City Council - Regular Meeting

And we will call to order the regular meeting, for 03/10/2026. Will you please call the roll?

Council members Aquino. Here. Kozlowski.

Here.

Leary. Here. Rorbach. Here. And Rethel.

Here. And if you all please stand with me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you so much. Any agenda updates this evening?

Updates. Thank you.

And now's the time where we have business from the floor. This is the time where residents or anyone really can address the city council on items that are not on the agenda this evening. So if you have any of those, grab your blue card and get it filled out and head on down this way. Any cards turning this evening?

You have no request to speak this evening.

Alright. We have no business from the floor, and we will move on to scheduled presentations. Please call item number one.

Okay. Item number one is a resolution of commendation honoring the Folsom Telegraph on the occasion of its one hundred and seventieth anniversary and its distinction as Folsom's oldest business.

And I'll invite the, telegraph to come on up and join us. And I'll read out out your oh, is this on?

Just at the top, hit the little The little button. Yeah. Pull it forward.

There you go. There we go. Alright. Tonight, have a city of Folsom resolution of commendation honoring the Folsom Telegraph on the occasion of its hundred and seventieth anniversary and distinction as Folsom's oldest business. So whereas, The Folsom Telegraph stands as a pillar of local journalism, holding the prestigious distinction of being the oldest newspaper in Sacramento County and the fourth oldest weekly publication in the state of California.

And whereas for a hundred and seventy years, The Folsom Telegraph has served as the steadfast chronicler of our community's story, evolving alongside the city it calls home. And whereas the publication traces its storied roots back to March 1856, when it was founded as the granite journal by surge surgeon doctor l Bradley, beginning a legacy of service that has spanned nearly two centuries. And whereas the Folsom Telegraph has shown remarkable resilience through the decades, transitioning from a handset operation in a basement at Sutter And Wall Street to a modern multimedia organization. And whereas having once been known as the wandering press due to its many early locations and name changes, including the Folsom Dispatch, Mooney's Folsom, and the Folsom Semi Weekly Telegraph, it ultimately found its permanent identity as the definitive voice of Folsom. And whereas the Folsom Telegraph has masterfully navigated the roles or the rides of technological change, moving from manual typesetting and the Gauss Urbanite Offset Press to the digital frontier of the 1990s and the robust online presence it maintains today.

And whereas the Folsom Telegraph continues to uphold the highest standards of community journalism, providing residents with accurate news, features, and insights that bind our city together. Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Justin Raethel, mayor of the city of Folsom, on behalf of the Folsom City Council and our residents, do hereby commend and congratulate the Folsom Telegraph for its hundred and seventy years of dedicated service and its enduring legacy as the oldest business in Folsom. We thank the staff, past and present, for their commitment to telling Folsom's story. Congratulations. Tom, did you want to say a few words?

I wasn't prepared, but, no. I've I've been in this industry for, a little over thirty five years, and it's, definitely seen its changes. And, we appreciate being a part of Folsom and we hope to, you know, be here for another hundred and seventy years. So thank you for the invitation and and for the accommodation.

Thank you. Alright. That should take us to our consent calendar. Looking at my colleagues, any items to pull this evening? Alright. Any public comment on any of the consents calendar? Alright. I'll entertain a motion for the consent calendar.

I'll move to approve the consent calendar.

Second. Please call

the roll.

Council members Aquino. Yes. Kozlowski.

Yes.

Larry. Larry. Yes. And Rathal.

Yes. Alright. So that moves us to public hearing. Please call item number eight.

Yeah. Item number eight is, a public hearing for ordinance thirteen sixty one. This is actually on your counsel, on your agenda tonight to be continued. So we just need a motion to continue the public hearing to March 24.

I'll move to continue the public hearing to March 24. Second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Aquino Yes. Kozlowski Yes. Leary Yes. Rohrabaugh Yes. And Rathal.

Yes. And that takes us to old business. Please call item number nine.

Item number nine is resolution number one one five five nine. This is a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute amendment number two to the agreement with BrightView Landscape Services. This is for landscape maintenance within the landscaping and lighting districts and CFD or community facilities districts. And this would be extending the agreement for two years.

Good evening, Derek. Good evening.

Just give it one second. It will upload here.

Here I got you. I can

Presentation is fine.

There you go. Yep.

I feel like this thing might have gotten slower.

Yeah. It's aged

just like

all It's of getting tired.

There we go. Good evening, mayor, members of the council. I'm Derek Perez, municipal landscape services manager for the Parks and Recreation Department. I'll be presenting information on the BrightView agreement amendment number two tonight. Instead of having this item as a consent item tonight, we want to be transparent to present this as old business since the agreement had a previous amendment brought before council.

BrightView Landscape Services is a landscape contractor responsible for providing landscape maintenance in all the landscape and lighting districts and community facility districts in the city of Folsom. Folsom has 30 l and l districts that maintain assets that provide a benefit to the residents in the districts. These assets include landscaping, street lights, monument signage, artwork, mini parks, as well as other assets. Staff realized that some minor maintenance additions need to be adjusted to the maintenance contract for American River Canyon North, Number 2, American River Canyon North, Number 3, and Willow Springs. You'll see here on the map, we've highlighted the areas of American River Canyon here, and Willow Springs is down here in the South.

Folsom has 11 community facilities districts that maintain assets which provide a benefit to the residents in the districts. The majority of these maintenance CFDs are predominantly in the FPA area. These CFDs include maintenance for streetscapes, landscaping, streetlights, monument signage, as well as other assets. Specific amenities have been added to CFD 18 to be incorporated into the amendment and entire area of CFT 23 IA one, which you see here in this map. This is the complete CFT area right here.

It's highlighted. The agreement timeline here shows when the city publicly advertised the landscape maintenance contract, when the original agreement was awarded at the 06/14/2022 city council meeting, and when the amendment number one was approved at city council 09/26/2023. We are currently at amendment number two for the BrightView agreement tonight. I also want to note that this would be the last extension of this current agreement, and staff is planning to go out for an RFP in the 2027. Here, can see a list of the assets that were added to this Amendment Number two.

