City Council - Regular Meeting

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Elkon City Council meeting. The meeting is now called to order. I'd like to ask our deputy city clerk to please call the role. I think your microphone's not working, but she she said everybody's present. Would you please stand for the pledge of allegiance and remain standing afterwards for a brief moment of silence? 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. The city clerk posted orders of adjournment of the March 25th, 2025 meeting and the joint special meeting of March 25th, 2025 and the agenda of the April 8th, 2025 meeting in accordance with state law, city council, and housing authority policy. We have one presentation on today's agenda for April Pool's Day. I'd like to invite staff to come up and tell us about this. Hi guys. Good afternoon, Mayor Council. Um, director of parks and recreation. Um, and today I'm happy to have our head guard uh, Brena Sebach and our parks and recreation supervisor Mark Rossblock to tell you about April Pool's Day. And also for Mark Rossblock, newly elected today, the District 12 California Parks and Recreation Society President. So, congratulations. Congratulations, sir. It's customary on this day to give a speech. Well, lucky for you, I have one prepared

right here. Oh, good. Uh, good afternoon, council and mayor. Um, thank you so much for giving us this time today, the time today to talk about April Pool's Day. Um so May is drowning prevention month and just to give you a little bit of background regarding um what the center of disease control has to say about drowning. Uh drowning is responsible for more deaths among among children 1 to four than any other cause except uh congenital anomalies birth defects among those 1 to 14. Fatal drownings remain the second leading cause of unintentional injury related death behind motor vehicle crashes. Uh the disparity is widest amongst children 5 to 18 years old. Oh, I jumped the gun. I was so excited. Thank you. So, um, April Fool's Day is our kickoff to May. Uh, multiple cities and private agencies participate in an event like April Pools Day. Uh, it's observed by Safe Kids Worldwide and supported by the San Diego County Aquatic Council. Ours is going to be taking place on Friday, April 25th from 4 to 6 PM. Uh this is a free event. We're going to have uh multiple uh things activities for people to do there. Uh there's going to be open swim. It is a free event. Uh we're going to have safety swag bags with information, safety stations. Um Josh the Otter is going to be there. Hartland Fire Department, AMR, um and Kona Ice will be there as well. So, um it's definitely going to be a great event, great opportunity for people to come out, get free CPR, um justformational classes and information on sun safety and drowning prevention. So, as far as what we do to contribute to drowning prevention, uh we actually have 272 registered aquatic activities between April and October 2024. Um and within those programs we had

1,878 participants. Some of those programs consist of junior lifeguard classes, parent todd or parent toddler um swimming classes, learn to swim which services uh ages six and older. Um preschool swim which is ages three to five. We also host semi-private and private swim lessons. We have swim team and water aerobics. And then I'm just going to take this time to go over some important water safety tips. Um, first thing being is to designate a water watcher. A water watcher is an adult um that is designated to watch the swimmers in a pool. Um they should be distractionf free um including cell phones, meals, friends, conversations and um they can wear one of these which we have in the back um to signify that they are the water watcher. Um and they should also be switching shifts with other people so that they can remain vigilant. Another tip is to know the depths of the pool that you're swimming in. Um knowing the depths of the pool keeps swimmers in the appropriate area for their abilities. And then also looking for signs of drowning. Uh drowning is a very silent struggle. So you won't hear out many calls for help often. Um so things to look for are uh body language and body language that indicates distress. So oftent times this is somebody in a vertical body position or they might be grasping or um kind of bobbing up and down. And then uh we also want to teach kids if they see something, say something. if they see somebody struggling, if they see somebody um being unsafe around the water, they should tell someone. And lastly, we want to remember to take breaks, rest if you become tired when swimming, and never swim alone. Um and then we'll also have these water watcher cards to hand out. So, if anybody would like one, please

just raise your hand. And that's it. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Well, thank you very much. That's important work you're all doing. Thanks for doing it. Um, are is alcohol offering swim lessons right now? So, our spring session is actually going to start in two weeks. So, we are just ramping up. People have already registered for classes and um then our summer session is going to be starting in June, late June. Great. So, Yep. And we're completely full. It's always been really popular and we have great attendance at all of our uh aquatics programs. It's great. Yeah. I think that's obviously to me the the most sure way to stop somebody from drowning is to teach them to swim. Yep. 100%. And we're we're trying to hopefully enhance what we do over the summertime. We got a lot of great staff coming on board. So, we're really looking forward to seeing what the summer brings. Please give our thanks to all your staff for their all that they do for the city. Definitely will. Thank you so much. us. Um, a long time ago in a pool far, far away, I also was a lifeguardian. I don't like shortening the term lifeguard. Call it a lifeguardian. Say what you are. But the other sign of someone drowning is we used to call it, climbing the ladder. I'm sure you guys are familiar with that. It's this one. Yep. Yep. Just thought I'd add that. But thank you very much for all the work you do. Of course. Yes. Thank you so much. Okay then. Appreciate it. All right. We're at agenda changes. Staff, do you have any agenda changes? No, sir. How about council? No. Okay, then we're at consent items. Consent items are routine matters enacted by one motion according to the recommendation listed below with the concurrence of the city council. A council member or person in attendance may request discussion of a consent item at this time. Council members, do you

wish to pull any of the consent items? Staff? No, sir. How about um speaker cards? We have one speaker card for item number five from Evan Boji. Let's go ahead and do that now. Hello, sir. Hello. Uh good afternoon, U mayor and councilman. Um we are I'm here to go ahead and speak regarding the protest submitted by a Yuma house planning uh construction company regarding bid number uh 025 the marquee insulation project. Um there are a few uh issues that I want to point out regarding the the protest uh and why we believe that this project should not be awarded to the lowest bidder. Are you with Iuma House Planning Company? Yes, sir. Okay. Um if if you may give me a few minutes of your time so I can explain uh our protest. I'll let you I'll let you explain it. Yeah, sure. Thank you. Um so we're submitting the uh protest um to focus on few technical issues, compliance with public work and impact on cost estimates. Um some of the technical issues like the signage frame installation there is challenges where the manufacturer has specified a separate frame is required to to support the weight of the signs. Um this would prevent the transferring the uh weight the load to the to the sign frame which was not accounted for the uh in the lowest bid document. Uh also there's a special tools that are required for holding the sign during installation, adding labor and material cost. A permit is must be submitted before work commencement which clearly is detailed

in the bid uh document. Another technical issue is the missing wall material condition document. Um the bid documents do not include information regarding the condition of the wall materials. The document is requiring required requirement for obtaining necessary permits which increases the cost of the permit studies. A singular study is not uh cannot be applied to multiple locations further escalating the um cost beyond the lowest bid uh amount. Another technical issue is the electrical conduit length consideration. The electrical conduit length is required for the project is approximately 100 ft. Installation will require the removal of ceiling tiles along the travel path which um is a cost unavoidable damage. Uh the existing ceiling tile cannot be replaced due to the build building's age necessating additional cost to roll to relocate tiles from other areas to ensure the aesthetic consistency and adding new ones in the selected zone. Um another technical issue is the wall condition and fixing bracket adjustment. If the wall condition requires modification to the roll bolts of the fixing brackets, additional cost will incur. The modification were not considered in the uh bidding price of the lowest bidder. Um another issue is the budget concern and bid irregular irregularities. Industry standards uh tolerance for bid project is typically minus plus 20% of the estimated bid value. The lowest bidder is 80% less than the estimated bid value and the

second lowest bidder is only priced at 60% of the project cost. The this raises a uh accuracy concern of the cost calculation considering the prevailing wage requirement, workers payroll, necessary modifications, the significant price difference is a red flag that must be addressed. Given these technical and financial discrepancies, we urge a through review uh of the bid process and project requirements. We request a reconsideration of the project scope, associated cost, ensuring compliance with industry standards and fair competition. Um, that would be all of the things that I our company is protesting and we appreciate your attention. And all right, first off, let me see if anybody on the council has a question. No. No. So, um, Mr. uh, Mr. Mitchell. So when we took the the bids in, all these things were taken into consideration, were they not? That's correct. And so if and I'm looking here at the purchasing division bid evaluation and I see that um the figures that all of the companies brought in. So all of these things that Aayuma is bringing up to um um bringing up in protest. These things were all considered were they not? That's correct. So sir, if they were all brought into consideration and we've decided to go with the lower bid, I'm not

understanding the reason for the protest is the estimated bid uh for for this project is 250,000 where the lowest bidder is only 51,000. This does not um does not make sense to to where you can go from 250,000 estimated by the city for this project to to 51,000 for the lowest bidder. Um it's clearly there's some sort of um miscalculation because the signage um the signage company itself requires specific um like specific material for this signage to be installed and we don't believe that the lowest bidder has considered those. But if the lowest bidder has met all the requirements that we have required, correct? And it saves the taxpayers $180,000. True. However, wouldn't that be the best deal? That that is true. However, if the if the con construction goes on and the bidder uh the lowest bidder cannot complete the project, this will take a lot longer and it will actually cost the taxpayers a lot more money to go ahead and fix what he started with $51,000. Right. But then that would come back on us, correct? And that's the risk that and that's why we're protesting um to make sure that city that we live in does not have to go through this project more than one time. Well, I guess I'll have to leave that up to the experts over here. Council, the concern is this. It is extremely low. It's far below the estimate. But there's nothing in the procurement law that says you can reject this bid because it

doesn't feel right. Right. You can't reject because of a feeling. We have returned back to the the lowest bidder um after the submiss the submission of the bid protest and said are you sure you can meet this and they said we can meet this per the specs per our prices there's no mistakes so we don't have room in our mind and the city attorney can weigh in as well to protest this bid based on what has been submitted to us at this point and we can't go on a feeling or a a what if or a fear into the future. So that that's that's where we're at and that's part of the challenges with um government procurement and low bidding uh low bidding. So are these um providers bonded? Yes, there will be a excuse me there'll be a bond for labor and materials and bond for performance. Both will be in the amount of their bid 51 $51,000. Um and as Mr. Mitchell said, "We we just don't have a legal reason to justify. We've in the past is consistent with the practice of the city. When we see something that has an anomaly like this, we checked to make sure that they crossed their tees and dotted their eyes and used a proper calculator and and came up with that number and they looked at it and got back to purchasing Mr. Romano and said, "Yes, we stand by our bid." Now, as a speaker, Mr. Boji mentions they could walk off the job. If that happens, we go to their bid bid b not bid bond but their shies and say you are going to finish this project and they will hire somebody else to to uh finish the project for us for the amount bid. Uh their bid bond is for the amount of their bid I'm sorry the bid but the performance bond is the amount of their contract amount. So, will there be, you know, a delta, a change between what it

