting on here at this time. Uh they have uh their petition for the proposed Alexander Valley Water District has been determined and certified. Uh so they will be presenting to LAFCO, which is the Sonoma Local Agency Formation Commission. Uh they've tentively scheduled the first of what is expected to be two hearings on the proposal on Wednesday, March 4th, 2026 on or after 2 p.m. at the board of supervisors chambers. This is why I'm going to this meeting is so I can bring

this factual information back to our council and we can have participation in uh a matter that is going to affect our city. I think it's a benefit to us all. Thursday, January 14th, I attended the zero waste Sonoma board meeting. Uh we held an election of officer to elect Roner Park Mayor Emily Sanburn, who will be serving as chair for 2026. Discuss the fiscal year 2026 to 2027 work plan. Uh, also want to mention that I delivered 15 gallons of recycled paint in grayish color for our public works to use as graffiti abatement provided by Sonoma Zero Waste in cooperation with uh, Recology. Uh, the Cal's event that I attended with council member Laski was Wednesday to Friday, January 21st to 23rd. Uh, really attending these things as uh, with a mind state that I'm always a student. Uh some of the key things that were learned were effective advocacy for key city issues, policy role in land use planning, developing an effective city council and city manager team. Uh I also attended the environmental quality policy committee that was a a meeting of one of six policy committees that they that is is part of the Cal's program. Uh these are opportunities that uh mayors, council members have to uh be a part of uh California's budget to advocate for things that they need for for for their town. So there's really good opportunity for for for our city to participate in some of those policy committees and help us get the funding that we need.

Um also want to mention uh this is kind of a situation that's in the works uh regarding our outdoor education in the city of Cloverdale. Uh, I've been doing some work through Sonoma Land Trust, uh, to get them interested in our open spaces, trying to acquire some more of our open space. Um, that's a new relationship that the city of Cloverdale has. Uh, we worked with uh, um, reaching out to educational partners of uh, Lauren Heg with Weaving Earth and Christy Clark with Land Path. also worked with principal Holden at Jefferson School and Cloverdale Park Superintendent Hector Galvan. Uh what's happening is uh coming up uh Weaving Earth uh took a site visit with uh our park superintendent at Soda Creeks and uh they will be pushing their outdoor education that was previously out of town. They'll be bringing that back to Cloverdale for our local students. Uh that integrates education into our open spaces. It's going to help us gain funding in the future and really overall um bring the children, their parents more closely tied in with with the environment around us. Um so that that'll save money on transportation and lots of time during transportation for for our school and students. Um they're expected to possibility of holding all April field trips for the Jefferson first graders at Soda Springs Ranch open space as well as potentially moving some or all of the 2026 to 2027 school year field trips up there. Um and lastly, uh just want to mention u there was a memorial held for Mr. Alan Ferber on December 13th at uh uh the Citrus Fair. Uh the auditorium was packed with a lot of residents, family, and friends. Um in his honor, uh if you would like to make

a donation to the Cloverdale Historical Society by vis visiting the Cloverdale History Museum, they are open 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Friday through Sunday. And that's what I got. Thank you.

Morgan's turn. December 18th in the morning, I attended a Russian River Watershed meeting in Windsor. We had a presentation from Plant Harmony, an environmental educator owns the company. And what she does is um she tries to figure out things like which pesticides are less toxic um so they won't affect our creeks and rivers as badly as the toxic ones. and she um has different sections in different stores. She helps like some Ace Hardwares put together a less toxic pesticide section so that buyers can go in there and um buy something less toxic. That afternoon along with council member um Marquez, I participated in the Sonoma County Tourism Walk of Cloverdale. The purpose was to promote Cloverdale along with Soma County. Um, we saw the interior of the hotel at the Supper Club, which if anyone gets the chance, it's they've done a really beautiful remodeling job and it was like really exciting to see. January 22nd, I attended an A and open space advisory meeting that included a community relations update along with a review of the year of um what Agon and open space did in 2025. February 2nd, I will be attending a Santa Rosa Junior College roundt with a college superintendent, Dr. Garcia, on the shown farm. Um, this is in Forestville. The purpose will be um regarding workforce training and unique needs of North County and the agricultural community. Great.

I won't repeat the ones that you've already heard. uh Russian River Property Owners Association. I met with one of their members recently. We discussed the watershed vegetation management and a lot of instream maintenance issues and uh ways that we can work together. I met with Assemblyman Damon Connelly and we had a great conversation regarding ways that we can do different projects in this area uh especially because he is uh looking to be um our senator I believe at this point. So, um, he had a lot of good ideas and and we presented quite a few things to him and ways that we can work together. So, that was good. Uh, you attended the same meeting there. I attended the employee appreciation dinner for the uh, holidays. It was great. We had a good time. I believe we were all there from the councils. That was a great showing and I thank the city and the police police officers association for putting it on. Um, we talked about that one, that one. Uh, one thing that I did is, uh, I went to the Kuanas crab feed where, uh, Councilman Marquez is the president of Kowanas right now. Uh, the good part for me was, uh, Congressman Lalfa actually went as my guest. He he actually invited me, but um, it was nice to go that he wanted to come to Cloverdale and do some stuff and it was a great time to uh, learn more about him as a family man and his personal interest and things along those lines. it wasn't just work related. Uh so it was great to get to know him. And the sad thing is it was the last time we got to do anything together and it was uh just a few days before he passed. Uh we held the light and display contest right before Christmas. It was a great turnout. We had about I'd say about 40 people go with us on trailers and drive around and look at the lights and in Cloverdale and judge them. Uh Chief, I don't know if you remember who won that.