Some of the notable assets shown here are over 15 acres of streetscape in CFD18 and over six miles of bike trail. Now, these miles of bike trail have been added since 2023, so that's why you see this increase. The spreadsheet here shows a monthly base cost for all landscaping work performed by BrightView. An escalator of 3% on the monthly base is included with the remaining two year extension, as seen here. The escalator is only multiplied on the monthly base and not Amendment Number one and Amendment Number two.

This shows what the monthly increase for Amendment Number one was as well as the proposed Amendment Number two. And this chart also shows a newly new monthly total as well as the annual projected new total of With that, staff's recommendation is to approve resolution one one five five nine for the use of l and l and CFD funds for amendment number two and extend the agreement for an additional two years. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Questions? Questions? All right. No questions this evening. Any comment on this item?

You have no request to speak on this item.

Alright.

Mr. Mayor I'll, move approval of resolution number one one five five nine.

Second.

Please call the roll.

Okay. Council members Aquino. Yes. Kozlowski. Yes. Leary.

Yes.

Rohrabaugh. Yes. And Rathold.

Yes. Thanks for taking the time this evening. Thank you. Not putting that in the consent calendar so we all understand where it's coming from. You're welcome. Alright. That moves us to new business. Please call item number 10.

Yeah. Item number 10 is gonna be nomination of the City Of Folsom representatives to the citizens advisory committee for Folsom Prison. So I'm gonna hand down ballots right now. And just as a quick overview, California penal code mandates that there should be a citizens advisory committee in each city where there is a state prison, And Folsom participates on this committee in a couple of ways. The police chief serves as the police department's representative, and the council will also nominate two representatives for the warden's consideration, and then the warden actually makes the final appointments.

So we had, a vacancy for our two seats, and we advertised, and we received an impressive 23 applications to serve on this committee. And, Krista, can I ask a question? Some of

the applicants don't live in the city of Folsom. Is that not a requirement?

That's a great question, council member, and we had the same question when those came in. And we took a look at California penal code, and that section does not mandate residency requirements. We checked with the committee liaison at the prison, and he confirmed our interpretation, adding his commentary in alignment with our thinking that Folsom residents would probably be best positioned to serve Folsom's interests, but there is no technical requirement for residency. Got it. Okay.

Are any of the applicants here and would like to make a case for themselves?

I I don't know if there's any applicants in the room. We let them know they were not they were welcome to attend but not required to attend. So do we have any applicants in the room?

Yeah. If you'd like to address the commission and you're in the room, please, feel free to come on up.

This is a semi unusual bit of service, and I'm interested to just hear why you're interested.

Hello. My name is Becky Williams. I live in the city of Folsom, and I am one of your applicants. And I just wanted to thank you for considering my application. That was it. But if you have questions, I'm also happy to answer those.

Why would you like to serve in this way?

When I went to school, I was thinking about going into corrections at that time. Graduated from Cal State Long Beach with the criminal justice degree, but chose to go a different route. I worked as a deputy coroner for the county for a while. So I've been prison multiple times. I'm kind of familiar with their operations. I think it would be great. I think it's necessary for the citizens here to have some say so or to be at least be able to communicate with the citizens what is going on there and the work that they're doing, and to be able to influence that and be able to be that voice for the citizens.

Marvelous. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you.

All right, next up.

Hi, I'm Sarah Behrendt. And I, like Becky, am just privileged to be considered for this position. I'm nervous. Sorry.

Are you also a Folsom resident, just Yeah. Out of

I've actually lived in Folsom for fifteen years, and we've raised our four children here. And ironically, Folsom Prison is literally in our backyard. We just live right off of Natoma Street, so we get to enjoy the sunsets over Folsom Prison every night. And I worked for UC Davis Health in legal affairs, so I'm familiar with policy and dealing with leadership and so I just feel like it's kind of a nice next step now that our children are out of the house and to get more involved in community.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Thank you

so much. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. Do we have any other applicants in the room this evening? All right.

So the council members are completing a ballot that's identical to what you're seeing on the overhead projector here, and we'll read them out. The purpose of the ballot is not anonymity, but just so that they can be completed and then tallied. Okay. All right. So Council Member Kozlowski nominates Sarah Behrendt and Becky Williams.

I see a trend here.

So I'm sorry. Somebody forgot to put their name on it. Council member Rorba votes for Jean Schumann and Jim Silva. Mayor Rathel votes for Sarah Behrendt and Jim Silva. Councilmember Aquino votes for Furman Fierro and Jim Silva.

And council member Leary votes for Brian Moss and Jean Schuman. Okay. So it looks like Jim Silva is reappointed, but we do not have a con a majority for the second seat. So you would vote again unless anybody wants to just verbally change their Okay.

Just got a mic. So

we just vote for one?

Yes, please.

I don't know. I gotta

look back at these applications. Sorry. I'm crossing out the old ones. Okay.

Okay. So I just wanna make sure I'm reading these correctly. Okay. So it looks like council member Kozlowski maintained his vote for Sarah Behrendt. Is that correct?

Yes.

Okay.

Council member Leary voted for Jean Schuman again. Okay. Council vice mayor Rohrabaugh voted for Jean Schuman. Council member Aquino for Sarah Barron, and mayor Rathel or Sarah Barron.

Mhmm. Okay.

There's some creative lining up here. So okay. So it looks like we have a majority for Sarah Barron. Excuse me? We have four.

There were three, actually.

Yeah. Because she added two of the other votes. Was there three this last time?

You voted the second?

I did. I did. Mhmm.

Yeah. Councilwoman Burkino. Mhmm.

And then okay.

Councilor Kozlowski. Three. Yep. Great. Okay.

Yeah. Three new votes. So

It's a nail biter. Alright.

Congratulations, Sarah. Congratulations, Jim. If you're watching online, Jim, thank you both for stepping up to serve the community. And for those that were interested in serving and were not selected tonight, please remember we have landscape and lighting commissions that are in desperate need of folks. We're always open there. So if you'd like to get your foot in the door on a commission, please sign up to spend more time in landscape and lighting for the city of Folsom.

