City Council - Regular Meeting

I just don't see you I usually wait to There we go. All right. He's got to shift camera. All right. Hey, we still made it at 6. Thank you folks for showing up at 6:00 p.m. for the 13th of May council meeting. Um let's call the meeting to order and please join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. And uh do a roll call. I see all council is in attendance. All right. Do we have any conflict of interest declarations? Any down there? Seeing none. Thank you. In agenda review, changes or deletions, Kevin? No changes.

All righty. We'll roll right into B1. Proclamation Lyme disease awareness month. Read by council member Morgan Stern. Proclamation of the city council of the city of Cloverdale recognizing May 2026 as Lyme and tick born diseases awareness month in Cloverdale. Whereas Lyme disease is the fastest growing vectorbor disease in the United States caused by the bacterium borill borella bordorphery and it's transmitted by the common blacklegged tick found in nearly one half of all the US counties. And whereas ticks that carry Lyme disease can also carry at least 15 other pathogens. Many of them transmitted within minutes of being bitten with one painless tick bite frequently resulting in multiple infections including bacteria, parasites, and viruses. And whereas the risk of contracting Lyme disease can be year round, the nymph ticks, which are the size of a poppy seed, are most active in the spring. Tick bites are nearly painless with fewer than 50% of patients with Lyme disease able to recall tick bite and fewer than 50% reporting a bullseye rash. And whereas Lyme disease infects more than 300,000 people annually in the in the United States. Yet testing for Lyme disease remains only 50% accurate with the average patient going two or more years before getting a proper diagnosis. And whereas Lyme disease is under is a under reportported illness, therefore the actual number of people with Lyme disease in Cloverdale is likely 10 times the reported number of cases. And whereas Lyme disease is a complex multi-system illness which if caught early can be treated but if left untreated can invade the nervous system, heart and multiple organs of the body causing years of pain, suffering, severe disability and even death. And whereas

children are the highest risk for contracting Lyme disease, it is the responsibility of every community to educate the public about the signs, symptoms, treatment, and how to prevent Lyme disease. And where is the best protection against tickborne diseases are prevention, education, and early treatment. Now therefore, be it resolved that I, Vice Mayor Wheeler, do hereby proclaim May 2026 Lyme disease awareness month in Cloverdale, dated May 13, 2006.

Just one correction on that. Thank you, Council Member Morgan Stern. This was uh last year's. It had more information and this is Council Members Morgan Stern's proclamation, so it had the information she wanted. So, you will see an A and a B on there. She chose to read the one from last year due to the information and we'll correct the record also claim that it has Vice Mayor Wheeler on there. Correct that mic to Mayor. Thank you. It's not a problem. All right. Do we have any question? Do you have any questions, comments?

Questions, comments? Just uh if everyone part of the awareness of uh Lyme disease is to when you're out there hiking through any br brush is to check any of your clothes and look for ticks. I've uh been bitten by a tick here in Sonoma County and luckily it wasn't uh um infected, but um it's one of those things you always got to check for. Anybody?

Yeah. real quick also on that. Um I know there's Cloverdale's dog friendly. I see a lot of people with their pets and even if you take them in and get them treated down at the the vet or anything. Um I personally have had my dog down and she's treated fully. I got her home and she had four ticks on her. So it's not just out hiking around. Just be cognizant of uh when you get them home those things can you can find them in your house and whatever. And believe me, you don't want to get uh any type of uh Lyme disease or anything like that just by uh being a little little aware of your situation. So, thank you. All right. All right. Proclamation B2, Older Americans Month. We have some recipients from the Cloverdale Kuanas Club. Council member,

thank you, Mayor Wheeler.

A proclamation of the city council of the city of Cloverdale recognizing May 2026 as Older Americans Month in the city of Cloverdale. Whereas Older Americans Month has been recognized nationally since 1963 to honor the contributions, experience, and service of older adults throughout the United States. And whereas the 2026 Older Americans Month theme, Champion Your Health, encourages older adults and communities to focus on wellness, prevention, and active management of physical and mental health. And whereas old older adults in Cloverdale continue to strengthen the community through volunteerism, mentorship, civic engagement, professional experience, and lifelong contributions to local organizations, businesses, schools, and families. And whereas the city of Cloverdale recognizes the importance of supporting opportunities for older adults to remain active, connected, independent, and engaged within the community. And whereas organizations and programs serving older adults in Cloverdale and throughout Sonoma County, including the Cloverdale Senior Multi-Purpose Center, provide valuable resources, services, recreation, and opportunities that promote health, wellness, and social connection. And whereas Cloverdale benefits from the knowledge, resilience, and life experiences of older residents whose continued participation enriches the social, cultural, and civic life of the community. And promoting healthy aging and access to supportive resources helps create a stronger and more connected community for residents of all ages. And now therefore, it be proclaimed that the city of council of the city of Cloverdale hereby proclaims May 2026 as older Americans month in Cloverdale and encourages all residents to recognize

and celebrate the contributions of older adults while supporting opportunities for healthy aging, wellness, and community connection. Dated May 13, 2026. So ordered Brian Wheeler, mayor. any comments?

Um, well, I would like to thank the Quantis Club of Cloverdale uh for being here. Uh, the Quantis Club was a group of people that really welcomed me to Cloverdale. Um, there's folks in the Quantis Club that are older than folks that I have in my own family. And so, uh, really gave me the experience to, uh, learn, uh, be mentored and learn a lot about Cloverdale and just, uh, their their attitude of, you know, taking things easy, working together. And you'd be really amazed, uh, getting this group together on what they accomplish, seeing the events come together. There's always some pressure at the last minute that maybe is just in our minds, but when things come together, it it happens. And and if you've been to any of the Quantis events, you you know what I'm talking about. So, u proud to, uh, present the proclamation to the Kuanas Club. Uh, tonight we have, u Michael Leair, Beverly Leair, uh, Terry Chappelle here to accept the, uh, award proclamation.

Yeah. Go ahead. And, uh, yeah, if you can come up picture. Are they going to say anything? No. Thank you. Yeah. Let's do you guys have Would you guys like to make a comment first before we come down?

Mike, can you step up to the mic? Yeah, step up to the mic, please. Mic to the mic. And Mike, if you don't mind pushing that little button there so that light turns green. Push the little button and it should turn green for you there, Mike. There it is. There you go. Anyway, we appreciate your recognition uh to all the organizations because there's there's quite a few uh and um they all do a good job in in Cloverdale bringing not only older uh citizens but younger Quantis has the key club at the high school and builders club with the junior high and all that. So, it's kind of like bringing a whole community along with us. So, um thank you very much.

Awesome. I just wanted to thank you and tell you it's great to have a benefit for being older. Nice. You guys have comments for one more. Terry. Well, I'm considered young to the club. I'm 63. So, they consider me young. Um, and there's a lot of them that are older. that are representing this club. And I just want to say that the younger generation needs to get involved. The younger generation, we need them now to continue to the club.

It's the 7 a.m. meetings. What 7 a.m. meetings are I know. I know. We're trying to get that chain. But anyway, thank you. Thank you.

I will come down for the thing. Sorry, we got kind of split up here. I just want to thank the Kuanas and all the other all the other people in, you know, other community or not communities, other uh groups in town. They really put on a lot for Cloverdale. We've got the crab feed. We've got all this that everybody looks forward to every year. Uh it's kind of the the heartbeat of um all these all these groups are the heartbeat of Cloverdale. So, thank you very much. Now, we'll get a picture. Three. One, two, three. Sorry. One, two, three. All righty. Oh, who's reading? Would somebody like to read? We're in B3. Proclamation National Municipal Clerk's Week. Would somebody like to read that proclamation? No.

It's online. I thought it was the the thing. Go ahead. Yeah.

The lights a proclamation of the city council of the city of Cloverdale recognizing May 3rd through the 9th, 2026 is professional municipal clerks week in Cloverdale. Whereas May 3rd through May 9th, 2026 marks the 57th annual Professional Municipal Clerks Week established by the International Institute of Municipal Clerks to recognize the important role municipal clerks serve in local government. And whereas the office of the municipal clerk is one of the oldest and most essential functions of m municipal government serving as a professional link between residents, elected officials and government agencies through the administration of public meetings, maintenance of official records, coordination of local elections, and support of transparent and accountable government processes. And whereas the city the Cloverdale city clerk's office serves as a leazison between the public and the city council and helps preserve the public's trust in government by ensuring legislative actions, public records, legal notices, and official communications are accurate, accessible, and timely. And whereas in Cloverdale, the city clerk also serves as the city's PIO, public information officer, charged with community engagement and helping ensure residents, businesses, media, and regional partners receive clear, consistent, timely, and accessible information regarding city programs, services, policies, events, and emergency communications. And whereas through public outreach initiatives, digital communications, emergency updates, and community engagement efforts, the Cloverdale City Clerk's Office helps strengthen transparency, civic participation, and trust between local government and the

community. And whereas the professionalism, dedication, and public service provided by the Cloverdale City Clerk's Office contribute significantly to the effective operation of local government and the quality of service provided to the Cloverdale community. And now therefore, be it proclaimed that the city council of the city of Cloverdale hereby recognizes May 3rd through the 9th, 2026 is professional municipal clerk's week in Cloverdale and expresses appreciation to the to the Cloverdale city clerk Mike Maloney for their commitment, professionalism, and dedicated service to the community. Dated May 13th, 2026. So ordered, Brian Wheeler, mayor. Awesome. comments from the council.

