City Council - Regular Meeting

And with that, we will adjourn the special meeting, and we'll move to the regular meeting. If you could call the roll.

Council Members Leary. Here. Rorba. Here. Aquino. Here. Kozlowski.

Here. And Rathel. Here. If you'll please stand with me for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic from which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And do we have any agenda updates this evening?

We do. We do, Mayor. On new business item number 19, city staff is requesting that the item be continued off calendar. And then for item number 23, we have an additional information transmittal. It's my understanding that the council has all been provided copies of this information, and we have a copy on the back table for members of the public.

Thank you. sorry item number night 23 23 and 19 19 continued in off-calendar all right and that brings us to business from the floor this is the time where the public can address the council on any unagenda item for up to three minutes so if you would like to address the council we've got the blue cards in the back please fill out one of those and bring it up front for us and we'll start with our first speaker

OK, we have three speakers this evening. And I'll let you know who's speaking and then who's next so you can be ready if you hear your name coming up as next. So our first speaker will be Kevin Goddard. Kevin will be followed by Alexis Goddard, who will then be followed by Richard Heiler.

Testing.

OK.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR.

SO GOOD EVENING, MAYOR, SO GOOD EVENING, MAYOR, COUNCIL MEMBERS AND CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS AND CITY MANAGER. MANAGER. FIRST, THANK YOU FOR WHAT YOU DO. FIRST, THANK YOU FOR WHAT YOU DO. I KNOW YOU PUT IN A LOT OF HOURS I KNOW YOU PUT IN A LOT OF HOURS AND CAN OFTEN BE A THINKLESS AND CAN OFTEN BE A THINKLESS JOB. JOB. I'M HERE TONIGHT BECAUSE I'M I'M HERE TONIGHT BECAUSE I'M CONCERNED. CONCERNED. I'M CONCERNED THAT THE MESSAGING I'M CONCERNED THAT THE MESSAGING THAT YOU'VE BEEN SENDING TO THE THAT YOU'VE BEEN SENDING TO THE PEOPLE OF THIS CITY IS NOT IN PEOPLE OF THIS CITY IS NOT IN AL Brian, I clearly remember sitting in this audience when you first became the city manager and we're looking at the city's finances and you told us that Folsom would have to do less with less. That was a tough pill to swallow, but I respected the honesty of that message. I believed if we all tightened our belts and worked through this together, we could get to the other side of this crisis. I trusted that leadership would lead by example And some of you have. That's why I'm concerned now. We've seen a fire station browned out, staffing reduced, and services outsourced, yet at the same time, a few of our leaders have sought to increase compensation for their roles. I'm not saying you shouldn't get paid, but getting a raise is not something that should be part of any conversation until the city is back on its feet and all of the services have been restored. I want to remind you that being in public service means you serve the public, and that often comes with personal sacrifices. And if you're not willing to make a sacrifice, then maybe this is not a job for you to sign up for. I'll close with this, that trust is earned in teaspoons, and it is lost in buckets. Thank you. Thank you.

OK, our next speaker is Alexis Goddard.

Hi, good evening, City Council.

You can pull the microphone down.

Thank you. There you go. I would just like to second what Kevin said. I mean, the city, Brian, we've gone to many meetings. We've heard less with less. City has no money. You guys are browning out the fire stations. That's a public safety issue. The roads, everything's 30-plus years old now in this town. It needs to be upgraded. You know, we're just saying we're in the red. I get that, but now's not the time to be asking yourselves for pay increases. I think this could be tabled and addressed at a later issue once the city is back on budget. And I would just like to end with saying, you guys, you all knocked on our doors, you asked for a vote, a vote to better our city, not a vote to better yourself. And I want you to think about that. Thanks.

Okay, our next speaker is Richard Heiler.

Thank you. Good evening. I'm Richard Hyler, Folsom Landscape and Lighting Advisory Committee Vice Chair, representing the neighborhood of Los Cerros. Tonight, I'd like to recognize two Folsom public servants for their quick attention addressing a disaster. On Valentine's evening, Saturday, a car knocked over the Los Cerros Monument sign at Wood Smoke and East Bidwell. The sign was broken from its foundation, flat on the ground, and in pieces. Tuesday morning, I received an email from the municipal landscape services manager letting me know he was aware of the event and arranging repairs. In 38 days, the sign was completely rebuilt and looked like new. I'd like to share just a couple of photos with you. Now you can see what the sign looked like on the left, and what it looked like on the right after Valentine's Day. Completely ripped out of the ground, and the rubble was hauled away before I could get a picture. And then, over the 38 days, completely rebuilt out a center block, coated, and the sign put back in place. A beautiful result. This wonderful result was achieved by our public servants who knew how to get it done and cared about our city. To recognize our public servants, I'd like to present a certificate of appreciation. As I call your name, please come forward. David Krigg, municipal landscape services supervisor. Now, he couldn't be here because of a family commitment. And Derek Perez, municipal landscape services manager.

Guys, grab a picture, yeah, turn around and.

So David and Derek, on behalf of the Loseros neighborhood, I am grateful for you quickly restoring the beauty of our neighborhood and city. Thank you.

Thanks, Richard.

derek thanks to you and please thank dave for us also for that quick response that's great thank you any other public comments this evening all right that will take us to our scheduled presentations and item number one okay your first scheduled presentation this evening is a proclamation of the mayor proclaiming april 12th to the 18th as national public safety telecommunicators week in the city of folsom

And could we have the public safety telecommunicators come on up? Vice Mayor Rorbaugh is going to read the proclamation tonight. Thank you all for being here.

Thank you for being here. Is this on? Yeah. So proclamation of the mayor of the city of Folsom proclaiming National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week in the city of Folsom. Whereas Folsom police dispatchers are the vital link in our police officers, firefighters, crisis interventionalists, and our citizens monitoring radioactivity, traffic cameras, and other tools and aid in providing information and life-saving instructions while enhancing the safety of all. And whereas in 2025, Folsom's communications dispatchers answered over 99% of the 911 calls in 15 seconds or less. That's a big deal. And whereas Folsom's public safety dispatchers served with care, compassion,

I don't know what that says.

While aiding in the relentless pursuit of criminal behavior and fostering of positive relationships and whereas Folsom's public safety dispatchers are the calm on the end of the line when calm is needed most. On behalf of the mayor, Justin Rathel, and the city of council, I, Anna Rorba, proclaim Do hereby proclaim the week of April 12th to the 18th, 2026 as National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week in the City of Folsom and extend our gratitude to Folsom's communications dispatchers for their dedicated service to our community, their diligence and commitment to keeping our city and our citizens safe. Proclaim this 14th day of April 2026. I do just want to say a couple things. When I did a sit-along, I think now it's almost been a couple years, I was completely impressed with everything that you have to deal with all in one second. I mean, there could be 10 things going on at one time, and I think I sat with you, Brent, didn't I? I was just floored by the amount of information you have to take in and how you have to remain calm and not rattled. So thank you for everything that you do. We really appreciate it in the city.

OK, our next scheduled presentation, item number two. This is a proclamation of the mayor proclaiming April 19 to the 25th as National Library Week in the city of Folsom.