Could I just add, I've served on the Citizens Advisory Committee for the prisons for probably fifteen years representing the state senate. But those meetings are open to the public. So anybody can come who wants to. And if you wanna be put on the distribution list, you're welcome to reach out to me. My contact info is on the city website, and I'll make sure you're invited to future meetings.

Thanks so much. All right. That brings us to item number 11.

All right. Item 11 is resolution number 11,566. This is a resolution approving the 2050 water forum agreement authorizing the mayor to sign the agreement and authorizing the city manager to execute the interagency agreement.

Thank you, Christa. Mayor Rathal, members of the council, Marcus Yasutaki, utilities director. Looks like I'm having some technical difficulties. Again, maybe we need a I'm trying to reset different engineer, a better engineer up here to to get this to work.

I gotcha.

Alright. We'll we'll get Christa, a designated engineer. So good evening. This item is for a 2050 Waterform Agreement. I'm gonna just go through a quick overview. This is what I plan to cover. I hear there's a big game tonight, so I'll try to get everybody out so that they can go attend if they would like to. So just a little bit of history. Back in 1993, the city of Sacramento and the county of Sacramento established the water forum. In the mid-90s, the regional partners came together to identify what kind of our agreement was going to be to mitigate potential legal challenges that existed between different entities within the region.

And then in 2000, the Water Forum agreement was originally signed. There was 40 signatories, including the city of Folsom, and then therefore four caucuses a water caucus, an environmental caucus, a business caucus, and a public caucus. So at that time, there were two coequal objectives. One was to provide a reliable and safe water supply for the region out to 2030, and then to, second, preserve the fishery, wildlife, recreational, and aesthetic values along the Lower American River. Those remain in the 2050 agreement, by the way.

So, just some impacts of the water form agreement. They did advance a lot of critical infrastructure projects, one of the biggest ones being the Freeport Regional Water Authority project between East Bay Municipal Utility District and Sacramento County Water Agency. They have led a lot of significant work along the Lower American River, which is geographically defined from Nimbus Reservoir down to the confluence of the American River and the Sacramento River in doing a lot of gravel improvements for spawning habitat for native fish species there. They provided a foundational, you know, working group and kind of a platform for regional groundwater management and enhanced conjunctive use amongst the parties that signed the Waterform Agreement. Obviously fostered rapid and unified responses to drought, so this was really critical back in the 2012, 2013, 2014 time frame where they brought a lot of these agencies together to decide how water, in conjunction with the Bureau of Reclamation, would be managed along the Lower American River.

They are one of the leading scientific voices for fish and habitat species along the Lower American River. A lot of what reclamation does is turn to a lot of the work that the Water Forum does with their consultants on the fish species and the habitat. And then, you know, this last one is pretty critical, is creating a strong culture of regional trust and collaboration amongst those four caucuses, because it wasn't always that way. There was a lot of I want to say fighting, but a lot of difference of opinion of how the area should manage water resources. So these were the seven original elements of the Waterform Agreement.

I won't read them all aloud, but if you'd like to look at them, this is the seven in their in the staff report. And, you know, the update for the Waterform 2050 process began in 2020. And some of the main drivers were just the conditions are different today than they were in the mid nineties, whether it's regulatory, water use efficiency, or state law. So a lot of this was to capture those changes from the mid nineties to, you know, the early 2020s. Differing patterns of snowfall and precipitation have an impact.

Obviously, updated science and monitoring that is along the Lower American River, and then challenges at Folsom Reservoir and what we know now versus what was known in the mid-90s. So the new program areas are identified here. So you have flows and operations, corridor health, regional water supply sustainability, science monitoring and decision support, and then governance, funding, and administration. So this is all the foundation of the 2050 agreement. And the arc across the top is RCAP, and this is the American River Climate Adaptation Program.

So it's what are those four caucuses going to do together to figure out a way to best help our agencies plus reclamation adapt to a changing climate and the impacts that it could possibly have on Folsom Reservoir. So I briefly mentioned this, but you know it's trying to voluntarily link the agencies, the infrastructure, and our policies amongst all the different parties or the caucuses that we're a part of. Make water available where it's needed not always you know that's not always thought of of where do you need to place the water and at what temperatures and that's what the last bullet covers is you can have an abundance of water but if the temperature isn't correct that does have an impact on the habitat. So how do we best manage the cold water pool within Folsom Reservoir? Now, can't do that alone as agencies, which is why we have an MOU with the Bureau of Reclamation to work together to try to strike that balance.

So, moving forward, what are we trying to do with RCAP? One is to improve conjunctive use or enhance conjunctive use. So how do we bank groundwater within the region? Although the city doesn't have groundwater supplies of itself, part of our work is how do we take our surface water and physically put it in the ground with connections to our neighboring agencies. Adding more connections between water suppliers.

So can we get more agencies that have access to surface water and groundwater connected to each other? Can we change points of diversion? So the city of Sacramento, Placer County Water Agency, and some other water districts are looking at diverting water off of the Sacramento River near the airport as opposed to the American River. And typically diversions from the Sacramento River for like municipal and industrial uses have a lot less of an impact on the Sacramento River than it does the American River just because of the size and the capacity of the water system there. And then like I said just you know how can we improve or increase local water supplies and expanding conjunctive use and conservation efforts, and then engaging in external and with external partners to refine the operations over time.

So this is a list of the 2,050 participants. The the ones with the star biome, those are the original signatories from the 20 you know, the 2000 agreement. Won't read them all out loud. And then there is a brief video that was made, and some of the folks in this video are actually original signatories and were there in the the 2,000 agreement. So I'm gonna play it real quick. Think it's about three minutes. I apologize.

Community where a river runs through it.

It's really one of the greatest resources we have in this region. It's the crown jewel.

It's the biggest and most important recreational asset of the county of Sacramento. It gets about 8,000,000 visitor users per year.

There's over 2,200,000 water users just

in this local region.

All of them want water reliability and all of them

want a healthy ecosystem. Preserving habitat for salmon is really important. We're doing what we can to help keep a cycle going and support something that's been happening for millions of years, and hopefully it continues to happen in perpetuity.