Uh just want to thank you, Mike. Uh part of your role as clerk is welcoming um potential candidates for the city council. We do have uh uh any interested candidates for the three positions that are going to be open. Uh Mike's holding a workshop and I I would say my experience uh when I was onboarding was very equitable and I appreciate that. Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you for everything you do for all of us and for the public and I know you're very busy and thank you so much.

Yeah, Mike, I would uh u get on the coattails of what Andre said there uh when when you get the call that you uh become a city council member and all all the hard work that you do to on board make it seamless. Uh that's just a percentage of what you do and a lot of people don't see what Mike does behind the scenes. It's a relentless and thankless job pretty much. And uh and we're we're we're we're glad you chose to uh leave Santa Rosa and come to Cloverdale and uh pursue your career. Thank you. Also, Mike is very techsavvy and so we really appreciate that his graphic ability and all the things that he does and his great ideas that he brings and he monitors what other cities are doing and and picks out good ideas and brings them to us. So, appreciate it, Mike. Thank you for all your hard work, Mike. I'm not going to repeat what everyone else is saying. I say it enough. So, thank you for everything. same thing. We all wouldn't be sitting up here so uh so fluid if you didn't uh get us, you know, get things squared away for us. Really appreciate it everything you do. There's a lot uh that people don't see, but Mike is a very busy man. So, um thank you for everything you do.

Want to get a picture? No, I don't. But can I address you guys? Yeah, I will.

Um Mayor Wheelers, me Mayor Wheeler, and members of the council, um thank you for the annual recognition. I truly appreciate the opportunity to accept the proclamation on behalf of myself and every city clerk that has ever served the community of Cloverdale. There's been quite a few. Since the last clerk week a year ago, my office has made major strides in record management, legislative operations, transparency, community engagement, and streamlining day-to-day operations. I'm proud of the accomplishments and continued progress despite our limited staffing, and increasing demands that we recently discussed at our budget workshop. Um, but as I look ahead at the goals, initiatives, and operational improvements still to come, I'm also proud of what got me here. Um, as Council Member Alaski mentioned, my I started over in Santa Rosa. My first job was driving the train and lifeguarding at Howorth Park back in 2001. And I never imagined that four departments, multiple promotions, two municipalities, and 25 years later, I'd have the privilege of being Cloverdale City Clerk. When I first accepted the position, there was some natural imposttor syndrome. But over the next four years, and this is where I like to give some metrics that I do every year at this opportunity. Um, so over the next four years, including 21 ordinances, 359 resolutions, 106 proclamations, 272 agendas and minutes, a few cancellations, 361 social media posts on two platforms, 345 public records act requests and counting, four policies, two elections, three conferences, one certification, and so much more. It's safe to say my confidence and knowledge has grown, but so has my drive to keep learning and enhancing this department and my respect for public service and the crucial role that the clerk's office plays in local government. And I know I wouldn't be able to successfully navigate this office's responsibilities solo if it weren't for the administrative professionals that taught me how to clerk, including Sandy Bliss, Patty Pico, Greg, Daisy Gomez, Stephanie Williams, and Dina Manis, and the continued support and collaboration from all the current clerks throughout the

throughout Sonoma County. Lastly, I want to thank our small but mighty staff. It's truly an honor to work alongside all of you and to serve the people of Cloverdale. And thank you again, mayor and council, for this proclamation. And I just wanted to read this to make sure I didn't miss anybody. Thank you. All right, moving to C1. Verbal comments. Any person wishing to speak on an item not listed on the agenda may do so at this time. Pursuant to the Brown Act, the city council is not allowed to consider issues or take action on any item not listed on the agenda. Three minutes are allotted to each speaker. And when you guys come up, could you please uh state your name for the record? Thank you.

Yes.

Uh my name is Jennifer Sullivan. I'm a resident of Cloverdale. So the the documents that I've given to the city council uh the city manager they're all from the regional water board. The first one is to Esmeralda principal Michael Yarn Yarn from the water board and there's a bit in it that says, "We have concerns about possible most mobilization of PCP impacted groundwater along fractured and faulted bedrock if a large water supply well is installed on the site anywhere near the restricted groundwater area." The second is an October 9th email with instructions on how to notify the notify of the public comment period which would begin only two weeks after this email was sent out on October 27th. And it it says owners and occupants of the property impacted by the contaminant release and the owners of the occupants of all parcels adjacent to the site. So these people were supposed to be notified. They did such a great job notifying the public that they got zero public comments. But there's a there's a note in there that that I'd like to point out. It states, "Note that case closure does not necessarily mean all contamination has been remediated, but rather that this agency would not require further work regarding the contamination." The third is El Emeralda's favorite to quote um and it's the notice of proposed no further action and in it it says the site has been fully assessed and remediated to the extent practicable and current site conditions current site conditions pose little risk to human health or environment. The fine print of this is current site conditions. As soon as digging and disturbance of the soils begin, those current site conditions no

longer exist. That gets the board off the hook when humans and the environment are put at risk because the property is still contaminated. Despite decades of monitoring and cleanup efforts, the Masonite wood treatment facility was closed down in 1975, and after all that time, the site is still contaminated. Aside from its toxicity and persistence, pentaclorophenol is one of the reasons it aside from its toxicity and its persistence. This is one of the reasons that it's banned. And then they'll say, "Oh, but it's only a small portion of the site, so it's okay everywhere else." But contamination and groundwater, contaminated groundwater don't follow our boundaries drawn on paper. I am extremely concerned that the city has lost its independence regarding Esmeralda. At a at the November 12th, 2025 city council meeting, Todd Lans described Esmeralda as a little bit of each um about being like either a partner. So he acknowled and acknowledged Cloverdale may be short on water in the near future, stating that the city would be turning to as turning to the Esmeralda project applicants as good partners on storage and recharge. It suggests Esmeralda is being viewed not near me nearly as a private development application but as part of Cloverdale's fiscal strategy infrastructure planning and future water supply solution with the applicant cast as a city partner before SQUA review is complete with the applicant cast as a city partner. How can the city evaluate Esmeralda neutrally under SQUA with genuine discretion to require a subsequent EIR, reduce the project, impose stronger

mitigation or even deny it?

Thank you, Jennifer. My name is Angela Cordova. I am concerned about the 100 ASI road area. Um, I sent you guys an email. I've been I went to all of the meetings prior to the construction of that apartment complex. The council said that there would be uh proper um traffic control measures taken. None of that's happened. There's people currently living there. So, I'm not sure how the issuance of final occupancy happened. Um the bike lanes, there's no stop signs, no stop lightss, roundabout features, nothing. No street lights. The bike lanes are all faded. um all the way down to uh Dembee. You can barely see where it says bike lane. So, with all due respect, you can't even enforce anybody parking there or violating being in the bike lane if they don't even know it says bike lane. Um the no parking signage was supposed to go up. Uh that hasn't happened. Um we had the what is it? the uh the bike train rail visitors uh they park in everybody's um immediate frontage area of their homes which is a bike lane. They've blocked driveways not realizing that there's residents there including myself. Um they've been parking on the dry grass. So you take a hot vehicle, park it dry grass, common sense that can mean a fire. These people are gone on the rail.

They don't even know. Um there's no control over there from the actual rail people directing traffic. So with all respect to the customers, they don't even know. Um the train depot doesn't allow people to park overnight. Uh they have cameras and they enforce it through CPD um and have people removed. The uh big rigs I've called in personally, so have my neighbors pulling out of our driveways. You can't even even at the top of my driveway, you can't even see over it, which can mean just an instant t-bone. And that brings me to the next me uh subject. Speeding out of control on AI. It's like 80 m an hour pulling out of our driveway. We hope we don't get slammed. Um the with with all this new development you're pushing, you guys haven't even addressed the development that's there. So, with the people living there now, again, I don't know how they're living there if the occupancy hasn't been signed off because it hasn't been met. The requirements haven't been met. So, I'm not sure how the final inspection went, but there are people living there and you have kids walking to school and something detrimental is going to happen. It's not good in that whole area. Um, CPD can only do so much, you know, and they can't enforce parking or anything if you guys aren't getting somebody out there to paint what's already there that's faded. At least do that. And signage, I mean, if the money if the money's not there, I'll pay for it. I'll I'll call a company I know and have them put signs all the way down. It's not an issue for me. But it this is getting out of control at this point and it's tiresome for all of the neighbors on the other hill and all of us on the other side to constantly have to call CPD about a semi park all night or cars

parked up on where they shouldn't be. You guys have you have broken your promise to us. So please address that. Please get together and get that area under control as you agreed. Thank you.

Sign from five years ago. Rob, you can keep it with you. That's there.