Sure. Tom, are you going to come down too? All right. This is a proclamation of the mayor of the city of Folsom proclaiming April 19th to the 25th, 2026 as National Library Week in the city of Folsom. Whereas the Folsom Public Library leads the county of Sacramento with the highest circulation and program attendance of any library location in the county, and does so with per capita funding at around half that of its regional peers. And whereas the dedicated volunteers of the Friends of the Folsom Library play an essential role in supporting the library through book sales, grant writing, and community outreach, raising more than $75,000 for the library this year. And whereas libraries partner with schools, businesses, and organizations to maximize resources, increase efficiency, and expand access to essential services, strengthening the entire community. And whereas libraries serve as vibrant community hubs, connecting people with knowledge, technology, and resources, while fostering civic engagement, critical thinking, and cultural enrichment. and whereas libraries provide free and equitable access to books, digital tools, and innovative programming, ensuring that all individuals have the support they need to learn, connect, and thrive, and whereas communities across the country are joining together to celebrate National Library Week under the theme Find Your Joy, Now, on behalf of Justin Rathel, Mayor of the City of Folsom, we do hereby proclaim the week of April 19th of the 25th, 2026, as National Library Week in the City of Folsom, and extend our gratitude to the Friends of the Folsom Library and to our dedicated volunteers and staff. During this week, we encourage residents to visit their library, explore its resources, and celebrate all the ways that it helps our community find joy. Proclaim this 14th day of April, 2026.

On behalf of the Friends of the Folsom Library, I'm honored to accept this proclamation for National Library Week, and I invite everybody to come find their joy at the library. Joy is different for everyone. For some, it's that quiet escape into a good book. For others, it's that spark when you learn something new. And last week, we had a little girl come in, and she found a book on magic tricks, and she was literally jumping. She was so excited, she couldn't wait to get home to do some magic tricks and learn something with her dad. So the library is free it's a great resource for everybody and as friends, we are so honored to be able to see the impact on our Community every time we go. And I just like to also extend a huge thank you to everyone who makes that possible from Tom art library director to the library staff. the volunteers who come into the library, the library commission, the members and friends of the Folsom Library, the people who shop at our store, the people who donate books to make this all possible. It takes a whole community. And next week is Find Your Joy, National Library Week, so please come in, get that book you've been meaning to read, join a book club, make a new friend, bring your child to story time. There's lots of ways to celebrate, so thank you.

Okay, as our library folks get seated, our next item, number three, will be a proclamation recognizing 20 consecutive years as a Tree City USA and celebrating Arbor Day.

Are you prepared to hop? Okay, yeah. All right. This is one of my favorites to do. I've got to do it before. This is a proclamation of the mayor of the city of Folsom recognizing 20 consecutive years as a Tree City USA and celebrating Arbor Day. Whereas the legacy of Arbor Day began with J. Sterling Morton's 1872 vision for a dedicated day to trees and a tradition elevated to national prominence in 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt. as a vital investment in our republic's future. And whereas Arbor Day is now observed annually throughout the nation and the world and will be celebrated in Folsom on Saturday, April 18th, 2026, and whereas our tree canopy serves as vital living infrastructure, stabilizing our soils, intercepting storm flows, and providing a natural cooling effect that lowers energy demands while filtering the very air we breathe. And whereas trees are unique municipal assets that increase in value over time, enhancing property values, fostering a restorative sanctuary that recharges the human spirit and creates shaded walkable areas that strengthen our business community. and whereas beyond their measurable utility trees offer a timeless source of joy weaving nature into the daily fabric of our city offering a quiet legacy for generations to come and whereas for 20 consecutive years the arbor day foundation has recognized the city of folsom as a tree city usa a milestone that reflects our city's unwavering commitment to fostering a robust resilient tree canopy for all residents And whereas the city will celebrate Arbor Day for planting trees, by planting trees at Granite Mini Park and will further observe our 20 year milestone as a Tree City USA with a commemorative planting event at McFarland Park this fall. now therefore on behalf of justin rathel mayor of the city of folsom i do hereby proclaim april 18th 2026 as arbor day in the city of folsom and urge all citizens to support our efforts in protecting our trees and woodlands and further i urge all citizens to enjoy the cool shade of trees and join us in securing the well-being of future generations as folsom celebrates two decades of excellence as a tree city usa proclaim this 14th day of april 2026. First of all, last time I got to read this one, I reminded everybody that I grew up in Chicago originally, and just outside of Chicago is the Morton Arboretum, named for this gentleman, which is a really cool tree sanctuary there, and an arboretum here would be an amazing asset someday.

Thank you, Council Member Kozlowski. I just want to say I'm feeling very grateful to accept this proclamation on behalf of the community and everyone who has contributed and played a role in growing our city's beautiful urban forest. The city of Folsom is well known for its distinctive by nature identity. And a big contributor to that is our beautiful urban forest. I want to thank this council for your continued support towards our urban forestry goals. And it is exactly because of that support that the Arbor Day Foundation has recognized our city for 20 years running now as a Tree City USA. A milestone reflecting two decades of commitment to growing our urban forest. So this Saturday, we're going to be putting that commitment into action at Granite Mini Park, where we are going to be planting the next generation of trees. But also to commemorate 20 years as a Tree City USA, we are also planning a celebratory planting event at McFarland Community Park this fall. And we look forward to releasing those details as we get closer. but until then thank you again for your support i am very privileged to grow our urban forest with you and i look forward to seeing some familiar faces in the dirt this saturday thank you

Okay, next will be item number four. This is a proclamation of the mayor proclaiming April 22nd, 2026 as Earth Day, which will be celebrated on April 18th.

Good evening, everyone. This proclamation is of the mayor for the city of Folsom proclaiming April 22nd, 2026 as Earth Day, which will be celebrated on April 18th, 2026. Whereas Senator Gaylord Nelson and student activist Dennis Hayes organized the first Earth Day rallies on April 22nd, 1970 across the United States, which signaled that protecting the environment is an important goal of the American people. creating the modern environmental movement and landmark pieces of environmental legislation of the United States. And whereas Earth Day has evolved into the world's largest civic event, uniting people across 192 cities, excuse me, countries, in the shared celebration and citizenship of our planet. With this year's theme, Our Power, Our Planet, Folsom proudly joins the worldwide effort on April 18th, 2026. And whereas the city of Folsom recognizes that an environment free of pollution increases property values, enhances economic vitality, protects native species, maintains air and water quality and beautifies our community. And whereas the city of Folsom acknowledges the ongoing efforts of city staff to comply with state and federal environmental regulations that protect our community and natural resources for future generations. Whereas in 2025, the City of Folsom utilized roughly 1,054 tons of recovered organic waste through community service day, landscape projects, and the self-serve compost pile, all of which were used locally. And whereas the City of Folsom diverts 54 tons per day of organic material from the landfill, contributing to statewide waste reduction and sustainability goals. And whereas the city of Folsom is committed to sharing information about sustainability initiatives and inspiring stewardship of our distinct natural environment. Now, therefore, I, Barbara Leary, council member, along with our mayor, Justin Rathel, and the remainder of the city council, Do hereby proclaim April 22nd, 2026 as Earth Day, which will be celebrated on April 18th with Earth Day volunteer opportunities at Lions Park. Proclaim this 14th day of April 2026. We hope to see you all there at the celebration.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Leary and City Council. We're all very excited to bring the third annual Earth Day event for the City of Folsom. Prior years before Earth Day, the City hosted many separate springtime events across multiple departments, including pre-food cleanups, Trails Day, Arbor Day, volunteer activities, and recycling education and outreach. 2024 we combine those into a one more cohesive and comprehensive earth day event which has been very successful this year we'll be focusing on the volunteer cleanups and projects and followed by a volunteer appreciation lunch the events rotated locations each year we've held it first year was in front of city hall last year at the newly completed prospector park and this year at lion's park

We also want to highlight that the city is already participating in Earth Day events this year, such as Earth Day Fair at Blanche Springs Elementary School, where we talk to students about what compost is, what goes in their blue and green bins, and how important battery recycling is. 2026 will also be the fourth annual year of the Earth Day coloring contest for all elementary school students, and this will be wholesome. Topics have ranged from recycling food scraps to water conservation. Over the last five decades, Earth Day has become a global day of recognition, reflection, and action dedicated to protecting our planet for future generations, and we are proud and honored to continue that mission in this vehicle scene.