actually takes or this? There could be. Or we may not know why the low bidder believes they can make this uh project work at $51,000. So, but but we can't reject it. We've warned them that they're going to have to comply and bid and build this project based on their bid and they've confidently said back we are prepared to do so. Just out of cur does the uh winning bidder have they done work for us in the past? I don't know whether that's no. Okay. All right. Well, more questions, Steve. So, um some of the other agencies where I look at these things, there are different um factors that go into a bid. price, its experience, it's uh compliance, it's quality. We're there's waiting on these things. Um the staff report says here that um SF, whoever that is, sign factory has no previous public works experience. Is that factored into not just the price, but can they actually do the contract? Well, I believe and Miss Romano can probably address this, but I believe in investigating this, they have worked for public agencies, I think schools, uh, to put up signs. I can't remember what it was, but in fact, and Mr. U Troenberg would can uh, may have some information about that. I also, so we are not say Sandag. I know SAND and MTS have different purchasing policies that they must comply with and they have creative ways to look at bids. We aren't allowed to do that either under our our code or um the state law. So you're saying they are familiar with public agency work. They are familiar with prevailing wage requirements. That's what I understand. They they uh our investigation and review of this not mine but staffs and

to do public contracts was not a requirement. So we looked at and whether they had or not, I'm not sure, but we did look at their work and found it satisfactory to what what we were looking for. Yeah, I see they've done work of a similar nature within the last three years. So somebody has said, can they do the job? And it looks like they can at least on three prior occasions. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. And it gets back to the, you know, what comes first, the chicken or the egg type of thing. and somebody who's new in the business um hasn't had that experience, but uh they pick up their experience by bidding on jobs like this. So, anybody else? Okay. Well, thank you, sir, for bringing it up to us. I think it from what my staff is telling me, my attorney is telling me, we have no choice but to trust the process. I understand your objections. I'm curious to see how this all comes out and I hope that this doesn't um stop you from making further bids in the future. Absolutely not. We will always um stand with our city here, city of Alcohon and we will always u be eager to do work here in city of Alcohon. Never nevertheless we will vote on it as a council. So um you'll see what the vote is in just a few minutes. Thank you. So I I I would uh make a motion to accept the recommendations as listed in the staff report. Second. Please vote. Motion carries by unanimous vote. All right. And mayor, was that for the entire consent calendar or just this item? Just for this item for item number five. Now, as for the rest of the consent calendar, I do make a motion then that we um accept the rest of the approve the rest of the consent calendar. And there's move and a second. Please vote.

Motion carries by unanimous vote. Okay. All right, ladies and gentlemen. That brings us to public comment. At this time, any person may address a matter within the jurisdiction of the city council housing authority successor agency to the Elcohone Redevelopment Agency that is not on the agenda. Comments relating to items on today's agenda are to be taken at the time that the item is heard. State law prohibits discussion or action on items not on the agenda. However, city council and housing authority members may briefly respond to statements or questions and an item be placed on a future agenda. Jen, do we have any speaker cards for public comment? We have three speaker cards. The first one is from Brenda Hammond. Hi, Brenda. Hi. Um, I just want to remind um, in every city, I want to say this. Um, I want to remind as in every city, please don't use homeless people for political, financial, or religious gains, especially religion. Um, because not all homeless people are drug addicts, alcoholics, or even have mental illness. Oh. Um, and I found the purple balloon. I was lost last time. So, it was under my car seat. I think the aliens hid it. The space aliens. I don't want to get

anybody get mad at me. And then grandma um my mom's mom, my grandma taught us all how to fold scarves to wear to church on Sundays. And um so this is a really old scarf from a friend of mine, but since today's not Sunday, surprise. Oh, wow. How do you like it? Thank you. Okay. All right. Thanks, Brenda. The next speaker is Maryanne Ostermeer. Hello, ma'am. Welcome. Hi. Could you pull the microphone down? Yes. Because I'm short. That's not what I was going to say. Are we good? Can you hear this? I can say that, though. Some other people are just unusually tall. You're Okay. Are we good? Yeah, we're good. Are we timing yet? Uh, go ahead. Start. I'll I'll I'll give you all the time you need. Okay. I come before you today for two reasons. First, to thank you for helping to get the fencing completed along First Street. You have created a safe space for all students walking to and from school. As a matter of fact, all who walk past that overpass area are safer. You have proven that government can work well to solve ordinary people's problems. For that, I will be eternally grateful. So, thank you all of you for collaborating to get this accomplished. You should be proud of a job well done. My second reason to appear is not only a huge concern but also a serious future warning for all cities and states throughout the county of the country. Alcohon recently voted and then voided in action to allow our local police to work with ICE agents. I am not for illegal immigration. I taught many newcomers to the country. I know the

laws regarding asylum and rules of immigration which are antiquated in our cake. I come today because I am concerned for our future burden for a future any future burden you might be placing on your officers. Alcohon is an eclectic community. I have seen officers working well within varied populations of our communities. They have fostered solid relationships that have kept our communities safe. Since we have such high density with so many apartment complexes, it is important to allow our law enforcement officers to create those symbiotic relationships. They haveworked. I have seen them over and over again work within with work with impoverished kids within our community. I remember one particular female officer who worked with me to get a runaway kid home to her family. She had been to the house prior to convincing the kid to return home. She had diffused the situation. One of your officers is a homegrown person individual who was an im immigrant kid at Cohen Valley Middle School. He has been a real asset to the Calian community. So my question is this. At what point will you purposely mandate that your officers are forced to implement ICE policies? Will it be to head into schools? Will it be at a church service? Will it be in hospitals or health care centers? Will it be at apartment complexes? Will there be any areas in the city which will be considered safe zones? Will you force your officers to damage their hard-earned respect in our very community so that they no longer are trusted just to enforce a haphazard policy with which Congress should be bound to fix? Will people be hauled away without due process? I come to you today because I am concerned. Recently, a man was deported to a foreign prison under the assumption that he was a gang member. Now, the US government is saying it was an administrative error. He has

not been returned and it looks like our government seems unconcerned over this horrendous mistake. Police officers are humans with human emotions. Can you imagine how any officer would feel knowing that such a mistake had been made and that he or she was directly involved by just following directions? Please do not do this to our alcohol police department. They are far better than that. Thank you for your time. So I end asking this question of all of you, every single person here. Does our city council have a moral compass that our officers can follow without creating long range disastrous effects for our city and their personal emotional health? We need transparency, please. We need a response. Thank you. Um Gary, did you want to speak? Yes. I just want to let you know that Michelle Mitchell and I voted against that. Yeah. And you know what I want is transparency. I want the city of Elcohone because I love this city. I want you to be a role model. At what point does the city say we are good people? This is not the Oklahoma Police Department's job. You know, I mean, it's not their job. At what point do you say we have enough of stamina? We're like the signers of the Declaration of Independence. those 56 men who signed the declaration knowing what was going to happen to them if something you know if they got caught. Do we have a moral compass in this city of Alcohon? One that will not make Alcohol police officers defraud basically defraud the people that they work with every single day. I have seen officers over and over and over again on the front lines with kids, on the front lines with ethnic communities, our diverse communities, and they do a

damn good job of it. I am concerned for this city and any other city that they become the paths for ICE agents when it's not their job. I repeat again, it is not their job. They didn't hire for that. So my question is again, what is the city of Alcohol's moral compass? So let's let's just clarify what's currently going on. What we were talking about, the resolution that we're talking about was that we were willing to cooperate with the federal government. At no point did we were say we're going to make immigration policy. Okay, let me finish. At no point did we say that we would have our police engage in arresting people for immigration violations. What we said was that we thought it was proper and right that we arrested somebody who had committed a crime and they were not legally bound to be here in this country that we would let the um authorities know that we had this person in our custody. Now that was just what we'd like to do. What we can do is a little different because we live in California and so far it hasn't been overturned by the Supreme Court, which I'm sure it will be, but right now SB54 says that we're not supposed to call ICE and so we're not doing that. So nothing's happening. ICE is is part of the federal government. They have every right to come into our communities and arrest whoever they think they need to arrest. So, I just want to make it clear that our officers are not being asked to do anything, that our citizens are not being asked to do anything, that nothing has changed. All we did was have a resolution saying that we thought when the federal government had made a law that it was right and proper to follow that law. Okay. So, my question then is follow a federal government

law. I'm not the brightest tool in the shed here. What does that mean? If ICE agents come and say to Elon police officers, we want you to help us, you know, do this raid or whatever, they would have to they would have to request that, which they won't. But they if that were in your scenario, if they did that, they'd have to request that and then we would have to tell them unfortunately due to SB54, even though we think it's probably a good idea to help you, we're not allowed to. Okay. and you will mandate that that is actually going to happen because I am concerned. I you know as I said I do not I cannot even imagine the emotional situation with an officer who's already overwhelmed having to do something that that is just so what I can promise you is that we're gonna follow the law. I can't imagine living in a country where an individual city or an individual county or an individual state could say, "I like this law, but I don't like that law." So, we're going to choose which ones we're going to follow. We understand our place in the pecking order. Our pace in the pecking order when you when it comes to government is fairly low. You know, you you're right. It is low. But guess what? The low pecking order is where reform starts. It's where people take stands. If you want to talk about reform, then then talk to activists and talk to your Congress people who can actually do it. We they've been on speed dial. We can't we we we can't make immigration policy. We all have probably five different opinions here as to how immigration policy should be enforced. But we're unified in the idea that we will follow the law which is given to us and we will make the law which we're allowed to make, which is basically how to pay our bills, making sure that the police department is out there, making sure the fire department is out there, making sure that if you get sick, somebody's

