City Council - Regular Meeting

session and move on and now with that we are going to move to the regular meeting uh for march 24th 2026 will you please call the roll okay council member zorba here akino here larry here rathel here and council member um koslowski is absent but expected to arrive later this evening

Thank you. And I wanna give a warm welcome to the St. Francis High School Civics and AP Government class that's here tonight. And now it's gonna be time for the Pledge of Allegiance and I'm gonna let Gianna kick off our Pledge of Allegiance this evening. If you all please stand for the pledge.

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, everyone. Any updates to the agenda this evening?

Yes, Mayor, we have an additional information transmittal on one of the new business items, I believe. Jennifer, can you help me on which item this is? Yes, item number 11. Thank you. On item number 11, the item has been transmitted to the council, and we have copies for the public on the back table.

Thank you so much. And that takes us to business from the floor. This is the time in the council's agenda where you can address the council on any unagendized items. So we allow you to speak for up to three minutes can really be on any item. So if you would like to speak with us tonight, there's blue cards in the back. Just fill one of those out and give it to the bailiff right over here. It looks like bailiff to. to Officer McAuliffe right over here. With that, we have one item, or one speaker this evening, Lily Nichols. Come on down. Hi, Lily.

Hi, thank you for this opportunity. I've been meaning to come here for, well, a couple years, but specifically the last year since the new light rail expansion. And I'll just say I've lived in Sacramento for 26 years, moved to Folsom in 2021, just five years ago, in March. And I was so happy to get away from Sacramento and the light rail. I used to live on Second Avenue, Freeport, by the light rail, and it was basically my front yard. And that bell just drove me crazy. And then I lived here for several years, and it was very peaceful. And then there was that expansion. And with the expansion, instead of one light rail every hour, there's double tracks, and it's every 15 minutes or something like that. So this bell is now back in my head. I just wanted to see what can be done to lower maybe the decibel of it so it's not so loud. It rings throughout the neighborhood. There's a mile marsh area to walk around. Whenever the bell goes off, wherever you are on that mile area, pretty much you can hear it because it's coming all the way down Folsom Boulevard. I've even gone, like, to the cemetery, you know, with my husband, bring a book and read, and I can hear the bells ringing there or on the river trail, like, taking a walk. And so it just is very intrusive, I feel. So I can mention one other thing, which is when I lived on 2nd Avenue, we had asked for... bill mitigation, and it wasn't apparently possible at the time because it was also shared tracks with Union Pacific, but I have gone back in recent years and seen that they did something because they did mitigate the sound of it. It's much lower, so I was hoping that something could happen here.

Vice Mayor Worbaugh is actually our representative on RT, so I'm going to let her introduce herself.

Yeah, and we're not supposed to go back and forth on business from the floor because it's not an agenda-sized item, but I am the SEC RT rep, so I took your name and your number, so I'd be happy to follow up with you. Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right, any other speakers from business from the floor? All right, we'll move on to scheduled presentations. Please call item number one.

Okay, under scheduled presentations, the only item is presentation regarding Assembly Bill 1572 and non-functional turf.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Rathel, members of the Council, Marcus Yasutake, Utilities Director. So I just have a quick presentation on Assembly Bill 1572 as it relates to what is called non-functional turf, and this is grass, so not artificial turf. So just a brief overview. What this does is prohibit the use of potable water to irrigate a non-functional turf on public, commercial, institutional, or industrial properties and HOA properties. It includes road medians, fenced areas, parking lots, streets, right-of-ways, and etc. There is an exemption for private single-family or multi-family residential properties, sports fields, picnic areas and cemeteries. Water suppliers or the agency, City of Folsom is required to communicate this. The implementation timeline is shown below and when different entities are required to implement this. So January 1st of 2027 are local government properties. Twenty-eight, commercial and industrial properties. Twenty-nine, common areas of HOAs. And then 2031, any local government areas in disadvantaged communities. And just to give you a quick note, functional turf and what it means is ground cover or surface located in a recreational use area or a community space. And a community space is an area designated by a property owner or a governmental agency to accommodate human foot traffic for civic, ceremonial, or other community events or social gatherings. So you have to kind of go through all that to identify areas within the city that kind of meet that definition or do not meet that definition to know what non-functional turf is. And there are some other slight exemptions if you have trees or perennial shrubs in areas of turf, they can be irrigated with potable water. So this is just a couple of examples. The one on the left, effectively a recreational civic community space, parks, ball fields, etc. The one on the right example, a non-functional turf. Effectively, you're not using that except when you need to mow it. So that is probably the easiest way to look at this in terms of functional versus not functional. Just a couple more pictures of functional turf, soccer field, cemetery, picnic slash park area. And these are non-functional. So these are kind of the median areas along sides of roads between, as you can see here, one's a sidewalk and the fence. And then you've got the sidewalk going into another area as well. So what does this apply to? As I mentioned, HOA common areas, public properties, then commercial, industrial, and institutional properties. These are just a list of what falls under each one of those categories. I won't read them all out loud, but shared outdoor spaces in common areas, libraries, public schools, universities, and public properties. You've got office buildings, restaurants, retail spaces, et cetera, in what's known as the CII sector. So where can turf irrigation continue? It can continue where recycled water is used, where it's used for recreational purposes, sports fields, golf courses, playgrounds, cemeteries, picnic grounds, pet exercise areas. So like any of the dog parks that are available to our community. And then when it's necessary to ensure the health of trees, as I mentioned before, and other perennial non-turf plantings. So what are the requirements of the city? One of the main requirements is to revise a regulation ordinance or policies governing water service to include the requirements of the assembly bill. And what that means is next month, so the first meeting in April, we will be coming back to city council with an ordinance update to include the definition of non-functional turf for AB 1572. We're also required to communicate these requirements with the various customer classes. And I have a slide at the end that just will outline kind of what our timeline is on doing that. And then obviously the stop irrigating non-functional turf with potable water on city or government owned properties beginning in January 27. What are requirements for some of the affected customers? This one is quite interesting. I'm not quite sure how the state's going to manage this one, given how many of these properties are probably across the state. But CII properties with over 5,000 square feet of irrigated turf will have to self-certify compliance to the State Water Resources Control Board every three years, starting in June 2021. 2030, so I'm not sure if the state's developing a database with properties that match this description, but those properties will be required to report to the state that they are in compliance with this bill. And then HOA properties in that same kind of 5,000 square foot marker will have to do the same self-certification and compliance that they have until June of 2031, and will have to do that every three years as well. So enforcement, the state or the bill doesn't say that agencies have to enforce. It just says agencies may enforce the provisions of the chapter. And enforcement can happen at a couple different levels. One is customer enforcement. If an agency decides to choose to enforce, it's up to $1,000 a day or another number as defined by the urban policy. Retail water supplier, in this case, it could be the city. And then supplier enforcement, so the State Water Resources Control Board, if they so chose or choose to, can come after each of the water supply agencies and decide that you may not be doing enough to help either educate or provide outreach to your customers that could be impacted by the bill. And that also is up to $1,000 per day. So some of the misconceptions, it doesn't technically ban the turf. It just says you can't irrigate that with potable water. You don't have to replace a non-functional turf by a certain date in, you know, 20, 27, 28, or 29. You just need to stop watering it with potable water, unless it, like I said earlier, meets some of those exemptions of providing tree health or perennial shrubs. You don't have to remove all non-functional turf and replace it with extensive and potentially expensive new landscaping. That is not true either. This law does apply to all government HOA and CII properties. There is no size threshold. So it's not just, okay, here comes a brand new large development. This applies everywhere. to you, it applies to everyone under those different headings. And again, it doesn't apply to private single family or multifamily residential properties. Apartment condo complexes are also exempt if they're not part of an HOA that has some non-functional turf within that location. But I mean, in reality, unless you have another source or you don't have trees or shrubs, it does make it challenging to have non-functional turf and find a water supply that is not potable or is recycled water. So city resources, what do we have and what do we have to offer? One is Water Fluence. This is a program or dashboard that the city has that customers in the non-residential sector, so commercial properties, institutional properties, HOAs can sign up for this. And it is a dashboard that identifies, and it looks similar to the screen below or the picture below that will identify water, on your property what is categorized as non-functional turf what is categorized as functional turf etc and shrubs and so what we're able to do with our customers is if they have access to this it doesn't cost those customers anything to sign up so they just have to sign up they gain access with the username and password it identifies their property and they can see all this effectively in real time and they can reach out to our team to come out to their site and walk it more closely because there might be some instances where this shows something as non-functional, but there are maybe turf, I mean, sorry, trees or perennial shrubs in that area. So you might be able to carve out certain areas within that. And again, we would meet with city staff or they can meet with city staff to be able to go over the specifics of their area. And then by the end of this week, we should have a website dedicated to the nonfunctional turf with resources, not only that the city offers, but resources that they can like reach out to the Regional Water Authority and they will be hosting different webinars. They can reach out and get some more tools or information from the California Water Efficiency Partnership or CalWEP that has information related to this. And this is the last slide, but just in terms of the city timeline. So we finalized all the non-functional turf documents with our communications team and our water conservation team to get this all ready to post at the end of this week to the city's website. Obviously tonight we're here. Sorry, it says March 27th. It should be the 24th. The 27th should be on the webpage launch. So I'll fix those two dates. We're going to begin outreach after this in March and April to the different customer classes and customer bases affected by this. And then in April, like I mentioned, we'll bring back the non-functional turf item for consideration to be placed in the municipal code. And then in May, different webinars and webinars. offered by the regional water authority so may august and october and then in may if our respective customers want the site visits our team will begin site visits and we'll just continue that throughout the rest of this year and effectively after october as we move into the future and that's is all for that thank you thank you marcus uh any questions councilman burkino

Thank you, Marcus. My biggest frustration with this is that we become the messenger for the state. I mean, I think if they're going to pass things like this, let them be the ones to let people know. Otherwise, we become the messenger and people think it's us making these regulations, right? So I guess my question is, what's the penalty to us if we don't do those things, if we don't notify customers?

I imagine the State Water Resources Control Board would probably just use the $1,000 per day penalty, just saying, look, here's what the regulation required. You weren't doing it. And you haven't done it since X date. Here's how many days you're at times 1,000.

And if I'm an HOA or something, I mean, and I've got a swath of grass that has nothing in it, can I just plant a tree? And then at that point, it's not non-functional turf anymore because I need to water the tree?

According to the definition, if you're keeping a tree alive or if an HOA designates that as a gathering or social area for certain events within the HOA. So they have a community picnic once or twice a year. They have some sort of celebration once or twice a year. The... which is also interesting because the language doesn't state it has to be once, twice, 10 times a year. It just says if it's part of a community gathering space that could be. So, I mean, technically, if you put a couple of park benches in there or a couple of picnic tables in there, it's now, I would say, in compliance with the definition, if you read it, it is black and white. without being a lawyer.

And just to confirm, the regulation says that we may enforce, but we don't, it's not shall enforce.

Correct. And that was one of the biggest things that Us and many other water agencies within the region through the Regional Water Authority and through ACWA and I believe CMUA. Initially, there was an oppose unless amended. And that was one of the biggest factors was we don't want you to have you the state saying do this. And then we have to go be the enforcement arm. Right and so it I'm also water conservation.

It's just frustrating when the state does this and then puts the onus on local government. Right? So, thank you.

And it's also unfunded.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure they're sending checks to cover our costs. They're in the mail council member Larry.

Yeah, I just wanted to bring up, it's actually something that when we're looking at the costs for the LLNLs, one of the highest costs in our districts are watering non-functional turf. So when we've looked at the future costs to the community as we move forward and One of the ways that we'll be able to save some water is to convert those non-turf areas into native plant spaces, and I'm not talking about massive areas, And there are a lot of strips where there is a tree, so they have to be irrigated. So in a way, it kind of reinforces the need to switch that turf out, and hopefully people will come up with some better options for the L&L districts when we're replanting them. to keep them attractive and still reduce our water costs, because that's been a huge part of the bill. People don't understand that when you say our lighting and landscaping district, they think, oh, you're just talking about the plants or the trees or sidewalks or whatever, and they don't think about the electricity that goes in to keep lights on and the water that goes in to keep them looking nice, so thanks.

Thank you. Vice Mayor? Council Member Kozlowski, any idea of the quantity of city owned, either through L&Ls or anything else, any idea of how much non-functional turf we're talking about?

I don't offhand, but I can work with our team to get that information.

And that was January 1st, 2027. So like six months, seven, sorry, eight months away. Correct. That we're going to turn the water off on all of that throughout the city.

I am not stating that we will.

Okay. That seems like we're going to have a lot of dead grass, right? Not in January, not February, not March. But come May, we're going to start getting calls, right? So we've probably got a little less than a year now. So it would be nice to know what that number was. L&Ls aren't flush with cash. And so I think that's interesting. something that we need to kind of start getting our hands around.

We have it from, like in that water-fluence tool, we can pull that out. I just unfortunately don't have it with me this evening. Okay. But we can get that within a couple of days. That'd be great. Thanks so much.

And I'll just, you know, echo Council Member Aquino's comments. I don't want to be the fine master for the state from an enforcement standpoint. So... I would definitely all in for communicating it. Hey, here's the new state law. So you should be aware in case the state comes and finds you. But we just want to make you aware of what the state has decided. And we could use state a few more words, times than that. State of California.

State of California. Any other questions for Marcus?

All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. That takes us to the consent calendar this evening. We have one request to speak on item number seven. Any other items to pull this evening?

I can move adoption of items two through six on the consent calendar. Second.

Please call the roll.

Councilmember Rohrbach? Yes. Aquino?

Yes.

Kozlowski?

Yes.

Leary? Yes. And Rathel?

Yes. And please call item number seven.

Okay, item number seven is resolution number 11583, a resolution of the city council authorizing the mayor to execute an amendment to the employment agreement for the city manager.

All right, and we have one public comment this evening. Bill Turner. Thanks for coming down, Bill.

Yeah, thank you. Bill Turner, resident of the city of Folsom. I was actually expecting some discussion from the city council on this item before I came up here and spoke, but I'll give my opinion anyway. For the last year or more, we've continuously been hearing from the city about the budget situation. And I was surprised to learn this morning that there's not only this item, but another item on the agenda tonight, increasing salaries. I'm not in a position to say anything about the performance of the city manager, who, by the way, I've met with on occasion and he's a great guy. But it seems to me that if we're in this budget crisis, now is not the appropriate time to be increasing salaries. Because I learned of this on such short notice, I haven't been able to do what I consider adequate research. However, I do believe that the city manager's compensation package is substantially higher. than the previous city manager. So I'm really confused about what this resolution is about. I'd like to hear from the council members. And apparently, I need to remind the council that we have a fire engine that's been closed in this city. And we should be looking to conserve every penny we can rather than spending more. Thank you.

Thank you. right i can talk uh briefly to this item uh i don't think we have a staff presentation prepared for it or anything correct all right uh so last at the last council meeting uh we had during closed session we reviewed uh the performance of the city manager And at that closed session, we reported out afterwards that we, the city manager had exceeded the expectations. We had also previously approved salary tables for the city manager. So we had a successful performance evaluation after 12 months on the job. At the start of his 12 months, I'll also say we went out in a wide-ranging search for city managers to replace our retired city manager. We went out and had a very competitive pool of candidates that we shortlisted, we interviewed, we took through the process, and we negotiated with city manager Whitemeyer in order to come to an agreement on salary so he would come up here and take the job because we We thought he was a great fit for the city. 12 months into the job, performance evaluation, successful performance evaluation, all of the council was pleased with the work that he'd done. And so with that, we recommended a step change, which would bring him actually to the top step in our city manager's salary table. Uh, so there would be cost of living increases, uh, going forward, but he is basically at the top step now for city managers. Uh, he came to us with quite a bit of experience from the outside from previous being previously city managers and 2 other municipalities. And so that was the rationale behind the decision, just to give it a little more. Obviously, there's lots of detail in the report also and other salary tables we've approved in the past. But that is the idea behind this increase in pay was based on the successful performance evaluation. Awesome. Thank you. Yep. Just wanted to give that in summary. So, Vice Mayor Roba.