We are thrilled to share that the volunteer spots for this Saturday are already full, and volunteers will be completing zoo beautification, trail cleanups, fire fuel removal, and tree planting. And then, like was mentioned, we'll have pizza back at Lions Park. And we're grateful to the mayor and to city council for this proclamation and for your support of our goal.

okay our next scheduled presentation item number five will be a presentation regarding the fire department deployment model oh please do it's my first time

Pretty picture.

Thanks for coming tonight, Chief.

Absolutely. Well, good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members, city staff. community members Jason Solak fire chief and tonight I tend to provide you a quick deployment update on on the deployment model that the fire department is planning to implement next week justification talk a little bit about data and some of the challenges that we are encountering and kind of just a broad overview of of how we use data to drive a lot of our decision-making As a 25 year resident, and a fire chief for a little over five months. I believe that the community expects these things. Operational readiness, I mean, that's the core theme of what we do, right? Responding to emergencies and assisting the public. Responsive and adaptive to the community needs. As the needs of the community change, we need to be adaptive and innovative to meet those needs. Administratively accountable. We need to ensure that we are using fiscal prudence, that we're using best practices, industry standard, right, and trying to limit the subjectivity of our decision making on a daily basis. And I think, as important as anything, we need to be transparent about our process. We need to be willing to say where we're not doing great or where we can improve, while also highlighting those areas that we are doing well. Standards of Cover is a document that's a comprehensive review, essentially, that identifies three things. Community risk, the level of service that the community expects, and the resources and performance the department can actually deliver. And CPSC, which is the Centers for Public Service Excellence, there's a subcategory there, grows out of a community risk assessment identifying the department's baseline performance and sets the benchmarks for improvement. In practice, it's a document, a foundational document that we would use on how to deploy, measure, and improve services on the hazards and needs of our community. The objectives of the standards of cover are outlined here. Identify and understand the risks, define the department's level of service and response performance objectives, evaluate current response capabilities, guide resource allocation decisions, measure performance and identify gaps, support strategic planning, budgeting, and policy development, Outlined in that document and used throughout the fire service is a data compliance standard. This is much like a control study in a research project, right, that you can... that you can provide to colleagues for peer review. You have confidence and reliability in the data that you're driving because it's objective and it's filtered to eliminate anomalies. As you can see in the list, there are a number of criteria filter that the compliance standards requires. Response time compliance is measured on our ability to effectively respond to emergent type calls. And there's a model that I'll illustrate later on a variety of ways on how to do that. We use CAD data in our records management system. Data is sent to our records management system. And then after a call, we go in there and we input and aggregate data based on a number of substandards to identify whether it was a priority call, whether the call occurred in district, what unit actually arrived on scene first. And all of those objectively identify the compliance standard. And when you aggregate the data, the data that doesn't meet all of the response criteria is discarded. Because in true compliance, you have to have an established set of criteria, and a benchmark to meet. Most commonly, we use what's called 90%. And so 90% is nine times out of 10, we met this performance benchmark. So as an example, when we talk about response compliance for EMS, right, or NFPA standards, they talk about six minutes total response time, 90% of the time, which means that the expectation or the goal is to have a fire unit arrive on scene within six minutes of the time of the call. nine times out of 10. And when you're not able to achieve that, which a lot of agencies nationally are not. Not anecdotally, but there's no real research on how many departments actually meet that benchmark, other than some investigative reports from Boston Globe is probably the one. But nationally, the reports indicate that somewhere between 58% and 60% of fire departments nationally are actually able to consistently meet the compliance data. So it's a tough goal to achieve. And there are a number of factors that play into that.

Chief, I might have missed it, but I'm not familiar with the acronym. Could you go back? What's CAD timestamp?

Oh, CAD. So CAD is Computer Aided Dispatch. Yeah. That is the dispatch center. So in Folsom, we have a PSAP. PSAP is actually Folsom PD. They received the original call. 911, what's your emergency? They say, hey, there's a fire or I have a medical emergency. They transfer the call to Sacramento Regional Fire Emergency Communication Center. They take the information. Oftentimes, PD will remain on the line to obtain additional information to determine whether law enforcement may be needed. And then they dispatch the appropriate fire agency for the type of call and dispatch the appropriate units for the call type event. So if it's a medical or a fire or whatever. CAD catches those timestamps and then transfers them to our records management system. So we should be using CAD data for our timestamps, but there are a number of subsets that the fire department needs to be implementing and inputting when they're writing the report so that we can aggregate the data correctly to know whether we are or aren't meeting our compliance data. 1710, which is industry standard in terms of professional fire service deployment models, is compliance built around those performance objectives. 90% achievement is the benchmark for call processing, turnout, and travel time, not using averages. The means averages are useful for context, but they should not be a number that is used to determine whether we're in compliance. Averages are especially weak for judging reliability. Over a short time period, the problem gets worse because the denominator is small. For practical consequences of using averages, it generates false confidence, missed operational problems, and poor deployment decisions because, again, the data is not reliable. It's used primarily as a trend indicator that typically warrants additional investigative work as to why did this occur or why are we seeing this trend.