going to come and get you and help you, making sure that if your street has in need of a stop sign, we're going to take care of those things. That's that's our lane. That's our purview and that's where we're going to stay. So due process is part is part of the legal process according to the constitution. So that is something that you inherently will make sure that that is mandated if that is carried through. Always have and always will. Okay. Is that that that's the promise, right? Because I I want to make sure that that is the promise. If if I were I love this city. I just want to make sure that you know that we are alcohol could be the prototype for other small cities saying this is where we're going to hold the line. That's my biggest concern is that we won't hold the line as a city. Well, I'm I think I can speak for every council member on this panel, say that is our intention to um do what we've been hired to do, elected to do, which is to keep you all safe and to follow the law. Okay. And you promise that you will never make an officer respond to an a response of I was just following orders. Uh, no. I can't promise that because because the federal law I think what's going to happen is the federal law is going to the fed the feds are going to go to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court's going to say that the cities can in fact help law enforcement, immigration enforcement if that's the case. If that's the case, it would be my intention that we follow that law. We follow the the law of the Constitution United States. So there there may be a come a time when we do tell our police officers you got to follow the law whether you how no matter how you feel about it which is something that all police officers have to deal with. I understand that as long as there is due process and that's my biggest concern also. Due process I'm talking about due

process the due process that I'm absolutely convinced is coming is a showdown between the state of California, the federal the United States of America and it's going to be the due process is going to happen in the Supreme Court. So we we're all going to wait and see what they say. Well, we'll see what the constitutionality of that is. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for your time. Thanks for bringing it to us, though. We have one more speaker, David Condit. Hello sir. Thanks. Good afternoon. Thank you. That's a very big issue. My issue is very specific, very simple. Okay. Um, uh, when the police helicopters overhead are making announcements to the public by their speaker, I don't know if if people have an experience. I can I I almost never can understand what they're saying. Yeah. If they're right overhead, maybe I can understand it, but inside the house, no. And I I I don't think that most people can understand what they're saying. They know there's something going on. They don't know if it's they're just searching for a lost person or there's a dangerous criminal running around. You don't know what they're saying. So, I I make a suggestion that you put a put a link on your Elone app where you can where you can say, "Show me all live searches and you show the text of helicopters and if there's more than one, then you can list them and show the approximate location where they're at." So that if I c if I know that there's something going on, but I can't hear it, I could go to the app and I could check it out. I can see what they're saying. Would I assume that that even if we didn't put the transcription, if we if we said uh if if you're looking at a helicopter over the Granite Hills neighborhood, they're looking for a 64 year old man who's wandered away in dark clothing, right? Yeah. Just so you know, make make up for the fact that I can't hear what they're saying. Obviously, it's meant for the public, but I think it's a great idea.

Let me see if there's any other comments that everybody wants comments. So, go start down the line. I have the same problem. Most of the time I I live in Fletcher Hills and most of the time and there are helicopters coming over every once in a while. I don't know what they're saying. Yeah. Sometimes I hear a 16-year-old boy blah blah blah blah and I go, "What? What? What?" So, I I think if we could do that, that would be a great idea. There is a phone number that you can text the word hello to. You text the word hello to 8588664356 because the helicopter belongs to the sheriff's department. It's not a city city helicopter. No, it belongs to the sheriff. You don't have any city helicopters? No. No. Oh, really? I'm at the wrong place then. Well, not not necessarily because because we we probably could provide the information on the app, but they they provide mutual aid. Okay. For for incidents that happen in the city, but but the operations of the helicopter Astria belong to the San Diego Sheriff's Department. Oh, okay. So, you wouldn't even necessarily be able to make that connection and show it on the on your app then. We we could say text the word hello to 8588664356 and I've tried it several times and it just isn't All right. So, so where should I what I should go to the board of supervisors then? Uh that that is who the sheriff I didn't understand that I thought it was city helicopters. That's okay. Or maybe we should get you guys to buy some city helicopters and don't worry about the county. So council just also sometimes there's a a San Diego helicopter that flies over. So there's some jurisdictional things and they have a different system. So the county um you can either text that number as Mr. Goel explained, um, city of San Diego puts all of their helicopter notices on X or formerly Twitter. Um, and we know that the

sheriff's department actually has a portal on their website that shows exactly what's being said from the helicopter. So, those are the different avenues that are available to our residents. So, they're already doing it then. The county is already doing what I'm asking for. The county is doing that. Okay. Who are they? I didn't know that they are, but it sometimes it's not in real time. Sometimes they miss updates. Correct. Cuz if things are changing on the ground Yeah. I mean, imagine you have what three people typing in stuff. They're trying to find the fluid, right? It's a fluid situation, right? Well, from what I understand, if it's a sheriff issue, like I live on um right off Mollis and Bradley. So if it's a sheriff that is doing it, if I type in hello, I get it. If it's Alcohon, you won't get it because we're encrypted. Is that correct, Chief? Everything that all the transmissions are encrypted from alcohonic for helicopter, police, anything. Okay. Because from what I understood, that's what I heard. But what I do, go on either next door or Facebook, Elcohone happenings. If you want to know what's going on, what the helicopter is saying, someone will know what the helicopter is saying. Because if I can't hear what they're saying, I just go on to Elcohone happenings, 34,000 people. Someone will know what it is and they will enlighten you. Well, that wouldn't be from the city. That would just be a concerned citizen. It's just someone someone on the page will know what the the helicopter is saying because I can't hear it. Um I'm kind of hard of hearing too, but there's some young kid out there, some young person out there understands that helicopter better than me and they will put it on there. And of course, you have to weed through all the the smart alec responses like, "Oh yeah,

I ate a burrito or whatever." Or they're looking for their car warranty or something like that. But um that's what I understood is that if it's sheriff, you can get the response, but it has to be in your area. I don't know. Um but I like your idea better. If we if we're looking for somebody in Elcohone, if we can put that verbiage out there on the app, that would be great. I'll check with the the county. So what you text hello to what to get what the county Steve, you've got that number? It's 858 866 4356. Okay. Kind of has to be over your head. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Oh, really? Well, that's Well, that's kind of dumb, but Well, I'll I'll go. It's better than nothing. I'll pursue it from, you know, is the right place. I guess I'll leave you guys alone. Yeah. Don't worry. Well, thanks for coming. Pardon me. Thank you for coming. Thank you. There are no more speaker cards, sir. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Okay, there are no written communications, no public hearings. We have four administrative reports on today's agenda. Item 11 is a report on Elcohone's ondemand microtransit. And I'll ask our staff to come up and tell us about this. Good afternoon, mayor, council members. My name is Mario Sanchez. I'm the city engineer. Um, today I'm going to talk give an update on the Elcohone on demand microtransit project. Uh back in October of 2023, uh the city received a $ 1.5 million grant from uh Clean Mobilities

Options. Uh it's a state grant to encourage alternate modes of transportation to the general public. The project was just recently uh launched on March 17th by VIA and the representative, Mr. Alex uh Newman, will provide an update on our project. on the call. Awesome. Busy guy. Hey y'all. Great to meet you. Thanks for having me here. As Mario said, I'm Alex Zum and I work for VIA. We are a global transit tech company. So we provide software and in some cases like the service also the operations for over 700 clients um across the globe mostly public transit agencies and cities like yourselves. Uh want to first just give you a little context on the service and how the software works that we just launched. Um so the main thing is there's a new mobile app via San Diego that you can download on your phones uh where riders can either use the app or call a phone number to to to book rides very similar to Uber or Lift. It's an ondemand model, so you call a ride when you want it, and it comes right to your door. There's also a driver app, so our drivers can know exactly where to meet that rider and can call them if they have questions. And then there's uh sort of a centralized web-based dispatch portal where Mario staff or my staff can monitor the vehicles and the drivers in real time and make changes based on demand. So, if there's a big event that week in Alcohon, we can move vehicles around to accommodate. Here are some pictures. Uh, showing more about the service, we have two vehicle types. They're all EVs as per the grant. We have Teslas and then Ford Etransits that can accommodate wheelchair riders. Um, so there's four vehicles total. They all charge locally at charge point chargers right near here. Um, and you can see the the main app screen for Via San Diego um with the

skyline there, which is what you'll see if you download the app on your phone. And this is just a quick map showing you the service zone with some of our main points of interest called out. So how it works is as long as a rider's pickup and drop off is within this zone, they're eligible for a ride. Um if there's no ride within 30 minutes, um they can book again just just in a few just like you would for Uber or Lift. And this zone is very easy to expand. So, if we find that riders are asking for a ride somewhere in a different neighborhood, we can easily make changes in a day or two to expand the zone or make it smaller based on what we're actually seeing in the community. Um, and just some quick stats as well on the service. So, you'll see on the right a flyer. We've worked really closely with Mario and his team to market the service to a lot of local groups in the community. So, we put out a press release and got a Fox local interview as well on TV a few weeks ago. Uh we've since then seen about 350 total writer accounts created which is a lot compared to other services we've seen. That's a really good sign. Um and we've seen ridership also increase really steadily. You it takes usually one two three four weeks for us to see any ridership build up. So it's a really positive sign. You'll see here in this graph that starting week two we had 80 total rides. That's that uh chunk in green and then even more this past week. So really exciting ridership so far and definitely a really strong um idea that the service is a good fit for the community. So that's just a quick summary of VIA and the service, but happy to answer any questions that that y'all have. Let me see if there's any questions. Michelle? Yeah. So let me understand this. um my address is not in your zone. And I had a lot of people who said, I put my address in and I'm not within the zone. So, it doesn't work for me. And I saw a lot of people had that. But you're saying if we wanted to get a ride,