The first water form agreement came about like under really contentious times between land developers and environmentalists. The whole thing was covered by sort of

a community consensus of we're in this together.

The original water form agreement was consequential to the continued health of the American River.

Now, twenty five years later, the warming planet is dominating so much. In order to make sure that the river stays healthy, it's important to update the water form agreement.

I think water form twenty fifty is going to help the river by building on the past, but looking toward the future.

It's important to update the agreement now because we've had significant changes since the original agreement in 2000. There's more people in the region, but we're also facing climate change and the effects that that's going to come.

The new agreement is primarily an extension of the old agreement, but we're going to get into some of the more technical things of how do we really make sure that we protect the river in a serious drought and how do we protect the fisheries and the other values of the river given that we're gonna have bigger storms and we're gonna have longer droughts.

The five program areas of the Water Forum twenty fifty agreement are the flows and operations, corridor health, water supply sustainability, science monitoring and decision support, and governance funding and administration. Another big part of the agreement is the American River Climate Adaptation Program.

RCAP is a combination of of water resource management, water efficiency. It's infrastructure that's being diversified in the right way so the timing of water supply ability is as optimum as you can get for the benefit of this ecosystem as well as the water supply needs of this region.

Groundbreaking. For the business community, this means certainty. You have to have a strong water system as the foundation for economic development and growth in a region. This will help to ensure that we have that stable supply of water while not sacrificing any for the environmental quality of the American River.

It speaks highly of the community itself that it has enough shared values that we can commit to working together to care for such a beautiful resource.

The importance of Water Forum twenty fifty really highlights what you can get done when you have people who care at the table.

And that was all I have. And I'll defer to council member Leary as she's been a part of the water form process for, many years as well if she would like to add anything. And our recommendation is to approve the resolution so that we can have the mayor sign the agreement when the time comes which is looking like May 11 and then routing the interagency agreement for the city manager to sign. Thank you.

Councilor Moriarty. Actually,

this was an amazing experience for me. I was on the water forum as a part of the environmental caucus for four years and also here at the Water Visioning Caucus that Marcus put together for Citi. And there are so many people that have expertise and interest in maintaining the quality of the river, the ability to have growth supported in the region. And I think Marcus went over this, but the four caucuses that were present were the water purveyors, the environmental caucus, the public caucus, and the business caucus, all with some kind of different but eventually unified vision of how this was all going to come together. And a lot of the meetings went long.

There were a lot of subcommittee meetings. There was a lot of disagreements, some changes in leadership along the way. But the group worked together. And I'm really happy to see all my friends up there from each and every caucus in this movie. So I'm really happy that Folsom's able to participate. Marcus did a great job of representing the city. And I'm just don't know if it's time to make a motion, but I would move we would move forward in signing this document.

We'll see if there's any questions. First for Marcus.

Thanks.

I had a deep dive into this whole topic at SACOG last week. So SACOG is also planning to sign on as an agency. Perfect. No questions.

Alright. Any public comment? Nope. Alright. We have a motion on the table. Do I have a second?

Second.

Alright. Please call the roll.

Council members Aquino? Yes. Kozlowski?

Yes.

Leary?

Yes.

Dorbaugh? Yes. And Rathoff?

Yes. Thank you. And May 11, in the evening, I believe?

I believe it's 5PM.

5PM. Yep. Everybody's invited.

Yes. We'll send out, a formal invite. We have the save the date, but we'll, yeah, definitely get that out to It's

be a boat in. We're going do it in the middle Lake

Metzoma. They're doing it at the B Street Theater somewhere on land. They missed a big opportunity.

Salmon will be served, though.

Yes. Everybody come on their paddleboard, and we sign it out in the middle.

We'll do that. Yeah. I'll I will ask that Sam would be on the next.

Alright. Item number 12. Okay. Item number 12 is a resolution directing the finance director to make a transfer of available general fund reserve from the general fund with money going to the IT fund and additional money is going to the facility rehab fund and the park and trail maintenance fund.

I'm gonna start ending the previous item with push the button for the next item.

Well, evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council members. Stacy Tomani, chief financial officer. This item before you tonight is our annual process to transfer any available reserves from the general fund at the end of the fiscal year into the city's capital renovation and replacement funds. The reserve policy states that to the extent the general fund reserve accumulates over 20% of general fund expenditures, then the available reserves shall be transferred to the capital renovation and replacement funds. This transfer is to be made after the completion of the annual audit, and that way we have the most recent figures so that we can make this calculation.

And we have just finished that audit for fiscal year 'twenty four-'twenty five, and the city's auditor will be out here at your next council meeting to give a report on that audit. So on this slide here, we have the audited unassigned fund balance on the top line, otherwise known as your reserve. And that for fiscal year 'twenty four-'twenty five ended the year at $25,300,000 Per your policy, we need to have 20% of general fund expenditures in the reserve. So that calculates out to the $24,600,000 you see there. So the difference between what we have in the unassigned fund balance and your required reserve policy gives us an available reserve of $718,000 With the approval of this item tonight, you'd be approving staff's recommendation for the $718,000 to be split among three categories $50,000 going to the IT equipment fund, 334,000 to the facility rehabilitation fund, and $334,000 to the Park and Trail Maintenance and Rehabilitation Fund.

And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

I'll kick us off. The difference between six so technically, our facilities fall under parks and rec typically. So just kind of a little more color on why the two different funds because they both seems like park and rec funds to me.

The facilities rehabilitation fund might be for City Hall. It could be for the police building. That's kind of the idea is that it'd be more for buildings that are maybe outside of Parks and Recreation and then creating the difference here and having the separate Parks and Trail Maintenance Fund.

Understood. Thank you. Other questions for Stacy this evening? All right everybody's getting off easy tonight. No questions. Any public comment on this item? No. All right thank you so much for your presentation this evening. I'll entertain a motion.

I'll move resolution number one one five six seven for approval as presented.

Second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Zakino Yes. Kozlovsky Yes. Leary Yes. Lorabaugh Yes. And Rathal.

Yes. Please call item number 13.

Okay. Item 13 is resolution number 11570. This is a resolution approving the Parks and Rec Commission's recommendation to name Neighborhood Park Number 1 Jack Rabbit Hill Park.