As an example,

This is just a slide I put together. This is from our records management system, which is the software program that CAD feeds in. We took a three-year average response time, dispatch to arrival, first unit, and already we're not complying with the compliance standards because the compliance standards requires dispatch to the arrival of first due based on geographic GIS information, which we currently don't have in our records management system. Secondly, it's for urgent or emergent calls. And of course, we are only able to categorize all calls. So in 2023, we had 9,527 calls for service. We had 15,036 runs. And a run is the actual number of times that a unit responded. And there are incidents that require additional or multiple units. So even though it's a single incident, it may have four or five or six different units responding. And so that number is representative of the actual number of runs that all the units did collectively. And for that year, our average response time was 7.56. In 2024, you can see that the calls for service increased slightly by roughly 400. Our total runs increased by about 1,000. And our average response time decreased roughly 30 seconds. So as a policymaker or a fire chief, you look at this and you go, well, why did this happen? And in 2024, we added an engine company. So we have an additional resource available on the system to respond to these calls. It's logical that we would see a decrease. Interestingly enough, if you look at the 2025 data, calls for service remained pretty flat. Total runs actually increased, but our average response times decreased. And what's interesting about this data set point is we actually had an engine out of service for two of those 12 months. And what this highlights is the unreliability using averages to determine response time. So Standards Recovery Report, 2006. Council approved and passed resolution for Standards Recovery Report. They adopted many performance metrics as a result of that. You can see those there. A couple of those recommended building an additional station, staffing an additional engine company, and also identified Station 37 as a best location for the truck company. Due to its accessibility, its district, most of the buildings in that district are beyond the reach of a 24-foot ladder, right? So the use of an aerial for access is important. And then district specifics, again, that was our heavily commercialized area. We had the college. We had Highway 50. We now have Palladio. So there's a local drive factor when we talk about where we should be deploying our truck from. So the initial actions that were taken, council did adopt a resolution, 7979, that adopted some of those performance benchmarks that I've mentioned. We started planning for Fire Station 39. We strengthened partnerships and mutual aid agreements, as outlined in the report. And we started forecasting and planning for long-range Folsom plan area that was identified as a potential annexation area for Station 34. Since then, Station 39 has been built. We have hired additional firefighters to staff that station. We replaced an existing truck with superior capabilities, better access, better reach. It has the capacity to carry additional equipment for improved service deliverables. We developed a strategic plan that was in concert with many of the standards of cover recommendations for how to best deploy the fire department. We built 34, we hired additional firefighters, and are now in the planning stages for 33. This is where transparency is important, because we do have some areas for improvement. Some of the identified shortfalls in just the short term I've been here, in conversations with the command team, the department, many of the policymakers, and our regional partners, Facility challenges at station 37. So when we first purchased a ladder truck, it was too tall to fit at 37, even though we agreed that was the best place for it. So we moved it to station 35. And then we went through the process of developing a new platform, a TDA, which is the truck we have now. It was not as tall. However, it was longer. So while it went into the app bay, it didn't fit within the app bay. So once again, we had a little bit of a challenge putting the truck where we really thought the truck should go. And it was placed, again, at Station 35, which is where it has resided until most recently. Normalization of deviance. This is not unique to the city of Folsom. In the 25 years I worked for a prior agency, I spent the last few years as a deputy fire chief, and one of my tasks was to manage a community risk assessment that included a standards of cover report. And I don't proclaim to be an expert in any shape or form when it comes to data or data analysis. There are experts that we refer to and depend on for their input. there definitely has been a deviance um from what i would consider to be best practice and i recall as a fire captain being trained as to the why right and i think we've lost some of the why and again this is not unique to the city of folsom a lack of institutional knowledge right not being able to explain the why not having the ability to share the importance of the data right and what the data does for us in in many uh aspects Decreased capacity to provide oversight right staffing challenges a lot of agencies both municipal and county fire departments have have struggled as the economy goes up and down our staffing levels go up and down and we tend to prioritize our efforts in those areas that are primary mission driven. Aspects right emergency response training and those things and oftentimes we lose the ability to maintain adherence to those policies and it's it becomes a real challenge later in time right and then unreliable data on which to base deployment operational decisions which I've already mentioned. And then lastly, financial challenges plays a role in any of these. Again, as the city has money, there are competing funds for general fund dollars, and there's capital infrastructure, water needs. I always tell people that when you turn the faucet on and you don't have water, that's a problem. So moving forward, again, in the short time I've been here, we've identified a problem with our data collection and the framework that doesn't exist for us to be able to ensure compliance. So we've been in discussions with a data specialist to design and implement that framework. He is actively working on that now. We are implementing and working on adaptive changes as our policies, right? So our personnel are inputting the information into the system in a manner that is compliant and consistent with best practices so that we can actually aggregate and analyze the data as it's designed to be. Utilize acceptable existing deployment models. I'll share that in a minute. Long-term solutions, adaptive and innovative to the community needs, Station 37. Renovations, as I mentioned, one truck was too tall, one truck was too long, and so due to a number of factors, the decision was made to leave it at Station 35. And now we're confronted with... you know, some financial challenges and service reductions. And because we couldn't put the truck at 37, which is where we believe it belongs, it had to go to another station that would accommodate it, which was 34, and I'll talk about that here in a minute. Regular progress supports the community, right, as we implement these changes and we start to improve our ability to aggregate data, right, and then strengthen partnerships, regional cooperation. So for the folks at home, and for many of you, just real quick, fire department unit types. This is a medic unit. Its primary function is advanced medical life support. It is staffed with paramedics, and it transports definitive care patients to the hospitals. It does, at times, supplement staffing in fire-related incidents. An engine company, its primary function is fire suppression. It carries hose and water, and that is its primary goal, right? It also has advanced life support capabilities, basic tools and equipment, And then we have our truck company, which provides strategic and tactical logistical support to incidents. You can see a number of those tasks there, forceful entry, access to roofs, I talked about the height of the buildings throughout our city, ventilation, which is a control measure that we take on fire, search and rescue, rescue extrication, technical rescue, and it is also staffed with advanced life support. So the unit deployment distribution is defined in NFPA and ISO. ISO for everyone is the Insurance Services Office. It's the rating or the report card on how we're actually doing. Currently the city is at a two, which is one short of being a class one fire department. That has implications in our insurance rate, so two is a good mark. ISO uses a quantitative analysis for deployment model. First arriving engine company should be within a mile and a half, and a truck or specialized equipment should be within two and a half miles. The map that you see up on the screen now is the city of Folsom outlined in white, and then you can see the different station numbers. I added the future fire station 33 as we continue to develop the Folsom plan area for reference. This next map represents the one and a half mile radii, which is representative of four minute travel time. What this slide really highlights is the redundancy that the fire department currently has with our primary station location in terms of concurrent and resiliency, right? So all the areas that the circles overlap are areas that an adjacent district could respond to and have an opportunity to actually meet the compliance benchmarks, right? The less overlap you have, the less ability and resilience you have for redundancy and concurrent calls and you can see that some of those stations are built in areas that are are adequate um and there are a number of factors on where we can actually purchase land and build fire stations and things so um i think that over time the city has done a good job being a long-term residence i know we've actually relocated number of stations to uh to improve this and this next slide is the two and a half mile radii this is the six to eight minute travel time and this is uh representative of what a truck would cover you can see the gray circle is currently station 34 in the area of the city that the truck covers within that time frame 35 is where the truck did reside and as i'll share here momentarily is where we're recommending putting the truck back temporarily until we can make accommodations at 37. And then the black circle is 37, and you can see it clearly covers the vast majority of the city from that location. So our current deployment model, as outlined there, we have a truck at Station 34, which again is the Folsom plan area south of Highway 50. For anybody that has traveled East Bidwell in recent months, that's a bit of a challenge. It's a challenge to get the truck, which is a specialized piece of equipment, over the freeway to provide those logistical and tactical support functions to the rest of the community. And as important, Perhaps even more important is our inability to effectively get a suppression unit to the south side of the freeway given that we really only have two Maori routes of travel, which is East Bidwell and Placerville Drive, which is impacted with in and out traffic daily. Station 35 currently has an engine, station 36 has an engine and a medic unit, 37 has an engine and a medic, 38 has the medic only because of the engine closure or the brownout, and then station 39 has an engine. OK, so some of the challenges and considerations we've taken in concert with all the best practices, the standards of cover, the strategic plan, right, is given limited resources and again, making efforts to do the best we can with what we have. The truck response throughout the city of Folsom, that specialized equipment and response capability really needs to be located in the center of the city. Right. So it provides adequate support to the entire city. Fire suppression in the Folsom Plan area impacted again by the current congestion and traffic. As we ramp up into fire season, the calls for service historically through the months of August, September, November and December yield higher calls for service. And given the wildfire risk in that area, we believe it's extremely prudent that we put an engine company down there to initiate fire suppression. Concurrent calls, 35, 36, and 37 is the core, the heart of the city. That's where the bulk of our calls occur, right? And we talked about redundancy. And then medic unit allocation. Medic units are a unique resource and we share them regionally. However, what we have determined is that Medic 36 generally spends about half of its time in terms of call service outside the city of Folsom. And so we're recommending that we relocate that to another station to better serve the community, however still be available for regional needs. So the deployment changes that we plan to implement on Tuesday, April 21st are as follows. Station 34, which is again the south Folsom plant area, will have an engine. Station 35, which is where the truck resided for many years, will host and house the truck until renovations can be completed at station 37. which is ultimately where we would like to place the truck. And I'll just take a minute to announce that I'm pleased that our finance director, in concert with city manager, has approved a tentative plan to make those renovations a reality, which is very welcome news for us. And I'm excited that we're going to make that long-term goal a reality soon.