Yeah, and I'll just speak to a couple of things. One of the... reasons I believe that you know he had such a successful evaluation and why while we why we believe that the compensation is viable is because during this last year has he's actually kind of right sided are our city. He's had to make incredibly tough decisions as the council has as well to put us in a situation where we were sustainable. And we are now. Our budget is balanced. We're not going into the general fund. Now, going forward, in order to do some of the projects that we would like to do and our community would like to do, it would look different. But right now, we are living in a balanced budget. And he's done that this last year by all his hard work. And I believe when we hired him on March 10th last year, his salary compensation was absolutely comparable to the previous city manager's. It isn't out of line. And then going through the recruitment process, which we were all a part of, it's absolutely not out of line with the community and the region and the quality that we have with our city manager today. So he's had to make really tough decisions and made everything very transparent to our public. And that's why you're hearing a lot more this year. You're kind of seeing a lot more pain points Because that's been one of the things we have been supportive of him bringing to public is making everything as transparent as possible to earn back the city trust that has been lost over several years. So I think for all the reasons that Justin said, that's why the council, the reason we didn't have a discussion is because we discussed contracts in closed session. We've already discussed it. And that's how we got here a little bit. So I think he has our full support.

I will offer during this last year, too, despite being in a budget crisis, we did negotiate MOUs with, I think, all of our bargaining units over the last year. None of those bargaining units did we free salaries because even though we're in a budget crisis, the most important thing is that we retain quality employees to execute on the work that gets done by the city each and every day. We might be living with less employees or the same amount of employees as the city grows. But so far. We've decided that we needed to stay competitive in the market because what we didn't want to do is take the other cities or counties second or third rate employees to save a few dollars. We don't think in the long run that saves us money as an organization to kind of reduce pay and not be competitive with the other cities that are around.

I have some questions. Sure. And this is actually on the agenda for the city, the whole city council's final approval. It's been my experience, and I've only been here a year, that the The mayor or the vice mayor or both generally make these agreements with the city managers and then you know, bring them back to the Council for a final approval and some of the questions that I would like to have answered is that. there are COLAs and there are step raises. And so in my reading of this document, it looks like a step raise was given. But is a COLA also automatically Or is that something that's already been included in this year's salary in addition to the step raise? Or are we just talking about a step raise? Because it's a significant difference in money if you're looking at adding both of those to the salary. And there's been a lot of concern about that. how we're spending money here, and what kinds of services have been cut, and as Mr. Turner brought up, there's concerns about them rounding out a fire engine, and some of the other services people are concerned about, so I think we need to be 100% transparent about what this is.

I'd be happy to answer that. So back in December, when MOUs were approved, we presented a compensation plan to the council. And I think this is one of the most transparent things that the city has done to put out there, here are all the salaries, here are all the steps, here's how it works. And part of it was from, and I've done this in other jurisdictions, where when we're negotiating agreements, We actually made the executive management team similarly situated as our other employees, where you have an established salary table and we follow those tables, much like for the fire union or the police union or for the others. When the compensation plan was developed back in December, it was built following the same model. All the MOUs that were approved were three-year agreements that had cost of living adjustments. And related to the executive management team, cost of living adjustments were also included in those. So you don't have compaction. So as other employees' salaries raise, there are sometimes cases where there's compaction where it gets complicated. in the field, it gets too close. We actually have had agreements where we've had to increase maybe mid-management salaries up because the field staff employees' raises were up. So I think we have been extremely transparent. Everything is on our website, and that was what was presented in the compensation plan along with all the MOUs back in December.

So just a yes or no question. Was a COLA included in this increase along with a step raise from your initial salary?

It's within it. That would be my understanding. It's within it.

So it's my understanding that the agreement that's being put forward today raises the city manager's salary from step five to step six following the salary range. So- The council-approved compensation plan for all employees includes, over the next two years, COLAs as well.

So those salary tables are already in effect. Go ahead.

So for this item, there is no COLA included. There was previously approved a COLA in response to the resolution that was passed by the council in December. But this particular item only includes the step increase.

So just to reiterate, the COLA was included in December's salary range? Correct, yes.

And I can read from the staff report if that would be helpful.

Okay, but that was higher than the initial salary that was proposed.

So the initial salary was agreed to and signed, I think, on March 10th of 2025, documented in the agreement. And then separately in December, the council approved the salary tables, which with that approval resulted in a COLA for, I believe, all of the executive management team members. The city manager, obviously, one of those individuals.

Okay, thank you.

I would just like to make a comment. I mean, I do think we need to acknowledge that it's a significant amount of money. He has a very, you know, it's a big salary. Unfortunately, that's the going rate, right? When you look at whether you're talking about our executive management team or any of our bargaining units. They're not the highest paid in the region. They're not the lowest paid in the region. But they're competitively paid, because we are a service delivery organization. 75% or more of our budget is salary and benefits. And this is what we have to pay to attract good employees. And so it's just not realistic for us to think that we can freeze salaries when other cities around us are not, because we would have an exodus of employees. Unfortunately, it's the way that it is. would add that I think the city manager has done an exceptional job this past year, and I think we got a really good hire. So I support him 100%.

I agree completely. I'd like to move the item for approval.

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second. Any further comments or questions? Please call the roll.

Okay, Council Member Zorba? Yes. Aquino? Yes. Kozlowski?

Yes.

Leary?

I would agree that the city manager has done a great job, but I'm going to abstain because I think the way that these steps were created and the cult list were installed was a little bit misleading, and I know that that is not intentional, so abstain.

Ann Rathel?

Yes. All right. Point of order. Point of order. Abstentions usually are for purposes of a conflict of interest. Can we just randomly abstain from voting on things?

So typically it's not encouraged unless there is a very specific reason. In this particular case, there's not a strong legal justification either way.

Thank you.

All right, that brings us to public hearing. Item number eight, please call item number eight.

Okay, item number eight under public hearing this evening is zoning code update, accessory dwelling unit ordinance hearing and determination that the project is exempt from CEQA. Ordinance number 1361, an ordinance of the City of Folsom for the repeal and reenactment of Chapter 17.105 of the Folsom Municipal Code pertaining to accessory dwelling units. This will be the introduction and first reading, continued from March 10, 2026.

All right, good evening. My name's Nathan. I'm with the Planning Division for the City of Folsom. And for tonight, we're bringing an ordinance. This is ordinance number 1361 for the repeal and reenactment of chapter 17.105 of the Folsom Municipal Code pertaining to accessory dwelling units. As a bit of a background, the city's existing ordinance was adopted back in 2020. And since its adoption, the state of California has enacted several new laws changing the state ADU requirements. As a result, parts of the city's ADU ordinance are now inconsistent with current state law. The government code states that if any part of a local jurisdictions ad ordinance is out of compliance, the California Department of Housing and Community Development, HCD, can can deem the city's ad ordinance null and void. and only the state ADU requirements can be enforced. Effectively, this means that the city would be unable to enforce its ADU design requirements, including in the historic district, which are intended to promote quality design that respects privacy and neighborhood compatibility. Thankfully, we have not reached that point yet. However, HCD did send a letter to the city back in December of last year requesting that we update our ADA ordinance. And the city has provided a timeline to adopt an updated ordinance by April of this year. These updates are before you again as ordinance number 1361. Generally, the intent of the draft ordinance is to accomplish four things. Number one, to maintain the city's existing ADU requirements to the extent permissible under state law. Number two, to align the state's ADU regulations with state ADU regulations where required. Number three, to standardize, clarify, and strengthen existing regulations to promote quality design. And this is really just to provide greater clarification where there is ambiguities in our existing code. And also number four is to reformat and consolidate AD requirements to improve readability and to reduce the number of sections that a homeowner would need to look through in order to understand the city's AD requirements. The next few slides will go over some of the at least key changes to this ordinance. Firstly, the state law does explicitly prohibit discretionary review or public hearing for ADU applications. And the city's ADU requirements must be objective to allow for a ministerial review at a staff level. Furthermore, the state law now also requires that the city determine whether an ADU application is complete within 15 days of submission and to either approve or deny an application within 60 days. If the city is unable to approve within 60 days, the application is automatically deemed approved by the state. State law has also expanded the number of ADUs that are allowed. For single family properties, jurisdictions must allow for at least four types of ADUs. One is a J-ADU, which is a conversion of up to 500 square foot of an existing residence. An ADU that is created entirely through the conversion of existing residence up to 50% of the existing residence. one newly constructed detached ADU not exceeding 800 square foot and also one additional attached or detached ADU that complies with the city's objective ADU standards of up to 1,000 square foot. This is obviously assuming that this number of ADUs can fit on the property and meet the city and the state regulations for that. For multifamily properties, existing multifamily developments now may construct up to eight detached ADUs, not exceeding the number of existing primary units on the property. And existing multifamily developments may also convert non-livable space within the existing multifamily structure into ADUs, not to exceed up to 25% of the number of existing primary units. Beyond the updates required by state law, the draft ordinance does also propose a few additional modifications. One such modification includes the option of allowing applicants to deviate from the objective ADU design standards through a standard discretionary staff level design review process. The option does allow for flexibility for applicants proposing a quality design that may not necessarily strictly conform to the city's ADU, to the city's objective ADU design standards. Projects requesting deviations would be evaluated against the standard design review findings. This does include neighborhood compatibility, as well as any applicable design guidelines for that site. To comply with the 60-day state mandated review timeline, the process would be at a staff level. The draft ordinance also does include minor modifications to the ADU design requirements as they apply to attached ADUs. Whereas the existing ordinance applies the same objective design standards for all ADUs, both attached and detached, and does not distinguish between the two, the draft ordinance provides a modified set of standards for attached ADUs, meaning ADUs that are attached to the main residence. And the standards are intended to encourage more compatibility with the design of the primary residence since it is attached to that. In addition, the draft ordinance modifies the standards for staircases serving second story ADUs by requiring them to be enclosed with siding materials that match the existing building. And again, the intent is to really to screen these access staircases, which are often located close to the property lines and create some privacy concerns. The ordinance also adds a new carriage house style to the list of permitted styles in the historic district and removes the contemporary style, which is not a style that currently exists in the district. Additionally, languages has been included to allow new styles to be added, to be approved, to be allowed in the historic district by a resolution, which would make the process a little bit easier to amend in the future. Both the Historic District Commission and the Planning Commission have had public meetings to discuss the draft ordinance, and both commissions have recommended approval of ordinance number 1361. After tonight's reading, there will be a second reading and voting on whether to adopt these changes on April 14th. And if adopted, the ordinance would go to effect on May 14th. But of course, these changes would need to be reviewed and approved by the California Department of Housing and Community Development to have legal effect. With that, staff does respectfully request that the City Council make the finding that the proposed ordinance is exempt from CEQA and also introduce and conduct the first reading of ordinance number 1361. And I'll be able to answer any questions. Thanks, Nathan. Council Member Kozlowski?

Yeah, can you back up on the screening slash enclosing stairs? That seems... I don't know. To me, that seems a little over the top. How did we arrive at that as a component of this?

So currently, at least how our current ordinance is worded, the staircase has to provide some screen from the bottom of the landing to the top. of the entrance, and there's been a lot of confusion with that standard. So this is really to say that it has to be enclosed. It's provided greater clarity for that since our existing standard was intended to maintain privacy, and it's just been difficult to enforce because of the way it was worded.

So hypothetically, you've got a house that has an outside deck with a set of stairs leading up to the deck, and then that becomes the entrance to an ADU. You're saying that now the deck and those stairs need to be enclosed? And isn't that like a pretty ungainly design exercise?

I believe you are correct that if it is used as the main entrance to a second story ADU, that at that point, that standard would kick in. Having said that, this would really only apply if it's an ADU that is constructing new additional space to that primary residence. So if it's a conversion of an upper story of a residence and they have an existing staircase, that design center wouldn't kick in.

Okay, I've got a very large attic space, and I add a dormer to make it better headroom inside, so I'm converting my upstairs that already exists as interior space, and I'm using as primary entrance the upstairs deck. So now is the deck need to be enclosed along with the stairway, or are we just having a stairway enclosed to get to a deck to get to a door? I'm just saying, if you take these things to their unusual consequences, this one seems problematic. And honestly, the screening of a set of stairs or enclosing a set of stairs, period, is itself an unusual design exercise that makes you do a lot of construction for very little actual gain visually. And there's open stairs everywhere in the world.

Yeah, I think what you're pointing out is one of the fundamental flaws of objective design standards. So we have to adopt objective design standards, and we have to use those universally. And the reason why we had the design standard that Nathan referenced, which was creating problems, was because when we first brought the ordinance forward to the commissions, the feedback that we were getting from the public, particularly in the historic district, was concerns regarding privacy. And particularly with those- Who's privacy?

The neighbor or the people using the stairway?

The neighbor. The concerns that the neighbors had.

So it's enclosed and it's got windows the whole way.

So, yeah, I mean, if you could, if I could just finish my, yeah. So they were concerned with people looking into yards, whether that was through the top of the stairs or through windows that were on the ADU itself. And because some of these, as allowed under state law, can be constructed quite close to property lines. And so this is where this all stemmed from. We agree that there are lots of homes and construction where they have stairs, a landing, and then you just go into the unit. That is not that unusual. We can certainly strike that provision from the ordinance if the council feels that that's overly burdensome or will lead to worse design than having kind of an open stare I think what we were just trying to be responsive to was the fact that we have a standard that isn't working very well, number one. And number two, doing something to address privacy for these second story ADUs. So again, we acknowledge it isn't perfect. And that's one of the problems with losing that discretion that we would have and to recognize, oh yeah, this is not a good design, we don't want you enclosing, like the scenarios that you played out. But when you have an objective design standard, you look at the project, does it have an outside stair? Is it enclosed? No, it isn't. It violates our objective design standards, so then we reject and deny the project.

Okay, I hate is a strong word, but I hate this provision as as an objective design standard because it presupposes that you can't have an open stair or semi open stair that can also have screening elements to it or design elements to it that can serve the purpose of. lightening the burden on the neighbor, okay? I get that, I get that. If it were paired with if that stair is in the setback, that makes perfect sense. But if it's fully within the setback, there are, you know, it seems excessive to condition an entire project on that particular provision to me. And literally there are thousands and thousands and thousands of open stairs and lots of them that are primary design features of structures.

Again, this was our attempt to address that privacy issue, but at the same time, this is not something that we view as essential as an objective design standard. So if the council wishes, we can either modify that or remove it.

Got it. So for whatever it's worth, I think that one's weird. Everything else I can go along with.

Thank you. Vice Mayor? Any questions? Council Member Leary.

Thanks for bringing that up, Council Member Kozlowski. It's a little confusing, though. Was this stair... wall supposed to be a solid insulated wall or could it be something that was less intrusive like lattice or something else to diminish the fear that someone was going to be looking into another yard and so some of these adus also have a top you know a patio outside of the main door that overlooks the yards so currently

Currently, the way it's worded, it does say that the siding, at least the enclosure, needs to have the same siding as the main residence. So if it's stucco or horizontal lap siding, that's what it would need to be constructed of. Having said that, at least to the point of having an upper story balcony for the ADU, both the current regulations as well as the proposed regulations do place restrictions on having an upper story balcony for ADUs. So it's not a feature that would be at least allowed under either a current or proposed ordinance for ADU standards.

So restrictions in that they can't have an outdoor upstairs patio?

So currently the restrictions state that if they have an upper story balcony, it's limited to 20 square foot and it's only on the front elevation. The draft ordinance preserves that. I think it makes some modifications saying that it's not limited just to the front, but the size, it would be limited in itself just to 20 square foot. So it's fairly small.

Okay, thank you.

Council Member Marconi.

I will defer to the architect on the council.

I just had one, and it's always my favorite, you know, ministerial review. So we've always had this, okay, well, the state defines ADU a little tighter than we define ADU, right? But if I'm understanding this correctly now, if somebody builds a 3,000 square foot, two-story ADU in the backyard, is that ministerial review?

So at least of that size, it just wouldn't be allowed. The city does cap it at 1,000 square foot. Okay. So we have that provision in place. That's an objective standard that we can enforce.

Okay. So if somebody wants to build a 1001 square foot ADU in their backyard, then now we take them through the normal design process. We call it a structure for living. That's not quite an ADU. We just call it some, do we call it something else or do we still call it an ADU and they just have to go through design review?

So to provide some clarification, so accessory dwelling unit, it's a separate independent dwelling unit on the property that is accessory to the primary dwelling unit. The reason we have ADUs as a term is because it does have that unique aspect of being exempt from certain density requirements. So if there's a same family property and it says we can only have one primary dwelling unit on the property, they can only construct with ADU. They can't construct a second primary dwelling unit. And if it's over 1,000 square foot, it's not an ADU. It's not meeting our standards. It would be a primary dwelling unit, and that just wouldn't be allowed. Not sure if that makes any sense.

I think practically speaking, we would give the property owner an option and say, well, our recommendation is if you want to remove one square foot, then it will go through. If you don't want to, then we can talk with planning about different options for entitlements based on the zoning and other criteria.