Alright. We finally got to the contentious item. I'm just kidding.

Alright. Good evening, mayor Rathal and city council members. My name is Kate Kananowen, and I'm a park planner too. And I'm here to present tonight on the naming of Neighborhood Park 1. So starting off, Neighborhood Park 1 is located in the Folsom Plan area.

That's the area south of Highway 50. So looking at this plan, you can see this is East Bidwell, Mangini Parkway coming across. This is Prospector Park for restaurants, and then Neighborhood Park 1 is at the corner of Empire Ranch Road and Mangini Parkway. A little bit of background about this project. In June, the Parks and Recreation Commission recommended Neighborhood Park 1 as the next park to be developed in the plan area.

And then in October, city council approved funding to initiate the design process and to include this project in the twenty twenty five, twenty six capital improvement plan. In January and February, we hosted two community meetings to start the community engagement and design process for this park site. Moving forward, we are refining the master plan. We'll be bringing that master plan first to the Parks and Recreation Commission and then to City Council for approval. Since we're working on the design of the project right now, this would be a really great time to if a name were to be adopted to incorporate any theming of that name into the overall design of the park.

Some background on our current naming policy. This is outlined in resolution 10,696. And this resolution goes over appropriate name categories for different types of parks and also the process for selecting a park or facility name. And so here you can see for neighborhood parks, if a individual or family donates to that specific park or facility, that name is eligible. That is not the case for Neighborhood Park 1.

This is being fully funded through impact fees. So the name options are gathered from these site specific names, which include geographical location, outstanding feature design or theme of the park, whether natural, geographical, or man made, native plants and wildlife, historical significance, such as an event, group, culture, or place. In August and September, we held a public call for names, and this was the opportunity for the community to interact with the process and provide, name ideas along with their rationale why they selected those name choices. So this was advertised on the city's website and on social media. And over that call for names, we received a 131 suggestions from the community.

After the call for names was closed, staff reviewed all of the names and divided them up into different categories. First, we went through and took out these 16 names that were ineligible. Most of those were because they didn't fit into the requirements as outlined in the resolution. The remaining names we separated into these categories, which are based on the site specific names as outlined in the resolution. Following our review, we met with the Parks and Recreation Commission Planning and Development Subcommittee twice.

In October, we reviewed the total list of names and also a short list that was created by staff to start considering different names. After that meeting, there are some adjustments made to that shortlist and we were also asked to do some, additional research on some of the names. So in November, we followed up and answered some of the commissioners' questions about the names and we gathered information by speaking with community members who had recommended names and other, community members who live in the area. So at that subcommittee meeting in November, the they agreed to forward the names Golden Vista Park, Jackrabbit, Hill Park, Hawk Ridge Park, and San Giovanni Park to the commission for a public vote to determine the park name. And this recommendation was consistent with a council member's request for public voting on the name.

This was brought to the Parks and Recreation Commission in December. And during that commission meeting, it was voted to on a motion to adopt the name Jackrabbit Hill Park to forward to the city council in line with the existing park and facility naming policy. They also included a note saying that if city council would like the naming policy to be, revisited to allow for public input or public voting, that that could be considered. And they also noted alternate choices for names as Golden Vista, Hawk Ridge, and San Giovanni. So again, the preferred name from the commission is Jackrabbit Hill Park.

A little bit about this name. This ties into the local native wildlife and a connection to nature. The hill relates to the topography of the site. Neighborhood Park 1 is quite a hilly site, which gives it some great character. Jackrabbits are native to the Folsom area, and they play an important part of their ecosystem.

And then we have this nice quote from a staff member who recommended a Jackrabbit name. I won't read through it. It's also in the staff report. And I wanted to point out that in our initial review of the 131 name suggestions, we received 10 of those that were either containing the word jackrabbit or were other Jack or other rabbit related names. So right from the top, it came across as a common theme that people were connecting with this park site.

And through our community engagement, we've received continued interest, from the community in this name. A little bit about the alternates. We have Golden Vista. Again, the vista tying into the lovely views that you can see from the park site and the golden relating to the color of the landscape and the grasses that you can see in the view. Hawk Ridge is another native wildlife name.

And then Sanjivini is a Sanskrit word meaning life giving or reviving. And this name, the theme of it will connect to health, wellness, a connection of nature. Since it is a Sanskrit word, it also has a connection to the local community that lives in and around the neighborhood Park 1 site. So the recommendation for tonight is resolution number 11570 a resolution approving the Parks and Recreation Commission's recommendation to name Neighborhood Park 1 Jackrabbit Hill Park and thanks for listening I can answer any questions you might have

So one of the ineligible names on the list was Aquino Family Park.

You did not submit that, I promise you. Is that true? Is the

door still open if she makes a large financial contribution? Cause I saw that was number one. I'm just kidding. Just kidding. It's ineligible. It's on the ineligible list. I just enjoyed that part of the staff report. Councilor Barracchino, any questions this evening?

Well, don't have questions for Kate. I have a question for my colleagues. Proceed. So I would like to know if you all would consider taking the top four names that the commission has narrowed it down to and putting that out to a public vote. I personally think it's just a really nice, easy way to involve the public and give them a little bit more say in this process. I don't believe it violates our policy. We are the ultimate decision makers when it comes to the name of the park. And I think if we want to add one more step, that's our prerogative. And so I just want to put that out there for consideration.

So I have a couple thing one thing to say about that is the public already did have public input. I mean, 130 names one name submitted is a really good input. I feel like kind of from what the staff report said and you just articulated that you want to get moving forward with the name. So I believe that that would just take more staff time. I think if you want to change the policy, let's do it on the next part. And then we can give more public notice. And I'm not sure how you want to do when you say put it out to the public, if you're speaking social media.

Yeah. I would just think a poll on social media. And we may not want to do this for every park. There may be a park that we want to name after a family or something. But so again, I don't personally think a revision to the policy is required. I'd like to

stick with the policy. And if we want to change the policy, then I think there's another park that we're going to be naming here soon, shortly as well, on South Of 50. And I think if we're going to make a change to a policy, let's do it then, or an adaptation to it. To me, it seems like there's a lot of public input on this. And I feel like that will just delay the process. It also could be a little bit divisive. That's where I stand on that one.