My name is Rob Kazlowski. I'm a resident of Cloverdale. Thank you for your time. Uh, I asked the mayor and city clerk for the okay to present a citizens counter proposal on water rates in response to the paid consultants latest water rate study which is costing us $80,000. My request to share these draft suggestions with the public either as item E2 on today's agenda or during my public comment section now was nixed. showing anything on that screen up there required prior vetting. Plus, it would interfere with the three-minute countdown clock, which is going fast. Uh, the consultants water rate study calls for more double-digit water rate increases. This 40% increase on top of the last 76% rate increase more than doubles residents water bills. Not only that, but Cloverdale has climbed the rankings from the city with the most cost-effective water bills to the city with the most expensive water bills. Cloverdale moved from cost parody with the town of Windsor in 2021 to 157% higher in 5 years and almost double the water rates of Santa Rosa. Since I can't share these slides with you, the citizens counter proposal can be found under today's public comment section that Mike uh included. That posting contains all of the details of this proposal. Now, with the uh study that was done, such a nonsensical rate increase of the past and now planned has made Cloverdale the city with that most expensive water rates, not only in Sonoma County, but also in Menescino. Plus, the water department is flushed with cash and still no shovel ready projects. In talking with residents, another double-digit rate increase on top of the earlier double-digit water rate increase flies in the face of affordability and transparency, especially since the water department currently has an actual $7.2 million bank account balance. So,

what is a citizen's counter proposal specifically? Defer water and wastewater rates for at least one year until this cap spending is figured out. That means no water rate increase or possibly a rate decrease for this coming fiscal year 2627. Then revisit the water enterprise budget for year 2 of the current 2-year budget cycle. Concurrently reduce the wastewater enterprise budget by 10% for fiscal 2627 owing to revenue significantly exceeding current costs. Furthermore, change the bad habit of 5-year water rate uh wastewater rate increases. This means no more five-year windows of water and wastewater charges. Instead, align any future increases with the two-year budget cycle recently adopted by the city, which makes sense. Residents want the city to focus on progress for mandated necessary projects identified 5 years ago. Fiscal scrutiny is critical, too. avoid more debt f financing and avoid spending future water wastewater enterprise dollars for nonwater related projects such as solar energy and air conditioning systems. As a number of residents already wrote to the city, there is no solid justification consistent with Proposition 218 for another round of double water rate increases. Thank you for your time. My name is Lee Tolbert. I'm the uh system engineer for Palamino Lakes Mutual Water. And I appreciate the council uh council's permission me to

speak this evening even though I am not a not a citizen of Cloverdale. But I have a I have one question for the council. any member with all the new housing being put in behind rays a road along river uh across from uh Ace Hardware and other areas new apartment construction. What's the projected uh increase in population? Anybody know? You don't know. Okay.

Probably a couple thousand.

If you consider a four bedroomedroom a two-bedroom apartment, that's four people. Okay. The AWA standard for domestic water consumption per day, that's American Waterworks Association, is 150 gallons. That 150 gallons per person is extra loading on the wastewater municipal wastewater system. That loading enters the river after treating the poop and pee, but all the other chemicals, grease, pharmaceuticals, all the other cleaning chemicals that go down that drain also enter the river during periods of drought and low flow on the river. that effect of that pollution increases because the old adage is the solution to pollution is dilution. So I've asked several times about tertiary treatment and I just found out and tertiary treatment allows for the reuse of waste water for irrigation purposes and agriculture rather than using fresh water that comes from the river. it completes the cycle. But I am saddened the fact that the last meeting council meeting on the 22nd with data in hand to proceed with a tertiary treatment plant at the mdale

municipal waste treatment was rejected by the council. The only thing I can say with that is I'm disappointed in your smallmindedness. Right. Any other public comment? Morning Elvis. I'm hoping I'm going to bring a little bit of let me most of y'all probably won't like what I have to say.

We recording recording. Are you sure? Good evening. My name is John Lambert and I'm from Cloverdale. I was going to try to channel Bruce Springsteen tonight, but I couldn't fit into the Levis's, so I went with 60-year-old Elvis instead. Thank you to the mayor, the council, city staff, Chief Parker, and his officers keeping our community safe. Thank you for the hard work you guys are doing uh at a very difficult time. I know I ran for city council. I know what a difficult thing it is to do this job. So, thank you for that. The family obligations have kept me from participating in civic matters as much as I'd like. But tonight, I want to share some thoughts. In the 18 years that I've lived here, I've watched Cloverdale stagnate. The movie theater left town twice. Bear Republic is gone. The soil king moved on. Elagro has closed their doors. The Dante is likely a footnote. Rest in peace, Court Amalong. And also, rest in peace, Alan Ferber. There seems to be a belief that Cloverdale needs to stay exactly the same. That growth and change are bad words. I don't think they are. Not when growth is done with respect to the community. I didn't know much about the Esmeralda project until recently. I read about it in the Press Democrat and I dug a little deeper, no pun intended, and I think that this project could be a real addition for Cloverdale. I've spoken with Devon several times and asked her some hard questions on jobs. Esmeralda will create jobs both during the buildout and after. Plenty of folks here commute to Heelsburg, Geyserville, and Santa Rosa for hospitality work that

could be here in Cloverdale. On water, plans for a million gallon storage tank and aquaer recharge. On the riverfront, the plan is to gift that park to the city so that anybody can go down there and visit it and enjoy the river. On art and programming, imagine live performances year round by the Russian River and kids engaged in art, music, and science at summer camps and workshops. These programs would be open to all Cloverdale aliens, not just as Moralda residents. Will this project help fill our empty retail spaces?

No, I believe it will. I don't see it as competition. I think we're all on the same team. Will it prevent big box retail and giant parking lots from ruining our small town? Yes. Will it help speed up the arrival of the smart train? Likely, yes. Esmeralda could be a new paradigm for how neighborhoods get built to be more community oriented and built around humans connecting with each other. It would be amazing if it happened here in Cloverdale first. If any of you are wondering why it is called Esmeralda, as Moralda means emerald in Spanish, and that's a nod to the local heritage. I'll close with this. Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Cloverdale. Its mission to boldly go where no city has gone before. I'd like to invite you all to come down to karaoke at the Railroad Bar and Grill tonight. We're going to have some fun. That's every Wednesday night. And I'd like to say thank you to the council for having me tonight in my silly outfit. Thank you very much. Good night.

I want peanut butter and bananas. Can we clap about the outfit?

You're right. Evening. I'm Dana Star, resident of Cloverdale. Unfortunately, um my schedule recently on the day of the budget meetings workshop was full and I couldn't attend. And afterwards, I looked for information on what came up. Um, I'm not finding anything. So, if there's anything available, any kind of recording, I would appreciate knowing at some point. And if there isn't, then I would like to uh request that um somehow a meeting that important be recorded so that those of us that can't make a full meeting um such as that one have access to the information long before the actual budget comes out. Thank you.

Hey Dana, real quick. And we did we were looking at uh recording that. We just didn't have the option in the timing. In the future, the budget meeting will be recorded. Also, it's under special meeting on the Cloverdale Agenda Center. The entire agenda for that meeting is on there with every item that we talked about, including presentations. Yeah, I saw the agenda items. I saw the minutes which will be approved, but there's no details. Okay. That's what I'm looking for. I'm a numbers person. Gotcha. I just wanted to let you know it was on the agenda center. Thank you. Thank you. Any other public comment?

Hi, my name is Marie Jacalone. Um, I moved here in 1984. My daughters went to school here and my grandchildren go to school here now, too. Um, I'm very concerned about the water problems and especially the contamination. I can't believe you guys are not getting an EIR, but just my observation from the way Cloverdale has grown so much. Um when I used to pick up my daughter at my daughters at school at Jefferson specifically, um I could drive up to the school and pick them up. I could walk in easily. Um even my 15year-old granddaughter when I would pick her up, I could still park in the parking lot there. Now, in order to pick up the kids, I have to get there at least half an hour ahead of time in order to park a block away. Sometimes that is not enough. That project on a road, I don't know how that's going to affect the schools, but I'm sure it's a lot. Um, I think it's really unfortunate that um that you guys are not getting an EIR because all of these things need to be considered. I mean, this is your moment. You are the city council. The people elected you to protect them and to keep this city good and to get to get a little cheap influx of money. You're selling the future away. And this is your moment. I hope that you are all really going to be responsible because you are responsible for what happens. Thank you. Thank you.

Do we have any other public comment? Good evening, Jude Gibson. Bob Cox, Carol Russell, Maryanne Bighgam, Joe Paula, Gus Walter, Marta Cruz, Melanie Bagby, all mayors of Cloverdale. I don't know why the decision was made to undemocratically switch the way the system worked of rotating each session as to who became mayor for the year to give that council person some support, some knowledge, some community time, but to have the same people as mayor and vice mayor for an extended period of time feels like a thumb on the scale of democracy. We have three new slots coming up. I hope that this is the last time that this happens. Any other public comment? Okay, I'm seeing none. We'll move on. Uh written comments. Um we have a lot of written comments in there also. They are part of the record, but they're also found on the uh Cloverdale Agenda Center if you'd like to see. Mike has put them in order in there. And every one of the comments that came in, including uh Mr. Klowsk's uh slides that he wanted to do are on there. All the information is there available for the public and it is part of the record. So, thank you. All right. Student liaison report D1.

Hi, I'm Risa Cardinas. I am a junior at the Clever High School for Clever High School report. Last week we had half of our AP exams and this week we will have our other half. Last Friday we had our community unity day which is where students go and work at parks and help out the community. This weekend we have our spring play. It's happening Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It's called the mouse trap. if any of you are interested. It's taking place at the high school. And this is our last week of spring sports. Cap and gown distribution is happening Thursday on the 21st of May. Seniors have the option to buy their Chromebooks for $50. And today was varsity baseball senior night. For the Jefferson Elementary, second graders took a field trip to Foothill Foothill Park. Third graders took a trip to Catellis. Jefferson's open house is Wednesday, May 20th. Family Day on the Green is May 27th and students have completed their first week of state testing for the Washington Middle School. State testing is happening all this week, Monday through Friday. Open houses tomorrow, May the May 14th. Fifth grade field trip to San Francisco Academy of Sciences is May 19th. Sixth grade field trip to the San Francisco Zoo is happening the same day also on May 19th. CHS Grad Walk is happening May 28th. And on May 29th, events taking place this day are eighth grade dayway, the eighth grade dance, student of the month pizza party, and fourth grade visit to Washington School.