Yeah, what I don't want to do is shut, and I've seen this in other jurisdictions is why I bring it up, is like, well, we have this ministerial review process but if you don't build the state mandated tiny adu then there's no path that's clear that's forward so i want to make sure that our residents still have the opportunity to push things forward that's a two-story adu i know the historic district's still the 16-foot requirement is that still there so at least if we're talking about a detached adu um that in the historic district currently and in the proposed ordinance they can go up to 25 foot Up to 25 foot. So now we're going to allow ministerial review of two-story ADUs again in the historic district?

It'll be ministerial citywide. As long as they're meeting our standards, both in terms of height and size, it would be staff level, and that's just a requirement from the state law. Okay.

Yeah, and I guess I just need a little more clarity on that path forward, and we don't have to solve it tonight, but I think I just want to make sure we have a path forward for somebody to build an 1,100 or 1,200 square foot ADU, just because I think that does say, hey, I want to build a mother-in-law quarters. It might be rented to my mother-in-law, but then when she passes away, then I'm going to rent it out long-term to somebody and provide a housing unit to somebody. I want to make sure we have that path forward.

So as Nathan noted earlier in his presentation, we do have a pathway if they don't want to comply with our objective design standards. But that being said, we have capped the size limitation at 1,000 square feet. And I think part of that is in reaction to the fact that the state is now allowing for up to four ADUs on a single family property. And when you start, somebody may, in the scenario that you've explained, somebody may have one ADU that maybe they want to do that's 1,500 square feet. And given for the size of the property, that seems reasonable. But at the same time, that property may change hands. Somebody adds more properties, more ADUs onto that site. and you get something that's much more substantial than 180 you that's it's 1500 square feet. So I think we're we're trying to put caught you know given the change in state law we're trying to put kind of a reasonable fresh threshold on this is in terms of square footage given that there can be up to 4 of these on one property.

Okay, so that is a substantial change, because before we had a path forward for somebody to build over 1,000 square feet.

No, we did not.

Okay. We used to.

Yes, before 2020.

Before 2020, okay. And just as a point of clarification, in terms of the maximum sizes for ADUs, that's not changing between the existing standards and the proposed ordinance. So it's always been capped at 1,000 square foot maximum for an attached or detached ADU. Okay.

Mayor, if I could add, going back to Councillor Kozlowski's question about the staircases, looking at the ordinance on page 22, it says staircases necessary to access a second story accessory dwelling unit shall comply with the following requirements. location the staircase shall be located internal to the building or along the edge of the building setback has side and rear setbacks that comply with applicable building and fire codes and then the design the staircase shall be enclosed if located along the edge of a building the staircase exterior shell wall shall use the same colors and materials as used for the exterior of the building You know, so I just point that out to your point, if the council so desired and Nathan, if you can kind of talk a little bit about that, would it be simple striking that language?

Yes. If you're just talking about that design standard for it to be enclosed, we can either strike that entirely, or we can propose a different, an alternative wording for that.

Could you read that one just one more time, please? The design one? Yes. It says, design, the staircase shall be enclosed. If located along the edge of a building, the staircase exterior wall shall use the same colors and materials as used for the exterior of the building.

I think... If we struck the word enclosed and we said that the stairwell shall have screening elements that match the building, I'd be satisfied. So I'll make the motion that we do the finding that we're exempt from CEQA and approve the first reading of this ordinance with the modification to that one particular sentence to strike the word enclosed and make the screening requirement that it be of materials and color similar to the rest of the building.

And if I may, Council Member, I think if you're okay with it, I think we can accomplish that by just deleting the word enclosed and replacing it with the word screened, and then the second sentence would solve what you're talking about.

Yeah, and I think that leaves enough ability to make a determination in the planning department that it is, you know, doing its screening job effectively. Thank you.

If I could offer a clarification. So if this passes the second reading, we would bring that revised language so they would have the ability to see if that's what they want.

Yeah. Do you need two separate motions or anything here? Just.

think one is fine okay all right hold that motion for just a second we're going to go ahead and open the public hearing anyone to speak on this item come on somebody wants to talk about stairs with me is that lily raising her hand yep yeah come on up lily i definitely appreciate your perspective i don't

understand why the color has to be the same. I mean, there are lots of interesting buildings where they have complementary colors for design principle. So I think it shouldn't be limited. And I don't really understand. I mean, to me, it feels a little hypocritical to talk about screaming to speak to people's privacy concern when we have so much building where every house is, you know, like six feet from the other house and there's like no privacy. And that's how all of these developments are like being built. So... to talk about someone's privacy on their... I mean, of course I want people to have privacy and not have... But I feel like that ship has sailed. Like... Yeah, so I don't understand how that can be such a part of this discussion. Yeah, sorry.

Thank you. I don't disagree, just for the record. I'm just trying to find a reasonable accommodation that respects the advice that we got from our planning commission and historic district commission, which they did have concerns about hitting the screening quality. And to the extent that I can make the motion again after we do public comment, I think coordinated design is probably the better way to call out any screening elements, because your point is well taken that color is not necessarily, shouldn't always be one thing.

Yeah, and I really do. I don't know if I came across as hostile to your position, but I thought that that was a very illuminating point, and I'm glad that that was proposed to take away that it has to be enclosed. Because there are thousands of outdoor staircases, and they can be aesthetically pleasing to have variety, you know, to see a nice staircase.

I grew up in Chicago, and there are lots of staircases that have been enclosed over the years for weather purposes, and most of them look terrible. Thank you.

And Council Member Kozlowski, before the next speaker comes, Desmond reminded me that unfortunately we're in an era now where the only standards we're allowed to have have to be objective. And so I think coordinated design would be found by the state to be subjective. And so if you want to think on another way to reword it, that would be objective.

Yeah. And we can also bring something back. Okay.

I think screened is what I was going for rather than enclosed. So if we can find a way to meet that idea, I'll be satisfied.

Does compatible work for you?

Subjective. That part of it, again, is subjective. Subjective. Yeah.

Subjective.

Yeah. Screened rather than enclosed.

I see the staff all shaking their heads.

Yeah.

I'll welcome the next, do we have another public speaker? Yeah, did you fill out a blue card?

I did not have a pen, I was trying to get mine.

I'll say my name on the record.

Sounds good. My name is Miranda Pond, and I'm a resident here in the city of Folsom. I did just want to speak to the comment that one of the staffers made about second story ADUs and staircases going behind units. That actually is happening at 505 and a half Coloma Street. When I first relocated here, I was in an ADU that had just gone through approval with the city. And so, one, I want to say that that is happening, and I'm one of those historic properties resident in the historic ADU in the historic district. And my it was what's actually happening there is that the primary district. residents. They built a fence line to make it appear like there was two properties and created an ADU and then after a year or two went through plan check and everything to end up being a commercial, zoned as a commercial garage or a commercial garage and office. And so And the planning, the housing department knows about that, or the code enforcement knows about that. So it is happening. And as for the enclosed staircase, as a woman going up the stairs when my neighbor's backyard, where they're gardening and are actively hanging out and having guests going up there. It provides me privacy when I'm wearing dresses. So there's a lot of privacy issues with those very close fence line accessory dwelling units, but I did want to bring that to the attention of, and I'll prepare more thoughts for the second reading on that issue. Thank you.

Thanks so much. Feel free to send those thoughts in between now and the second reading too, so we can review them and have staff look at them. I saw one more hand raised briefly, but.

Come on, St. Francis students, let's go. Yeah. Jump in. There will be an email to the, is it the civics teacher?

Yeah. No one came up and spoke during the public hearing. All right, we're going to go ahead and close the public hearing, and we'll just act like you didn't make a motion the first time.

Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to move approval of the item with a modification of the language of the staircase requirement to say screened rather than enclosed.

Second.

All in favor?

I think you've got to do a roll call vote.

Oh, yeah. Will you please call the roll? Okay.

Council Member Zorba? Yes. Aquino? Yes. Kozlowski?

Yes.

Leary? Yes. And Rathel?

Yes. Thank you, Council Member Aquino, for keeping me on task tonight. All right. That takes us to new business. Please call item number nine.

Okay, item number nine under new business. This is to receive a presentation from the city's independent auditor and receive and file the city of Folsom's annual comprehensive financial report for the year ended June 30th, 2025. Justice.

It wasn't you, Stacey.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Stacey Tamani, Chief Financial Officer. I'm just here to introduce this item. It's on your 2425 Annual Financial Report and Audit. The Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, otherwise known as the ACFER, has been delivered to you tonight. in hard copy, and it's also available in tonight's council packet and on the website if anyone would like to take a look. And I'm happy to introduce Mitesh. He is a partner with Bedouin Associates. They're certified public accountants, and they are the city's auditors. And so he'll be delivering a presentation to you tonight on the fiscal year 24-25 audit. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mitesh. Thank you.

Thank you, Stacey. Mayor, members, council, I'm used to that. It's completely normal, for me at least. But I have a short presentation here on the audit, and I'm happy that the council wants to hear from me and can go through the process of the audit results and the audit process. I have a few items to go through. I'll just give a brief introduction about our firm and the engagement team, the deliverables and scope of the audit, our audit methodology, areas of primary audit risk, our auditor's report and what that means, required communications we need to make to the governing body. And then also briefly touch on the new upcoming accounting standards that will be implemented this upcoming year and the following year. Just a little bit about us. So we have 25 years in municipal auditing experience. We have about 65 government audit clients. Majority of them are cities, which are 44, about 30 employees. And touch wood, we don't have any current lawsuits or legal or disciplinary actions against the firm, which we like to keep it that way. As far as the engagement team, I was the engagement partner. This is my first year as the partner. We rotate per state guidelines, which requires rotation every six years. Ahmed Badawi was the engagement quality control reviewer. We did utilize our IT specialist this year who looks at IT and internal controls over IT. who's Omar Rahman, he's a CPA and also a certified information systems auditor, our manager Wenwei Zhao, and then we have three audit staff, Joyce, Ahmed, and Ziad, who are helping with the audit this year. As far as deliverables and the scope of the audit, so we've issued our report on the city's annual financial comprehensive report, We have the single audit report, which is the audit of the federal awards. We have another separate audit on the Folsom Public Financing Authority. We have another audit report on the Folsom Ranch Financing Authority. Also, we have a separate audit report on the successor agency. We do an agreed upon procedures engagement on the GAN limit. And then we also have a separate letter, essentially the required communication section of my presentation, but just in the form of a letter with some other more granular communications. As far as the audit methodology, our audit is done in four phases. We have a planning phase where we gather information, discuss timing with management, also re-accustom ourselves with the audit. We do a interim phase over the summer where we will discuss with client management staff, internal controls, accounting processes, any changes, review the council meeting minutes, and assess our risk. Our year-end phase done later in the year is essentially to validate the numbers, so we obtain the numbers from management, test those numbers, obtain confirmations, do analytical procedures, review estimates, and lastly, we prepare our auditor reports. So as part of the risk assessment process, and just to let you know not to get alarmed by what the risks are here, these are standard risks that we really address. So these are the main risks that we identified in our audit. And this is a default risk that we have to essentially identify and address is the risk of management override of internal controls. This is the risk that management may not follow their own internal policies. So we assign staff based on certain consideration of audit risk. We look at manual adjustments made up to the accounting records through journal entries. We look at the accounting records for any unusual business transactions. We also do a lot of inquiries about fraud to city staff. The second risk here, again, this is a standard risk that we have to address, is the risk of improper revenue recognition. Revenue are a significant line item in the financial statements, so the audit standards require us to essentially do more work on that area. So we do a lot of confirmations, analytical procedures, and also testing in this area. And lastly, our estimates are considered to be a significant risk. So we do a lot of testing of your fair values. We do also look at your useful lives over capital assets. And then also your pension plan has a lot of actuarial assumptions in those numbers. And then also your other post-employment benefits, which is the city's retiree health care plan, that also has a lot of actuarial assumptions that go into those numbers. As far as auditors report, so just to mention, we don't necessarily do the audit based on our own judgments and make up the rules. We essentially follow guidelines set by the AICPA, which are referred to as GAS, or Generally Accepted Auditing Standards. And then because this audit is subject to governmental auditing standards, referred to as the yellow book. We also need to comply with those standards which are supplemental to those set by the AICPA. An example would be to have more continuing education on governmental accounting requirements. And then lastly, the uniform guidance. The uniform guidance is the rules that essentially dictate to us how to conduct an audit of the federal awards. So we follow, we conduct the audit in accordance with that. So you'll see for all the reports, for the main financial statements and also the individual small reports, we've issued unmodified opinions. Unmodified opinions are referred to as a clean opinion. What that means is that the financial statements are presented fairly in all material respects. Material is a key word in that statement. It's not a very popular word for some council members when I present. Essentially, it doesn't necessarily mean that your financial statements are completely error-free. It just means that there shouldn't be anything that would cause the reader of the financial statements to make a different decision when they're reviewing those financial statements. So when we do the audit, We essentially would look at material items and also do an audit in accordance with a sampling. So that provides reasonable assurance that the numbers are fairly stated in all material respects. We also look at the accounting policies. We look at estimates. And then also, each financial report has a very lengthy number of disclosures. So we also test those disclosures and verify that they're accurate and complete. Just moving on to the required communications. So I'll just load these all up because I'll just try to cover them together. But this is usually a very important slide, especially when we are the ones assisting management in preparing the financial statements because the final document comes from our office, and it's often misconstrued that the entire document is the auditor's document. So usually when... During my presentation, I'll get inquiries from the board members or council saying, well, in your audit report, your state revenues are this or your state receivables are this. And I have to clarify that those are not my numbers. Those numbers are the city's numbers or management numbers. Really, the only report that is in that document is the auditor's report. which really says whether those numbers are fairly stated or not. So with that, our auditor's responsibilities are to really provide that opinion, evaluate internal controls, evaluate compliance, making sure the financial statements are clear and transparent. Management essentially have responsibility for the financial statements, establishing internal controls, providing us with information for the audit, establishing internal controls relating to fraud, and then also letting us know if there was any fraud, and also to comply with laws and regulations. When we do have audit findings, it's management's responsibility to correct those audit findings, not the auditor's. Our responsibility is also to maintain independence. Independence is a crucial part of our responsibilities. Otherwise, you really have a lot of no meaning to our opinion. So we follow rules set by the AICPA and the state board. We are allowed to assist in preparing the financial statements with safeguards. Otherwise, we're not really doing any other services that would impair our independence. As far as timing of the audit, it wasn't really in accordance with what we originally agreed on with the city. And that's just usually due to some challenges that the city is undergoing and working on. I believe it was issued or completed earlier than the previous years. As far as the significant accounting policies and unusual transactions, we didn't have any unusual transactions, but there were some new accounting policies or accounting standards that were implemented this year. The most significant was GASB statement number 101. GASB stands for the Government Accounting Standards Board. They set the rules as to how the numbers need to be prepared. So with compensated absences is a liability for your vacation and sick leave or other related leaves so that changed in 2025 Essentially you may notice those those numbers may have gone up because some changes impacted how sick leave a liability should be calculated In terms of difficulties encountered in performing the audit, we didn't have any difficulties such as disagreements with management or challenges in obtaining information. Naturally, we did have audit adjustments. All of those audit adjustments that we proposed were recorded by management. As far as deficiencies in internal control, the standards essentially require us to communicate two levels of deficiencies. The most severe is the material weakness. So we didn't identify any items that we would consider to be material weaknesses. We did have two items that were less severe that are material weakness, which are referred to as significant deficiencies. And the city is working on both of these. And the first is just the year-end closing procedure and audit preparedness, just in terms of closing the accounting books and making sure they're completed timely. This was much better from speaking with the audit manager compared to last year. There was a lot of effort and improvement this year. And the second finding was also just the completeness of accrued liabilities, which the city is working on. As far as the new accounting standards, these are the ones that are upcoming as far as 2026. The financial statements will look a bit different when they're presented next year. Essentially, there will be some changes to how the enterprise funds income statement will look like. And then also your budget to actual schedules will look slightly differently. With GASB statement number 104, the disclosures for capital assets will look slightly changed. And then in 2027, there's a new standard that updates the accounting of subsequent events. So when something happens after the end of the year, but may impact or may be important to the reader. There are some certain requirements for disclosure, and so that is something that will be implemented in 2027. With that, Thank you again for allowing us to provide auditing services to the city, and I'll be happy to answer any questions if I'm able to. Otherwise, I may refer back to Stacy, or I may need to come back to the city in a future date or respond by communicating with management.

Thank you, Mitesh. Questions?

Council Member Aquino?

Council Member Leary? Vice Mayor? Council Member Kozlowski? All right. I did have one question. You mentioned OPEB and that kind of actuarial assumptions that go in there. Do you guys actually look at those assumptions, or are you just checking – How do you go about kind of dealing with those actuarial assumptions?