um because there's a lot of people in my district who don't have cars. Yeah. How does that work? Yeah, that's a great question. So um the the great part about it being software is that it's very easy to change. So things like the zone service hours are very easy to flex based on what we see in real time. We usually recommend the first few months to launch small, right? The worst thing as you guys probably know is to offer something and then take it away from folks after you offer it. So we usually pick sort of a pilot zone like this to start to generate data um you know basic service hours and from there we can make choices about what parts of the the zone we want to expand to. So, as Mario and our team gathers feedback from things like that, we can go into the app and change the zone in the back end um based on what we think is the best fit for for the community. Yeah, because I'm I'm two miles from here from from city hall and um there's a lot of people who are um who walk, you know, take their kids, they walk to take their kids to school um and like so it it's just going to be depending on whether you expand the service. Yeah, it's it's ultimately up to the city and to Mario's team what we go with. It really is a trade-off between the more zone you offer, the you know, possibly the worse rider experience you're getting if not everyone can get a ride. Um, we have about four vehicles total and we offer, I think about 70 hours of vehicle time per week per the contract. Um, so we're just always trying to make the most efficient use of those hours as we can. The other question that's a resident brought up was, "Do your drivers help uh wheelchair users into the vehicles?" I didn't have an answer to that question. That's a great question. So we only have a portion of drivers who go through really intensive wheelchair training and those are the only folks who can drive those erransit vans and yes they they do help folks from their door to actually get into the vehicle. Okay. So if they are a wheelchair user do they I'm not so and and I don't live in your zone so I

couldn't even set up an account. Um would they set that up in their account? Exactly. There's a toggle that they can um mark in the app that says that they use a wheelchair or they can call the number in the app and we can mark it for them. Okay. And and our um Mario and maybe you can answer this question. are staff employees or is via monitoring um comments on the city page to answer some of these questions that residents may have because I know I can't answer these questions but uh these are some of the questions that I saw on the post that writers kind of want to know hey you know we had something similar in the 80s that was very popular um and they were excited about it coming out but then you know it wasn't it wasn't feasible for them. Yeah, we can work with our media person um Chris Bergen and I can try hopefully get that that information over to us and then we can relay it back over to Via. Okay, so Chris is the one that is monitoring that. Yes. Okay. And then um Council Member Mitchell, I'm confused. Where what are these posts being said? where I well it may have been it could have been on when I shared the post like I share them I when I saw the post that Chris had made then I share it out to many of my community groups that I'm in and so these questions came up I told them to go back to the original post to ask the questions but you know I'm trying to promote the app I'm trying to promote the service to the residents and these are questions I just didn't know okay I just want to make sure that there's an understanding we're not scouring Facebook of pages and looking for cont. Okay. I just want to make sure that was not what we were promising. So, okay. No, no, no. I'm not asking that. I'm just saying, you know, I just want to make sure that someone is kind of keeping an eye a little bit, you know,

like the lady who had the wheelchair and I just told her, I don't know if anyone is is helping writers, but now if I run across her comment again, I can say, hey, I found out for you. this is, you know, we can help you with that and that service is available. So, thank you. Yes, Phil, I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you for for the uh presentation. Uh this is might be a Mario or uh city manager question. This program is funded for two years if I remember. Is that right? That's correct. It's a it's a it's a two-year program with the expectation that the city would take over the third year. Um there's no we understand no legal requirement. So if if two years comes and it's not penciling and at that point the state said you should come back to us and see if there's additional funding and they potentially would fund the third year. Okay. But we do not believe that we're legally on the hook for the third year if it's not making money. And the the ultimate goal is that the fairs that are that are paid will pay for the service. Got it. Okay. And um I'd this is more of a not a question but opining. Have you seen maybe it is a question for you. Um have you seen um I would imagine that these uh ondemand services getting from point A to point B it's the last mile so to speak and the transit um conversation is that lower? I would imagine it's lowering the amount of riders on buses. Is that is that have you seen that in other cities or is that kind of the trend that you see? You know, that's that's something that we deal with all the time is that question. Our goal is to supplement the fixed route services. So, for example, we we show the fixed route service in this app here. And any bus trips that would get you to the same endpoint, we'll show you when you when you ask for a ride. Okay. Um so, our goal is always to design service. If if we start to see too many rides and we

want to push back, you know, we might only offer rides in a certain area, we also have tools in the app where we can artificially hide the on demand option if the fixed route is good enough. So it's never our goal to take away from the fixed route and I I'm of the opposite mindset. Even better. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Um I so I would say depends. Cities really if if there's underperforming fixed routes that they want to take away, we're happy to replace them. if they want to keep those routes strong, we have toggles in the app to make sure folks aren't um cannibalizing those those routes. Well, when my mind automatically goes to it's much less expensive to run a smaller car than a massive bus with one or two people on it. Yeah. And if it's, you know, from an innovative standpoint, I mean, it's going to solve a lot of different problems, but then also the population is more accustomed to the Uber Lift model and not the fixed route model and the customizable bougie on demand. Um, and so I I think there's an opportunity. I mean, Alcohon's doing it as a beta test to prove concept and we're getting riders and so I don't know where MTS would be on on a a last mile hybrid thing, but um it seems like a great opportunity to um maybe update and make it more versatile and you're a lot more lean and and you can pivot a lot quicker with this model as opposed to a bus just on a separate route, but then you still have to walk from your bus the bus stop to your house. So, that's more of a a opinion, but yeah, thanks for answering my questions. Thank you. Uh, I took the service last April 3rd, Thursday, April 3rd at 10:00 in the morning. I uh had a a auto repair down in Mission Valley. Took the trolley back here to Elk. Uh requested a via I guess they can't pick up at the station

because they may not have a license for that. So, it directed me a block away to walk, picked up the VIA and rode it out, and it dropped me off a block short of my destination, which it promised me. Can you look into that for me because I don't want anybody else to have the same experience? Yeah. I my final destination was the limit of the map at the Kaiser Bostononian medical offices and I thought if there was some other senior who would was trying to go there and had a problem getting dropped off at third and Broadway that would be a hard walk for them. That's a really good question. So my question is my question is why isn't the map all of Elcohone if we still have relatively low usage at this point? What do we have to lose by making it the whole city? Two really good questions. So the first question to say on the on the drop off type, how we set up services by default typically, which we did here for the pilot, is we call it corner to corner as a baseline for folks that don't need wheelchairs, which means we'll drop you off or pick you up at a nearby corner. Um because that's typically the most efficient way that we can serve the most riders possible. We've seen a lot of um big metric jumps. We can serve, you know, 1.3 times the riders if we have that model. So, by default, you're only set up to receive direct doortodoor service if you're a wheelchair rider. That said, we make sure certain locations like a hospital have that doortodoor setup no matter what. So, that's a good flag. We should look into that place on the map and make sure that important locations like grocery stores or hospitals are always set up to have the correct pickup point. Um, and we can always change that model to make make it door to door for everyone going forward. Um, to your second question about the pilot zone, we typically find it takes about eight weeks or more with microtransit type services to see full demand. You're basically marketing a brand new service from scratch. So, we don't like to make big expansions to the zone until we feel

confident we're not going to risk rider experience. So if we're still not seeing big wrership increases in 3 four weeks, then we definitely would feel confident with that recommendation. We're, you know, last two weeks we obviously doubled number of rides. So I wouldn't want to expand it twofold again and then riders all of a sudden can't book a ride that they're super excited about. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else? All right. Well, thank you for coming. I I very much appreciate it. This was anformational item only. Do we have any speaker cards on this? There are no speaker cards, sir. So, I appreciate you all coming. Thanks. Uh, we'll look forward to hearing your report and how things are going. Thanks for your time. Appreciate it. Item 12 is for the animal services agreement with the San Diego Humane Society. I'd like to ask staff to tell us about this. Thank you, mayor, members of council. Before you is the extension to the um San Diego Humane Society contract with the city of Elcohone. As you know um back in 2020, we uh entered into a 5-year agreement with the Humane Society to operate the Elcohone Animal Shelter. Uh that agreement now sunsets uh on June 30th, 2025. The current agreement that's before you, the proposed agreement that's before you continues that contract for an additional 5 years. Um, as you uh are probably aware, we started that contract in 2020 with a monthly payment of approximately $83,000. Um, the contract called for annual increases based on the consumer price index, which is the leading economic indicator of inflation. And so over the years, it aver to 3% with the exception of the 22 23 year, which we all remember was an unusually high year for inflation. And

at that time the contract went up 10%. Um the very next increase was back down to 3% and much more what we expected. The um the the proposed contract before you uh deals with these increases in much the same way. It also is tied to the CPI. Um it caps itself at 9% and if 9% is reached or proposed to be exceeded, two things happen. Number one, uh, city management would meet with the San Diego Humane Society in a meet and confer process and talk about ways we can cut costs. Um, there's no requirement. It's just a meet and confer. And if we come up with something, uh, it could lead to a contract amendment. Um, the second uh, item that would occur under the contract would be if they are proposing to exceed the 9% cap in an unusually inflationary uh, period, uh, that would need to be approved by the city council. So, we would be bringing that to you. Any increases that stay within the escalators that are in the proposed contract would would be uh handled by staff um right around the May or June uh deadline. So, um I I would mention that the city manager and I recently toured the facility as we've done several times in years past. The facility is very well managed. Uh it's very clean. Um there's it's it's very humane. the animals were all in in very good uh clean conditions. Um I I was particularly impressed by the the staff, both volunteers and on staff, and how they approached their work. Um it was just a very it it it was like it was in years before when I've been there. It was it was it was being done very well. So I think um the community would would in general be be pleased with the um with the way the facility is being operated. So, with that in mind, I'll be happy to answer any questions about the proposed contract. Um, and I turn it over to the mayor and council. Thank you. Any questions for Vince?