Awesome.

Any comments from the council? Thank you, Bisa, for delivering the wonderful update. Appreciate it. Yeah, Brie, good job. I appreciate all of your uh your intelligence gathering there. There's a lot going on in all those three different schools. So, I appreciate all the work you put in. Yeah, phenomenal job. Thank you so much. Thank you. Uh you guys are our student liaison. Both you guys just do a phenomenal job. You lay it out. Uh you speak well. So, I really appreciate all the effort you guys put into this. Great job. All right. All right. E presentation. We have a 211 presentation.

Mayor, we have Lisa Karano from She's the CEO of United Way Wine Country and we had a previous meeting with her with the chief and uh other staff members and we thought it'd be good to have her present to uh the city council. They do a lot of great things in the community and people can become aware of all the great things that they do. So Lisa, thanks for coming. Thank you. Thank you very much, uh, Mayor Wheeler and members of the city council, city staff, uh, student liaison. Lovely to have you here. Thank you. I'm glad you're here for this presentation. Um, United Way of the Wine Country has been in our community for nearly 60 years. Um, this PowerPoint presentation is largely focused on 211 Sonoma. Um, and it I'm going to walk you through data that we have gathered over six years of providing 211 Sonoma service specifically to the Cloverdale area. So, if we could uh uh Mike, if if you wouldn't mind advancing the slide, we'll get started. So, first let me tell you a little bit about United Way of the Wine Country. Um, as I said, we've been here for nearly 60 years. We were founded by the Triioni family, the Cottings, the Hansels, and other leading um uh business and and corporate uh leaders in our community. Uh back when we were doing something called the community chest, raising money through workplace-based campaigns. Probably some of your parents uh or grandparents or or you yourselves participated in those campaigns. over time collect money and through um a grant-making process reinvested in the community. We did that for many decades, but over the last 15 years or so, we've moved to more of a community impact investment model where

we've identified specific priorities that we recognize are important to our community's overall well-being, belonging, and resilience. And so our focus, especially over these last six years, has grown sharply to economic security building, helping people get access to the resources they need to build resilience for themselves and their families, and also belonging building so that they feel welcome, they feel like they belong here, they feel like the resources that they need are here for them so that they and their families can thrive. Um these these priorities um are uh manifest in the way that we deliver specifically the 211 service. 211 is a phone, texting, and webbased interface, an infrastructure, if you will, to help connect residents, no matter who they are or where they're situated in Sonoma County, with the social care and health and other basic needs resources that they may need. So, if we could go on to the next slide, um this is what it looks like um uh in a in an organizational chart. So 211 Sonoma has a call center which since we became the administrator for 211 Sonoma in 2019 is actually based in Ventura County. We did that on purpose because in 2017 our call center staff was all evacuated

and um and our capacity to respond to 211 emergency calls and and provide disaster response collapsed. We weren't the administrator at the time. The volunteer center was. And when they asked us to take this this initiative on, we took that experience into really serious consideration for strategic planning going forward. And we thought if we've got an emergency here and we need to focus on that here, we need a call center that's responsive that is not going to be subject to that emergency. So we have a fantastic call center partner, Interface Children and Family Services. And then we have a local staff from United Way of the Wine Country that works closely with hundreds of agencies and programs around our community to build the resource directory and database that call center staff respond to live calls 24/7 in 150 languages. And our call center, our dedicated call center team are bilingual. Um we have a very dynamic uh website that can that is literally translatable into 10 languages. Um so that our our website is 211.org. um through the the the graph that's here, the the the organizational chart that you see in front of you here, these are some of the initiatives within 211 that are most that are highest on our priority list. Emergency and disaster readiness is top of mind all the time. our 211 team are in um weekly meetings to get briefed on what if any emergencies or disasters are

on Department of Emergency Management's mind or CalFire's mind. Um we get weather reports. We begin planning for extreme weather, extreme cold and extreme heat. um as soon as we get notification from from our partners in the weather the weather management community so to speak. We also work closely with the county of Soma. Access Sonoma is a a safety net uh set of agencies within the county of Soma. We provide our resource directory as theirformational backbone so that they can make referrals to high need clients of several of the safety net departments. Um we have been doing CalFresh eligibility applications since 2019. Uh so we're helping the human services department streamline CalFresh access. Um, we have a couple of additional new initiatives that we've just launched in the last couple months. Um, text food text is a telephone number that you can text to get access to information about local food in your zip code. So, um, that has merged, it been acquired by 211 Sonoma. It went live as a 211 Sonoma asset on February 11th. And in these last 12 weeks or so, we've had over 230 individuals reach out for emergency access to food where they are. Ride United is another new initiative. It launch we launched it quietly in November. It is um it is funded by Lyft. Um it is a ride access program that

helps uh people who have economic need, people who have access and functional need get to and from through ride share through Lyft. um essential appointments that they absolutely need to get to. Medical appointments, uh eligibility appointments, um employment appointments when they're when they're trying to get jobs, school appointments. Um it the liftoff for Lyft uh for Ride United was quiet in the beginning during the winter months, but over the last several weeks um the the uh demand for uh for for access to transportation assistance has really skyrocketed. And I think we can easily attribute that to what's happening with gas prices and access to um to other people who are perhaps giving them rides who can no longer do that. Uh we were allocated literally $6,750 for that pilot for $250 rides and as of today we have scheduled over 200 rides. So um at the rate that we're going right now 8 to 10 rides a month a week. No, eight to 10 rides uh a day. We're going to probably exhaust the resources that we have by the end of next week for a program that was supposed to get us through August. So, Kanas have left the room, but we we're actually preparing a service club presentation with the assistance of some volunteers to see if a consortium of of of Kowanas clubs could help us uh piece together Ride United for the rest of the summer, especially during the high fire season. Um, let's go on to the next slide. I'm conscious of the time and I want to get to some data. So over the last six

years, we've responded to over 150,000 contacts. That's live contacts on our in our call center, provided over 150,000 referrals. Um we've had over over a million um individuals using our website to securely search for the resources they need whenever they need to to do that. Um the majority of our clients are female. uh they're Latin or Caucasian and they're usually over 50 and they're usually doing caregiving in two generational directions. So let's go on to the next slide. Um so what we're experiencing through 211 is um in real time uh a snapshot into how persistent and consistent our our cl our our community has urgent needs specifically around housing, income support, food, health care, energy assistance, uh legal assistance um and um and and then in emergencies disease, any number of those things or all of those things. And what the data is showing us, and we're about to get to the Cloverdale data, is over a six-year period of time, the needs that are presented are more complex. Um, and in fact, we're spending twice as much time taking those calls with each call as we did in 2019 when we first became the administrator. Let's go go on to the next slide. So, this is the Cloverdale profile. Um if we go to the next slide, we will see um numbers of clients, contacts up in this area. Um 1,50057 contacts, 2265 referrals. Um you can see that the age group

breakdown um is more than half of our callers are 50 years of age or older and 75% of our of our callers are females. Um the type of call by and large nearly 80% are standard information and referrals calls. Um 21% are disaster calls. Let's keep going. The breakdown in in this region um you know basically half of our callers are from our Latino community. The other half of our callers are from um are from our Caucasian community and smaller percentages of African-American, Native American, Asian, Pacific Islanders um are calling, but mostly it's the Latina and and uh white community that needs our help. Um let's keep let's continue. I want to get to what what the um areas of need are. So this this graph shows us how persistently over the entire six-year period, housing is the number one need by double um the need for economic assistance and and right behind that um is the need for food and meals. Healthcare, utility assistance, legal assistance are also top needs. Let's go on to the next slide. Um, within each category of need, these are the subcategories of need, uh, within housing, within income, within food, within healthcare, and within utility assistance. I I heard several of the folks in public comment talk about water service and and concerns about water. water is obviously there. Um but

paying for their electric bill is is the top need. Um in health care the top need is medical eligibility. Um in food the top need is SNAP CalFresh eligibility and securing food benefits. I want to lift those two up with you right now because um we anticipate that the need that we are seeing in this community and across Sonoma County is going to significantly increase as HR1 is implemented. um and and reductions in federal support and state support have a significant impact on the resources that are available through the county. And also the changes in eligibility requirements will significantly impact county staff um that are underresourced to manage the changes in the eligibility requirements. Um so and income support and housing are interrelated. um folks who need to decide, you know, between paying for their housing, paying for their medical, buying food. That's real. So, let's let's carry on to the next slide. Um I wanted to spend some time here. uh when we saw the numbers of contacts between uh between these two periods July 1 n 2019 and December 31 2025 um you know under 1500 contacts or around 1500 contacts from Cloverdale is relatively speaking not a lot of contacts 2200 referrals not a lot of referrals 211 Soma is not well known in the north part of the county but it could be and it should because I know that this is a community that has acute need and and we ought to