Yeah, and we'll be bringing that at a future council.

Station 36 will continue to house an engine. Station 37 will have an engine and a medic as it does now. Moving the truck back to station 35 creates a challenge having a truck at 35 and no engine at 38. So our recommendation and implementation plan is to move the engine from 39 to 38 and take the medic unit from 36, move it to 35 and then move that medic unit that is currently at 38 to 39. We believe that that provides the best overall balanced approach to emergency response moving forward over the next six to eight months until such time as we can consider moving the truck to 37, which is where we believe it should be. And I'm happy to take any questions.

I've got one to kind of kick us off. Station 39 obviously sits right on our county boundary. You referenced the 2006 kind of study where the standards were approved. Do we have an understanding of why, obviously at that point, we expected some call volume to materialize and that call volume just maybe didn't come in is there do we have any understanding and i guess the other thing i noticed in the presentation what for the last three years we've we've had a significantly growing population right and our calls for service are flat And so I guess I'm kind of curious, like, where are those, you know, where's that trend of calls for service? Because I would have expected it to proportionally go up with our population. And then, you know, my other question is, is, like, do we have an understanding of why we didn't, like, we thought we needed 39, right? But it turns out, you know, maybe, you know, when I look at it and just, you know, look at what we're, where it's at with the radiuses. Maybe that station wasn't originally needed or maybe does need to be relocated in the future.

That's a great question. Not having the historical background specifically to all of the data that was used when that recommendation was made. I will say that just from a basic response model, In the standards recovery report, it was identified that that area did not receive adequate response in terms of minutes from 911 dispatch to arrival of fire and EMS services. And that was further impacted or challenged by the concurrency of calls that happened at 35, 37, and 38, which again is the core of the city. So there were fewer units available to actually respond to Station 39, and given the distance, it was recommended that that would help With response times to that area, it would increase staffing and improve what is referred to as our effective fire response, which is the number of personnel that would be needed to safely and effectively mitigate a fire in a building based on its hazard classification, 14 right now kind of being the minimum for single-family and low-density buildings. And fire stations are built with capacity. I'm sure all of you have read or heard that there are fire stations throughout the country that are running four and 5,000 calls for service in any given year. And our three busiest stations are right around 20, I want to say twenty four twenty five hundred calls so the system and the model is designed for future capacity right because it's very expensive to to relocate apparatus and and stations particularly given the challenges with acquiring land is as. as the community continues to develop. We are fortunate that we have at least some ability to relocate stations. If you look at some of the older cities like Sacramento, San Francisco, LA, they really are unable to relocate stations in a meaningful way just because there's no place to build a station. And so they have further challenges For example, Sacramento City has no ability to put a lot of ambulances inside firehouses. And so those ambulances are deployed more as a posting location rather than actually having an assigned firehouse, which is really challenging for the members of that organization.

I hope that answered your question, Mr. Mayor.

Yeah, I think so. And hopefully we'll get more into the data analysis. What you presented tonight is music to my ears. I've been asking for more data for a while now, and so I really appreciate you coming tonight and giving us this update. I just have one other question in that, you know, Light AI was started, I think it was started here in Folsom, the company that basically can turn lights green, right? as fire stations go, right? So instead of using the model of triggering the lights as you approach, now we can actually turn our lights green and change our response times while these resources are being deployed. So I guess my question is, and I look at it from a mile and a half radius, right? One, I could have six lanes going that way, right? Or I could be winding through a neighborhood a mile and a half. Like, they're two totally different things to say that each of those is a four-minute. And then for cities that turn around and spend money on technology to improve that response time, how do you kind of take that into account?

I think we should consider any technical innovation that we can use to enhance response. When we identify a problem, we ask ourselves, is this a technical issue that typically deals with software, equipment, or is it an adaptive where we just need to maybe consider changing the way in which we do things. And to your point, for many years, most fire departments utilize what's called an Opticon system, which is an infrared unit that flashes and most of the time triggers the signal to turn green in the direction of travel. But to your point, there is technology out there that takes... routing information from CAD and GIS data and applies it through an interface to change light screen in the identified route of travel. And I think that that's something that we should definitely be considering as we look to the future. I guess I would just pause to say that that has a financial component and one that we probably haven't the ability to really consider in the short future.

Sure, it was before my time, but I believe LightAI used some of our system to work on their original model. They were founded here in Folsom, or in the early days they were here in Folsom. So I think we can probably go back and look at some of that information. We can reconnect with them and see whether it makes sense for us.

Yeah, there's the Menlo Park fire down in the South Bay on the peninsula actually uses – And I'm paraphrasing. They're actually using drone technology in concert with the routing that's actually flying above the responding units based on a GPS and giving them actual real-time traffic data and then eyes in the sky observations of the developing incident. There is probably incredible opportunities out there to look at those technical innovations and explore what opportunities we might have to implement those in the future.

Thanks, Chief. Questions? Council Member Kozlowski?

Yeah, I just have one. The NFPA standard that the sort of station placement, equipment placement is designed around, or excuse me, their standard that they've developed, if it's not an average standard, You said plainly it's not. Sure. What is it based on? Is it effective outcomes of response? Like the best medical outcomes given a certain amount of time to get there that's practical? Is that kind of the way it is? Yes, great question.

And actually, you've hit the nail on the head, right? So the four-minute travel time, which is the time it takes us to actually drive from the station to the incident, right, is heavily based on... desirable outcomes with fire growth development and as importantly and also considered in the standard is the EMS oxygen implications for cardiac and brain death right after so many minutes right and and. I'm not a physician, but after four minutes, right, the effects and the ability of a full recovery start to greatly diminish. And so that was kind of the basis of that four minute response time. And that's where it originates from, yes, sir. Gotcha, thank you. Yeah, great question.

That was it. Vice Mayor, questions?

Yeah, I have two. I'm curious, I think I know this, but I'm curious if the public doesn't know this either. What kind of calls does a truck respond to versus an engine?