Steve, the original contract was CPI only. This is CPI plus 2 and a half%. Why the change? They they continue to have difficulty um meeting their costs. So, we're looking at CPI plus 2.5% and they they feel that that's a better that that's that's going to keep their costs under under control. That's that's what they proposed to us. Okay. I It's It's like a guaranteed two and a half% increase and there's no incentive for them to uh I'm speaking from a taxpayer point of view. We're saying what it could go up 9% in one year and they're guaranteed a two and a half% raise plus whatever the CPI is of I don't know. They they demonstrated to us during our meetings with them uh several times during the five-year period where they were operating at a at a loss. And since they are operating with many of the other cities, I think it's only four or five cities in the county that they're not doing. They sort of pull their money, if you will. So, if they were just looking at Elcohone individually, they would in some cases be operating not being able to cover their their costs. So they proposed that it be CPI plus 2 and a half and projecting ahead at an average 2 or 3% increase per year uh plus the 2 and a half. They felt that that would give them a better uh way of addressing all of their costs without subsidizing from other contracts. So if CPI is 3% we're looking at five and a half to 6% automatically. That's correct. Um, when people say, "I got a raise." Few people say, "I got a 6% raise in today's world." And I think that's what the taxpayers might be thinking is you're giving them an automatic 6% raise. Uh, we don't have any control

over their operations, how efficient they are, uh, what service. When we did when we did the, uh, animal shelter, we did it for about a million dollars. I think it was a wash at that time in 2020. But was our million dollars break even at that point or No, we were subsidizing the services. It was not breaking even and we were experiencing especially near the end. We were experiencing more than consumer price index costs and mostly because of the labor costs and there's a labor shortage especially in that field and then you get into the medical costs of animals services. There was a lot of there was a lot of expenditure. So, I think where where the assistant city manager and I are um CPI was not keeping up with their true costs to operate. Uh we looked at other shelters that are not with the Humane Society and they're experiencing similar costs. So, we felt it was in line with with the I guess the industry standard. Okay. Well, the fact that you look at somebody else beside the Humane Society and found the same result, I think is what would be an answer to a taxpayer who asked, "Is there any other option that might be more costefficient?" And what you've just said is, "No, everybody's in the same boat." So, thank you. Good homework. Um, I would all I think in the staff report it said u and you may have just touched on this bringing in the humane society would still be uh less of a cost than it would be for the city to operate it. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um and so Oh, and it brought um a sergeant back into the field. Is that right? That was the reason we moved. Okay. And then is uh Humane Society a 501c3? Are they a nonprofit? I boy I don't know that. I I don't know for sure. Oh, okay. I want I want to say yes. Yeah, I want to say yes, too, because we've Yeah. No, it is a It is.

Okay. It is a California. It is a nonprofit, so maybe Okay. So, maybe they're donations are are low, too. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Thanks. Um, do we have any speaker cards for this item? There are no speaker cards, sir. Okay. Um, we'll bring it back to the council. Um, looking for a motion or discussion. I I'll make a motion the city council adopts the next resolution approving the animal services agreement with the Humane Society. Second. All right. Moved and seconded. Please vote. Motion carries by unanimous vote. Item 13 is for the five-year business plan update, and I'd like to ask staff to tell us about this, please. Uh, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council, as um finance gets set up, we'll be hearing a presentation from Autumn Reeberger. She's our principal finance analyst in the finance department. She's going to do the majority of the presentation. However, I'm going to take um at least one slide to kind of talk about upcoming budget year and just give you a preview of some of the decisions that we're making right now and some of the decisions that we'll be putting before the council in the next month or so. So, with that, Miss Reeberger. Hi. Hi. Thank you, Graham. Good afternoon, mayor and members of the city council. As Graham mentioned, my name is Autumn Ree Berger. I am the principal fiscal analyst in the finance department for the city of Elcohone and today I will be presenting you with the fiscal year 202425 5-year business plan update. So today's presentation includes an update of the five-year business plan and a brief review of the fiscal year 2526 budget timeline.

The five-year business plan is a projection based on past results and are subject to economic changes and unforeseen events. Projections are used as long-term planning as a long-term planning tool to help identify the potential of structural flaws or future concerns. Mitigation of unforeseen events is addressed during the annual budget process as well as during the daily operations of the organization. The completion of projections relies on a number of assumptions. The assumptions made in order to complete this projection are as follows. For revenue, the sales tax projections were provided by the expertise of our tax consultants. All other revenues are based on experience in the current fiscal year and an assumed growth rate. For expenditures, personnel costs are based on negotiated amounts where known and an assumed growth rate where unknown. All other expenditures are based on experience in the current fiscal year with an assumed growth rate. There are no appropriations for 10 additional police officers. This does include the addition of onethird of the crew for fire engine 208. And there are no CIP or fleet replacements included in this funding. As previously stated, the 5-year projection is greatly impacted by economic changes. Major factors in the economy are GDP, inflation, and unemployment. The fourth quarter GDP was 2.4%. As of February 2025, inflation was 2.8% and the national unemployment rate was

4.1%. While these are positive indicators overall, we received an update yesterday from our investment consultants regarding the recent tariff news. And I'd like to read a snippet of that. While the stated goal of tariffs is to reduce the trade deficit with external trading partners and to provide leverage to the administration as it negotiates trade deals with other nations. It also raises the prospect of a recession. Should these tariffs remain in place for an extended period, they could adversely impact economic growth prospects in the US. Here we have the projected general fund inflows and outflows with changes in fund balance. You may notice a significant change from last year's 5-year projection as this update includes measure J, which was the renewal of the district tax. As you can see, we're projecting a budget shortfall through to fiscal year 2029. Due to the methodologies used to produce this projection, we have a high degree in confidence in the data presented for the next five years. As we progress into the additional five years beyond that, the confident rate decreases and those years have been italicized on here just for differentiation. Next, we have an overview of the projected changes in fund balance over the next five years. You can see the fund balance drops from 61 million in fiscal year 2025 down to 50.5 million in fiscal year 2029. This is the result of the budget shortfalls shown in the previous slide. I would like to point out that this is the total fund balance of all four reserve accounts, not just the carryover

reserves. So, we've provided some visualization for comparisons. This graph shows general fund revenue to safety and non-safety general fund expenditures. And this is over a 10-year history. These public expendit the public safety expenditures have increased as revenues have grown while non-safety expenditures have remained stagnant. A different view of the general fund safety and non-safety costs is presented here. You can see that as public safety expenditures have increased, the non-public safety expenditures have proportionately decreased. And finally, we have a comparison of revenue to personnel and non-personnel costs. Similar to the evaluation of revenue to safety and non-public safety expenditures, personnel costs have increased along with revenue while non-personnel costs have remained stationary. This is the information from the previous three slides presented numerically. This is data directly out of our fiscal 2025 budget and continues to demonstrate the prioritization and commitment council gives to public safety. Moving on to the wastewater fund, we have the five-year plan projection presented here. There is no rate increase included in this projection, but as you can see, the activity is expected to generate approximately $5 million in surplus each year. This chart shows the projected ending wastewater fund balance. In fiscal year 2025, the fund balance goes from 59

million and increases to 85 million in fiscal 2030. These large increases are a result of the reduction of wastewater CIP projects. Over the past several years, the city's focus has been on ARPA projects due to the funding deadlines. So as focus shifts away from ARPA, we would expect this projection to look different next year as wastewater CIP projects resume for the fiscal year 202526 preliminary annual budget. It will be released as soon as we've completed it. So, we don't have a a date anticipated yet, but as soon as it's available, we'll we'll send that out. Um, we are looking at introducing and discussing that annual budget on the at the June 10th meeting, and then we'll come back at the June 24th meeting to request adoption of the fiscal year 202526 annual budget. So, upon completion of today's presentation, we ask that the council receives and accepts the fiscical year 2024 25-year business plan update. And with that, I'm going to turn the discussion back over to Mr. Mitchell. Thank you, Mr. Reeberger. So, as a council saw, um, we're anticipating about a $4 million deficit or gap as we move into this next fiscal year. And and we see that every year because that's just assuming we haven't made any cuts. we haven't um been able to nail down our exact revenue yet. So, we're we are always going to be seeing that to a certain degree, although a $4 million amount seems more than we have are used to seeing at this time of the year. So, um as council knows, we're pretty lean when it comes to expenditures, when it comes to our budgeting. So there's no easy, oh, we can just reduce this area

here or let's let's fund CIP less this year because we're not funding CIP at all next this next year. Uh so there's no sort of magic bullet. So we're going to be uh tapping a lot of departments and a lot of small little things. This is just a smattering example of some of the things. We recognize this is not the comprehensive list. We also recognize this doesn't equal $4 million either, but this is the type of we're getting to this point where we're going to be this is the type of things that we're looking at. So, I'll just give a few as example uh cancelling America on Main Street in 2026. Um we're going to recommend that we drop out of the League of California Cities as a member. It's not a lot of money, but it's $34,000 that would pay for some department's entire training, some of it mandatory training. um looking at shifting National Night Out from the big event we've been doing in the past to something more neighborhood community oriented and then uh transitioning from a mailed bianual city newsletter to an online version. Uh as a reminder, we'll still be doing the recreation guide that'll be mailed out. So there will be a way for everybody to get something in the mail and we can include some uh important messages from the city in that. But um these are the types of things that we're looking at right now to save just a few dollars here and there. Uh from just so the council understands the assignment right now. So the departments have been asked to submit budgets that are 1% less than last year's budget. Uh 1% does not make up $4 million. So um that was just a starting point. We'll be asking staff to probably cut another four to five percent to to help get to that uh $4 million mark. We don't I'm not sure that will quite make it either. Um there will

be most likely there'll be some staffing changes, some reductions in staffing. Uh we're hoping to do that all through attrition and not through any form of layout or layoff at this time. Um, we may, and I usually don't like to generally recommend use of the general fund reserve, but we do have a segment of the general fund reserve as as Miss Miss Reeberger showed that is specifically designated for economic downturns. I would make the argument that that we're in an economic downturn as sales tax has gone completely flat. Um, and if the tariffs do what some say they might do, that would be another example to use it. But I think we need to be very judicious in how we use those reserves, not for ongoing costs, but to help make up for some one-time year expenditure losses or revenue losses. So, with that, um, before I turn it back over for the general questions for the whole, um, presentation and acceptance of the five-year report, are there any comments, feedback, concerns, um, direction that the council wants to give to staff as we think about moving forward into 2026 budget? Question Carrie. Yeah. Uh now are we not going to do a sinking fund for the next few years for roofs and things like that? We we um no we we no we'll not be doing that. We we put away money periodically when there's some reserve money for that or for our vehicles, but there's there'll be no sinking money going into a future roof repair at this point. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Can you for everybody else can you define sinking fund? So for example, if let's say a roof on a recreation center was just redone this last year and we know that it's supposed to be have a lifespan of 20 years. A prudent