be a resource to the city which is what initiated are coming to you and saying how can we work more closely together in order to get your your citizens connected to the resources that they need when they need them. So, here are some demographic trends um and inferences that we can draw from the data that I've just gone through pretty quickly. And uh the city manager uh Thompson has this PowerPoint slide for you and for the community. I invite you to spend some more time with it. But for now, let me just say this. Obviously, women um are disproportionately represented in the numbers of folks who are reaching out to us. Um it appears from that number that women are disproportionately burdened by what's happening in their households. I think the truth of the matter is that we need to find creative ways to connect men and create belonging with this platform for men so that they feel like this is a resource for them to help themselves and to support their families. Um the aging population's needs are real, but it is it is it is disturbing to me that we have so few younger generations connecting with 211 Sonoma. So from teenagers to folks in their 40s, 50s, we need to do a better job of reaching parents and young people so that they can get connected to the resources they need when they need them. Young adults are under reppresented. Ethnic parody are this community is pretty well represented probably in the in the demographic uh uh representation of who's contacting us. 44% Caucasian, 43% Latino, Hispanic. Um, but there are

other folks living in this community as well, other communities of color that have need and we need to be more visible in this community to be able to reach and serve them. Um, and then um I just want to lift up particularly um disaster impacts. It is critically important, I think, for folks in this in this community to know that 211 is a go-to resource during a disaster and an emergency. And that includes uh power safety shut offs, um extreme heat, and extreme cold. Um and why that's important for them to know now is because when the crisis comes later, it would be good to have that information in their back pocket so they can reach out and call us. Um, let me go on to the next slide. Um, just a little context setting and I'm going to make this quick. United Ways of California, which is our our statewide membership association, has been doing the real cost measure analysis in California for 10 years. In 25 in 2025, this is the data for Sonoma County. I wanted to share it with you. The real cost for a family of four living in Sonoma County in May of 2025. If we go to the next slide, was reported at $114,000. That's the real cost, but the average income is around $87,000, which leaves a $26,000 gap. We are the VITA, the volunteers and tax assistance partner for the IRS in the county of Soma. Um, and for this VITA season, which just ended, um, and we provide free tax assistance, uh, to Cloverdale residents through partners in Windsor because we don't have a location here right now. Um, our average our average adjusted income was

$36,000. Nothing near that. So, this is the economic context within which 211 is providing these services in Sonoma County. and two cities like Cloverdale. We go on to the next slide. This is what it looks like by family. So 64,000 is the real cost of getting by in Soma County for two adults. 114,000 plus is the real cost for two adults with a preschooler and a school schoolaged child. And over 100,000 is is what the real cost was for two adults and two two school age kids. Um, by the time this report comes out a year from now, I fully expect these numbers to be 25 to 30% higher than they are right now. Let's go on. So, right now, well, in in May of of 2025, we were reporting that 43,5 households in Sonoma County are living below the real cost measure. 211 is a resource to help them get connected to the resources they need so they can provide for themselves and get by. That's that's the underlying economic reason for why we are doing 211 in Sonoma County the way that we're doing it and why we're reaching out to you. Let's go on to the next slide. So, here are a few opportunities that we see for strategic um uh collaboration with the city. um senior service integration, bilingual community outreach, disaster prep, uh partnership, young adult and youth engagement, housing navigation coordination and um and and and and culturally responsive equity focused access expansion in order to reach the communities of color in this community that we're not yet reaching. So, I'm

sensitive to the time and I want to be um be respectful of of your attention and and and answer questions. I know I've just sprinted through a lot of information. I'd be happy to do more of a workshop or a study group to explain all this further, but thank you right now for for making uh making the time to to to to listen to what I've shared. Thank you, Mayor Will Lisa. Thank you very much. Um, I'm going to bring it to questions from the council now, but thank you. Great presentation, Council Member Marquez. Thank you, Lisa. Uh, appreciate you coming down and giving a presentation, sharing two in one, and thank you for being a great partner.

You're welcome. Um, so one one of the reasons that I think it was so important to have you here today is that, you know, we do have limited resources here in Cloverdale and uh sometimes folks get frustrated because they don't find what they need here locally, right?

Um and uh one one of the the opportunities I saw is that, you know, we this is a a tool that folks can use not just for themselves to make phone calls, but you can advocate for somebody else. And um you know a after meeting I had done my own ghost call and called 211 and kind of created a scenario that uh I was calling to advocate for a friend or neighbor and uh was directed to um uh mentioning about housing assistance. Somebody who had uh maybe got injured uh working under the table at a job and and was having trouble with their rent. But, uh, I was directed to CS, which is, uh, keep people housed, the housing assistance group, uh, Cloverdale Food Pantry for food assistance,

and California Human Development Corporation for job assistance. So, um, it's it's just you you don't have to just search for one group, but it you're getting connected with um, just multi-ervices and and again, this is maybe even a simple uh, call, you know, some can be even more complicated. And uh the operator was very friendly. Uh you know it is available 24 hours a day and so uh I I had a good experience. Uh I'm glad

as you know making a ghost call as an advocate. So uh um that's one of the things I do hope to raise awareness to our whole community that if they know somebody that you know maybe is just has a need for something you know you can call 211. the operators will help help you um whether it's yourself or you can also be advocating for another individual. So that is a a great thing that really does help as a tool. Um the question I had was uh in case of like a disaster and there was like an overload of calls, how how would you handle that?

Right. So we are we have mutual aid agreements with call centers all around the state of California and outside of the state of California. In fact, when we had um so we were we we became the administrator for 211 Sonoma officially on June 1st, 2019 and around October 23rd is when the Concaid fire happened. And I think you'll remember that 40% of the county was evacuated. Um our call center was like overwhelmed with calls And so calling in mutual aid from other call centers, we got support in the Concaid fire from other California 211 call centers that were not affected by the Concaid fire um and by I want to say there we were also either assisted by the Cook County, Illinois uh call center and a call center in Florida as well because they were not experiencing disasters at that time and they had bandwidth to take on our calls. Um, so that system is in place. We plan for it. We work real hard on it. We um we evaluate after each disaster how things went. What did we learn? What can we improve? And we can always improve, but that's something that's in place and it's it's standard operating procedure. And when other communities have had disasters, our call center has provided the mutual aid and support to help them.

That's excellent. And um one of the things I learned about 211 is that with the data collection um you're able to give a profile of our community and I think that is also very helpful to our local organizations to um sort of get a picture of what the needs are here as well. and uh my wife and I are co-president of the Quantis Club and anything that you would need from the Quantis, we could help you out with that.

Well, thank you. I um I will share the um the proposal that we just prepared. See what see what your feedback is on it. We'd be happy to talk with you about it. I I want to say this, the thing about the data that I just shared, it's, you know, city-wide data and it's very specifically city-wide data, but we've provided to first five and to actually 4C's uh the city of Verner Park um data specific to their needs. So to the extent that and and now for Soma Valley, they were particularly interested in data about their population that are 60 years of age and older because there's such a high concentration of older older residents in all of the Soma Valley zip codes. So we can tailor the data analysis that we're doing about community need. And what I think is especially powerful about the 211 data is it's it's the voice of our community telling us what they need. It's not somebody speaking for our community. And um so the you know I've I've got stories here that um I could share with you about people struggling with housing instability, people struggling with financial needs, people struggling with food insecurity. These are very typical calls. For example, callers frequently are are calling for assistance to apply for CalFresh and they need that help because it is so confusing to apply for benefits. Um and and made more confusing now by eligibility changes. Um so to the extent that you have curiosity about what's going on with your residents and want to segment that information, we can segment that data.

Thank you. You're welcome. Yes, sir. Thank you so much for your presentation. It sounds like uh well, what I'm hearing is you're you've got a wealth of information. You've got a bunch of resources behind you and you want the public to use them, right?

And you're here to promote it. And I think that's awesome for uh United Way to step up and do that. And I think uh along with like flyers, I don't know, maybe we can get a link to our a link to your site on our site uh to you know because people need a resource or a way to find you and then that could be you know one step to find you and then I I I heard you talk about uh uh Ride United and transportation and I know there's a I always see somebody's always in need of a ride to medical appointments and whatnot and that'd be great to get out to the uh like you say the elderly community or anybody in the community that needs a ride to medical appointments and and and whatnot. So beyond all everything else you do, I can just see anxiety and somebody not knowing how they're going to get there and 211 great resource. So appreciate what you do. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. I want to start by saying you're amazing. Thank you for what you're doing for our community. It it's truly amazing and and it's a great feature that you have and we can't thank you enough. Um it's a privilege to do this work, Miss Mr. Vice Mayor. Believe me, I feel very privileged and blessed to do what I do. You know, we're always looking for solutions and you and you've created some of them and that's amazing and we we're just thankful. Thank you. Um I know County of Sonoma has a program, you mentioned it as well. Are there differences between your program and theirs that they have? They have their info line that they they set up recently.

So, um you're talking about County of Sonoma's open doors information line. Yes, ma'am. So, there's there's access Sonoma, there's open doors, and there's uh 565 info, which I believe is providing uh senior senior resources, right? They are all informed by the 211 resource database.

Correct. Um then when I mean when I say informed what I mean is we entered into a data sharing agreement with the county of Soma uh three or four years ago with the assistance of um IBM technology when the county was creating the access API. Um, and through that API they have a key that helps them download the resources from our 211 database. Nice.

Um, so that they can make that information available through the open doors website and also as I said earlier um to uh to the to the staff who are part of the safety net working with highne county clients. That's access Sonoma. Um, unfortunately, the county isn't going to fund 211 Sonoma as of July 1st of this year. The funding that we have been getting is is needed in the human services department to be able to meet the the budget demands of of of their changing, right,

uh, revenue structure. So, um, so I'm working on finding alternative funding, okay, in order to keep this platform going and continue to collaborate with the county in that way.