Councilmember Larry.

Yeah. I agree with, Vice Mayor Rorba. A lot of work goes into just doing this park planning, and there were a, a number of public meetings just in park design that were held within the community. There were hearings on the design and development part of the park at the Parks Commission. And I liked your pointing out that there were 10 rabbit names in there, which shows some consistency in what the neighborhood notices and appreciates about the park.

I take it that the workshops were also open to the public when the commissioners were looking at the list and narrowing it down. So there several opportunities for the public to have input. And I do like to let the public have input on these things, but I do worry about, you know, making this process a little more complex and adding more staff time and potentially putting some delay into the final decision making. So I've had previous experience on the Parks Commission, which I've told a number of people about several times. When I was on the Commission, we made a long list of names.

And that went the public had input, the commissioners had input. And then that sort of became the established name list until all of those names had been used up. And I understood I talked to Kelly Gonzalez this afternoon and asked if can't some of these or at least these three names be added to a list and considered for future consideration. It might maybe it would be easier early on in the process when you're going through these meetings to have people submit names at that time and then have a note you know, when you have the commission meeting, you know, ask people to come and support their particular preferred names if they have an interest in that. But I agree that there's been a lot of input already into this project.

Actually, the guidelines for naming were just reevaluated, I don't know, within the last four or five years, I believe. So I

would

like to move on with seeing the park name decided upon this evening.

Council Member Kozlowski, any comments or questions for staff?

Nothing to add. Thank you.

Alright. Do we have any public comment this evening?

You have no request to speak on this item.

I have one more thought, if you don't mind.

Sure.

There's a very real chance we could put these four or narrow it down to two forward, and it's going be evenly split online as well. So I'm not sure if we're going to get that much further forward.

Yeah. I'll I'll weigh in my thoughts as is, we have a lot of irons in the fire. We're working on a lot of things, and and I do think we have had significant public input on this. I I love getting more public input, but I I honestly think any four of those names is gonna be exciting to move forward. I don't I don't see necessarily that somebody's gonna look at those names in any one of them and go, oh, it's it doesn't fit.

Right? And I think all four of those could fit. And so I'd rather spend our time deciding what the next what the amenities are and and what those other things are. But I'm open to definitely reviewing the process again in the future. So I will entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve resolution 1157 nope. That's not the right one.

11570.

11570.

Second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Aquino. Yes. Kozlowski.

Yes.

Leery. Yes. Rohrabach. Yes. And rathal.

Yes. Alright that moves us to item number 14.

Okay your last item this evening is item number 14. This is a resolution number one one five seven four adopting the fiscal year twenty five twenty six mid year budget for the city.

Did Kate just start the presentation right there before she walked away? I was like, wow, we're really on it. Welcome back, Stacy.

Thank you. Good evening again, mayor and council members. Stacy Tomani, CFO. Tonight, I'm presenting the proposed midyear budget for fiscal year twenty four twenty five. Just to briefly review the timeline that we've gone through for this fiscal year, the preliminary fiscal year twenty five-twenty six budget was first presented during a budget workshop on 05/27/2025.

That was followed by a public hearing on June 10, and the city council adopted the budget on June 24. At that time, the general fund was projected to have a deficit of approximately $3,000,000 which required staff to begin implementing cost saving strategies. To address the projected deficit, the city implemented two phases of general fund cost saving measures. Phase one was adopted in September 2025 and focused primarily on staffing reductions and generated approximately $3,000,000 in savings for fiscal year 'twenty four-'twenty five for 'twenty five-'twenty six, excuse me. And then Phase II, adopted in October 2025, included service reorganizations and the use of alternative funding sources and generated approximately $1,200,000 in savings for this fiscal year, with additional ongoing savings in future years.

So this proposed midyear budget before you tonight reflects the cumulative effect of all the actions that have been taken since the adoption of the preliminary budget. You can see in this graphic here that the proposed midyear takes the twenty twenty five-'twenty six adopted budget. It adds the annual encumbrance carryforward. It adds your council approved budget adjustments that have been approved so far by resolution. It incorporates the savings generated through the cost savings measures implemented in both Phase I and II.

And then on top of all of that, it includes the increases due to the approved MOU agreements that the council approved. And all of these adjustments get you to your proposed midyear budget. So just a little more information on what each of these adjustments are made up of. The first is that encumbrance carryforward. It is a significant component of the midyear budget.

Encumbrances represent purchase orders that were approved during the prior fiscal year, but they weren't fully spent as of June 30. So we carry these budgets forward, and that allows the city to complete purchases and maintain those contractual commitments that were already authorized by the city council. That's included in this midyear update, and this is a process that happens every year. The proposed midyear budget also incorporates all the revenue adjustments and expenditure changes that have been approved by the city council during the fiscal year so far via resolution, and then, of course, has the expenditure reductions associated with phase one and phase two cost saving measures, and then the MOU adjustments as well. This slide summarizes the updated general fund revenues and expenditures based on the midyear adjustments.

So this comes right out of your budget book. It's page five and six. You'll see that to the far right side, there's an adjustment column, and that shows the total change from the originally adopted budget for each of the lines that are displayed here. So here's page six. And if we're looking at the bottom of this page, this is where the most important information is.

We had projected a $3,000,000 deficit when the original budget was adopted. You see that there at the bottom. We had a $25,300,000 projected fund balance at the end of fiscal year 'twenty four-'twenty five, and that is where we came in with the result of the audit. And so with the 'twenty five-'twenty six adopted budget, we were projecting that that unassigned fund balance would go down from $25,300,000 to $22,300,000 so a $3,000,000 reduction. With all of the changes that have been implemented now, the cost saving measures that were a big reduction, and although that was offset by the approved MOU increases, we're now projecting an increase to our unassigned fund balance by approximately $282,000 So it's going up to $25,600,000 up from the 25,300,000.0 that we ended the year with.