Yeah, in our deployment model, our truck responds not only as a specialized vehicle equipment, but also as a primary responding unit. So it does respond to EMS calls, calls for service that originate in proximity to where it's stationed. Nationally, most agencies deploy a model where you have an engine and a truck next to each other, which is arguably the best model so that the engine can respond to most of those EMS calls and provide fire suppression in concert with a ladder truck that then is able to arrive on scene. And we talk about coordinated fire attack and the benefits of accomplishing the 16 critical tasks on a working incident. Typically, a truck is located in the center of a district that supports anywhere from three to five engine companies, but generally, there's an engine that's housed next to the ladder truck. So specifically to your point, in our deployment model, the truck not only responds as a primary unit to a lot of those service calls and EMS calls, it is also dispatched to traffic collisions because it carries extrication equipment, all of our technical rescue calls, so anything that would involve Rope high angle low angle over the over the side or over the cliff calls all of our freeway calls because of the capabilities and equipment that it has and then any type of building fire commercial fire fire alarms because of its access its roof access its ability to gain access to a roof.

That's one of the reasons you are kind of swapping and putting it back at 35. It's a little bit more central.

It is more central, yeah. If you remember the 2.5 radii, right? From Station 35, it provides much better coverage throughout the city than it does at 34, which is additionally challenged with the response congestion we have over the freeway, so...

And then the second question is you mentioned you are going to do regular progress reports when I think our public would be very much interested in this, especially as you're kind of dialing in how to get the data and make it more accurate and relatable probably. When do you foresee that coming? And obviously I don't think that we're discussing putting an engine back in this budget cycle, but I imagine that data will help for the future.

Yeah, ultimately our goal is to, as soon as possible, fiscally possible, to put an engine or that engine back in service. In terms of how soon, so my goal would be, for anybody, well, we all follow social media, right? I think it's probably a platform that myself have not utilized nearly to the degree that it could be used but I have seen other agencies where they're putting out like monthly progress reports calls for service number of alarms this that I think that the public would be interested in that information but in terms of more formalized progress reports I think that it's reasonable to think that I could come to or plan to attend a council well I come to all the council meetings but make a presentation with a progress report about every six months, right? I don't want to come here and just keep saying the same things over and over, right? So it would be indicative, too, of having any meaningful change. Perhaps when we actually build the framework, right, and we've implemented policy, and now we're starting to collect and input the data in a way that is in compliance. Certainly, I plan to be here and celebrate the renovations at Station 37 and the truck moving there. We have some tremendous men and women in the fire department, and I think we all share the same goal, which is to provide great service to the community.

Well, as you know, our public very much cares about this issue and browning out the engine. By the way, several things were said earlier. We did not brown out a station. We browned out an engine. You didn't say that, but some public did. But they're very much aware of browning out an engine, and they want to know the numbers, and when can we get it back, and having those numbers, the data, to support that we didn't fall off a cliff here, that it looks okay, we can sustain for a little while, and then what's the progress report going forward, I think. So six months later, A progress report is very palatable to our public, I think. And then also us for our information on how we move forward and what revenue-generating things we can do to make sure we get that engine back on as soon as we can.

Yeah, I appreciate that very much. It is certainly one of the top goals for the command team and the fire department. Not to get into budget stuff, but we are working to implement cost-cutting measures as well as identifying and exploring options for revenue generation that will move that football closer to a target financial component to maybe being able to put an engine company back in service sooner than later.

Thank you, Jason.

Yeah.

Council Member Leary, questions?

Yeah, I just have a couple. So the one thing that we've discussed in the past was the mutual aid agreements. And do those agreements impact the coverage data or get you closer to meeting the goals because of their availability when our engines aren't available, et cetera? Because when we're looking at the map, we're only looking at City Folsom. There are clearly some other stations in a vicinity that could help us meet our goals and vice versa?

Yeah, great question. And I'll just state that there are very few fire departments throughout the country that can Effectively respond to mitigate all the emergencies without the assistance of the regional partners right and and so we do have auto and mutual aid agreements with our neighboring agencies sac metro south plaster and elrada hills. Some of the challenges we have for an effective notification is the fact that we're dispatched out of different dispatch centers. So as an example, in Folsom, the call goes to PD, then it goes to SAC, and then if we need any one of those other agencies outside of Metro who's dispatched out of the same dispatch center, but like Plaster or Elroy Hills, there's an additional transfer and request for that unit. And so there's a delay. But to the bigger point of your question, yeah, auto aid and mutual aid definitely play a factor in this. It's not a metric, though, that is part of the compliance data. Because again, the model, they're holding you to a standard of four minutes travel time. And so the model was never designed to meet four minutes if you're relying on an adjacent agency to provide first-in coverage. But the end user benefit is significant, right? And we can just show the number of times we've either provided aid or received aid from an agency. But it does impact overall the compliance data. It's one of those incidents that would be kicked out when we talk about actual compliance data.

So it would actually make it, it would expand the amount of time that it took someone to get there on average if you were including all of those because of the way that signals transmitted for help.

Yes, that would be one technical way to improve response times. Being all of us in a regional dispatch center, which is possible, but now you have a lot of agencies and other challenges.

Okay, thank you. And I just had one other question, and that was you talked about adding another engine, and that would require adding more personnel. So is there a ballpark number or amount of the cost for doing that?

I would be spitballing and probably not confident in my numbers. Our first goal is to put the engine that's browned out back in service, and then as we look for additional revenue streams, cost-cutting measures, when we talk about build-out and what this model looks like years down the road, arguably the best model is to have an engine next to the truck so that you... have redundancy with a truck company that's not committed to primary response and can provide that tactical support and logistical support to the other engine companies. Most agencies utilize the truck as an advantage tool when it comes to those redundant or concurrent calls, in particular in the busier districts. So having that truck centrally located with an engine affords the opportunity to send that truck now as a second responding unit to an adjacent district and minimize the impacts to the community.

I think I saw our city manager kind of sit up, but did you have a number?

Yeah, I mean, typically an engine company costs about $2 million a year. So if you add an engine company, it's $2 million. So in this particular case, I don't think we'd need an additional $2 million to add back or to add back the firing because we have those employees here, and we'd probably have to add more to minimize some of the overtime usage. But it kind of shows you that the big jump that you would need to get to if we were to add another engine company that is running parallel with the fire truck would mean an additional 2 million ongoing annually. So those are things that we'll continue to work on. I do want to compliment Chief Solak for his effort. you know, to identify maybe some of the deficiencies in our data collection and looking at ways where we can clarify that information ongoing or going forward so that we can come back and realistically, as we change the dial of our services, that we can see whether it actually had a positive or a negative impact. And so I'm excited for where we're going, appreciate the leadership and the commentary that we've had so far.

Thank you.

Council Member Aquino.

Thank you. Most of my questions have been asked and answered already, but I do have one question. So you said that the medic at Station 36, about half the time has been utilized by Metro Fire.

That's what the data indicates. Okay.

So now...

I'm sorry, let me clarify. Out of the city of Folsom.

Okay. So now with the medic... only at Station 39, which, as we said, is right on the edge of El Dorado County. There is that little cut-through from Folsom into El Dorado County off of Hildebrand. Is there a danger that that medic will be going out of the city of Folsom?

It's unlikely, unless El Dorado Hills, who has a medic unit at Station 85, which is just over the side of Ridgeview, is unavailable or they have... a reduction in their ambulance. There is an inter-county agreement that they send and we do receive transport units from Elrida Hills on a fairly regular occurrence as well as we send them because of the unique nature and the critical nature of what an ambulance does and the fact that it's a real coveted resource. I would say it It is definitely possible, but not likely with any degree of recurrence.

Okay, thank you.