And it's only going to get worse with HR1. We know that there's a county's budget is over $2 billion, but only 900 million of it is actual money. The rest of it passed through money from the federal government and state government. And HR1 is the the big beautiful bill is the other name for it. And so it's money that we don't get to see, but it's basically called unfunded mandates. And so what happens is we're not going to see money that we're going to have to do things for now. And we lose good programs like this in in the in the meantime.

What I would be interested in is with the master plan on aging and things that we're working on here and our population being over 60% 55 and over. Yeah. And low income here, very high percentage of low income. I would love to have that workshop and I would love to have some type of satellite office and get ahead of the game and know that we have the resources and the most northern portion of Sonoma County ready to go because we have the hardest time here being so far away. So, I I would absolutely be willing to do any whatever it takes to get you here in a workshop and figure out ways to help you fund and help our community with your services.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that invitation. We actually work very closely with Laafamilleia Sana um and uh and and they're a fantastic partner for this kind of community outreach and engagement and um and and actually I spoke with their executive director today about reestablishing a tax site up here. Um because you know quite honestly be when your average income is $36,000 um and you are able to access your refunds, your tax credits, plus save an average of $300 on a paid tax preparer. That's money that you're putting in your pocket for your your household's needs. But importantly, you're also spending it locally. And every dollar that you spend locally has an $8 multiplier effect. So, that's good for them, that's good for each household, but it's good for the city as well. So, we're excited about actually seeking um seeking funding from the IRS and and other other financial partners to um to help us with that expansion.

Thank you so much. And thank well as well on our behalf. We'll do. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you very much. I was going right down my list just striking off the questions that I have. These guys have all this council's on top of it and vice mayor stole mine. The one thing uh Yes, sir. the workshop is the one and I'm just going to say that again. Whatever we can do to help you get up here, that would be awesome. I mean, we're excited to do

we're an island up here and we need we need the representation be great. But also, um that's one of the hot items when you mention HR1. Um, we actually have tomorrow over in Sonoma, one of the board of directors, all the mayors getting together to discuss how to manage that and the effects of HR1 in Sonoma County. It's just the beginning process of it, but it is being talked about because we know how that's going to affect so many different things, but 211, you guys are awesome. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And if I may ask a favor in tomorrow's meeting, Yeah. if if you don't mind uh advocating for 211 in that space uh to all of the cities. Uh we've done this presentation for the city of Roner Park and met with similar enthusiasm and we're very grateful. But nothing is uh is more important I think than a trusted messenger giving information to uh friends and colleague and and I'd appreciate it if on our behalf you could uh share what we've shared with you today is we we we desperately want to close the gap between the residents of our cities um and uh and and and their needs so that they really can thrive. Cool. Thank you, Lisa.

Yeah. Thank you.

Hey, Lisa. Lisa, real quick, I want to run it to the public, too. See if we have any public comments on this and maybe answer some questions. Do we have any comments from the public on this item? Yeah, absolutely. Great presentation. There you go. Any questions? Yes, ma'am.

Is this available all throughout Cloverdale? This this is a countywide service. You can pull your phone pull your phone out and dial 211 and call our you'll you'll be connected with our call center. Um or you can go to our website 211.org and surf around in there. And I'll I'll just say this for those of you who are data like data freaks, there's an interactives report page that's powered by PowerBI. And from your desktop right now, you could go to that page and click on zip codes, click on populations and and see in Cloverdale uh and AI uh and Geyserville what's h what has been happening and and and fit it to the time frame that you're interested.

It's a fantastic question. Yeah. Thank you again. Thank you again. All right, let's move on to F, consent calendar. All items under the consent calendar will be considered together by one action of the city council unless a council member or member of the public request that an item be removed and considered separately. Do we have anybody from the public that would like to remove or pull an item? Seeing none, anybody from the Yes, mayor. I'd like to pull item F2.

Two. Okay. So, do we have a motion for uh items F1 and F3? I'll make a motion to move consent calendar items F1 and F3. I'll second. Okay. Motion passes. Take it to a vote. Mike vote. All in favor say I. I. All oppose say nay. Motion passes item F1 and F3. Okay,

let's go to F item F2. So, uh comment on item F2. I would just uh like to request that the written comments are indexed by name which uh there was just some the written comments are listed generically as written comments and I would just request that um in the tradition that we were always following that the written comments are indexed by name. Okay. Any comments on that anyone? So we can still trying to figure I'm just I got to pull it up. Just a little more clarification there. I'm trying to

So, in the in the minutes, it's um right, they're not attached, but in the agenda that's on the our website, cloverdale.net agenda center, um you know, and I noticed that also for um this meeting tonight. And my request is just that the written comments would be returned to the traditional way we always did it as uh index by name. Oh, okay. Okay, I understand what you're speaking to. And for the clarification, attorney, sorry, I was I was confused. Um, attorney Alex Ma is also here. We

and I don't know if you want to speak to that, Alex. It was um suggested that we move to that methodology because we've been receiving significantly more public comments than previously. Many jurisdictions, municipalities use it that way. I understand that it it can be more problematic um as far as like finding specific public comments, which which I agree in the in the spirit of transparency. So, we want people to be able to find the comments they're looking for. In the past, we've done it different naming conventions where it's public comment, then their last name, or maybe it's just, you know, there's there's plenty of different ways to do it, but um for example, for this agenda tonight, um I don't have the number off the top of my head, but it would have taken up probably about a page of the agenda to do. So, um

is it possible to do like a subindex where you would click on public comments and within that? Uh fortunately, no. our um agenda management software is very limited in its capabilities. Um I guess really my concern is you know in the spirit of transparency uh you know when we are receiving so many written comments I think that's really the most important time that uh people don't lose the ability to find and and read public written comments.

Definitely um one of the issues and again I'm not arguing your point. I agree with you. I'm just we just I'm just working with the technologies that we have. Um, for example, we have to post the agenda physically at city council or at the uh city hall. We post it here and we have limited space. We don't have the kiosk. So, if for example pages are if this was a much longer agenda, which typically it's about five to six pages, but if a page or two, which we think is likely come specific items that may be coming in the future to council um for consideration, they just won't fit. So in the interest of transparency, I got to make sure that these are published. But I totally understand the concern and it's just more of a way to find some ground that we can do both. Or maybe for the agenda it's posted like this and then for the minutes I can do some other secondary publication. I don't I'd have to think about it. Um Alex, if there's any consideration you'd like to mention.

No, and I just say, you know, council member I mean Mike summarized it well. This was really just a consideration about space and the volume of of comments and how we could format it in a way that uh makes sense uh and is not a huge burden for the the city clerk's office. Yeah. And it's not what we've traditionally done um in this city. It is what many cities do. Um but it we've gotten a few comments from both the public and council members that we appreciate the way we used to do it. Um I like that too. It's just like I said when there's single document for space saving purposes that's what we listed on the written comments for this agenda. But if there's

I I would think maybe there's something we can look at and you know maybe not to have to decide at this moment but um some way that we can look at it and and really keep the clarification for the public. Any other comments from council? I just wanted to say I prefer the old way because it's easier to maybe read something briefly and go back to it with the old method. So, um, yeah, for me it's a preference to do it the old way. No comment. Comment.

Thank you. I agree. I, uh, I like the old way myself. I liked getting into the comments where they're indexed a little bit. You can click on them. I know it's a space thing. I understand that, but with, you know, some of the items coming up the near future. There's going to be a lot of them. It is going to be a space thing, but it's a transparency thing. so people can click on it and and kind of organize the the the comments a little more or be able to find them rapidly. So, I'd like to I'd like to go ahead and and try to go back to the old way on that too. For sure. And uh just to follow up with the uh item F2 because I believe it might have just been uh single uh written commenter. Uh if we could still approve that today as amended.

Yep. Just need a first second. Okay. I'd like like to make a motion to approve item F2 as amended with the written comment um index by name. Got a second. I'll second it. Take it to a vote. All in favor say I. I. All oppose say nay. Motion passes. I will note for the agenda tonight, May 13, 2026, the minutes will look the same. So, I'm suggesting from C, I'm guessing from council, assuming from council, you want it to be Yeah. indexed prior to approval.

All right. Then you will probably see this in for approval in June or so. It it takes a while to do that. All right. Let's move an H new business report on code enforcement services.