Right. I mean, probably the most significant assumption is the discount rate. And the rules permit certain requirements when you're deciding to use a discount rate equal to your trust's investment returns. So we do kind of eyeball how well is the trust doing or how well is the plan funded and if it's permitted or reasonable for continuing to use the investment rate of return of the plan as a discount rate. sometimes maybe initially you had intention to fund the actually required contribution every year. So the actuary had made that assumption. And then when we look at what you actually been doing recently, and you maybe because of budgetary reasons, you haven't been doing that full contribution each year. we would kind of go back to the scene and say, well, it doesn't look like this is the case anymore. So those would be two situations where we would kind of question. Otherwise, if these assumptions look consistent with what other agencies are doing, then usually we would accept that.

Okay. Thank you. All right. I think that's all your questions tonight. Thank you for being here.

All right. Thank you.

Anything else to add tonight, Stacey? All right. Please call item number 10.

OK item number 10 under new business is consideration of partnership with change dot org for community survey and civic dialogue.

Great thank you mayor members of the council. This item is to talk about the opportunity that we have to partner with change dot org to conduct a community serving suit and civic dialogue process to gather resident input on key city issues. So we had the opportunity, I think Mayor Rathole was contacted initially about this and asked if I had any thoughts about it. And I wasn't really familiar with what it was. And so I had the opportunity to meet with change.org representatives to see exactly what they do. I think we've all heard of change.org. I think it's a platform where pretty much anyone can put a question out there and get input. And that's not really a scientific-based survey. It's just... a platform for people to voice their opinion. And so when I met with them, I was kind of curious, like, how are we going to use social media and community forums to have a dialogue with the residents of Folsom, right? You know, some of the things that we've had is in some venues you have an outreach meeting and you get those who really are passionate about something. And so you get kind of a more extreme views where those that may represent A more typical view of the community are extremely busy with their normal lives that they don't have time to come to a meeting. They're dealing with kids and other things. So this process basically, as it's described, it's two phases. So the first stage is civic input. And so they have like an eight week period where they invite individuals to share their ideas. So they invite local residents to post their ideas for how to address the biggest challenges they see in the city and vote on those ideas and the ideas of others. Then they use bridging algorithms to group residents according to their opinions and identify the ideas that resonate across all not just those with the most votes. And then stage two is a civic dialogue process where they recruit 50 to 100 residents reflective of city demographics to attend a live deliberation on issues that resonate most with all residents. The group includes a balance of residents across age, race, gender, and political ideology, They facilitate a one to three hour video discussion involving small group discussions with diverse groups of six to eight residents. And then at the end, they share policy recommendations that have bipartisan supermajority support. So that was kind of intriguing to me that in our desire to get a feel for what the community wants, this is one that they're offering to us at no direct cost to the city. If we choose to help publicize this, we'll use some time from our communications staff to help with press releases and social media posts encouraging folks to respond. So in essence, And we'd like to have a conversation with the council to see if we'd like to move forward with this. It seems something that as we've had conversations and goal setting workshops and others, getting the word out to the community and see what they want to help us formulate more goals and priorities, what may be helpful. So with that, I'll conclude my report and turn it over to you.

Thank you. I originally met with change.org after they had reached out to me and talked to them about the other cities. They've done this, I think, in six other cities now. And so they reached out to Folsom. They are trying to get a wide variety of cities to run this kind of program in and see if it works. in large cities and diverse cities and suburban cities and cities on the west coast cities on the east coast and and so that was kind of one of the reasons they shared of selecting Folsom they've run it and I think Kansas City deer barrow and Bozeman, Montana and That's been then their experiences so far. So I think we'd be city number seven And then I really just kind of wanted to share a little bit of history I was familiar with change org from as a petition platform and So somebody goes out there and says, I would like there to be a, we'll just throw out something. We'd like the zoo to be twice as large, right? As it is right now, we'd like to expand the zoo. And then they email their friends or text their friends and send them the petition. And then people start signing up and people hop on and they vote and they say, okay. And then they start sharing it with the elected officials, right? And then change.org, that would be the end of their involvement with it. But what they started realizing in their organization is once this petition went through, the elected officials would ignore it. And change.org was like, well, we created this petition. We signed it up. There was like hundreds of thousands of people that said this was a good idea. Why would the elected officials just go, meh, bad idea. Let's move on. And what they did did was I started reaching out to elected officials and saying, how can we make a better product that actually improves democracy and that gets people excited about ideas, but they're good ideas and that the elected officials also, when they're brought to them, are good ideas. And the elected officials said, well, one, we don't know those are our constituents, right? We're getting votes from outside of the area. It's an online platform. It could be people across the world that are voting on this platform to say we want this expansion of the zoo. And so the elected officials didn't believe that it was their residents that were responding to it. And then the other thing they said is that people were making this vote without the information that they needed to actually have, you know, a good you know a good ability to decide whether this was a good idea or not they were just kind of reading the headline and going yep sounds like a good idea let's go and so i think that's the idea really of this is you get all these ideas and then people get into a room and they discuss them and they get some data and they get some education around them and then they discuss them you know as a small group and say do we still think it's a good idea whether they do think at the end of the day it's a good idea. If they do, they make a recommendation to council. If they don't, maybe they go some other way or they go some other direction or they learn something through the process and they go, okay, maybe we'll pivot to this idea or this. So that's what really excited me about the process is trying to listen to what our residents really want, trying to get them to engage in some dialogue around what would be good ideas and why. And hearing from voices that are across our community that aren't necessarily the voices that we talk to each and every day. So it's not just, you know, the loud voices. It's trying to reach a wider cross section of fulsome to say we're listening and we want your ideas. So I just wanted to give kind of my background and my initial discussion with that. So. I'll open it up to questions or comments from the council members. And really tonight was just about making you all aware of the offer and answering any questions that you had and seeing if we were on board to proceed. Council Member Aquino?

Sure. Have you or the city manager had any conversations with any of the cities that are doing this right now?

I have not. I have not.

Okay. The reason I ask is I'm having a little bit of a deja vu moment here. I'm thinking back to 2021 when the city had a proposal from sci-fi networks to come in and put in fiber optic cable. And it was kind of the same thing where there was going to be no cost to the city. And they had, you know, all these cities lined up that they're working with, yet they hadn't delivered a project anywhere in the country. And so I voted against it because I just, you know, it's that old adage, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And I will say in the case of Sci-Fi Networks, that was correct. It was too good to be true. It's not happening. So I guess when they say there's no cost to the city, well there has to be some cost, and I'm still trying to figure out what that is, and whether, are they data mining? I think to the city manager and to the communications director who did reach out to change.org with some of my questions, but they said they don't sell the data, but I guess does that mean they also don't use it for their own purposes? Are they then soliciting our residents for contributions or what have you. I mean, I don't know. It just seems like, what is in this for change.org? And then I did reach out to some of these, I think that says maybe eight or nine of these cities that says, What other cities have you worked with? I reached out to five of them. I was only able to contact, get in touch with somebody at two. One city, to their credit, Change.org's credit, I talked to the person who is involved in it right now, and she said the experience has been nothing but positive, but she also said they reached out in September, and they're only on the preliminary survey right now, whereas this timeline says we propose launching on April 6th. So again, I kind of have this question of, well, have you completed this process anywhere in the country yet? Another one from this list I reached out to, I was able to email with a council member, and she said, think you're talking about something that's been discussed but we haven't gotten it off the ground yet so maybe I'm not sure if you didn't know what I was talking about or that's kind of the status of where they are so I would feel a little bit better if we were able to say which cities have you worked with that have completed this process because my understanding also is according to the gal who I talked to on the phone who is the contact for her city it's one item that you're gonna pull your community on and And she said they happen to pick a very controversial item in their city, and maybe that's contributed to the issue of why it's been delayed. But I would feel better if we could say, what cities have you done this in? And we reach out to them and say, how was the process? How much staff time did it take? Did you get useful data out of this? Did you learn anything you didn't know? Was there anything that you wish had gone differently, or would you do it again? Yeah.

Fair enough. I can say I did go, I reached out to a friend who lives in Bozeman, and he was not aware of the process, and he got involved in the process. But at that point, they were just on phase one, right? So phase one is community idea generation, and it's an eight-week process, right? So just in there. So they haven't done a whole load of cities here, right? And at the end of the day, what they're giving us isn't a, you know, it's not a... In ground, you know, Ethernet network throughout the city right there. They're giving us a report, right? Which we can choose to act on or not. So that's really the deliverable that they're going to give. And I think to answer what's in it for them. I had a discussion with them today and. And this is at the core of their mission, right? So their mission, their nonprofit, their mission is to increase democratic engagement. And their primary tool was a miss, right? Their primary tool was this petition tool. And they're not getting movement on these. And so I think that to me, you know, I'm kind of reading between the lines a little bit about what's in it for the organization long term. And I think the organization long term has to figure out a way to move away from the petition platform and find something else that impacts that voters can participate in that moves their local governments or their local democracies.

And I know their proposal says they're a nonprofit, but everything that I read online says that they are a, change.org is a for-profit company owned by a nonprofit. So I don't know, you know, exactly if that's splitting hairs, but anyway, those are my thoughts. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Leary.

Yeah, my questions were about how this impacts the city and how the city interacts with this group to do the outreach. Would our communications staff be involved in helping to do outreach to get people involved with this? Because that would certainly be something that would be a cost to the city. in doing outreach or encouraging people to attend. It's a little bit hard to tell. It sounds like they're doing either some online Zoom-type meetings or... or perhaps gathering people in person in a room. I think the city's done a really good job of trying to do outreach in a number of areas. We've had a lot of visioning processes that were taken on by the community development department and the parks and rec departments and sometimes you get a lot of people turning up and sometimes you get three or four. So then that can certainly skew the information or the feedback that you get if you don't have a large audience to poll on things. I guess I would like to have more information on what the costs of the city would be in terms of staff time and helping implement this and what kind of guidance the city would be giving them on what we're looking for in addition to what they're trying to solicit from residents about what they would like to see.

I'll start us and then you can so they the initial proposal was you guys can be involved In the process or you guys can not be involved at all. You don't even have to spend any money We'll run the entire thing on the outside We don't typically want to do it in a city without you know The city government like if the city government doesn't want it to happen right if they're gonna fight us on it like there's plenty other cities around but their initial proposal was how much do you guys wanna be involved? And so I think when city manager and I discussed and we discussed with Christine, our view was is that Change.org could be an independent third party, so it's not like we're trying to skew the results of the report. We're not trying to skew the listening sessions. So that's great. We're not in that, but we are involved in the communication side of things. So we are making a press release that, hey, we're going to move forward with this. Hey, here's the website and the city newsletter report. So I can let you comment any more on staff time or cost, but I think the costs are relatively minimal and they'd be on the communications team.

Yeah, I mean, we don't have to be involved. We thought it, in an effort to try to make it as successful as possible, that we would try to direct attention to the program through a press release. But other than that, and then having check-in calls with change.org about how it's going, I don't think there would be much more than that as far as a staff time effort. So... And if the council didn't want to do that, I mean, we could just back away from that as well. I mean, I appreciate the questions that are out there. And I apologize that I don't have all the answers. One of the reasons why I wasn't as concerned about those answers in that it's an intriguing concept. And so trying to look at the risk where they're saying, hey, you won't have to pay us. other than if you want to through some in-kind services or communications. But we are going to see what the interests are in the community and then have these moderated sessions. And they actually incentivize people to participate because, as I mentioned earlier, I'm like, well, what's going to create? I just think of my own family. I'm like, what's going to get my 18-year-old to do anything you know or what's gonna you know uh even my wife or something like oh hey you could go to this meeting or enjoy yourself at home you know so um that's because we don't get all the involvement that that we really want so like when i interact with folks just in the community they're really willing to tell me what they like or most cases what they don't like but i'm like well why don't you come to the meeting a council meeting or to a community outreach meeting or whatever it is. And it's like, well, they have other things going on. They have, you know, soccer practice or they have their own hobbies or whatever it is. So being that it would be virtual meetings that they could participate in, you know, I don't have all the answers. I'm intrigued. I'm like, man, maybe there is something to this. So that's kind of where we were coming from or I was coming from.

And then I think your question, your second question was about participation levels. When I looked at the other cities that's going on, it's thousands of people that are engaging as far as submitting ideas and voting on ideas in these cities that are not, you know, like I looked at Bozeman, right? I don't know what the size of Bozeman is, but I can't think it's too different of a size than Bozeman. I think it's a little bigger.

Yeah.

It's roughly the same size, but that was the one I was kind of looking at. So that would be the idea is hopefully we get thousands of residents engaging and submitting ideas. Vice Mayor Roba, questions?

Yeah, I had several, but it sounds like it's a little bit more independent than I originally thought when I first read it. Because one of my questions is going to be about, Sarah hit on this a little bit, about data mining. Who's able to retain or reuse these responses or contact information? But I guess I would want to kind of clarify that as long as we're not giving out a list to them. Is that true? So it would be completely independent?

That's correct.

OK. i would want to make sure that when they do polling on a subject that's important to the city so they're using the city as a tool in a sense that that is also communicating in their polling or surveys or when they do the small groups that this isn't a city sponsored thing that is it's for the benefit of information but it's not city sponsored

Yeah, we were going to, you know, I think our technical wording was a partnership, right? But the partnership is mostly us on the communication side and us willing to be able to receive that report in good faith, right? Of like, hey, we want to see what our residents are saying and we value their input, right? So that's our part of it.

And then... how it's presented how the information is presented to the council i think you know it should be informative and as a part of a broader um the broader tools that we already use to get public input you know i i think what's the danger of social media is sometimes we think social media is reflective of how everybody feels in the city and we've talked about this in lots of different meetings and it isn't always reflective of what the broader community thinks so um just how it's presented to us not as if it's absolutely what people think. It's just one tool of how they've kind of data-mined that themselves. And then I was curious of how they come up with the representative selection when they're talking about the 50 to 100 people

in a group do you have do you know that yeah my understanding is they use the demographics of the residents and so they try to look at you know party affiliation age race they try to look at kind of the whole gamut of demographics and get a cross-section right and then they also look at people that are, you know, they kind of had this like little cluster plot of people, right? And so there's some people that feel like really strongly about things and lean toward the right, right? And people that feel really strongly about things and lean toward the left, right? And then there's this wide group of people in the middle, right? And so the idea is to try to put people from all three of those groups and to look at ideas that resonate in all three of those groups. So if all three of those groups are saying, hey, this is a good idea for Folsom, that's probably more likely to be a good universal common idea across all those groups. And so they do that, I think, partisan clustering. I probably am not getting the words right, but that was how they're putting those groups together.

Well, and I appreciate your... willingness to explore new ideas to get public engagement in different ways. So I think that's a positive thing. Yeah, I think that's it.

Thank you. Council Member Kozlowski.

So a couple things that are maybe supportive of the stuff that you guys have all said already. The fact that they're, honestly, the thing that troubled me the most is the fact that they're willing to do it for free. Because it's disingenuous to a certain point. They haven't done it much, right? They haven't really probably completed a survey of this kind somewhere else. And they're trading our endorsement for doing it. So the way this will be portrayed or remembered is that, and the way they will use it in marketing, just in the way that they threw Bozeman out on the table, is that, hey, City of Folsom, California trusted us to do this, so you should trust us to do this, right? So that endorsement is valuable. Our good name is worth something, right? So we're trading that for the survey service. And then the sort of underlying thing, and I think we've kind of touched it a little bit, is that, first of all, words have meaning. And the fact that it's called change.org infers that there's a change necessary. And I think if you survey that center section of Folsom, most people actually would like it to stay the same. or go back to a way it was once before and not change a whole lot. So that is an elemental problem with their branding. And then they have a branding problem. They admitted it to you. And my first reaction was, hey, change.org, that's where you go if you want to rattle the cage over social justice issues, which not saying that cage shouldn't be rattled on occasion, but it's a preponderance of the use of that platform. And they're trying to rebrand so that they can probably monetize their platform and get something out of it. So that whole ball of wax makes me uncomfortable about this. That all being said, If our city manager and the majority of you guys think that we can get something of value from it without dragging our own name into their marketing too heavily, I'm okay with giving it a try, but this is definitely a trust verify, verify again, be careful, and make sure that the language of any agreement that we sign says that we can preclude them from using us in marketing. If we send them that letter so.

Yeah, I think I think they were comfortable with any caveats you know we talked to them about data integrity and where the data would go you know once it was finished up and they said you know this is their policy right is is that they that data is used. in order to generate the report, and then that's the end of their use of the data, right?

And so they- Oh, I'm less concerned about that. I would be interested to see their reaction if we said, yeah, we'd like you to do this, but you cannot mention the city of Folsom to any other city that you go to market yourself to. Fair enough. And you can't put us on your website, can't talk about the work that you do for us.