As we look ahead to next steps in the budget cycle, the fiscal year 'twenty six-'twenty seven proposed budget will be presented to the City Council on May 26. We'll hold a public hearing scheduled for June 9, and then June 23 will be the opportunity to adopt the fiscal year 'twenty six-'twenty seven operating and capital budget. So with that, staff does recommend that the City Council approve resolution number eleven thousand five and seventy four, adopting this midyear budget update. And that concludes my presentation I'm happy to answer any questions thank

you so much Stacy city manager

great thank you Stacy mayor members the council I just wanted to highlight a couple of things I appreciate the support that the council provided during the budget sessions that we had early in the year. And this is a big step. I want to commend our team for all the work that they did to help develop the reorganization plan, to look at the cost saving measures, and to help us get it to this point. I mean this is something that is really significant. As we went forward, we did our best to try to project the numbers.

We did our best to project expenditures related to the MOU changes and increases in salary and benefits for our different bargaining groups. And so for us to come here, we feel pretty confident, very confident that we will end the fiscal year on a positive note. I would like to highlight that although this is good news for the budget, I would compare us it's been highlighted our budget difficulties over the last few years. And if we were a household, I would say this. The good news is we can afford the mortgage.

That's great. The bad news is we don't have enough funds to maintain the house. So if we're going to continue to work and do all the things that we need to do to keep the services up and to pay the mortgage. And we're going to do our very best to utilize the funds that we do have to make improvements to the House as best we can. But we'll keep the council updated and the community updated on on how we're doing. And so that's something that we'll have to look look at going forward. But any anyway, I'm really impressed and pleased with our team for the work that they've done to get to this point. And that concludes my

Thank you, Brian. And thank you, Stacy, for your leadership on this. I know there was a lot of moving pieces here and a lot of hard work, that went into this and in getting, these numbers for us and working with the different departments. I really appreciate the work that went into it. Questions for staff this evening? Looking at this side. Council Member Larry? Yeah. Any other questions? Vice Mayor Aruba?

No, just have a comment. Thank you. I mean this is transparent, very easy to see and track the information. I think in our gender review, you had one adjustment in the 06/2002 or 06/00 it doesn't matter. You explained it. There was a minor adjustment Sure.

If you don't mind, I'll kind of talk about it. So one of the things that I think is helpful with this format as we go through, it's allowed us to look at the different funds and identify are there commingled funds. So in the what was it, the 602 account?

Correct.

We have some funds that are allocated that were transferred in from our utility funds.

Correct.

And so the balance shows an amount that is higher than what would be eligible for all the general fund expenses. So in the upcoming budget cycle, we're going to create a different account so we can separate all the utility funds and the general fund eligible funds. So that's coming. Thank you so much.

All right. And we do have a resolution here to adopt the fiscal year midyear budget. Any public comment?

No.

All right. We have no cards this evening. This might be the first council meeting in years that we've had with no cards.

To move resolution number one one five seven four.

Second.

Second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Aquino.

Yes.

Kozlowski.

Yes.

Leary.

Yes.

Rohrabaugh. Yes. And Rethal.

Yes.

And thank you for all your work on this, Stacy. It was much more clear than the first budget I looked at last year.

And now on to our city manager report.

Great. Thanks. Just a couple of items. First, I want just to remind the public that the city council had a workshop last Monday. Appreciate the council attendance.

I found it very beneficial to hear firsthand what some of the priorities are from the council members, and we will be having a follow-up meeting at some point in the future. Staff is in the process of compiling all of the priorities that have been established as well as the goals and priorities that the city executive management team has put together. And the goal is to assemble a work plan that we can then later present to the council so we can get input on what the overall work plan will be, and we'll get that ratified at a future date. But thank you for taking the time for that. I also wanted to share, it's been publicized about the the metal shop, the ice hockey rink, you know, choosing to go to Citrus Heights.

And, you know, that's that's really disappointing. I kinda feel like, in junior high when you like that girl and she doesn't reciprocate. And, that's it hurts. It hurts. But one of the things I'd like to highlight is and this is a quote in one of the publications from Joe Wagner, who is, I think, the CEO of the Metals Shop.

And he said, moving the project to Citrus Heights gives it the advantage of dropping into a developed flat area with its existing infrastructure. And so I think that's a critical point where we worked really hard to have this undeveloped site prepared for this. And we can understand why they would want to go there in their ability to get to the marketplace faster. So although we're extremely disappointed that the metal shop is not coming here, we wish them the best and we wish our regional partners Citrus Heights the best with that project going forward. Just a reminder, there's a community survey open for the Benaventa Family Park.

There are some questions about what elements the community would like to see in that park, and so we incur encourage folks to vote on that. It will remain open through March 11, so tomorrow at 5PM. Those who want to watch the Parks and Recreation Commission meeting, where there was a tremendous amount of public involvement in that, they can go to our website at fulsome.ca.us/parkscommission. And then you can click on the webcast to see what some of the commentary was there. We also have some library events coming up.

We have Learn About Caring for Chickens in Folsom. Pretty neat. They're going to have a presentation that will cover local regulations, basic care tips, and resources for residents interested in raising backyard chickens. The event will be held in the Library meeting Room at 2PM on Saturday, March 28. Friends of Folsom Library book sale will return on March featuring thousands of books and media at deeply discounted prices. And that concludes my report.

Thank you so much. Council member Kozlowski.

Just just two quick things. We at SACOG on Thursday last week, we had the land use and natural resources committee meeting and that is the sort of first place where we end up having a deep dive into RHNA when the new RHNA numbers come out later this year. So I'm just giving you a long head start on some really exciting presentations we're going to have as the next two years unfold. The state, full, regional determination is supposed to be delivered to, SACOG to then be distributed to all of our individual communities, on or before September 15. So mark your calendars.

They're going to ask us to build like, know, I don't know, a 100,000 affordable units and some portion of that will

be

given to us here in Folsom. Yeah. As has been always the case. So not to fear though Folsom has been extremely successful in putting things in place to meet the spirit of the arena objectives. And we've been more successful than most other communities in actually building affordable housing.