And I think we have some public comment this evening. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Yeah, you have a request to speak from Jack Toplin? Come on down.

Hey there. I didn't really expect to speak, but I picked up a blue card, and... Yeah, first of all, I appreciate first responders, everybody in enforcement, and fire trucks and all that. I feel like that four-minute thing, just because I live off Bidwell, and I lived here a couple years, and I'd hear maybe one or two sirens, you know, a day, sometimes not that many. Now, I feel like with this four-minute thing, I'll hear like five a day, and I want to differentiate if somebody's, you know, critical, life-threatening, if there's a fire, totally get that, but I feel like especially since the sirens are so loud. I live like a block and a half away, and I can hear it for blocks ahead of time. And I mean, it's just, I don't know, maybe for non-life-threatening, especially since the streets are well-timed with lights. Maybe it saves 40 seconds getting to a hospital, but if it's a non-critical thing, I don't know, broken leg or something, maybe... I don't know, maybe there can be a little bit of a difference between the four minute thing, which is impressive, don't get me wrong, for like critical things, but then for non-critical things, I don't know, maybe add like 40 seconds, just because it's very loud, and if anything, it makes the city look a little less safe, because you just hear sirens all the time, and you're just thinking, is it crime going up, or are people just almost dying way more frequently than before? I don't know, it's... That's my rant. It's really not even all that big an issue, but thought I'd say something. Thanks for letting me speak.

Thanks, Jack. Appreciate you. Chief, do you want to comment just on our siren policy? I think it's helpful for the public to know when they're turned on the sirens and why.

Yeah, it's a great question. I'll start by saying that at SAC Regional Fire Communication Center, we use what's called a priority dispatch protocol algorithm. There's an algorithm in terms of questions asked specifically to the call type nature. If they're saying I'm shortness of breath, they'll go through additional questioning to try to ascertain whether it is a true emergent call or not. And we do routinely send both engines, trucks, and ambulances code two to calls that are determined to be of a non-emergent nature. When there's any doubt as to the emergent nature of the call, though, we always err on the side of caution. And anybody that has known me, I talk about one of the worst calls in my career was a nosebleed call because of just missed information on the dispatch, the call taker, busy dispatch center, right? So we err on the side of the caution, but we do have protocols in place to try to limit the use of Code 3 response, not only from a sound perspective, but from a safety perspective, because when we respond Code 3, we put ourselves and the community at additional risk, right? So there's a balance as to our response.

Thanks, Chief. And just a clarification, Code 3 is lights and sirens? Yeah, sorry.

My wife yells at me all the time. Yeah, Code 3 is lights and siren. Yeah.

Thank you. All right. Please call the next item.

Your next item is item number six, presentation from HomeServeUSA Corp. regarding homeowner water and sewer service line protection program and direction to staff.

Thank you, Mayor Rathel, members of the council, Marcus Yasutake, utilities director. Tonight we have Bill Coffey here from HomeServe USA just to give a brief overview of their program and what we're looking for here after he goes through his discussion is just any feedback that you all may have regarding the program and if this is an item that you would like brought back at a future agenda item. So I'd bring up Mr. Bill Coffey.

Thank you, Marcus. Honorable Mayor and City Council members, thank you so much for the opportunity to visit with you and let you know about the company, HomeServe, and the products that we offer. I'm Bill Coffey, Regional Director. I'm based in San Diego, so I cover the state of California. I'm just gonna spend some time going over the products that we offer, and then I'll open it up to questions. So first of all, HomeServe, utility service partner is our company. HomeServe is the parent company. And we started over 20 years ago. We're in the business of Providing exterior water line, exterior sewer line, and in-home plumbing coverage. So optional coverages for residents when they have the laterals on their property fail. This is a program to take care of fixing them in a quick and affordable way. We're Better Business Bureau A-plus rated and Cover 4.6 million customers and about 9.8 million policies throughout the U.S. Total of 1,300 partners and 41 of them here in the state of California. The last slide will detail the partners that we have so that you can see those. And...

The biggest thing that we offer is to help address the public policy issue of aging infrastructure.

Infrastructure's getting older. On your side, there's a group to look after it. On the resident side, there's not. So when they have an emergency, they have to take care of it. It's not your responsibility, nor would it ever be. And that's where our program comes into play. The average age of a house is around 40 years old, and that's about how long the lifespan is of the water and sewer lateral lines. So that's without having things like corrosion, tree root intrusion, things that shorten those lives. Natural elements such as ground shifting, tree root intrusion, corrosion, we cover those on those lines when those fail. The typical cost to replace a water line typically runs around $3,000 to $4,000. Sewer lines can be up to $4,000, $6,000 and greater, because they sometimes have to dig up the street and sidewalk. A very big job, many days of work, as well as several permits to pull. With the current state of the economy, Homeowners can't afford a $1,000 expense. It would wipe out their savings. So our program is in place to look after repairing those lines because, again, the city is not responsible for those lines, even though many times a homeowner might think that when they have a water leak and they have to get it repaired. And oftentimes it's not covered by a homeowner policy either. So with our program, there's no cost to participate. And it's optional for residents to enroll and it's off bill. So the city doesn't need to look after billing or doing anything with the program. And there's many benefits. We'll look after taking care of enrolling customers, taking care of claims, marketing, billing, and vetting local contractors to take care of the work so we keep the work inside the local economy. It can also provide an incremental revenue stream. So as I mentioned, there's no cost. And oftentimes homeowners don't know that these lines are their responsibility. Just because they're out of sight, out of mind, doesn't mean that they're not responsible for them. So the program helps to educate residents on their water line responsibilities, and again, provide an alternate low cost option for them if they want to enroll. And no cost to the city. Second thing that it offers is peace of mind. It provides your homeowner something that they don't have currently. This is a unique program that we offer throughout the U.S. As I mentioned, 1,300 partners, municipalities and cities, I mean, utilities. Customers who enroll know that if they have a problem, they simply call HomeServe 24-7, and we have a local licensed contractor come out and take care of the job, so they don't have to track down several bids. When there's an issue, they just simply call us. Fewer calls to this city, fewer calls to you, Mr. Mayor, and council members, City Manager Bryan, about saying, why isn't this getting fixed by the city? I don't have the money for it, et cetera. The coverage, water line coverage, as I mentioned, these are all affordable, $6.99 per month. Cancel at any time. Same thing for extra solar line. That one is $11.99 per month. In-home plumbing, $16.99 per month. The first two provide $12,000 of coverage, unlimited claims. So you could have one emergency today and then another one five months from now. Each time the contractor rolls up, there's $12,000 in place, direct bill to our company, no out-of-pocket for your resident. The in-home plumbing provides $3,000 of coverage, unlimited claims as well, $16.99 per month, and even covers a clogged toilet, so if a resident had an issue, they call us, the contractor comes out, takes care of it, goes on to the next job. There's never any forms or paperwork, no deductible, just simply the monthly payment, and they have the coverage in place. With the in-home plumbing, it also covers any lines under the slab or basement. So the lines inside the home as well as under the slab. As I mentioned, there's also a revenue stream for the city. It can provide, in this case, a little over $14,000 per year. Optional if you'd like to have that. If not, you can forego the revenue stream. Some do, some don't. And pass the savings on to your residents. The way we market... We only market with direct mail, so we're not going to be knocking on doors. We're not going to be sending any emails pestering your residents, just simply up to three letters a year. The city would review and approve each one before they go out. And then when residents receive the letter, they can either mail it back to us to enroll, or they can call us, or they can go online. Once the customer's enrolled, our big priority is to check how jobs are handled. So we send out a survey afterward, see how the contractor did, how our call center did, because they're serving nearly five million customers. And with that, we receive an average of 4.8 out of five in the last few years. So very high. We do get ones about contractors that don't cut it, And when that happens, we evaluate, do we need to vet some other ones and drop those? So we look at that constantly to make sure that we're serving your community well. In addition, as I mentioned, up to three mailings per year. The marketing makes it clear that the program's offered by HomeServe and not the city. We signed the letter so that simply by approving the program, council would allow us to offer the program to your residents, giving them something they don't currently have in this optional program. The use of the city logo is required for us to market the program to the city. Again, it's offered at no charge. But we do need the logo for the envelope so that when your residents receive it, they know that you're participating in the program and that you're fully vetted our company. And that's why we come to the city first with the program, give you a chance to know about our company, what we offer, the products, so that we custom tailor them to your residents, which we've worked with Marcus to do so far. And... The agreement as well, it's a three-year agreement. And because we're handling all the billing, the city is fully indemnified from any legal action. So I'll open up to questions. It does require a city signature on it, and it's a five-page agreement that we've provided to both Marcus and Brian to review. And tonight's presentation was to present, answer any questions, and then see if it's something that you'd like to move forward with. So we look forward to the opportunity to possibly partner with the city, and I'm going to open it up to questions. Thanks, Mr. Coffey.