Unless we agree after the end of it, we like the result and we- Yeah. This thing's really in the way tonight. Yeah. And then we can bless.

Once we decide that we've got something of value, then grant them that.

I can bring that back to them. I think that's great.

I think that would be, that would make me more comfortable.

Cool.

Yeah.

All right, so I really wanted to bring it up for discussion tonight, see where you guys land. I'm happy to bring it back at another meeting. I'm happy to move forward. This is something I'd like to do. I think democracy is straining in many, many places. As you mentioned social media earlier, this is not a social media sort of approach, but it is a digital approach. And I am all for trying digital approaches and civic dialogue in order to increase our participation in local government and our effectiveness in local government. So that's what's really interesting to me about the whole thing. I'm ready to move forward, but I want to hear from you guys if you feel more comfortable waiting two weeks and having me bring it back with more answers.

Yes, I personally would like to know which cities they have completed the exercise, and I'd like you to have a conversation with those cities.

Perfect.

I'd like to see something they completed. I mean, it sounds like a great idea. It also sounds like a time suck, potentially, for staff and council members. And it's not really clear what valuable information we can gather out of this.

Sounds good. It sounds like we'll grab a completed report from one of the existing cities and share that with both of you guys. We'll task staff with that so it can be shared to everybody. And marketing excluding us, unless we approve at the end of it. And anything else from you, Vice Mayor?

I'll look through my questions and send you them.

Okay. Sounds good. All right. So we're not going to take any action tonight. So, okay, just to move on to the next item. Perfect. Item number 11.

Okay. Item number 11 under new business is ordinance number 1366, an ordinance of the city of Folsom amending section 2.06.010 of the Folsom Municipal Code regarding city council salaries. This will be the introduction and first reading and determination that the project is exempt from CEQA.

Oh, I thought you were going to go up there.

I should try that sometime. Anyway, Mayor, members of the City Council, this item, as you may have noticed, has received a little bit of attention on social media. And, you know, as I contemplated this topic, I thought it would be helpful to kind of walk through a little bit about the governance of the City of Folsom. So we're talking about the possibility of modifying the City Council salaries. Some background related to this, in 1990, The city council salaries were at $400 a month, with $100 a month for the mayor. In 2018, the council adopted an ordinance amending the salaries, moving it to the current rate of $600 a month, with $100 additional for the mayor. city council this kind of goes into the uh city council responsibilities and and one of the things that i have seen uh this is i think the sixth city that i've worked in and uh regardless of the city i've been able to see the the difficult job that our council members have Many of them utilize the funds that they get on a monthly basis to go to events, to support nonprofits, and to do a lot of other things. So it's not uncommon in the cities where I've worked where before the first two weeks is up, they've already spent the money that they've received in support of some civic engagement. I thought also just to start with looking at what the city of Folsom City Council oversees. We are a full service city and being new to the area, it's been fascinating to me to kind of see the difference between Folsom and some of our neighboring jurisdictions and the variety of services that we are responsible for that our neighboring cities don't necessarily have to deal with. the citizens of those communities receive services, but they are provided by someone else. It could be a fire district, it could be from Sac Sewer, it could be a variety of different things, a recreation, a community service district. So just to highlight a little bit of what the Folsom City Council is responsible for is pretty robust. We have police services, fire and EMS services, animal control, water and sewer, solid waste, public works, which has a variety of elements in there, streets, storm, all sorts of things, parks and recreation. And I think in some ways we have minimized here, even on this list, we have a zoo, we have all sorts of activities, we have community development, economic development. And then when you look at, you know, one of our neighbors, they provide a different set of services, but you can see that it is different. The city of Elk Grove, although it's twice our size, they are not responsible for fire services or for recreation services. Uh, then then rocklin. In Rancho Cordova, so I highlight that not necessarily to pick anything apart, but just to to recognize the weight that our city council has on their shoulders when you factor in the, uh, the difficult job of. our water and wastewater and our solid waste services, there are times that these are pretty stressful, strenuous times, right? Because typically what happens, there's rate studies that have to be implemented. And some of these jurisdictions don't have to worry about those types of things. Coming before the public, having to deal with the difficult infrastructure conversations and with inflationary forces and cost increases, being going forward with the Prop 218 process to pose those questions to the residents can be challenging. Because like I mentioned, I've worked in many cities and I've never seen one time where people were excited about a water or a sewer or a trash increase. It just never is. And so this is, I highlight this to show some of the challenges of these positions. So going back to kind of the law in 2024, the state law changed for our general law cities, adjusting the maximum of $300 to a hundred or a thousand dollars a month for city councils to a different range of salary opportunities. So in January 1st, 2024, SB 329 increased the max compensation levels for city council as follows. I'll just highlight the, the Folsom category, which is the 75,000 to 150,000 residents. So with the general law cities under this provision, they could have a maximum monthly salary for city council members of $1,900 a month. This is just a regional comparison. The state controller lists all the different salaries for compensation for city councils. This is more kind of in our region, and it's a variety. I did see, when you look at the 75,000 to 150,000 population for the cities in California, I think there's 200 or so, and it's across the board. You have some where they don't receive anything, zero. You have some where they receive a high five-figure annual salary. So there is a variety. And so I think it is worth some conversation about. And so as we kind of go forward with this, we'll have a little bit of conversation, but just sharing some of the background and turn it over to the council for any discussion.

So I'll kick us off. Setting aside the comparisons to past wages in other cities, I ask for this discussion to be placed on the agenda, as I think our city council are our best advocates for the city, both locally, regionally, statewide, and nationally. I've seen in my last year the impact that a council member can have on the finances of our city from negotiating better deals, from advocating for better state laws, from spending time on economic development, and helping our companies to thrive. From ensuring resident concerns are resolved, from forming regional partnerships to bring home the state and federal dollars, Folsom needs to invest in ourselves. The increase in compensation is small compared to the impact that an engaged and proactive council member can make. And if there was ever a time when the city of Folsom needs to be proactive, my belief is that is today. We need innovation and creative solutions. I have no doubt that many folks will complain that we don't do enough to deserve a raise, but I think that not only do you all deserve it, but it'll also allow you to be more effective. Your leadership can easily bring in more than $16,000 to the general fund annually or save us $16,000 expenses. So that's my ask really, is that you spend more time on our city and use this money to further the interests of the city that you serve and love. But I really wanted to put it on the agenda tonight. So we had the open discussion. We've had a lot of tough financial discussions since I've been on this council. It hasn't been very long. It's my belief that We do a great job already of advocating for our city, but I'd love to see us be able to do even more. And so that's why I wanted to open up the discussion. Just also to kind of throw it out there, this doesn't go into effect now, this goes into effect in the next election cycle. And so we're really talking about what we want for the city in the future. We are talking about, there was one public comment we received, but that, Really who do we want to step up and run for city council in the future? I think is what this is more about Than anything who is able to hold this job and represent the city in the years ahead So I just wanted to frame the discussion I can start out with any questions for the city manager before we move to taking public comment Any questions for the city manager on this item of what was presented tonight?

No questions

I do have a question, and that is, does the city contribute to PERS for council members because we are considered employees?

Do we? Yeah, I'm sorry. Yes, we do.

Do you know what that amount is? Like annually, whatever?

It's going to be the same contribution rate that we're paying for everyone else. So if the salary goes up, then it'll go up for the council members. I don't know the exact amount that we're paying for council members.

Some percentage of our income?

Correct.

It's in our statement.

And the one thing that was displayed up there was the base salary, which is $600 a month, but we also receive $100 twice a month from Folsom Public Finance. I think that's the successor agency, as well as a $50 stipend for... It says tech allowance, so I guess that's phone or computer. And as well as $6,600 a year to compensate us for travel or educational things that we're attending. And I'm not saying this to diminish the fact that we do not bring home as much as others, but are there other things on this list of things that are benefiting the council members that should be added. because when you put up there that yeah, we earn $600 a month, it doesn't show the big picture. And in fact, we get contributions to Medicare, Social Security, we have dental, medical, and vision paying. Some of us, like myself, I defer collecting those because I have those from a retirement account. So... anything else that anyone can think of as a benefit other than what we get for representing the city at various other organizations within the county.

The PERS contribution is $48 a month.

That piece isn't shown on any of the information I have. Thank you.

So I think in order, because I think we're getting into a discussion mode, which I think.

Let's hold off on discussion. Let's just stick to questions right now, because I'm going to go public comment first.

I do have a couple questions.

Sure.

Did you have questions, Vice Mayor Rubio?

Vice Mayor, did you have questions?

Oh, OK. I guess I'm wondering. this was a surprise that this was going to be on the agenda, but why is it coming as a fully baked ordinance with a dollar amount in it as opposed to the item that we had just before this where it was, hey, I'm bringing this for discussion, let's get some feedback, and then bring it back as an action item. Why is this coming to us fully baked?

Well, I mean, that was the staff report we put together. I mean, looking back, I probably should have just let it open-ended. I mean, so.

And then, so for example, the City of Citrus Heights, they voted to increase their salary. But kind of in exchange for that, their council members no longer get paid directly for the regional boards that they sit on. Those stipends go to the Citrus Heights General Fund to offset their increase in salary. So are you proposing that also? Are you proposing... to take away the tech allowance? I decline that anyway, but are you proposing to take away that and kind of $1,900 is all-encompassing, or are you planning $1,900 plus the regional boards? I mean, we rebalanced everything last year. There are five regional boards that pay a stipend. We each sit on one. So just curious what you're proposing compared to, for example, what Citrus Heights did.

I didn't really think too much about the regional boards or include that. I'm totally open to the discussion. We have some of our neighboring cities that do not do that and receive the higher compensation also, but I think that's an option. It's variable too, right? Some of these regional boards meet quarterly. Other ones meet twice a month. A lot of them get canceled for the second meeting a month. So I know the one I sit on, we typically meet once a month and then holidays and summer rolls around. It's not a $200 a month thing, not that it really makes any difference. So I'm totally open to, I guess I don't, I think the reason those compensations were originally there is because people were not showing up to participate in regional boards. And I think we've got pretty good attendance and I'm not sure it makes any difference to people showing up or not.

I don't have any other questions for now.

All right. I think we'll go ahead and move on to public comment, and then we can open it up for more discussion.

OK. So we do have three requests to speak under this item tonight. Jag Najendra will be the first person, if you want to come up and approach the podium, followed by Rosario Rodriguez and then Bill Turner.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council, and the City Manager.

I have one word I want to start with, and the word is, really? I'm here today to speak in strong opposition to the proposed salary increase for the City Council members. Let me begin by acknowledging something very important. I recognize the compensation for the Council members is relatively very, very modest. and may not fully reflect the time, the effort, and the commitment required to serve this community. Public service demands long hours, difficult decisions, what we have seen, and also personal sacrifice for many of you. However, public service is, at its core, a choice, one that is not driven by financial gain. Those who step into these roles do so with understanding that primary reward is the opportunity to serve, not the expectation of increased compensation, especially during the difficult times. And that brings me to the central issue, timing and priorities. As we have seen over the last 12 months, the city's own budget clearly showed that the Folsom is facing structural deficit. Yes, now we have surplus by cutting positions and eliminating some of the services. However, there's going to be increased pressure on essential services because we are still not out of the woods. We're still in the hole. There is going to be where The residents will be asked to go for tough decisions where that means reduced services or deferred investments from the city side or an ongoing fiscal uncertainty, as I can see. Considering this as a context, moving forward with the salary increase for elected officials reflects poor judgment, irresponsible leadership, and misplaced priorities. This is not about the dollar amount. We can always argue it's only $1,900. It's about leadership. At the time when families in Folsom are managing, raising costs, and making difficult financial decisions, leadership should be demonstrating restraint, discipline, and accountability. Leadership should be setting the tone, not sending a message. that the city hall operates by different standards. Public service is a responsibility, not an entitlement. Approving this increase now risks undermining public trust at a time when confidence in our city's financial stewardship is more important than ever. I respectfully urge the council to reconsider this and defer any salary increase until the city achieves a stable and a sustainable financial position. Folsom deserves leadership that prioritize responsibility over optics and long-term fiscal sustainability over short-term decisions. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Jack.

Okay, our next speaker, Rosario Rodriguez, followed by Bill Turner.

Good evening, Mayor Rathel and members of the council. My name is Rosario Rodriguez. In all transparency, I have not had a conversation with any of the council members on this topic. I served on the Folsom City Council from 2020 to 2024. This message is for residents and members of the public to give you all an insight and perspective of the council members' job duties and current compensation. This position was never intended to be a volunteer role. In a standard work year, there are 2080 hours based on a 40-hour work week multiplied by 52. As a council member and vice mayor, the job expectation is equal to part-time work. I attended every council meeting and spent time in closed session. Thank you, former Mayor Kowalski, because I display that 100% medal with pride. I also prepared and studied hundreds of pages for every single council meeting. I spent an exuberant amount of time at every year's budget hearing to ensure we adopted a balanced budget. I handled constituent calls and all meeting requests made of me. I responded to numerous emails that came to me every week. I met with regional partners on issues and had discussions of upcoming agenda items. I represented the city at events. I had agenda review meetings and briefings prior to every council meeting. I attended yearly Cal City conferences and a few cap-to-cap to stay on top of priorities. And I attended my assigned regional boards, and the majority were in downtown Sacramento. I also ensured I did my research to understand new laws affecting our ordinances. And I want to give you perspective. My hourly pay as a council member and vice mayor equated to $6.92. In 1990, ordinance 700 gave city council members a salary of 400 and the mayor of 500. The minimum wage in 1990 was $4.25. The council members in 1990 that worked part-time, pay equaled $4.23. As mayor in 2023, the job evolved to full-time. In addition to the tasks that I already mentioned, my responsibilities included representing the city regionally. I handled very high-level issues here at the city. I had additional one-on-ones with the city manager, department heads, and the city attorney. I had mayor's office every Tuesday and Thursday and never said no to anybody who wanted to meet on other days. I was invited to be on several panels that year And there was also the state of the city. The compensation for me as mayor in 2023 equated to $3.94. Minimum wage in 2023 was $15.50. I want to provide a clear picture of the expectations placed on those who serve in these roles. Compensation is one of the factors that determines who is able to serve. It also determines whether a broader range of residents can realistically take on this responsibility or whether service is limited to those with the financial flexibility to absorb the demands of the role. $600 to $1,900 is a fair and reasonable increase. And I agree with you all. Ultimately, what we want is that we have good people run for office to set good policies, to budget our finances, and to represent us well. Thank you.

Thank you, Rosario.

Okay, our next speaker will be Bill Turner and followed by Bill Turner will be Alicia Kempson, our last and final speaker.

Hello again, Bill Turner, resident of Folsom. Where to start? I understand that you all have a very difficult and demanding job. I appreciate every one of you who takes the time to do what you do, including the city manager. Maybe the city manager does deserve to be at the top step pay rate after only being here one year. Maybe you guys also deserve to be paid more than $600 a month. I appreciate Council Member Leary pointing out that it could be more than $600 a month, because that certainly wasn't in the package or the presentation. I find it interesting that the item right before this one, the change.org discussion talked about surveying the citizens. If my memory serves me correctly, a number of years ago, The city did do a survey, a citywide survey to all the residents. And the number one priority on the survey, if my memory serves me correctly, was public safety, police and fire, number one. As I mentioned the last time I was up here, part of balancing the budget was cutting a fire engine That should be the priority of this Council, putting that fire engine back in service as opposed to anything else. These two items that I've talked about tonight have nothing to do with public safety and putting an engine back in service. I urge this Council to realign your priorities and make that your priority. do what you need to do to put that engine back in service, and all this other stuff, which may be deserved, can be delayed until we're in a better financial situation to move forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Bill.

Okay, our last and final speaker is Alicia Kempson.

You can just pull it down, yep. Sorry, thank you. Hi, I'm Alicia Campson, resident of Folsom. And I just, earlier there was a list that was presented that said all of the duties that you guys do, and thank you so much for everything that you do. But, like, welcome to Folsom. This is one of the reasons why we live here, and this is one of the reasons why we love our I think the reason why a lot of people are upset is because of the timing and also because of the financial health of the city. We're not sure where we're at. Everyone kind of feels like on edge. And then you bring up also the other cities and what they're paying. We don't know what their financial health is. So I think... i don't i do think that you guys deserve more i just think the timing right now is just not the best so that's all i wanted to say thank you for all that you do thank you alicia all right any other public comment to see and there's no other request to speak under this item sounds good we're going to go ahead and close public comment and we'll move to discussion yeah i you know i'll start if that's a works sure

Um, so I want to thank the people that spoke and I do have to say to supervisor Rodriguez, um, you were one of the hardest working council members that I've ever worked with, even in another state. So, um, you know, uh, Thank you for all the things that you said and that you did for our city and still are. I know that this item has generated a lot of public interest and discussion in our community. So to help frame this conversation around the proposal before us tonight, I'd like to move the approval of the ordinance as recommended by staff and then open it up to colleagues' discussion so we know what we're discussing. So I move to move this resolution forward.