Uh John Rickard. That's right. John John Rickard. Okay, that's right. It wasn't Chief. Maybe cross Gotta cross that out. It was not Chief. Oh, okay. Sorry about Sorry about that. Yeah, he had the power outage. No, Grinch. But he did win the ribbon. He did win grand champion.

Another thing I got to do, I went to, like I already said, I I'm trying not to repeat things, so I will leave the Sonoma Water Biological Opinion meeting. That was great. Um, and then I was actually invited as a guest to Congressman Lamala's funeral. And so that was a a great opportunity to go and uh say our goodbyes to a friend and somebody that really cared about our our area. And so it was great to be a part of that. And I was uh blessed to be his guest. Where is he last night? Uh that's all I'm going to report on.

All right. My report out. What do we got here? There's a lot of them. Uh I'm not going to repeat. Also, I have uh gone ahead and worked on blood drive. uh realized red chloros uh is a little more difficult. They do have some borders and some uh limits where they will come up to. So went with a different company blood drives in the future. Big one in June coming up at the uh veterans ad uh veterans hall. Um there there's also one same company's going to do it behind uh Papa's Pizza coming up here in the near future. They did the blood drive at the uh at the um fire department just recently. So we're getting a lot of uh lot of traction on that. The only thing is you do have to we're going to put flyers out and all that. You do have to sign up for an appointment with these folks. So, uh if you can get on there's QR codes, there's uh signups. They will do their darnest to get it in for you or get you in there and uh goes to one big central uh blood bank and um you know, who knows if you're the next person or or help one of your Cloverdale residents. You know, if if something happens, you need blood, that's the way to do it. We're really going to start driving these or getting these blood drives going. Also, um got a hold of uh one of our district 4 reps down there working on some funding for uh our parks department and and some parks upgrades. Uh have a meeting set up in the very near future. The actual rep himself is out of the country for a couple three weeks, but I do have a contact that's willing to come up here and talk to us. I've talked to him before. Great guy. And hopefully we can uh make that happen. Uh coffee with the mayor went down. Um that was primarily uh wasn't much of coffee with the mayor. It was more of coffee with the new uh Graange Hall um um thrift store and how that's going. It was a pretty good presentation. They do need a lot of volunteers down there. If you have any time, go down to the thrift store, get with uh one of the previous

council members, I believe Maryanne Bighgam, and there's some other ladies there that would love to have your help down there. And uh that's the new spot in town. They realized the potential or the need for a thrift store, reasonable prices, everything down there and uh they brought it to Cloverdale and made it happen. So good for them. Also, um what else do we have? Oh, I had the Sonoma County Mayor's Board of Directors meeting. Went to that. The main discussion on that was topics for talking points for coming up for all of our dinner. So, we did come up with uh some good good topics and uh some different topics this year. So, I think that'll be good. And we also have one of those meetings coming up. I don't have the exact date. I believe it might be the 12th of February coming up. So, hopefully a lot of the council members are attending that. It's all I have to report out on.

All right. City managers reports. Just real quick, the Citrus Fair is February 13th through the 16th. We do have a booth kind of the full time, so if anyone wants to volunteer to to be at the booth, let me know. Uh other than that, we will have tickets for all you guys, too. Future agenda items. Uh yes, I would just like to add uh the idea of a future agenda item for a city council public presentation on the governance manual. Is there consensus on the item? So,

I think that will be included as part of what the the workshop that the council directed earlier going over the governance manual would be part of that. Would that would that be public as well? Yeah, it will be an public meeting. I I don't know if it' be it probably won't be part of a regular meeting, but it'll be open to the public. Okay. Um because I guess my suggestion to put it at a regular meeting is that uh it's good for the public to also um get updated on our new governance manual. I think it's a benefit for people to know how our governance structure works. So my recommendation would be to have uh a public presentation at a council meeting.

It's up to the council. I can certainly do it twice. the meeting would be we can make sure the workshop is someplace it could be recorded as well. The workshop is an open meeting to the public. So there's no reason in my opinion to have it twice. If it's going to be recorded and published, I would be happy with that.

We can make that All right, we're going to be close. Thank you everybody for showing up. Appreciate you hung with us the whole time here. Thank you for showing up. The time is 93 daughter.