budgeting method would be to take the cost of that replacement in 20 years from now and set aside some money every single year so when that roof does need to be repaired or replaced, you have the money in the bank to do that. Okay. Uh my feedback on this is I kind of hate to cut community events. That's kind of where you see life in the community. And I don't see a lot of dollars here that uh I I guess I've I don't think this is going to get us to where we need to go if we if we cut these National Night Out, which was very successful. America on Main Street. um those those are are great for the lifeblood of alcohon. The other things uh I I'm okay with, you know, they're kind of, you know, we've we've started those new in the past five years in many cases. Uh so it's almost like we need to get back to a reset before the pandemic. Uh but I'm reluctant to to cut city events. just, you know, we were going to we were going to shift the direction of National Night Out anyway, regardless of budget. Um, Chief Larson really wants to go back to the original purpose of National Night Out and is to be in the communities um where people are rather than sort of this big grandiose event. So, we were going to shift that way anyway. So, it may look like we're doing a cut, but we are going to probably do this cut anyway. So, uh, thank you, Graham. Thank you to the entire finance team. Um, never a fun conversation uh to have. Um, I share Council Member Goal's sentiments about, you know, not wanting to cut um community events, and I'm not I'm not excited

about having to dip into our reserves, but that's why we have reserves really, is for economic downturns, to weather the storm, so to speak. and if we can supplement um for essential city services. So um those events are popular and awesome and I mean they provide a great sense of community. That's what's going to build um a strong city. Um yeah, if we can find a way to save it through dipping into reserves, that'd be good. At the end of the day, it everybody's tightening their belt right now and um I think it's uh you know gonna be difficult to cut essential city services for you know um other things. So not an easy conversation but Graham correct me if I'm wrong you are making progress in reducing that deficit. I remember earlier it was 5% now it's four. So yeah. So yeah, we're we're we're plugging away at it. Every day there's some work that's done at it. Chipping it away. Okay. At it. Yeah. And uh yeah, I mean that this is why we have a I'll say it again. This this is kind of why we have a reserve is, you know, this isn't going to be forever. You know, economic downturns happen and they happen for a season and that's why we have a reserve. And so, um, I'd like to see, you know, make sure that those essential city services do not get cut like our police and fire. Um, and, uh, even our, I mean, even our parks in wreck. I mean, we don't want our parks becoming dead and stagnant because what's going to happen is what happened at Wells Park is where, you know, the riff raff starts to move back in. And if we can continually have people and families and and events and things like that, it's a passive way of keeping our parks um not having that riff raff. The more activity, the more patronization you have of of areas, it's going to keep

the riff raff away. And it's a lot cheaper than hiring, you know, police officers to just stand guard there. So, um, thank you very much, Graham, and the entire team for working hard. Yeah. Uh, one thing about cutting out American on Main Street is that it would probably take years to bring it back. I mean, excuse me. Uh, but, you know, once it's gone, uh, you know, we it'd be hard to get it as big as it as it was or as it is. And that brings a lot of people into Elcohone that wouldn't normally come downtown and they look around, they see the restaurants and they're saying, "Wow, Elcohone's a lot better than it was, you know, 15 years ago." I I agree. However, of all the events we do and and recreation and I have had a long conversation about this, it is our least cost effective event. So, if you look at our cost per person coming into the downtown, it's the least effective event. We work the hardest to get people there. Um, I would actually argue that if you were to take that amount of money and if that's what it would take to do a farmers market and it that money were available, that would have far more bigger impact um every single week than a one-time big event. So these are the things that sometimes a budget crisis help you reset and go why are we doing this and is there a different way to do it and to have the same impact for even less money. So anyway, so that's why we're kind of exploring a lot of different options. And one thing that I wouldn't want to do is cut back on police and fire. I mean that's I I see as our number one priority is, you know, protecting our citizens. Well, and as you recall, this

budget does reflect the addition of engine the at least one-third of 208. So, that's in the budget right now. So, that's that's an augmentation of the existing budget. So, yes. Thank you. Just one more thing. I did have uh representatives from the police officers association call and I just want to it's showing or they they had some concern about not doing the overhire anymore. But I just wanted to clarify that, you know, where our numbers were at never really hit that 10 over hire and we're putting measures in place to make sure that the solicitation of more officers and and recruitment is going to keep us fully staffed. Is is that right or That's correct. We we were we never we never got to the 10 offic over hires. We never got to that point. But what we did get is close the closest we've ever been for decades to having fully staffed our existing B uh billeted as using a federal term uh number of officers. Right. What we learned was it wasn't sort of this uh saying that we have 10 overhires that got us to that point. It was the work from HR and the additional HR person that the city council added to the compliment that allowed us to do that. We were averaging I be think four or five recruitments in a year during the overhire period. We were doing I believe 12 13 or 14 recruitments in a year. So, we're committing to do that level of recruitment moving forward, whether without the the 10 overhires. And as I've let the POA know, if we get into a situation in which we are at fully staffed and there's an opportunity to to snag a lateral or to get somebody um I will come back to the city council and ask for a budget amendment to overhire by one. And given our rate of attrition, that probably overhire of one would last one or two months. And so that's something that we could accomplish in the budget. That's good to

hear that there's some flexibility with that because I know how much it means to the officers on the street fully staffed, not having to get, you know, too much limiting as much overtime as you could, you know, with with shifts. Um, so that's that's fantastic. Thank you. Okay. Um, I want to clarify in five years our reserves are going to be down $10 million. Is that correct? That that assumes we do nothing. That assumes no changes have been made. If you were to go back 10 years ago and look at that same report, it would say that we would be bankrupt today as well. So, okay, this is just an assumption of revenue grows at the rate it's growing, expenditures grow at the rate it's going, and we do nothing to mitigate those issues. Okay, so I just wanted to clarify that. Now, um, as far as community projects and everything, I understand that we need to be prudent and, you know, spend wisely. I think that, like you said, a reset or having to tighten our belts, we need to be creative. I think sponsorships are great. Um, you know, like when they do uh events like at Squan or like the chamber when they do events, they have all these sponsorships at different levels. Maybe that's something that we should look into. And we probably do, don't we? We do. We do that. In fact, we just got a donation from Kaiser for $10,000 for the upcoming America on Main Street. Great. So, you know, maybe increasing our sponsorships so that we have to do, you know, as little money output uh as possible and that's a possibility. I agree with my colleagues in not decreasing public um or you know

uh community events. Something that I try to tell residents all the time, it's like if you want the city to be successful, you've got to spend your money here. Um, all the time, uh, I hear, you know, I don't shop in Elcohone. I don't do this in Alcohon. And then they complain about how alcohon is not uh, alcohon is dangerous and alcohon is dirty and alcohon is this. Well, if you keep spending your money in other cities, you're making those cities better. But if you spend your money in Alcohon, we have the money to clean our streets. We have our m the money to make our potholes better, you know, fix our potholes. We have the money to fix our our our deficiencies. And so that we need to start thinking about keeping alcohone money here. And so I know that it's a problem and we've got to try and work with our residents to keep their money here. So, I don't I don't really know what the solution is, but somehow we've got to get residents to be happy to stay in Alcohon, to be happy to spend their money in Alcohon so we can take their tax dollars and put it back into the city so that we don't have to keep coming up with trying to how do we spend the money and and not have to keep robbing Peter to pay Paul and and make budget cuts because it seems like we're always coming up with creative solutions on on uh meeting budget request or budget solutions and then you know residents are going oh they're taking away something else you know whether it's the car show which we have nothing to do with or if it's America on Main Street or if it's hauntfest or if it's something else and

it just seems and I know people keep telling me stay off of social media but you know that's where you hear the rumblings. If we're not having town halls and talking to people, how do you hear what the residents have to say? And the residents are not happy with what they see in Alcohon. And they're saying the streets are dirty. The businesses are rude. We've got to make people happy. If they're going to spend their money in Alcohon, we've got to make them happy and we've got to keep our city clean. So, we've got to come up with some solutions. And all I'm asking is my colleagues and and staff is we've got to come up with some creative solutions on how to solve budget deficits and keep people happy and come up with something. So anyway, great job on the report. It's a lot to take in. It's a lot of dollars and cents and um hopefully the economy in the whole country will get better, but I'm afraid we're all going to be tightening our belts and I wish I had better solutions for you. And I don't know what we're going to do, but we've got to come up with something better than throwing up our hands and that's not what we're doing. I realize that. But thank you. and hopefully we can come up with some sponsorships to fund these projects and keep them going. I've got a technical question. Let's go back to one of the first slides and uh in future presentations, could you number the slides so that as we watch them, we could say, "Oh, go back to slide four or something like that." Uh it's the one that had the 10-year general fund reserve balance. That might be it right there. So, we kind of see in the right hand column where it's 2.5, 3.9. That's probably where we're getting

close to a $10 million draw in the reserve. Is that Am I seeing that right? Yeah. So, that's okay. It's okay. Okay. Okay. But there that's budgeted actually. So, yes, I I know. I'm just looking for We saw a $10 million drop from 61 to 51 million. And if I add up those five negative numbers, I got close to 10 million. Am I thinking the same numbers? That's actually going to be more. Uh I'm not quite sure what the question is. Good afternoon, council. I'm Clay Shane. I'm the director of finance for Alcohon. Um you're absolutely correct, council member, that the far right column, the change in fund balance does account for the change in uh total fund balance that is shown on the following slide. The reason your uh math might not quite work is that 2.5 at the very beginning for FY25 is already taken into account in the 61 million number. So really you're adding the uh the last four following five. Okay. Okay. So, but then all of a sudden it sh and and let's let's say uh at a very macro level we could say the the the growth in revenue which half of our revenue is sales tax income is not enough to recover the increase in cost. We just talked about 6% costs in humane society contracts and other things like that. Our revenue isn't growing as fast as our costs are growing and that's why we're having this shortfall each year. So far so good. Correct. Okay. So, what changes in 2029 that all of a sudden we start adding things? The sales tax increasing faster than expenses now or what's the change? Well, I think the further out we go, the more we're uh leveraging or or leaning on the