Do we have a second?

I'll second it so that we can talk about this. Sounds good.

You want to kick off the discussion?

I'd happily do that. So Robert's Rules of Order, demand a second or the thing dies, and it's worth talking about this. My apologies in advance to some of you that came here to speak. But the easiest rhetorical flourish on Earth is to say that the time is not right. And to then produce a series of unreachable targets that define when that future time might be. We started this evening talking about objective standards, and I kind of carped about stairs. And in that discussion, because I brought that up, everybody who builds a set of stairs going to an ADU is going to end up paying less for materials and light fixtures and everything else that would have been necessary to enclose that staircase. So did I earn my $600 this month? I feel like maybe I did. However, I don't do this for the money, okay? So that's plain. But the... I'm happy to accept the challenge that a pay increase is not deserved or that the job doesn't demand it or that you just don't care if we get paid more. That's okay. I won't be offended by that. Like I said, I don't do this for the money. Most of the money that I get, I end up giving to the food bank or something else in town, right? But Don't say in the future when we're more sustainable when the time is right because that is why literally this has never changed for. good long time right legitimately it hasn't really changed since 1990 the adjustment in 2018 was very very modest and the you know furor over this on a percentage basis yes I get it it's 300% or whatever it is I didn't ask for this so you know it makes no difference to me whether it passes or not but the the disingenuous arguments bother me. I'm all for having real debate about the worth of the council's efforts and what the value of the work is. but just don't set unmeasurable targets. That's why we have to do objective standards when we do design, and it's why we try and set objective standards for the performance of the city manager, other staff, and things like that so that we can properly measure those things. So for what it's worth, yeah, the time's probably not right, but the argument should be that $600 is the right amount, and that would be okay. So that's my comments.

Council Member Leary? Did you have further?

I do, but I can wait.

Council Member Leary. Well, I guess that would make sense because we started with Vice Mayor Warbaugh who made the motion. I'm all over the place. We'll start with Council Member Aquino now that you've brought up the proper rotation.

Typically, the member who makes the motion should be the person who gets to speak first, just FYI in the future. Mr. Mayor, I appreciate you taking ownership for putting this on the agenda. But I will say that I'm frustrated that we are talking about this, that this was sprung on us. I certainly didn't ask for this to be on the agenda. I don't support an increase. I think $600 to $1,900 is much, much too large of an increase. But I don't think the time is right. There probably is never a right time. But I do believe in leading by example. I think that starts at the top. That starts with us. I agree that the staff report doesn't show the whole picture, but it also doesn't show the whole picture for other agencies either. For example, the city of Citrus Heights, they're at $1,900 a month, but they also get $600 to use toward health insurance. Or if they don't choose health insurance, they can put it toward deferred comp. So I guess if we're going to do a survey of salaries for councils throughout the region, we need to have all that data. But yeah, I just can't support this. And I'm frustrated that this brought a lot of needless attention to the city at this time when we have much bigger things to focus on. So that's all from my comments.

Council Member Leary?

Thank you. Yeah, it is difficult. I'm glad that Council Member Kozlowski brought up the idea of there's not ever a great time. But I guess I'd have to fall back on this. This just feels to me like a very wrong time. I think it's something that should be considered. It's been discussed off and on for years. I think it was 2019, the last time these things were raised. I want to be very clear that a lot of us run, because we see our primary role as serving the public, representing the public up here at the dais, and also reaching out to constituencies, businesses, and working on the regional boards to try and figure out how we can interact with the larger community, how we can make things better in our own community. So it's sort of a... It's kind of like a job, but it's also sort of like a hobby to want to get involved and take an interest in certain things and just jump in and try and get things done. So I can see where it would be helpful to bring this up, but I think my preference would be that we bring this back for discussion in a year. And my feelings about it To make my decision, a positive one would be that we have to do some things like make sure that everybody feels that the public safety, and not just feels, has to be documented, that the public safety is up to par for our region, that we're able to keep the things that brought Folsom, brought all the people here to Folsom functioning and intact, and that we're able I know that's gonna take a big jump in the budget, but we're not to the end of this year, and if we start planning earlier next year and having some discussions earlier, and I do appreciate that the city manager has hired, he's hired outstanding leadership and kept outstanding leadership here, and they're doing a lot of the work that we rely on to make decisions, and they all make good salaries, and they're all well-deserved. So You know at this time I'd rather Not proceed with With making a change in the ordinance as proposed Thanks.

Thank you vice mayor.

Yeah So I want to be clear that this discussion is not about the current council It's about the expectations of the role and making sure service is on any council remains realistic and accessible for the next group of residents who step forward to serve. This proposal reflects a policy-based effort to modernize compensation in a structured and responsible way rather than continuing to allow us to fall further behind. Council service today, as indicated already, includes engagement on complex regional partnerships, public safety coordination. I do want to say something about public. This does not affect public safety. I've been one of the biggest advocates for public safety for the last three years I've served. And this allows other future council members to advocate in a way that they can't if they're working two jobs. along with public safety coordination, housing mandates from the state, which are complicated, take time to research and have knowledge about and make different decisions about. We have a great staff, but we still have to understand it ourselves. Infrastructure planning, economic vitality work is one of the focuses, I think, on this current council is economic development and making sure we're out there and making things happen. Ongoing constituent response outside of regular meetings, is such a gift that we get to be that person for people to share their problems with and their ideas with. The role looks very different than it did when the original compensation level was established, and compensation should reflect the role as it exists today. But I also believe it's important that council compensation does not quietly limit those who can serve. We are all very lucky up here that we're able to serve in the way we do to make essentially a stipend. But not everybody can. And I have talked to so many people throughout the last three years is how much time does it take? Well, I couldn't do that because of daycare, or I couldn't do that because it would affect my job, or I couldn't do that because my husband wouldn't support it, right? Or my, I shouldn't say be equal opportunity, maybe the wife wouldn't support it either. But we're discriminating against those who may not be able to take on an opportunity like this to serve by making it a financial sacrifice. It should not be a financial sacrifice. Again, the five of us here are already serving in this way, and we will continue to serve in this way regardless if this passes or not. But I believe with the pool of residents that we are narrowing this scope of who can serve on this council. I don't think that's healthy for the representative local government. I don't think this is an arbitrary number. It's a number that the state obviously did research in. I understand that conversations about council compensation can make all of us extremely nervous and uncomfortable. But it's our responsibility to set compensation at a level that respects the expectations that you, our community, has on us. This position supports continued public service in all kind of ways from a broad cross-selection of our community. And I want to add that I would support this adjustment even if it applied only to future councils. And like Justin said, this will apply after the election in November. My goal here is to make sure the structure is right for the future of Folsom going forward. So again, this discussion is not about the current council. It would go into effect after the next election. For me, this is about the expectations of the role and making sure service on this council remains realistic and accessible for the next group of residents. And I want to say a couple comments to some of the things that I heard as well. One of the things that was mentioned is we have much bigger things to focus on. That's exactly true. We have gigantic things to focus on, economic development I've already mentioned, how we're gonna, with our city manager, Whitemeyer, and our financial director, we have right-sided the budget, but we have a long way to go on how we're gonna meet the expectations of our community to maintain what we do have and continue to service you in the other ways that you want. And I believe this is leading by example. As some of my colleagues already said, that there is no good time. It doesn't matter if we were financially like, you know, $100 million in our general fund reserves. This would still come up against scrutiny. So I believe this is leading by example because we're making a courageous step. The people that this is going to affect the most in a negative way are these people sitting up here. And so there is no good time one of the thing that was mentioned was the rising cost of different financial and different I that rising costs and difficult financial decisions we have to make personally but also more importantly the things that we have to make for this the city. I have been a steward of our budget I have gone line by line and that takes incredible work knowledge experience and effort and if we're going to continue to move our city forward I think we need to attract the kind of people that have the time and energy to do that and I think this is one way to value that this is I think it equals like 22,000 a year that is definitely a part-time position we all live in Folsom we have to serve in Folsom and no one can live in Folsom for $22,000 a year I know that you know as as this year campaigning is going on and two years campaigning will go on. I believe this will attract a broader sense of representation from our community. So I, you know, I think, I think there's no good time. I appreciate Justin's boldness and putting this on the agenda. And again, I just want to articulate that this does not take effect until after the election. But I understand what people are concerned about, about the perception. And, you know, I mean, I guess I understand that. And this is a way for us to say, yes, we understand that. And we're going to work even harder. I appreciate Justin kind of laying down the line that I want more out of you. Thank you. He wants more out of his colleagues. And I think our city wants more out of us. And I think this is a fair way to do this.

All right, sorry I got everybody out of order. I had, I got to talk and then, but I'll just, I'll open it up. Any closing words before I call for a vote? All right, please call the roll.

Okay, Council Member Zorba? Yes. Leary? No. Kozlowski?

For clarity, I'm going to vote yes, but if this does pass, I am going to decline any personal increase in my pay for the duration of the time that I'm on the council.

I think you skipped me. I'm sorry.

Council Member Aquino? No. Okay, and Rethel? Yes.

Yes. All right. Please call item number 12.

Okay. Item number 12, resolution number 11579, a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a program supplement agreement with Caltrans for the Intelligent Transportation Systems ITS Master Plan Implementation Project.

Okay, good evening, City Council. Mr. Mayor Rathel, good evening. Zach Bosch, City Public Works Department Senior Civil Engineer, here to present a project update and a recommendation to City Council for the City Manager to enter into a project supplement agreement for the Intelligent Transportation System Master Plan Implementation Project and to answer any questions you may have about the project. A quick background since it's been quite some time since we presented this project to city council, the project originated in two thousand and nineteen as the full city of Folsom master plan and the Sacramento area Council of governments smart region, Sacramento. a collaborative process to update that plan, which aimed to modernize and connect the city's traffic signal network while improving data sharing across jurisdictions. The goal of the plans were to upgrade critical infrastructure to support advanced functionality and to modernize aging infrastructure. In 2021, City Council directed staff to pursue a SACROG grant for this project. Since being awarded that grant, the project has progressed through the right-of-way, environmental, and design phases, and is now ready to move into construction. The project will update nearly all of the city's traffic signals by installing CCTV cameras, allowing our maintenance and operations staff to monitor conditions and respond in real time. The project will also upgrade fiber optic trunk lines, improving our network redundancy, closing communication gaps, and replacing outdated controllers that are at the end of their life. They will be replaced with modern equipment that supports the advanced functionality needed for the city to actively manage traffic. The project will also expand our use of signal performance measures, which is enabling staff to analyze system performance, optimize signal timing, and proactively identify issues. It will also allow the city to explore more advanced technologies related to traffic signal operations, emergency response, and safety enhancements. Significant portions of the city are receiving updates to their fiber optics, as you can see in the project map. The orange line that runs through East Bidwell and Riley Street and in front of City Hall and across Rainbow Bridge and Lake Tomah Crossing are all removing the outdated multi-mode fiber optic network cable and replacing that with a signal mode fiber optic cable to help allow the increased networking capabilities for these added devices. This also allows us to stream all of these devices to our two traffic operations center, one in the corporation yard and one at City Hall, as well as our police dispatch center. Some of the highlights of the map are the new connections to the nine new traffic signals in the south of 50 plan area. Those will all have their fiber optic fiber optic connectivity performed with this project. So we'll finally be able to communicate with those signals down there, which has been a long time coming. We want to take this opportunity to update City Council on the project and the public on the project, including the anticipated delivery schedule, so that there is a familiarity when we return to Council for some recommended actions, including the award of the construction management contract and the construction contract, which we estimate to occur sometime in July. We do anticipate construction to begin in fall with project completion near the end of this calendar year. So the current item before you allows the city manager to enter into a project supplement agreement with Caltrans for reimbursement for eligible expenses related to this project. City staff worked closely with Caltrans local assistance and SACOG to develop a funding strategy that utilized toll credits as our city's local match, saving over $650,000 in our transportation impact or improvement fund. The total project cost for this is estimated to be 5.716 million dollars and that includes design and construction. So staff recommends approval of resolution one one five seven eight resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a program supplement agreement with Caltrans for the intelligent transportation systems master plan implementation project and I'm very happy to answer any questions you may have about the project.

Thanks, Zach. I didn't notice until I saw it on the color big screen. Oak Avenue is just a wireless connection?

Oh, so Oak Avenue will have... This has been revised since this image has been done. So it will have a fiber optic connection from Iron Point up to Riley, coming from the south to the north. So passing through Halidon and Haverhill up to Riley Street. So that will have a dedicated fiber optic line running to Iron Point.

So that catches all the traffic lights on OAT? So they'll all be fiber and not wireless now? Right, correct. Yeah, they'll all be on the fiber network. Awesome. That answers my question. Great. Any other questions for Zach this evening?

Oh, I've had the opportunity to go down and take a look at this board in the engineer's office. And does this, do the sensors in there sort of automatically change the timing on the lights to help keep traffic moving, or is there any time or requirement to do that manually? You know, because of an issue like an auto accident or, you know, fire, giant potholes.

Yeah, there are opportunities to manually change all of those sensors as we need to in those instances. So if there is an accident that blocks lanes, we can use our new traffic operation center to manually control either the timing of the lights or the detection system associated with that.

And you would get that information from the police department? Or how would you find out that, hey, there's a great big problem out there on Iron Point Road?

There's a couple ways we do that. So each of our maintenance staff and our operations staff has a police radio on our desk. And so when a call comes out for a traffic collision, we do hear that. We also monitor the CCTV footage on our video management software. So it's on our board. So we can have a trained eye to see when a collision occurred or, you know, There's issues that are random at best. And so we also use PulsePoint as another tool in our toolbox to kind of observe when police activity or fire engine activity is occurring.

Great. Thank you.

Yeah, of course.

Any questions on this side of the desk? All right. Thanks so much, Zach. Yeah. And no public comment?

We don't have any requests to speak under this item.

Perfect. I will entertain a motion.

Move approval of resolution 1-1-5-7-9.

Second. Just for the record, 1-1-5-7-8, correct? That's what it said on your thing.

The staff report will be accurate, more accurate than the presentation.

On the screen it said 1-1-5-7-8.

On our agenda it's 1-1-5-7-9. Thank you for the update.

Item number 12. Please call the roll.

Okay, Council Member Zorba? Yes. Aquino? Yes. Kozlowski? Yes. Leary? Yes. And Rathel?

Yes. And please call the next item.

Okay, the next item is item number 13 under new business, resolution number 11580, a resolution approving the preliminary engineer's report for the following landscape and lighting districts as stated on the agenda for fiscal year 2026-27 and setting public hearing.

Thanks for not reading all of the landscape and lighting districts.