Credit to the staff and all of our predecessors on the council for setting up good internal controls regulations and objectives. And then as a just a general thing, was hoping to ask my colleagues and the mayor specifically for sometime later this year if we could consider having a workshop or a discussion about the sphere of influence and annexation process for our fair city. We are not right up against being complete with South Of 50, but it will be here before you know. And there is a general imbalance in Folsom between the space that we have available for residential development and the space we have available for I'm going to call it light industrial, but commercial type development where it's the shop for your local plumber or it's potentially larger types of commercial light industrial space. And I think there is some excellent opportunities on our perimeter to expand the boundaries of the city and rebalance that.

So that's just a request to my colleagues, and we can talk about that at a later date. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice Mayor Roba.

Yeah. I don't have too many updates, except I'll just briefly talk about our meeting that we had with SACRT and Folsom Cordova School District on Monday, morning. And, as many people aware that are watching this probably or will watch this later, the bus service is going to be cut in South Of 50 and a little bit in American River affecting a 190 students. We facilitated meeting with SACRT, which I am the, representative on. And they're willing to make some route adjustments.

However, doing a they would need a whole new route for South Of 50, and that was that would be over I think Henry kind of quoted loosely, over $150,000 which is more than the school district is saving by cutting their bus routes. So I think ultimately, I think if the residents are upset about what's happening, they need go to the Folsom Cordova School Board. And to me, this feels like a priority issue. And this happened a couple of years ago with cutting some butts for outs as well in 2024. So while we're listening here up on the council, the authority lies with the school district and their board on how they prioritize their budget.

So keep reaching out to us. I know a lot of people because it's a it affects your district, Sarah, quite a bit, have reached out to Sarah as well but, we're paying attention. I'm in conversations with our school board members and, you know, we'll stay on it but again make sure you make your voice heard to the decision makers that can make a difference on this.

Thank you, vice mayor. Councilmember O'Leary.

Oh, thank you. I wanted to thank, councilmember Aquino for putting together a great event last week. It was a lot of fun. We had a great turnout, people from Sacramento. I didn't get to ride the train down and back from Sacramento, but there was a great turnout.

There were a lot of educational sessions and people that managed to dress up in period costumes, including myself, got reused out of one I'd made years ago. So thank you for doing that. It turned out to be a great event. I did attend the League of California Cities conference up in Chico on Friday to learn more about the homeless shelter that they've developed up in Chico. And it's one of those tiny home settings which they were actually forced to develop after having lawsuit filed against the city for moving people out of campgrounds and not having anywhere to put them.

And it's actually a very well run unit. It's very expensive to run. They have about 100 tiny homes that accommodate two people in each home, but they mostly have only one person. They have services presented to them weekly. They've got AA and NA meetings.

They've also got shower and laundry units. And they have had a lot of support from the community for this, and it's very expensive for them to run. So I wanted to find out what's going on elsewhere since the county is looking at developing these kinds of things. And it's certainly not something that any city wants to take on by itself. And if it's some kind of collaborative effort that comes up in this region of the county, I think it would be helpful for us to be able to participate in that.

At the time that they were sued, they had eight eighty five homeless people in Chico, and that number has dropped significantly. And the other thing I wanted to mention, it's sort of along the homeless lines. I want to thank Officer Senna with the Folsom Police Department for coming out to Sheldon Park in Natoma Station on Sunday. I spent some time with him after getting a number of calls from residents, as well as the police department had a number of calls from residents because it's a very disruptive and threatening couple that has been roaming around to various areas. He made it clear to the community that they would be moving on to another site.

I also was able to speak with Jean Schuman with Jake's Journey Home, who has been trying to work with them. As

of

the last report I had from her on Sunday, there was a plan in place for a more permanent move for them early this week. And I hope that that all comes through. But I appreciate the help of Officer Zena on-site. Thank you.

Councilwoman Burakino.

I just want to take an opportunity to thank everybody who helped with the railroad history event last Wednesday. I think overall, of the comments were very positive. I have a long list of people to thank. I'm going to read very quickly. And I hope I don't miss anybody.

But from the city, our communications department, parks and rec, public works, Chief Solak, the city attorney's office. Thank you to Lindsay at the Folsom Public Library for doing the story time, Jocelyn and the docents from the zoo for bringing our two miniature donkeys. Thank you to Folsom History, Sutter Street Theater, the Folsom Telegraph, FHDA, Phedra, PSVRR, RT, Siemens, the Air District, Sierra Northern Railway, Tom Lewis, Kathy Cole, and Jerry Burneau. Thank you to the California State Library and Dawn Gordon for loneliness materials to have on display. Thank you to Brian Greenwalt, Sunny Mitchell on the Wildwood Roses, Snooks Candies, Willamette Wineworks, uncle Charlie's Firehouse and Brew, all of the volunteers who took a shift, and most importantly, my husband, John, who did anything and everything that I asked him to.

So thank you all.

I'll start with that. Thank you for organizing such a fun way for us to celebrate our history. I really did enjoy the train ride down to Sacramento. And while doing some decorations with Chief Solak there in the back, I started to help him put decorations. But I quickly we quickly learned that he was much better at putting the decorations together than I was. So quickly just got to be a politician and chat with people on the train on the way down while he finished up the decorations. I do wanna report out that we started our charter review commission last week. Thanks to Bill Romanelli who's serving as our chair and Tom A. Sittuna who's serving as our vice chair. The next meetings of the Charter Review Commission are going to be on March 19 and April 1.

Those are open to the public and we welcome public input at those times. And I also wanna give a big shout out to the organizers behind Folsom Tech Week. I got to spend a couple of the days last week at Folsom Tech Week, and it was great to see an amazing startup community there with med tech, AI tech, you know, start up tech, and, and GovTech. There are days happening. Great community of people that are creating wonderful things and just a very well organized event.

So already looking forward to to Folsom Tech Week next year. And, with that, I'm excited. This is the first I've heard of the, chicken presentation, so I gotta put that on my calendar. And I also wanted to give a little congratulations to officer McCullough, down there with some exciting news. Detective McCullough, congratulations.

And we are adjourned earlier than we have in a long time, 07:44. Thank you all for being here tonight.