assumptions we're making. Um, and I think the further out we get, truthfully, the less accurate those assumptions are. Um, we know or have a very good handle on what the growth rates are next year, the following year a little less confident. The year after a little less than that. Um certainly in the next 5 years we have a fairly high degree of certainty that revenue growth will be slower than expenditure growth but there is a point there where they cross over based on our assumptions and that's why you see it shift to surpluses in those years. And are your assumptions reasonable? You know if you say we think sales tax is going to grow 3% not 6% are you conservative on your revenue assumptions? uh confident as far as the fact there are assumptions. Um they are consistent with historical experience. Um we also validate against what other municipalities as well as other sources expect for growth. Um, so there is a little bit of benchmarking and checking our our assumptions and and to confirm the city manager's viewpoint, these numbers are if there are no changes in budget or no cuts, no staff reductions, this is kind of uh what it would be with keeping with everything that we have today. Staff programs. Is that true? I'm looking at the city manager. Oh, I thought you were you were asking the finance director to make sure that what I said was saying was true. Yes. That assumes no changes, no growth, no I don't I don't think doomsday is here. And here's why. It if if we're looking at a $10 million um use of general reserves for economic hardship, that is what it's for. And if it turns the corner, if the assumptions are right and it turns the corner in five years, we're going to be okay. It's not

a continual draw. It's not a 10-year draw on the reserves. So, I'm thinking if we can gut this out for five years, good times on the assumption level. 10 years is a is a long way out. Uh are are it's going to look like it's going to be okay. I'm not panicking is what I'm hearing is what I'm saying. I I'm not I'm not sensing that we have to come up with $4 million in cuts or this is doomsday. Because I say if we can gut it out for four years with money that we set aside. When I started here 9 years ago, our general reserve is 47 million. Now it's 61 million. This is why we reserve money to get us through the hard times. According to this slide, the hard times will last another four years and then we're okay. That's why I'm not panicking and that's why I'm not insisting on four or 5% cuts to essential city services. Be prudent. Cut for League of City League of California cities $34,000. We get nothing. So, let's look at those lowhanging fruits, but I'm not too fast to talk about staff reductions on essential city services. Gary? Yeah. I I'm concerned that the stock market may continue to tank and that's going to affect our PERS contributions. What is there about a two-year delay on that? That's about right. Yes, sir. So, uh, we're going to know a lot more in just a few months to see what happens. I would imagine that if Kalpers is experiencing significant or concerning uh experience as a result of the current activity, I would imagine they would be issuing press releases to warn us of the potential impacts. But most of the PUR stuff is in very

conservative investments. It's not at risky stuff. It's it's in um bonds and financial instruments, not in a lot of equities or things like that. Correct. Uh certainly our city cash pool is far more uh uh conservative than PERS is. So we on our own cash that we manage, we're very safe in the kinds of things we invest in. um relative to Kalpers though they they are more aggressive but it isn't uh a one for one with the stock market as a whole like I wouldn't track Kalpers directly to the the Dow Jones average or anything like that. Yes. One other thing uh following your comments council member Global um one thing to keep in mind too when we're looking at deficits of that size that two three four million dollar uh it's important to keep in mind too that the general fund is a hundred million dollars. So these aren't while they seem like big numbers, they're not very big percentages. If we have if we do just like 1% sales tax better than we're anticipating, those numbers look entirely different, too. So there's a lot of people doing a lot of things to affect the way this works, but sometimes really small things will impact that greatly. Have you forecasted in the new CarMax sales tax numbers? Yes. So when we meet with our sales tax consultant, they ask about any businesses that we know that are coming or leaving and they forecast. In fact, they even got down to the square footage of the CarMax to figure out what they thought that would be. So yeah. Um, thanks Clay. I I think we're okay. Um, I have a couple of questions. Um, we're talking about percentages by department. You're you're asking every department to come up with a 1% percentage cut. So far, I believe all but one have come up with a 1% cut. Yes. I just curious, does that include public

safety? Yes. Okay. Um, when you brought up the uh that list that had the small cuts that we were making, I saw the Magnolia on that for $50,000. What's that about? So, we budget every year for repairs and um we've never hit our repair budget. So, we reduced the repair budget. So, in the event that there was a big a big one-time repair, I would come to this rather than it being in the budget already, I would come to the city council for a budget amendment to accommodate that one big repair. It's my just my opinion. Um, when we talk about having everybody make everybody's sharing in this, right? You know, everybody's making their cuts. It seems to me a little tonedeaf to be not considering stopping America on Main Street considering we're asking everybody to make these cuts. So you I that that's just my opinion. I I certainly don't want to see it go away either. But I think if we don't cut that, we need to look at all the things that we're doing and find some symbolic way to stand in solidarity with all our departments. We're asking them to make cuts. Um, talking about building revenues, you know, my opinion is that we need to go full sp full speed ahead on trying to make the mall uh useful again and live up to its full potential. Um, if magically we were able to make it live to its full potential, how much would would uh we add to the sales tax revenues or h how how would that change this forecast? I don't know that. Um, we do receive as part of our quarterly sales tax report

um, what are called geos. So, we know kind of how Parkway Plaza has done over the a period of time. I'd have to go back. I could provide that to the city council, but it would be multiple millions of dollars. Um, I wouldn't say multiple, but I mean Walmart and then everybody else back kind of a full fully functional mall probably close to a million. Okay. If I may, when we had Hunden present, assuming there that was 10 to 15, remember that was building out that was that was that was the highest and best use of Yeah, this is sort of getting the mall back. That's what I'm talking I think this is what he's talking about. Okay. And that's my I I mean I I understand we don't want to be pie in the sky, but there is a pos we there's a possibility if we work in the right direction, we could get there and that that would change this this significantly, wouldn't it? Correct. But that was a gross revenue, not a net revenue. Because for that gross revenue of $15 million, for example, there's probably about $10 million of debt service that would go with that. So, so really the net is not the 15. It's really closer probably to two to three or4 million. So, but it's better than what we're each year. We're looking at about two to two and a quarter million dollars that we're that we're behind. So, this kind of solves the problem if we and granted it's a heavy lift to get there. I get I get it. Um, also, we've never really discussed building impact fees. We've always been proud that we're the only city in in the county that doesn't have building impact fees, but I wouldn't be opposed to having that discussion and and seeing what that really looks like if if it makes enough of a difference. So, it's my my two cents on that. I think it's worth studying. We need to find out how many units are built each

year. What kind of fee would we ask for? So, I I agree it's worth the discussion. Yeah. Uh, and then um I I think that was all my my points. I just I want to echo what Steve says. I see this as our fiscal responsibility for the city to to look at look under all the rocks and see what we can do. But I'm not panicking. I I think we're I think we're good. And and I also think that if we have to use some of the reserve funding, as long as we're not being flippant about it and we're using it to counteract the a recession that might be happening. Um I don't I think that's what it's there for. So all right, let me ask is see if we have any speaker cards on this item. There are no speaker cards, sir. Okay. So it brings back to um I don't think we have to close the public hearing. No, we don't. So at this point is any further discussion or we sort of like to proceed with a motion. Is this u informationational only? I believe it would just be to accept the report if the council wanted to take a motion or you just give us the feedback you've given us. So either way um well let's let's go ahead and I'll make a motion to accept the report and second to the feedback provided which you have already heard through the meeting. All right move in second. Please vote. Motion carries by unanimous vote. Thank you. It seems like there's probably a lot of work that went into that. I appreciate you and your staff. Item 14 is for the lift assist fees. I'll ask staff to please introduce this item. Uh mayor, Mr. uh Mr. Mayor, city

council, believe this is Miss Watkins first time presenting to city council. Uh Barbara Watkins is a senior management analyst in our fire department and so she's going to talk about some lift uh lift assist fees. So with that, Miss Watkins, thank you. Welcome. Thanks for coming. Thank you. Good afternoon, mayor and city council members. I'm here to provide an update and recommendation regarding the proposed implementation of a fee for non-emergent lift assist calls uh originating from congregate care facilities within Elcohone. This issue was previously brought to your attention on September 10th. At that time, we reviewed multiple strategies to reduce these non-emergency calls. Council directed staff to engage directly with facility operators and return with a solution. Tonight, I'm presenting that solution, a fee for non-emergent lift assists. Staff's recommending a fee of $565 per non-emergent lift assist call. This fee is reflective of operational costs, which are personnel, equipment, and time. This the intent here is not to penalize care facilities but rather to encourage them to adopt internal processes and or have appropriate staff who can respond to these low-risk incidents without the need for 911. The proposed fee um is only for repeat non-emergent users and would be applied when a lift assist is requested for a non-emergency. staff will staff has and will continue to be proactive with communication and education for these effective facilities and all of this with a goal for a smooth and collaborative roll out. This proposal is about responsible resource management and ensuring our fire department remains focused on life-threatening emergencies

and encourage congregate care providers to improve their internal processes. If directed, staff's next steps would be first reading of an ordinance at the next meeting of April 22nd, a second reading at May on the May 13th meeting, and 30 days later with a June 12th effective date pending adoption, um, and then review for enforcement after July 1st. So with this, staff respectfully recommends that the city council provides feedback and direct staff to proceed with drafting and presenting an ordinance for adoption. Thank you very much. Any questions for Barbara? See, would the fees generated stay with the fire department or they go to the general fund? It's a general fee, so it go to the general fund. Thank you. Um, if somebody was in a situation where they had a a lift assist fee and they felt that it was unfair, what would be the uh what would they do to would they come to city council and and plead their case or how would that work? There there would be a normal appeal process. So, the city has a normal appeal process that goes through a chain of command. So potentially could eventually get to the city council, but there would go be a like like all of our fees or code violations, there's a an appel appeal process. But in talking to Grahammer earlier, he was saying that um the incidents that might be findable are probably not as high as we thought. Was that your impression as well? Well, I'll just say for I mean our lift assist, we don't have a lot of lift assist. first we thought we did until we ran the the CAD data. We don't have a lot. In fact, most of our um I think as the staff report indicates, most of our uh congregate care facilities have zero lift assists, but there are still a few