I'll read them at the end. No, I'm just kidding. Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. I'm Derek Perez, Municipal Landscape Services Manager for the Parks and Recreation Department. I'll be presenting information regarding the L&L District Preliminary Engineers Report for Fiscal Year 26-27. This report incorporates all 30 L&L districts into a single report. As you can see here, an L&L Assessment District is a funding mechanism which is intended to pay for landscaping, lighting, and other specified services within a district. When a new development project is in the planning phases, the project is conditioned with creating a funding mechanism to pay for the maintenance of the common areas. Common funding mechanisms include community facility districts, CFDs, as seen in much of the Folsom plan area, homeowner associations, HOAs, or landscaping and lighting district. Beyond the legal definitions seen here, an AL&L district maintains those quality of life features that make each district unique and inviting. For instance, the waterfall in American River Canyon North, or the art in the Natoma Station, the monument signage in Willow Creek Estate South, and the open space throughout the districts. These are all assets maintained by the district and provide a benefit to the residents within the district. The graphic here shows the location of all 30 L&Ls here in Folsom. All L&Ls were created pursuant to the L&L Act of 1972 and the California Constitution. The districts within the city vary in size from 10 to 2,370 units. The majority of the districts in Folsom were formed prior to Prop 218 in 1996 and therefore do not have an escalator built into account for the increases in costs over time. Step two is normally a consent item. However, we received feedback during our recent community outreach meetings that residents were not aware of the process and their district's financial health. In response to those concerns, we decided to provide this presentation to go along with the preliminary engineer's reports for improvement, for improved communication and transparency. One additional step staff took was presenting their preliminary budgets to the Landscaping and Lighting Advisory Committee members last week during their meeting on March 19th. Here we have a list of all 30 L&L districts within the City of Folsom. Each district is unique in the number and type of amenities that are maintained. The picture here is of the American River Canyon North Waterfall, which is an asset maintained by their L&L district. Common assets include landscaping, lighting, sound walls, open space, mini parks, and monument signage. Excuse me. Here we have a graph of the consumer price index and the California construction cost index for the period from 1990 to 2025. As you can see, it takes $2.76 in 2025 to have the same buying power of $1 in 1990. The 2026 statistics haven't been updated yet, so we didn't include that. Due to the cost increases over time, districts without an inflationary adjustment have struggled to keep up with the rising costs of services on their static assessment. Here's a highly high level overview of all 30 on all districts. This is the baseline budget for all districts and there are no improvement projects planned for next fiscal year. The current level of service has been stepped down with each of the past two landscape maintenance contracts that we put out for RFP due to the rising cost of this service. Last year, council requested a table be added to this year's engineer's report showing all the revenue and expenses on one chart, which also includes a debt balance for each district, if any. The first column shows anticipated assessment revenues to be collected. for fiscal year 2627. The second column shows anticipated total expense for 2627. This can include landscaping maintenance, utility billing, irrigation, et cetera. The third column shows the revenue less expenses projected for fiscal year 2627. And the fourth column shows what the actual district's fund balance is as of December 31st, 2025. If you recall, all the previous year's fund balance were pulled on April 30th of each year. to be incorporated into the engineers report. Staff realized for their engineers report to be prepared in parallel the preparation of the city's fiscal budget for 26-27, we had to move that date up to reflect the fund balance report earlier and decided on December 31st of each year moving forward. The districts listed here currently have a negative balance, and their annual cost to provide the basic levels of maintenance exceed their annual assessment. We will look at each district in more detail on the slides to follow. Staff's current prioritization plan has Briggs Ranch, Hanifor Cross, and Broadstone I, II, and IV going out for the Prop 218 balloting process in fiscal year 26-27. Cobble Ridge to reflections to would undergo the process in fiscal year twenty seven twenty eight with others on the horizon in simple terms of process is a legal process in which a new district is presented to the property owners vote on how they want their district to be maintained. It is a three-step process that starts with resolution initiating proceedings and ordering an engineer's report. Next, the preliminary engineer's report is presented to the council and the ballot proceedings ordered and setting a public hearing to tabulate the ballots. The final step is the tabulation of the ballots, public hearing, and a resolution declaring results. There is a legally required 45-day period between steps two and three. And if you remember, we're currently in Atoma Station is out for ballot right now, which we'll be holding a public hearing on April 28th. Here's a high-low view of those four districts, which are highlighted in yellow here. The following slides will have a similar table showing some important district information, including the actuals for fiscal year 22 through 25, the adopted budget for fiscal year 25-26, and the projected budget for fiscal year 26-27. Additionally, there's information on the gray box, which shows the actual account balance on December 31, 2025. The year the deficit began, and the number of total single family equivalent units in the district. Each of these slides will also have a breakdown to show what an average payback amount would look like over a 15 year period. This is for the reference only. See, this is for reference only 15 years was used since this was set by council last summer. If you remember. Briggs Ranch has a negative account balance of $276,809 as of December 31st, 2025. They're projected to have an operational deficit of $54,633 in fiscal year 26-27. The district has approximately 659 single-family equivalent units. The 276,809 equates to approximately $420 per unit. If the deficit was paid back over a 15-year period, the cost per single-family equivalent would be approximately $28 annually per single-family equivalent, or $2.33 per month on average. This district is prioritized for Prop 218 outreach the current fiscal year starting in May of 2026. Hanford Cross has a negative account balance of $66,477 as of December 31, 2025. They are currently projected to have an operational deficit of $65,261 in fiscal year 26-27, which they are scheduled for the property treatment process this upcoming fiscal year. The district has approximately 103 single-family equivalent units. The $66,477 equates to approximately $645.41 per unit. If the deficit was paid back over a 15-year period, the cost per single-family equivalent would approximately be $43.03 annually per single-family equivalent, or $3.85 per month. Broadstone 1-2 is an original district. Broadstone 4 was approved in 2015 with a higher level of assessment for five years to provide for needed repairs and enhancements. It then dropped down to a lower level. This lower level is not sufficient to provide the base levels of service. On the next slide, we'll look at both districts in a combined form. Both districts are paid by the same property owners for the same assets. When you look at both districts together, they have a negative account balance of $802,156 as of December 31st, 2025. They are projected to have an operational deficit of $169,311 in fiscal year 26-27. This includes $70,000 in planned spending to complete the Prop 218 process. The district has approximately 2,531 single family equivalent units. that 802,100 156 equates approximately $316.99 per unit. If the deficit was paid back over a 15-year period, the cost per single-family equivalent would be approximately $21.13 annually per single-family equivalent, or $1.76 per month. The district would prioritize for POP 218 outreach in the next fiscal year. Cobble Ridge 2, Reflections 2 has a negative account balance of $111,408 as of December 31st, 2025. They're projected to have an operational deficit of $18,225 in fiscal year 26-27 to provide the base level of service. This district has approximately 389 single-family equivalent units. The $111,408 equates to approximately 286 per unit. If the deficit was paid back over a 15-year period, the cost per single-family equivalent would be approximately $19.99 annually per single-family equivalent, or $1.59 per month. This district is prioritized for Prop 218 outreach in fiscal year 27-28. At council's direction last year, moving forward in the preliminary engineer's report, an amortization table shall be included for transparency for all underfunded districts. Staff worked with our consultant to formally create a sample amortization table for each underfunded district to communicate the current state of debt incurred for the pulled cash account. Here we provided samples of the amortization schedule for Briggs Ranch and Hannaford Cross. I also want to note that as districts continue to be underfunded, the fund balance will grow, and they will incur more debt in their fund balance each year. If the fund balance grows each year, the amortization balance grows, and the repayment amount will increase over the 50-year period. Here's a comparison of the average cost per single family equivalent in each of the 30 districts. Cobble Ridge and Natoma Valley are not being assessed at the maximum authorized rate as they have adequate funding at the set rate to complete the necessary maintenance and set aside funding in their maintenance and improvement plans to address long-term projects. The districts listed here are forecasted to go into a deficit over the next five years at their current rate of spending. The current service levels have previously been reduced to slow the growth of the deficit. The annual assessment revenue in these districts cannot support the annual maintenance costs or provide for long-term replacement of assets at the end of the useful life. These districts are planned for outreach and Prop 218 ballot proceedings over the next three to five years. I've highlighted the districts from the previous slide here to show that the annual expense exceed the annual revenue, and while they have a positive account balance, that does not account for the funds needing to be set aside for long-term replacement costs and end of useful life for their assets. The Landscaping and Lighting Advisory Committee meets once a month. We're in recess July and August, the third Thursday of the month in the R.G. Smith room at the Folsom Community Center. We want to let everyone know we continue to have vacancies in the L&L districts you see here. If you know anyone interested, please send them my way or to the city clerk department for an application. We are committed to providing timely information to district residents. With the help from the communications team, we have been revamping and updating the L&L District website to provide relevant documents and fact sheets for the districts. The example here is for the Natoma Station L&L District. We will continue to build these pages out based on priority of outreach efforts with the end goal to update pages for all three districts. We continue to post all of our presentations on the Landscape and Lighting website for reference and transparency. With that staff recommends the city council dot resolution one one five eight zero a resolution approving the preliminary injuries report for the reference nice keeping lighting districts for fiscal year twenty six twenty seven is setting the public hearing. That concludes my presentation I'm happy to answer any question that you might have. Thanks Eric.

Council working. That's where the questions.

So it looks like you're taking on, was it four or five more this year?

We're doing, so we're looking at Briggs, yeah, probably about three next fiscal year. So Briggs Ranch is funded this fiscal year. So we're starting that process right now. I routed the contract to the consultant this afternoon. So we'll hopefully be kicking that one off in May. And then... Hanford Cross, excuse me, we'll look at starting around fall, and then Broadstone will be next spring.

Because as I recall, there were nine different districts that were in a deficit, so is that not, has?

No, like all these other ones, right now they're currently, their fund balance is good, but as we go on, we progress, like that's why in the next three to five years, they're gonna start progressing and start getting in the deficit.

Okay.

Yeah, like this afternoon, I did some calculations of Willow Creek East South is projected to be in a deficit in the next three years. So in the next couple of years, we'll end up doing the Prop 218 process.

It's kind of like deja vu, but that some things shift. Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I have a quick question. So you said like three to five years you pulled up like Lexington and Willow Creek and some others, right? I mean, is there a benefit outside of staff time, but is there a benefit like in a year starting educating them or even starting this process earlier so there's not as much of a deficit?

Yeah, we try to get in front of as much as we can. It's a lot just knowing what we did with Natoma Station last 10 months and the community outreach. And also, I think the way we're strategizing, too, as well as if you think of like Briggs Ranch is kind of the what the northeast part of town, Hanifor Cross is the north side. Broadstones more kind of South Southeast kind of spread apart too as well. So, because the districts all have different assessment rates, right? So, if you're next to Broadstone and your next to periopes, you're paying different assessment rates too, as well. So that way there's a straight line of communication and transparency like, hey, this is your district. This is what it is. So if your neighbor lives.

has a different assessment we want to make sure there's not that kind of that mixing the pot and stuff so it's kind of we're kind of strategizing just looking at that moving forward too as well yeah and i think you probably do have a plan but those that are coming up like obviously you're focusing on these coming up right here but like in three to five years i mean do you have a plan to kind of ease them into this so it's not like an atonement station kind of situation where it was like right in their face and they had no idea

yeah and i think that's the process right now is what we're starting so um is this being you know doing these presentations getting this information out there all this factual information posting it online you know i'm going to be posting this presentation tomorrow so they can tell their neighbors that to look at these presentations so it's not a shock because that's one thing we heard when we held those community outreach meetings i mean mr watmeyer can attest to this is that they didn't they know they're in deficit So, just being very transparent and just getting out there early too, as well, and work with our communications team too. So, yes, we're trying to do as much outreach as we can too.

Thank you. Yeah. And on January 1st, 2027, we're going to stop watering their non functional turf. So they'll think that there is no money left for anything where we let all of their grass die.

They have a lot of trees, so Derek, would you you may have mentioned it, but can you in light of the communication? I believe we sent out letters to try to for other districts, because we want to let them know in advance that this is a circumstance. So I think some letters went out.

Yeah, so yeah, great point. So we are working on sending out some letters to Hanford Cross and Briggs Ranch neighborhoods. So those letters will go out next week to notify them of this presentation for the final engineer's report for the April 14th meeting. So it's kind of like you mentioned, Councilwoman Ruba, like we're noticing them, giving them a heads up that this is coming down the pipeline. So yeah, and we will be doing that for future ones too as well, Broadstone and Cobble Ridge and so forth.

Awesome. Thanks, Derek. Council Member Roslowski, any questions? All right.

Are you going to do any notification for the Natoma Station area that people can get a replacement ballot if, A, they threw theirs out, didn't find it, or wanted to change their vote because that question has been coming up? I don't expect you to send out a mail or that. I think that would be expensive, but I don't know how we might get the word out. Yeah, I know to make sure everybody votes.

Yeah, I have received some emails, some questions I have received an email that someone need a replacement ballot. So I did send them the NBS or consultant to reissue a ballot. I'm not sure of how much more outreach that we can do for them to as well.

Did maybe that go out in the city newsletter before April 28th? Is there a newsletter coming out?

I'm not sure how to do that because then we're gonna kind of, it goes out to the entire city with all the districts too as well. So we can't, for the newsletter, just send out one thing.

Well, I've been asking if we can't have some pieces in for each individual district or neighborhood in the city newsletter because we don't have an email system set up for council members to send things to people in their districts.

That might be something I can talk to the communications team and circle back with you. Well, I think that would be super helpful. I'll talk to our communications team and see if there's something we can circle back with you on.

Thanks.

All right. I'll entertain them. Oh, we have no public comment on this item?

We do not have any public comment under this item.

Perfect. I'll entertain a motion.

I can move adoption of Resolution 11580. Second.

Please call the roll.

Okay, Council Member Zorba? Yes. Aquino? Yes. Kozlowski?

Yes.

Leary? Yes. And Rathel?

Yes. Please call item number 14.

Okay, so the item number 14 is last item under new business this evening, 2025 General Plan and Housing Element Annual Progress Report.

Mayor Rathel, members of the commission, I'm Desmond Parrington, planning manager in the community development department. Before you tonight, let me just bring this up to the screen here. Before you tonight with the general plan, can we go wait for it? Okay very with the general plan annual progress report I just to give you a little bit of background on what this is so the general plan is is really kind of the guiding document for. The existing conditions as well as kind of the future plan for growth in the community. And these annual reports, including not only the general plan annual report, but the housing annual report is really a way to keep the overall public kind of updated on our progress in terms of implementing the various different implementation measures, as well as kind of keeping track of and reminding folks about the policies that we are working to achieve. It helps us monitor that progress towards those goals and objectives and reports out to the public in terms of our progress in meeting our housing program and housing goals. It also allows us, by submitting these to the state, which we're required to do on April 1st of every year, It maintains our eligibility for state funding, which is important. So these are brought forward and reviewed and accepted by the council each year prior to our submitting them to the state on the April 1st deadline. So as you've heard in several of our presentations over the years, the state has been increasingly influencing our actions on a number of different fronts, which includes our general plan, zoning, and entitled projects. There's this focus on climate resilience, open space access, and in particular, as we've discussed, on housing development. So just to provide you with a little bit of background, there's been a number of laws over the years that have dealt with various different environmental issues and environmental initiatives related to climate change and open space and so forth. There are... new requirements that went into effect recently related to expanding public noticing standards and CEQA streamlining provisions, as well as new requirements related to the development and review of community plans. I'm not going to go into detail on all of these. I think you're familiar with many of them already. And then, as you're well aware, there have been a number of major housing bills, especially since 2017. You know, one of the biggest ones was SB 330 from 2019, but then there's been a number of other measures, including just last year, SB 79, AB 130, and SB 130 that that mandated major increases in density and intensity around our light rail stations, as well as ones that also offered up CEQA streamlining. There are a couple of really important mandates to touch on from the state regarding our housing element. So the first one is our regional housing needs allocation which I'll get into in a moment as well as a no net loss provision which I'll explain as well. And then there's another mandate that talks about reducing barriers to the production of housing. So just to talk generally about the general plan annual report, as I mentioned earlier, the general plan was adopted in 2018 and really serves as kind of the guiding document for the city. It's really our foundational document dealing with land use and lays out a number of goals, policies, and programs up to 2035. And the exception to all the elements that are in the general plan is the housing element, which has to be updated every eight years. And then we did just recently amend the housing element, and I'm sorry, the general plan to increase residential densities in key areas of the city to implement key actions in our housing element. So there are seven mandated elements. We actually combined two of them, the safety and noise into one element, which you're allowed to do. And so we have to have policies, goals, policies, and programs in each of those areas. So there's 85 overall implementation programs in our general plan, excluding the housing element, because I'll talk about that separately. 41 of them have these specific timeframes. Another 41 are ongoing, and then three require annual implementation. We made substantial progress this past year on 14 of those programs, and I'll touch on some of them in our slides going forward. So as you heard, A number of months ago, we did an update to the zoning code to allow for the use of objective design standards in key areas of the city where we increased heights and densities. This affects multi-unit development as well as mixed use. We also did a number of bicycle and pedestrian improvements that were for 3.8 miles of new trails, particularly associated with the Mancini ranch project and the Regency development by toll. And there are enhancements to bicycle safety. There was also updates to the CIP program, our capital improvement program. We're allowing the utilities department to advance several major projects. The Water Management Division did an extensive number of water waste interventions and issued citations and did quite a bit of outreach and education related to that. As you I think you've heard previously parks and recreation had a number of major milestones in including some really unique kind of public private partnerships in their in their work with the fat track folks over at the Cummings family Park with the renovation of the bike Park there and then the ongoing community build work with Castle play Park. In terms of a housing element, getting back to the issue of the regional housing needs allocation, the state, working with our local council of government, SACOG, assigns our jurisdiction a target that they have to hit in terms of making land available that is properly zoned for housing development that serves all income levels. So you can see here we've got a very aggressive number in our last housing element cycle or in our current housing element cycle. So more than half of about 56% of it is targeted towards lower income households. That means that we have to have land that's properly zoned for higher density development under the state's rules. So there are 34 additional programs in our housing element that we have to implement. And we've made substantial progress on eight of those in the last cycle. This is a graphic that I believe many of you have seen before. We have done substantial investments using the city's housing fund, resulting in over 1,000 units of affordable housing built since 2003. Most recently, the Harrington Grove project and the Habitat for Humanity project. These are funds that are not from the general fund. This is a separate fund that is fed by our in lieu fees as well as our housing trust funds as well. So there are two projects that are entitled and under construction. That includes vintage senior apartments just up the street from here on Natoma Street and then the Harrington Grove apartments on Harrington Way near Creekside. In terms of our progress, we've made substantial progress on our above moderate income categories and our moderate income category. And we've made good progress on our low and very low. But again, that number is quite substantial. So we still have a remaining arena of about 3,000 units. When we talk about no net loss, what that means is if we have a site that is identified in our housing element sites inventory that we have said is suitable for affordable development and a luxury or market rate project comes in and develops that site, which they're allowed to do, that means that that site falls off our inventory. And if that falls off our inventory, we need to make sure that we have sufficient additional sites available so that we can accommodate what remains of our RHNA target for lower income households. So we had a lower income target of 3,567. And we have our capacity of about 4,057 under our current housing element. So we've had a number of projects that have contributed to our supply of lower income housing. or deed-restricted affordable housing, but we've also had projects that have developed or are planning to develop that have taken away sites and available. In addition, as I mentioned briefly earlier, We did a series of general plan amendments in August of 2024 that changed the land use designation for a couple sites and also allowed for increased densities and intensities to try and ensure, because we were coming close to. getting into a situation where we didn't have enough sites to accommodate our need. So we went ahead and proactively did this so that as you can see here, we now have a current surplus of about 1,200 units. So if some of those sites develop with market rate housing, we won't go into a no net loss situation. So if we fall into a no net loss situation, what that means is within six months, we have to identify one or more sites, depending on how big that deficit is, and we have to rezone those properties and clear them environmentally for that development. And that, you know, for... The city went through that as a result of a state mandate back in 2000, and that was a difficult and very contentious process. So we're trying to get ahead of that and focus that where we did focus that growth in those general plan amendments is in areas that are served by transit, close to jobs, and close to services, and away from established single-family residential neighborhoods. So as you can see, we are making really good progress compared to the rest of our region. You're right up there behind Sacramento and ahead of Elk Grove and even the county in Rancho Cordova. So I think we have a lot to be proud of. And I mean, this is pretty impressive numbers that we're showing here. But obviously, we've got a very large allocation for those lower-income households. I think I've touched on everything, but we would be happy to answer any questions, but staff is recommending that the City Council receive and accept the 2025 General Plan Annual Report and the Housing Element Annual Report and direct staff to move forward to send copies to the Governor's Office of, well, it's now called the Land Use and Climate Innovation, formerly known as the Governor's Office of Planning and Research, and of the Department of Housing and Community Development as required by state law. That concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. Why did they change their name? I'm kidding.