Thank you, mayor. This is a followup to Council Member Morgan Stern's request on code enforcement. I do have some updates I'd like to provide and maybe we can have a little bit of a discussion on on how we're doing code enforcement right now. Um, probably the most exciting thing, if if you want to call it that, is our use of our current uh building permit portal, OpenGV. So if you want to get a building permit, you go on open gov, you fill it out with all the appropriate information that then sends an alert to all the different departments that would be interested in that building engineering and so forth. So we're using that same model on the code enforcement. So the thought would be we direct folks who want to file a code enforcement through the portal that would then send an alert to all the different departments that handle code enforcement. So, for example, if it's an abandoned car on a street, it will go to the PD. If it's somebody building without a building permit, it will go to to the building department. And then a lot of them are handled through planning. And I'll talk a little bit about that. We're just about done getting that done, working with our um with Coastland engineer uh Coastland building and engineering. And um I'm pretty excited. I think it's going to spread the work out and I think it's going to be more efficient. And I'm hope I'm hopeful that it will be a better way of doing it versus bringing in a paper copy and just routing it and kind of being it'll be a lot more efficient. So that's that's step one. That should be up and running in about the next couple weeks. It's pretty close. Um oh the also with that software program each if if it is building without a permit the um the building inspector can put comments in there and the the person who um submitted the requ the complaint will get updates. So it's kind of an interactive uh portal

and again we use it for building permits and encroachment permits and other permits. So we've already paid for that program. we have more what they call record types. We can do this for no additional cost. That's that's one thing. Second thing is we currently the associate planner does the code enforcement um for planning and he's the one who organizes all of it and and routes it to everybody. It's not in his job description. So there's no code enforcement in anyone's job description in this at the city. And so what I'm going to propose is that we amend his job description, make it senior planner, and I'm going to be bringing that forward and include code enforcement as an kind of the official one of the official job duties um as as that in that position. He's been doing it. Um again, it's it's it's not in his job description. It's something that we've known for a while. He he has been doing it. So, we want to kind of rectify that and just um and bring that forward and I'll be I'll be bringing that forward a lot more details on that so you can discuss that position. The third uh thing that we are attempting to do now is I mentioned this at the budget retreat is that there's an RFP out with the cities of Katad, Windsor, Sonoma, and um and Cloverdale for an RFP to to see if we can get some code enforcement services. Now, the way we've structured this for our participation in this RFP is up to a certain dollar amount, but only to be used on the really difficult cases. So, we may not use it at all. There's it was $20,000. Um, you may recall, I don't know if you remember at all, we did have a service for $50,000 that we were using. Um, and that those same company that was providing the

service to us are these four cities here. um it went a little sideways. Um I won't we can talk more details about that but the the service kind of ended the company folded and so we were stuck with with nothing and I think that even prior to that the council had directed us to continue to discontinue using that service. So those are the three things I I understand code enforcement is important. I I know that I I do get complaints and I'm cognizant of that and you know we have cobbled together what we can with what we have and we're trying to prioritize the the most severe cases first. Um and we have with Alex's help, you know, taken some to court and gotten abatement orders and leaned properties. It's it's um it's a long process. It's paying for a lot of paperwork, frankly. Um, one of my thoughts on code enforcement would be, you know, if we can work out with Recology to get dumpsters for a lower cost, contact the owners of the property and potentially get volunteers to just help clean it up, especially if they're disabled or older. and part of this RFP. I've mentioned that to the to the um Katadyat who's leading up the RFP. That would be my my vision to do it. I mean, we can spend money on paperwork or we can spend money to try to get compliance, which I think is our ultimate goal. um in the cases in the past we have again we have it's three or and Alex can correct me if I'm wrong it's three or four notices to the property owners and you have to give them time in between each one eventually it gets into Alex's hands and they they go to court get an abatement order we hire a conso or a contractor to clean it up then we lean the property and eventually we may get the money back or

we may not I mean depending on when the house sells Um, that's kind of the update and um, Alex, I don't know if you know, Alex is pretty good at code enforcement and I don't know if you want to add anything to that or um, just have a discussion.

I would say there are um, you know, abatement is certainly an option or ways to recover the city's costs a little quicker, too. We we do have the option of putting costs on the the property roles. um but then it's on someone's taxes and they got to pay it um immediately which can be a burden for these people often who are you know lowinccome or or senior citizens. So there's a a balance there but the the court process does take time you know sometimes you submit the the forms and you get them back in 3 days and sometimes the court doesn't get to them for weeks. So it it does take there are parts of it that are out of our control you know when we seek approvals from from the court

but even after the court order then we have to find a contractor schedule to work um often times we have to be accompanied by police officers because we're entering people's properties and and cleaning them on their behalf and I've been through that. It went well, but it's additional uh staff time. Any comments from the

um I just want to say whatever we're doing now is not working. And it's not just about getting a dumpster and putting it in front of people's houses. I see things that I don't even report because the two things that I have reported um starting in 2025 still are not completed. But like there's one street in Cloverdale where you're walking down the sidewalk and all of a sudden the sidewalk just ends and they've put a gate up that says, you know, like stop here or something and they've taken the sidewalk and planted it. And if somebody's coming along that sight impaired, that's dangerous. There's another street where some guy keeps taking electrical cords and putting it across a sidewalk so he can light where he parks his car at night. That's dangerous. Anybody could go walking along and trip on those electrical cords and sue the city. So, I mean, there's dangerous things. And it's not just about getting a dumpster, putting it in front of somebody's house, and getting volunteers to put things in the dumpster. So, in my mind, we need to come up with a better plan to figure out how we can, you know, find things and get things more up to code because to me, it's a safety issue in certain places. And also, we did the whole um thing about, you know, how RV is supposed to be parked. And then, you know, you drive around Cloverdale and there's RVs parked, you know, in the wrong way hanging out on the sidewalk or one house has two RVs. So, nobody's monitoring any of this. So, it's kind of a joke that we came up with guidelines on RV parking. So, um I just think that we need to implement something to get our code enforcement department more together. I mean, we decided that we didn't want to hire somebody outside to do it and that we wanted to do it inside, but now that we're doing it inside, nothing's happening. So, um in my mind, we need to do something to get it to be working better.

Council member Laskkey, any comments, Mr. Mayor? No, I agree. There's there's some things that we need to do more and do better, but we also need to make sure that we are taking care of our community. Uh we've talked about a lot of these items for several years. But one thing I am worried about is if we have an employee that is working outside of scope and we need to get that re rectified real quick.

Yeah. So that's something that I would hope that you bring back at our uh budget meeting on the 20 next our next meeting whenever you're bringing the budget forward. That is something that we have to rectify before we are uh not doing the right thing.

Yeah. and and the like I think I've mentioned before and when it comes down into with the RFP and says contracted services will be utilized for particularly difficult or complex cases I think we need to get some guidelines on what those exactly are you know so so things don't everything doesn't get looped into that if it's for difficult or complex what are the what are the parameters of that so then we can use that but yeah I think uh code enforcement there's a lot of stuff around town that needs to be taken care of and I understand it's a it's a time frame especially when you're going you know you've got some folks in private property that there's a lot of things that uh that can be tough with that but uh ramping it up a little bit is is exactly where we're at. So, and that that's if you don't mind going there.

That's how I feel. I mean, I don't want to be punitive to our community, but there are some excessive cases that we really do need to look at. You know, broken windows, little things like that. I understand those happen and we can't always afford to fix them. Uh, however, you know, we all know about the excessive damage in yards that we have. So, we need to have a solution. I think that these two together might give us something. Give us a year to try it and see what happens.

And um I would I would support us. You know, we're not taking action tonight. This is just a recommendation on participating in the uh RFP. Uh this is definitely a quality of life issue. Uh you know, having uh our situation now is kind of I think we're in a negative. bringing that job description up, I think, is where it should be. Um, and certainly it's, you know, you don't you don't want to pit neighbor on neighbor to have to kind of keep complaining about something that's not going to get enforced. And, um, you know, I think that's when when we don't have this in place, I think that's that's what you're going to get. So, I do support it. Cool. All right. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you.

All right. Let's uh council member reports. Thank you, mayor. Okay, pulling up my council member report. It was Monday, April 27th. I attended the Russian River Property Owners annual meeting. Uh received uh reports from uh Brad Sherwood, Snow Water, uh Philip A. Williams, uh, attorney for the city of Yukaya, uh, surrounding, uh, the effects of the Potter Valley project and some of the solutions that, uh, our neighbors are working on, uh, to the east and our neighbors up north to, uh, remedy a situation regardless of the outcome of the proposed decommissioning. Uh, Tuesday, May 5th, along with all my fellow council members, we had the city council budget workshop. Uh, one thing that I did pick up from the workshop was our community funding. Uh, there was a lot of groups in our community that just weren't aware that there is community funding and just never put in proposals. So, um, I think in the, uh, in the spirit of equity, um, I've reached out to a few groups and they will be submitting written proposals for funding and hopefully uh, we can balance out the funding equitably. There certainly is a cap on that that we don't want to pull from one bucket, but I think that's what it's going to come down to uh to make things equitable in our community. Uh Wednesday, May 6, uh was the which I I did not attend, but I do want to give an update. Uh the Alexander Valley Water District, which is a pro proposed water district, um had their laughco hearing, which um did not pass. So, they received a two to four vote uh for their for their proposal. Um I would suggest maybe in the future um to the council to consider

uh having a presentation from the Russian River property owners and uh that we do as a city participate in this process and have those discussions. Uh Thursday, May 7th, I attended the zero waste symposium in Rotor Park. Uh Monday, May 11th, uh had a meeting with uh Brad Shad Sherwood and uh uh Don from Sonoma Water. Uh talked about a little more which we learned about the water supply agreement that we did pull from our agenda a few meetings ago. Uh certainly there's some information there that might contradict our uh water assessment that we did for Esmeralda. And so uh it'll be interesting to see that progress. Um it does put us in a difficult situation that uh that study is going to take six to eight months and these other approvals might become before that. So I think uh um it's important that we look at that with some scrutiny. Tuesday May 12th attended the Cloverdale Leadership Council uh that was held by the chamber here at CPAC. Um nothing to really report from that. uh Wednesday, May 13th earlier today. Just came from a tour of the Napa River. This was put on by Sonoma Water and District 4 Supervisor James Gore. Uh this was surrounding the restoration that has been done along the Napa River. Uh Sonoma Water is looking at implementing similar programs here in the uh Alexander Valley uh wershed. And what that would be is kind of uh creating some BMS uh reinforcing um uh some BMS to protect farmland. Also really kind of opening up the river uh allowing things to breathe and that would alleviate some of the problems

that were having specifically us in Cloverdale is like our uh levy and uh um so that was one of the kind of the top 10 uh problems that uh um are existing in the in in in the uh wershed. So, I think that's something that's really just it's just starting out. Uh, it's really going to be developed over the next couple years to identify the places within the Alexander Valley that can be reinforced, opened up, allowed to breathe. Uh, creating flood planes, just allowing the water to kind of uh create al also natural habitat for um all the fish species and repairarian uh plants out there. So, um they're coming down the pipe. I think it would be something that our city can write a letter of support in that would uh give us a benefit to strengthen our levy as a as a alleviate some of the pressure on on that. Uh and that's what I got.