that abuse the system and call a lot. So, we're hoping that this fee will not affect many, but will affect a few to help them modify behavior. Having worked in ERS for a long time, I my guess would be that that the abuses would be in transportation and transporting people to the hospital for non- emergent problems. That is and that's that's sort of the next phase and that was some direction that the city council gave us. So, we're still working on that. So, you haven't this is the lowhanging baby step, low hanging fruit or the baby step into the bigger the bigger issue. Okay, that answers my question. And Phil, um I might have a question about the fees. Uh is this to cover our costs or is this going to or is the dollar amount that was that was developed uh a enough uh of an amount to be a deterrent or is it both? Do we know if that's if that's if that's a we we can't charge a fee as a deterrent. It is solely for cost recovery. So we can't have a penalty, for example. So this is cost recovery based on our OES reimbursement rate that we are allowed to charge the state of California. Got it. Okay. So we're guided by law in the dollar amount. Is that 565 that seems like enough of an amount for them to be able to get their attent for us to be able to get their attention. Is that right or Yeah. Yeah. I think so. the the fee is calculated off of the OES reimburseable rates through our mutual aid agreements by position that would be responding. So if an engine responds, it's those positions and then also a calculation for the equipment and time associated with it. Okay. Yeah. I I don't think that the citizens of Elcohone should be subsidizing and paying to help these uh handful of

skilled nursing facilities or congregate care facilities operate their business. I think they need to staff it and and not take advantage of the taxpayer. So, um I think this is a great a great first step. Okay. Um then I'm going to ask Jen, do we have any speaker cards for this item? There are no speaker cards, sir. Thank you very much, Barbara. I appreciate it. Thank you. It's back to city council for discussion and or a motion. Move adoption. Second. Moved and seconded. Please vote. Motion carries by unanimous vote. Item 15 is my activity report and item 16 is a activities report for Mr. Goal. as reported. Mr. Kendrick as reported. Miss Mitchell as reported. And Mr. Ortiz, I have two additions. One, I attended the uh East County Econ economic development council this morning and yesterday I attended the California State Senate uh session up in Sacramento. That's it. There are no joint council member reports, no general information items, and no first or second readings of ordinances on today's agenda. We're now at close session. The city attorney will recite the title and lead us into close session. Thank you, mayor. The city council is a go into close session on two items. Number 20 is a close session for the public employee performance evaluation. The office of city manager and the second is a close session for a conference with legal counsel on anticipated litigation significant exposure litigation pursuant to paragraph 2 of subdivision D of government code section 54956.9. Uh the description of the facts and circumstances are as in the agenda. Like to make a motion to adjourn the close session. Second, please vote.

Motion carries by unanimous vote. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to the close session. We'll be back in a few minutes to conclude the meeting.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, we're back from close session. I'd like to ask our city attorney to report on close session. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Wells. The city council met in close session on two items. One is the public employee performance evaluation of the city manager and that evaluation did take place and um I should say that that was the second item taken up from time purposes and the other item item 21 was close session for conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation and that uh in that case the city council gave direction to our legal counsel in uh relationship to this claim. Uh thank you Mr. City attorney. Um before we adjourn, I believe that we have one more speaker card that we did not get to. Mr. uh Cartwright. Not really. Let me put this way in charge of a family business. We've been in business for three generations serving California. I'm the third generation in business. We went in business in 1896 in construction, extermination in the 30s and when I got out of the military, we went into agriculture and a bunch of other things. I have a whole bunch of licenses. You were talking about low bids. Low bids is what your problem you guys the pictures I sent you of Cox cable gave it to the lowest bid possible. They didn't know what they were doing besides uh causing I had a lady trip on the sidewalk landed in my yard which I could have got sued too and my daughter got hurt getting out of her

car stepping in one of their ruts that they did rotten. I gave you pictures. The only place that their damage is is on um Bosworth Court. I checked the entire area where they worked and there was no signs of any damage to the other areas like that. Um except there was one big pile of black top uh on the right end of Bosworth right next to Holy Trinity Church side or in that corner. I lived on that street since I was for 67 years. And I've been in Elcone since I was eight days old. And it's like the Mother Goose parade. I was one of the kids it was dedicated to. In 1984, I was the treasurer of Mother Goose. I changed it all around and made it where we made from $48,000 the first year or two where we had a total when I quit three years later of $160,000. I'm surprised that you would allow the second largest parade this side of the Mississippi to go by nowhere, but you put out a a ice ring out there for people to ice skate on. We're in Elcohone. This is a desert community. They want to go ice skating, let them go to a place where they can go ice skating, not here. You talk about your budget. That's one of the things I'm good at is making money. Otherwise, we wouldn't be in business as long as we have been. And my sons are very good at doing that. As I see pictures of you guys all with him and I says, "Oh," he says, "You know who these are?" "Yeah, I know who they are." "I'm with Arnold Schwarzenegger. My father's with Ronald Reagan." uh the we take an the police take an oath to go by the Constitution in the

United States and follow all the laws. So if we have to help ICE, that's our job. That's the job they have to do. Illegal aliens cause a lot of problems that we have. They cause you to spend money that we shouldn't have to spend. So I guess you know I am a Trump supporter. Always have been, always will be. I'm a businessman first. We needed a businessman to run our country and we need businessmen to run our city and look at things. Now that farmers market is a great idea. up in Riverside. They have a farmers market on every Thursday and I used to lecture up at UC Riverside and I go up and stay at the Mission Inn and my wife would go to this farmers market they have and it's great. Makes a lot of money and you get a lot more sales tax. It's like at the Walmart moving out of the mall and somebody said they're going to put homeless people there. I don't hear that. But when how about we're trying to get people to go back into the mall cuz they got too large where make company used to be and the Walmart was doing great business. Um I don't know how you guys go about doing that. We've get we've actually got a plan for that and we're working on it and I I'm very excited about the possibility of that, you know, because the they generated a lot of in taxes for you guys which would help. But there's things I see like when I talk to people about alcohol, they call it little Baghdad now. I mean I we I have a lot of Calaldian friends and we have a lot of Calaldian customers. So, it it was kind

of funny when I heard that, but city of Elone, when I was growing up, I don't know if you guys ever heard Pinky the cop. Well, when I was 12 years old, we jacked his motorcycle up on the on the telephone pole down the street. There was a a coffee shop where all the cops went and they had the police chief out and a bunch of bunch of all the squad cars probably at Del Co at the time. And we used McGrath's uh McGrath brothers and and myself and the law brothers and and other friends because this guy used to hassle us. He had to make his quota. And then when I was 15, we had a motor had a cop car that we took the chain around the bumper and then around the telephone. Same went around three times. They never got out of the car to see why they weren't moving. I mean, we had a lot of fun in Elcome. We had a police dance at the Elon The Alone High School. That's when you had the sock cops and stuff. Anything you know that Elon should be invested in and seen about doing more of to get the youth off the street. You know, it's amazing. I see I've seen Elon since I was 8 days old. I used to run away from home. My mom said when I was two, go to Wolver's, which is now the furniture place. And I used to get a free soda, and she followed me. She's across two streets, so I guess it was a couple blocks. And uh it was so funny. They asked her for the nickel for the drink, and my mother says, "Hey, you gave him the drink." And then she had my dad fix the lock. It was kind of funny. But Elone has changed a lot. And I don't know if it's for the better. The police force is great and they're doing their jobs. I have no problem. Of course, my son was

with the department for 13 and a half years and got several val uh medals of valor for his being there. Uh and he shows me pictures of you guys all the time. So cartrights have been in Elone. My dad came through Elone when he was 14 years of age. He ran away from home, went to from New Jersey to Michigan, got a car, drove a car from Michigan to La Mesa, and then went through Laame Mesa or came back and somehow he ended up back in Elon. But like I said, um I was told that they were going to be out there tomorrow to fix it. The problem was they didn't know how to do I'm I can't help. I'm a plumbing contractor and an electrical contractor and a solar energy, a roofer and a general and all all kinds of licenses and no and I tried to tell the guy you're doing it wrong and you wouldn't listen to me otherwise they wouldn't have that problem. They told me they oh they'd be out in a couple of weeks to do the cement and I started calling when the lady tripped and everything and I called Cox Cable. They admitted that they had their contract and I kept calling them every couple weeks. Now, I called you guys a bunch of times, too. Three times I was told they're permits weren't expiring yet. And then, uh, then your phone system is crazy. You maybe want to revamp it so somebody could get through to somebody. I was lucky the second time I got through to the city manager, I believe. and a lady and she was very nice and very receptive. I have to admit by the time I was on the phone for 40 30 or 40 minutes trying to get through I was sort

of hot on the caller but when I speak to the lady it's it's as I like speaking to ladies they're easier to talk to guys they're not my type I like girls can't help myself but anyhow like I said Elone needs to do more for the youth that that skating ring is is a waste of money. I mean, we're alcohol. We're a desert community and you were I was looking at your projection of a loss of money that you were going to lose that you're have to take out of your reserves. Um there's ways I mean you can go out after people to um become u donate uh to you for causes and stuff like we do. We do the um golf courses and stuff. My son upper son does up north and there's a lot of ways to make money. Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt you with time. Well, we're supposed to give three minutes. I think you got like 12, but that that that's okay. You're you're you've you're a longtime resident alcohol. I do know your son. And if if I can hang around if you want to finish, we we can we can finish. You and I can sit and talk. But I really appreciate you coming out today. Mr. Mr. Mayor, I'm happy to report that um Mr. Cartrite had a good conversation with uh Yasmin Audaniano and Dave Richards has informed me that we're going to be out there patching tomorrow. Uh this this was not a city project. This is one of those wired wired projects and so we've had a lot of problems with that organization. So anyway, we'll hold them accountable, but in the meantime, we'll get it patched up. Thanks for all you've done for the city. Yeah. Well, it's my city. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Okay, this brings us to a German, the regular joint meeting of the Elhone City Council, H Elcohone Housing Authority, a successor agency to the Elcohone

Redevelopment Agency held this 8th day of April, 2025 is adjourned till Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025 at 3:00 p.m. Thank you very much.