I'm kidding. Okay.

Thank you, Desmond. All right. Questions?

I have no questions on this topic. Thank you for all your hard work. Vice Mayor? No.

Council Member Fleury?

Questions no questions. Thank you very much. Um, it's been interesting to watch this evolve over the years. Thanks.

Oh, my goodness. I am the only general plan nerd. I've got lots of questions. I know it's, I know it's late at night, so I'll keep it short. Um, and I appreciate I met with staff yesterday, just talking a little bit about land use, uh, policy 1, uh, which goes also H2, right? Um, and looking at. the mixed use development? And are we being successful? Right? This is our outreach started targeting these higher density areas back in 2019. We've done a number of planned changes. We really haven't spurred mixed use development along the East Bidwell Corridor, our transit-oriented overlays, and of course down in Folsom Ranch, which isn't even built out yet. So those are the three areas. And so I guess my pushback a little bit on staff was really along the central business district and having that minimum zoning density, Minimum housing density along that corridor we put it in for everything all 3 of these different areas. And so I just kind of. Said, well, what happens if, say, you know, the project going forward on Folsom, like, bull goes, hey, we're going to build this extension and the bowling alley, but we're also going to put in 4 units housing above it. well, sorry, you don't meet the minimum density that's there in that. And I'm just thinking of smaller scale sort of projects that if we can encourage and integrate with that area, I think it would be helpful. Just wanted to give that feedback. There was a couple of goals too on vacant sites, underutilized sites that we are keeping track of. Do we provide the public access to these inventories?

Yeah. So the housing element inventory is in the housing element, which is up on our website. And we will often direct folks that are looking to do development projects. We refer them to that document.

And that's got vacant, underutilized, both of those inventories? Yeah.

Yeah, it's everything that's in there that we've counted in our housing sites.

Okay, so we don't maintain a separate one from that.

No, just, yeah, I mean, because... you know, trying to keep track of all the changes. I mean, we're not kind of a brokerage, if you will, and trying to keep track of that is a kind of a daily task. So we do put all those sites out there that are in our housing element, and that has everything that we've identified as a site suitable for residential development.

Okay, and underutilized specifically too?

Yeah, I think we, yeah, Stephanie, do you want to speak to that? Stephanie's our housing manager.

There was kind of like three different lists called out, and so I think I might have just gotten confused on where all those lived.

Yeah, hi, Stephanie Henry, City of Folsom Planning. So yeah, the housing element actually, the very end of the housing element has the vacant site inventory, and then there's the last, or not, attachment after that kind of does a profile, a site assessment profile, and that identifies some of those underutilized sites.

Okay, that does have underutilized sites.

Yeah, and it shows like the acreage, the zoning, but that's like exact location of the site. So it's really helpful and useful.

Nice. Thank you. The other one was on Economic Development 3 and the Fast Year program. $1.1 million is great. Sorry, Stephanie. Is there a way to get more into this program? I'm thinking $1.1 million sounds like a big number until you talk about probably the... The total value of permits, I'm sure, has got to be much, much larger than that. So I'm thinking that's probably like a tiny fraction of the permits. I'm just wondering, is there a desire to move more into this faster program?

Okay, so that would be really a question for the building official, but I did have a conversation with her prior to this meeting. I think the faster program is only applicable to commercial alterations or tenant improvements, and it's also only applicable to office and retail because those are the types of tenant improvements that are generally pretty simple and only require like one reviewer from building department. They don't require like fire or like county health department or other departments. So the goal of the FASTER program is to get the permit through very quickly, like a three-day period, I believe. And also, the program typically is geared towards those spaces that are less than 3,000 square feet. Allison, the building, chief building official has stated that they have expanded that to larger office uses to try to drum up more business and help businesses get through the process more quickly if they meet that criteria.

Awesome, I appreciate that. Yeah, if you told any business owner they could get through the permit process in three days, they'd be ecstatic.

Yeah, and sometimes it's almost one day because if it's very simple, the building plan checker meets with the architect and they go through it. And if it's simple, they can just kind of redline the document so they don't have to resubmit.

All right, thank you. My last 1 is relatively simple. I'm sad that Derek left already because it's on landscape and lighting districts. But, you know, talks about replacing as funding allows and I know we've replaced a lot of the street lights throughout the city. And I just wonder if there's not, you know, when we were looking at these projects on commercial projects, like 10, 15 years ago, they penciled out like they're no brainers. Right. And here we are talking 10 or 15 years later, like, well, we're doing them as funding allows. They would have already paid us back and been massive dividends had we just done them 10 years ago. And so I just wonder if there's another funding mechanism or a way that we can move some money around because it's really just going to like, if we're waiting on L and L's to do that, we're just putting them further and further in the hole.

if you don't mind i mean i think that's a good point in uh some of our efforts to consider energy efficiency projects you know um you know that we just got to get to it you know i don't think we put in the the effort yet in that area and so i know derek's on board with trying to get that uh done but i think there may be other mechanisms for us to look at awesome yeah if we can loan them money and have them pay us back out of the energy savings seems seems like a no-brainer

Can I just put this out there? Sure, yeah, absolutely. Having had this question before in our L&L district, and that is some of those lights don't accommodate LED. They would have to replace the poles, which makes it a much more expensive project because, yeah, it's been under discussion for a long time. Thanks.

Thank you. All right, those are all my questions. Thank you.

Just to address your first one about the situation where, for example, like the Folsom Light Bowl, if they wanted to add a few units to their project, the brains behind the operation here, Stephanie Henry mentioned to me that that we do have land use policy 1.1.17, which allows development below the minimum standards. So in that instance where somebody wanted to add a few units, but it didn't equate to doing it at 30 dwelling units per acre, we would be able to allow that given the flexibility associated with that general plan policy.

Even in the overlay zones?

Yeah, even in the overlay zones.

That's awesome. That's really that's what I wanted to make sure that we were we're clear on. So thank you for that clarification. That's awesome.

Thanks, Stephanie.

Thanks, Stephanie. All right. We do have one public comment this evening, and I'm really appreciative that somebody is here to comment on the general plan annual report.

So the following speaker, Max Hofstad, you go ahead and approach the podium.

Hello, Council. My name is Max Hofstadt. I'm a longtime Folsom resident, but current student at Cal Poly SLO studying city and regional planning. So I'd just like to say I like the general plan a lot. I like the 2024 update. I think it lays out a lot of good ideas. You know, it says specifically that Younger people like me prefer a more walkable environment to live in, somewhere that you don't need a car always to access your home. And if we think about Folsom and where those places are, it's along light rail stations, the Folsom Boulevard corridor. as well as historic Folsom. And I don't see too much development going on in these areas. Glenn Station, I think, is a great point of development that could happen, as well as historic Folsom. It is a zone for mixed use, but I don't really see residences above the commercial buildings in Sutter Street. And I think a lot of people would be against this. But if we look at the city of Slough, it's such a vibrant downtown. And I think that's because there is homes on top of the city businesses, and that just provides a built-in consumer base for all these businesses in the downtown. So yeah, I would love to see that, you know, it's just like a, it's an inherently walkable community, you know, the urban form is old, you know, it's a street grids, everything is walkable, you have the light rail station right there as well. And, you know, it's, I think a great change that this community could make. I love Folsom, but when I look at my career post-graduation, I don't really see a home for me. I see a lot of single-family homes, and I see a lot of market-rate condos maybe, but the places that I would be interested in living in would be along the light rail corridor or historic Folsom. I'm a proud product of public schools in Folsom, but what's the use of investing all of this money into our public schools and putting out great students if they don't have a home here when they graduate? I think about the people in my cohort. I graduated in 2024 from Folsom High School. And the people that have moved out from their parents are not moving back into Folsom. They're looking at other places, places more affordable, places that meet what they're looking for. I think the city struggles a lot with identity because it's like, are we another suburb of Sacramento or are we a unique city with our own unique history and our own identity? And I think it's very challenging to have a city identity without homes that support people in every stage of life. If all the people that grew up in Folsom and experience our culture are then not allowed to live here just because there's not homes for people like that, they can't really continue that identity that we've learned. So thank you.

Thank you, Max. Appreciate you coming out tonight. I was going to say I support moving forward with the Glen light rail station policy H-15, but I think Max covered it very well. Uh, that's all of our public comments this evening.

Yeah, there's no other further speakers under this item.

All right. And this is receiving files and no action needed. Perfect city manager report.

Great. Thank you. Member mayor members of the council. Just a couple of updates. We've had a couple of charter review committee meetings. Our last 1 was March 19th. We have. had very productive meetings. A lot of items have come up for discussion. And our next meeting is on April 1st. And the goal is to present a report, I think in May, to the council for their consideration of if they would like to put something on the November ballot to make some changes to that charter. But really appreciate all the community members on that committee. We also wanted to let the public know that there's a special Parks and Recreation Commission meeting that will be held on March 31st at 6.30 p.m. to consider recommending approval of the Benevento Family Park Master Plan to the City Council. Then meeting will take place at City Hall with a livestream option available. Community members are encouraged to attend or watch online and provide input. A couple of construction progress projects drainage improvements on bid Wall Street will run through may 8th with weekday lane closures flagging and parking restrictions between wool indicator access will be maintained while a new storm during this installed. We also have priority road repairs at Sibley and Glenn. Work will take place through March 29th to address pipe and pavement damage with overnight construction, 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. for most of the project. Drivers should expect lane closures and delays. And then a reminder on April 4th, the Festival of Eggs returns to Lemby Park. This will provide family-friendly activities, age-specific bunny trail egg hunts, and opportunities for local vendors and organizations to participate. And then we also want to remind folks to save the date for the City of Folsom's 80th birthday. Join the City of Folsom on Saturday, May 9th. as we celebrate 80 years with a community birthday party. Enjoy a fun, family-friendly day featuring a special return of the classic snail race, games, entertainment, train rides, and more. Join us from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at City Lions Park. That concludes my report.

Thank you. We'll go on to Council Comments.

Just a couple of brief things. We had our full SACOG meeting last week on Thursday, and it was held at a remote site in West Sacramento at Raley Field, or Sutter Health Park now, home of the Now, Sacramento is officially, and it was very interesting hearing from the elected leaders of West Sacramento, and also their city manager who's been there for a good long time that West Sacramento. As anybody who's driven down highway eighty can see there's been a bit of a renaissance in terms of they're trying to meet their housing element by building a lot of multi family and condo apartment style housing right? Near the river and near the baseball park. And the history in West Sacramento is, the city manager likes to call it Radiator Springs from the movie Cars, because the city was, and he used literally the image from Cars where the city threw a party to celebrate the Interstate 80 bypassing them, thinking that people were gonna get off and use their hotels and they were gonna get all kinds of new business, and literally nobody showed up. West Sacramento, which once was thriving as a place where people would stay when they visited the area withered. And those hotels became a magnet for all kinds of things that they weren't real keen about and they became notorious for. But through a lot of hard work and a lot of investment by the community in terms of tax dollars and hard work and stick-to-itiveness, that city has transformed itself. And it's really been very successful. So it was an interesting presentation. All SACOG meetings are recorded and available on the SACOG website for you to go back and take a look at. And it was a good lesson for us that Economic development is an essential thing that we have to keep our eyes on all the time. And that means attracting businesses, making good choices about infrastructure, and looking out for the residents of Folsom that are going to live here for the next 50 years, not just the next 20. So for Max and everybody in his cohort, we've got to look out for them. So that's the one thing. The second thing is that the Vista Del Lago track team demolished Bella Vista High Schools and Christian Brothers High Schools in the dual track meet this evening, which is where I was up until the moment that I got here. So thank you, everybody, for your indulgence with that extra 15 minutes today. Vice Mayor?

Um, we had SACRT on Monday. It was the shortest meeting, um, yet. Um, but I do want to articulate, uh, Rancho Cordova council member, Linda Budge wanted me to, maybe she's passed it on to you, Sarah Aquino, but she said, I loved her word. She said the train expo that you organized, um, a couple of weeks ago, she said it was beautifully organized and impeccably executed. So I thought you'd like those words. That's it.

Council Member Leary.

I don't have a lot to report. I know. Unfortunately, what I do have is a little bit of bad news, and that is the Sacramento Metro Cable Commission is no longer taking in enough money to cover distribution to the cities or the county this year. So that means that we'll be losing around $300,000. It's a little bit more than that last year that came back to the city. They're still providing some grant monies for programs such as we have for our communications team, equipment and all, but that's tapering off as more people cut the cable. They're looking at two to three years and what will be remaining will be the use of the cable for producing all of the local jurisdictional meetings. But I did want to mention someone, the young man that spoke, that wanted to live in a walkable community. And if you haven't been to Natoma Station, there are some affordable homes there, and it is walkable. Yeah, I've been in a lot of communities where they actually, the realtors score the community by how walkable it is. And they're, you know, like in Washington, D.C., Boston and New York. Those are highly sought after communities to live in. So maybe we can do better here in Folsom over the next few years. I certainly hope so.

Council Member Aquino.

Just one thing. The ad hoc committee for the American River Canyon section that's in the San Juan District met last week. Council Member Kozlowski, the city manager, and I, along with there are three residents of that area that are on the committee, but only two were able to attend. So basically we decided to take a kind of a wait-and-see approach for now to see if the school district decides to put a bond measure on The ballot this November, which if passed, would help with capacity issues. But I did reach out to five realtors as part of the outreach before that meeting, and all said that that section of Folsom that's in the San Juan District, that is not as desirable to buyers as it is on the other side of American River Canyon that's in the Folsom Cordova District. One local realtor did a search for me for the past five years, and the homes that are, so I guess that would be the west side of American River Canyon that are in the San Juan District, are on the market on average 14 days longer than the ones on the other side of the street. So you didn't see any measurable difference in the final sale price or cost per square foot, but just kind of interesting to know that it's really important for most buyers that they buy a home in the Folsom Cordova School District. So that's all. Thank you.

Nothing further from me tonight, so we'll adjourn at 10.09 p.m. Thank you all.