I attended our um recent administration city of Cloverdale subcommittee meeting as a private citizen. I also attended our budget meeting. I've been working with Hector Galvin. He's um the superintendent of public works and parks. Uh we've created together some big more permanent tick warning signs that are going up in our various parks and we um picked out different locations and the signs are going to be in English and Spanish as well. And we've also been researching um different ways to keep people safe around our wooden picnic tables. And um Hector's going to buy some cedar oil and spray it under the tables to keep ticks away from our picnic tables.

In uh the month of April, April 25th, I would like to uh thank the chief for setting up the team that uh we went and uh performed some community service with Rise Against Hunger. put together what over was it 20,000 meals for to be spread out throughout the world. So

that was that was Thank you for that chief. Look forward to doing that next year. That was a a great community involvement and I see some of our community members were also involved. So thank you for showing up being part of that. Uh just the other day I I uh attended my Snowoma power meeting going over some budget items and also starting June 1st there'll be a rebate program from anywhere from $700 to $2,500. If you're interested uh they're they're giving out rebates if you're going to upgrade your heat pump. They they do a lot of other things there too. You might want to look look them up or look me up and I can point you in the right direction for snowleanpower.org award for uh some great deals on power. Thank you.

All right, some of the things I got to take part in uh the Honor Flight. Does everyone know what the Honor Flight is? It's an amazing event that was put on here now. Uh it was their second flight, third flight that they've had. And uh there was, I think, four people from Cloverdale that were on the flight. And so it was a great opportunity to go down there and see uh everything going on. on. And if you've never heard of it, please look it up. Try to take part in the next ones in the future. Uh I was I took part in the building of a shed at the continuation school at our Cloverville High School. It's called JH. Uh they have a big community garden that they've put in. And so I went over there with some of my employees and uh interns that I have from the JH and helped them build a shed for all of their tools. Uh I also attended the admin subcommittee meeting as the vice chair and uh I attended a meeting with the Sonoma County, Menescino County and Lake County Farm Bureaus along with a few other participants uh including the California Farm Bureau regarding the Potter Valley project. And then with my SCTCA meeting, I went to Sonoma County Transit Climate Authorities. what that stands for. We approve preliminary budgets for Sonoma County Transit Authority, Go Sonoma, Measure M, and Transportation Fund for Clean Air. So, that's been my last two weeks.

All right. I did the admin uh admin subcommittee uh did the budget workshop, which uh budget workshop and both the subcommittee are on Cloverdale. The agenda for the uh budget is on there. It was not recorded, but it's on Cloverdale agenda center. The admin subcommittee uh is recorded. It is on there. Uh did the rise against hunger with chief and put the team together. I want to say our team was probably the best in there. We uh filled everything up. We had council member Marquez sealing up for us. We're a welloiled machine. We got it taken care of. We had some assistance from one of our folks in the uh audience also. She was she was a integral part of that. Um and then also did a ad hoc committee with Supervisor Hopkins on uh possible boundary expansion for the Northern Snow County Air District. Um had the the attorney involved in that and it's been an ongoing thing. Um the way it's set up is northern Sonoma County, half of Windsor's incorporated into the Bay Area. So it's kind of tough for some of the folks in the southern part of Windsor that want to burn. They have to go with the Bay Area rules versus this. um we we decided that that probably wasn't feasible to talking to the attorney that it was probably more work than it was worth when it came to the things that needed to be accomplished in attainment out of attainment different rules from the EPA. So, it was a really interesting meeting, but uh we're going to talk more when our next meeting comes up and do a report out to them. and uh city manager and I talked to uh Kristen Tles and we worked on some possible grant funding with the Alexander Valley Health. Um what else do we have going on? Jeez, that's that's about what it's been. And then uh so coffee with the mayor tomorrow, 10:00 at the senior center, from there to Soma at 6:00 for a meeting, and then down at the Finley Center at 9:00 in the morning on Friday.

That's that's the hopefully the end of these this meeting blowout for me.

All right. Thank you, mayor. Um, mayor, if I may, I just wanted to add one more item and this one is coming up in the future. Uh, since it's before our next council meeting, just wanted to let the public know. Uh, the Esmerald the Land Company is hosting a Zoom uh soils and groundwater workshop which will be Thursday, May 21st, 6:00 p.m. to 7:30. And that's going to be held on Zoom. Uh you can get at a you can register for that meeting by going to esmeralda.org backsoils groundwater workshop or just Google Emeralda environmental workshop. If you just Google Emeralda environmental workshop, it'll take you to the page. Um, so this is going to be uh an opportunity for the public to ask questions to go over concerns around um soils and groundwater issues with the proposed development. So um some people can participate and and make their voice heard. So um just wanted to present an opportunity for people to have a discussion uh with the from the public with the developers. So, uh, that will be coming up Thursday, May 21st, 6:00 p.m. to 7:30, and download the Zoom app if you plan to participate on that. Thank you.

All right, city manager, attorney reports.

U, just real quick, the newsletter will go out tomorrow and, um, what I'm going to start doing starting tomorrow is the email that I sent to council, we're going to attach that to the newsletter for more transparency, so the community can see what we're working on. Um the Soda Springs open space uh grand opening is going to be June 6th. Uh more to come on that probably sometime before noon or noon, but we don't have the exact time yet. Um I wanted to thank Mike and Hector. There's we've put a sign up at the future site of the community garden that with a QR code and if you're interested so it says future home of community garden, click here or get in touch with us. So thanks Mike for doing the graphics on that. Looks really good. Uh last thing is Friday Night Live is beginning early this year. So it'll be a week from this Friday the 22nd.

Right. Got any council direction on any future agenda items? Thank you, mayor. Um I got three items here. Uh first one is to have a presentation uh from the ECO group. Uh this is the equity community organization. They've been meeting here in Cloverdale once a month. Uh this is uh trying to get some language justice for our Spanish speaking community. Uh this is headed by Amy Ramirez of the Healthcare Foundation and uh so the request is to uh have a presentation from that group. Anybody from council agree? They're local. Yep. Sounds good. Future agenda item right there.

Since we reached consensus, can you clarify the group for the record? Uh it's the equity community organization presentation by Amy Ramirez of the healthcare foundation. Thank you. And uh second item would be to um get a quarterly update by David Manning of URA uh and the proposed NERF. Uh this would be a quarterly update on what's happening with uh uh the EELRussian project authority and the proposed uh new eel Russian facility uh presentation by David Manning or quarterly updates. Would they be coming up here for that? Yes.

Okay. What do you think? request someone besides personally sure from um that was part two of the uh the ask is that uh um so these are two separate items but uh uh Brad is involved in the other items. So this was uh uh sort of getting updates also through Soma Water from uh Brad Sherwood and uh and and Don. So, uh, that would be a Soma water thing. And then, you know, David would be representing, uh, Nerf and Urpa. If there's another representative from Nerf that, um, if if you if you don't like have any issue with

Nerf doesn't even exist yet. So, it's it's a proposed thing. So, it' be from the ILR Russian project authority regarding the proposed nerf. But, absolutely, all those things. I'd also like to see Don Seymour. If we can get Don Seymour as well, be great, too. Yeah. and Don the so just to break it up in uh you know the three requests so there there was one was the Herpa presentation quarterly updates and then the other one was Don Seymour and Brad Sherwood uh with Sonoma waters so those you know

quarterly might be a tough thing in my opinion and and we're not going to discuss here but I think that might be maybe it's just a presentation by them for an update. Yeah. And and we that was the idea we could start with one. They did offer to do quarterly. So um that is on the table and we do have the ability to get quarterly updates. Um and and if you know if things heat up heat up or there's some new things coming up then you know maybe we can bring it up to that frequency. Uh but so those would be the the two separate ones. One's Sonoma Water and one is uh Ill Russian Project Authority. Sounds good. Let's do it. You're on board. Yep. Just to clarify for the record, do you want it to be quarterly or just start with unupdate and we can start from there?

The proposal. I just don't want it for the record that it's going to be a quarterly thing. Yeah. Yeah. And that's for both. So just for the record, council member Marquez requested an update for the E-Russian project authority and the proposed new eel Russian facility Nerf and also requested updates from Sonoma Water. Um and you had specific names in mind. Can you repeat those? Uh yes, for the uh Eel Russian Project Authority, the name that we have currently is David Manning. And for uh regional water efforts through Sonoma Water and Sonoma Water Happenings, we got uh um Brad Sherwood and uh Don um Seymour.

Perfect. Thank you. And that all three of those items received consensus for the record. All right. Thank you.