Council Member Aquino?

Yes, thank you. My question is more for city staff. It sounds like a service that many residents may be interested in, but there must be other companies that provide this service. So why would we be entering an agreement with this company rather than ABC Company or XYZ Company? Why would we be giving preference to somebody over the other? I don't recall any sort of presentation like this ever coming in my time on the council.

Yeah, so I asked that same question. Marcus brought this up a few months ago, and I said, why would we do that? And frankly, I haven't necessarily met other companies that do this type of work. Maybe they are out there. I had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Coffey at the City Managers Conference for the League of Cities yesterday. And I was intrigued by the opportunity and especially becoming more familiar with the city. And we have older areas in the historic district or even some of our subdivisions that are getting older with more mature trees. There's a greater chance of having more root intrusion and that sort of thing. And so we thought it was something that we would, thought the council maybe see some value in considering.

Thank you so but Mister coffee theoretically you could just do direct mail to every resident falls in every household and falls right. You're asking for this to be have the city logo on it which implies that the city endorses the program correct correct.

I guess forces simply to that their cities participating in the program. Because it is optional. That's where they're any questions.

Councilmember Aquino I asked the question I was going to ask but I are you aware of other companies that do this and is this something I guess this is something that the council needs to consider do we want to look into putting out an RFP or it's not really a contract with with the city I guess but

Yeah, I guess I would. First, we have this just as a presentation. There's no action intended tonight. We want to get feedback to see if this is something that the council would like us to come back with more information and a formal, you know, agreement to consider or something different, you know. Okay.

You know to answer your question we don't have any competitors were in over 40 states, sometimes we have regional competitors, somebody that might be in the county for example that offers a program like this, but it's it's rare. To date over the 22 years we've saved customers over 2.5 billion dollars in repair cost savings handle a few thousand dollars a few thousand jobs per day.

Vice mayor vice mayor Roba questions. Council member Kozlowski.

I don't have any questions. The program seems of value, and I wouldn't be opposed to it so long as we're not precluded from adding other programs as they may appear before us.

I think my only question, the 14,000, is that based on sort of sign-ups, or is that, like, how do you guys structure that? Is it an annual number?

It's an annual number and it's paid up front. So let's say that the council approved the program tonight, which we're not voting on. About two months later, we launched the program. We used that time in between to put together social media information, website information, etc. So once we launch, then it's available to all the residents.

So you guys take the risk on how many people sign up or don't sign up?

Yes, and you get that fund regardless of enrollments. So after the first letter launches, the first annual fee goes out to you, and then each year after that, with the first letter of that year, the same thing.

Okay.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Coffey. Appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate it. And we don't have any public comment on this item, so...

Yeah, I guess, is there any objections to us bringing this back at a later meeting for council action?

Again, it sounds like a valuable service and one that I, as a homeowner, may be interested in purchasing. I just don't see why this needs city involvement. It implies our endorsement of it, and I just don't think I'm comfortable with that. If a majority of the council wants you to bring it back, I have no issue with that. It just means I may not support it.

Sure.

I agree. I think if it comes back, you know, like kind of the pros and cons of us being involved or not being involved I think would be helpful.

I mean, I think what I've heard some of the concerns would be is are there other competitors out there that would be interested in this project? and with us allowing a logo that would give them an unfair advantage over it. So those are some of the things that I've contemplated. In my experience, I haven't seen other companies do this type of work. There may be some out there, but I just haven't seen it. Not that they're the only company out there, but I think from the standpoint of I mean, we don't have to do it to your point. They could do the direct mail with us kind of somewhat vetting the process and putting the city's logo on it. I think it gives some level of confidence that it is a company that has a good reputation. And from what we've been able to see, it appears that it does. But then again, if the council is uncomfortable with that, I would prefer just in some ways say, ah, maybe later in the future and not now.

Could I add one more thing? I would also be concerned about what type of precedent does this set? What about the next company from a different industry that says, hey, we want to, you know, I mean. It just seems like it's maybe opening the door to something like that.

I don't know. The hypothetical, I mean, we could go down that road on a lot of things.

I guess I'll take that opposite argument of that, though, is like maybe we shouldn't put signs up on our sports facilities with corporate sponsors, right? Like we put company names of a lot of different things that we're not vetting up there. We have parks and rec programs that are run by third parties, like a pretty large booklet of those people that we are then taking a revenue share on that. And we are partnering with those vendors in order to provide a service to our residents. So I guess from my standpoint, I would like to understand that we've done our homework and that we've vetted them and we've checked out their references and make sure that they have a good reputation in the communities that they're serving.

Most definitely. Thank you. And then just one item I would like to include, I don't think it was mentioned, but, uh, they also have been vetted by the national league of cities and are, um, endorsed if, if that's the fair word, Mr. Coffee by the national league of cities. So, um, Not that that's the city of Folsom, but just another added kind of vetting process that they've gone through at maybe a different scale. So we can definitely look into references, experiences with some of the neighboring agencies that are within the region, just reaching out to them, finding out how the program's gone since it's been initiated, any concerns that they may have had, still have, don't have. I mean, we can do that vetting and provide that as part of a next round, so to say, or another item that we bring forward, which would include information on the agreement, the the naming, using the city's logo, et cetera, and the monetary value of the three years. So that's something that I mean, I definitely got to work on with our team in terms of bringing that work back and just some of that research so we can get an idea of just what other agencies are doing, especially here in California. And maybe even I would say locally, but you know those are near the city geographically.

Another question then can residents participate in this program without the city's logo attached to the material.

Yes, the only way that we offer the program is if the city approves the agreement and wants to participate, then we offer the program to residents. If we didn't do that, it would be massive confusion. We'd mail. You folks wouldn't know anything about the company. You wouldn't know if they're good or bad, if the products are good or bad. Again, that's why we come to the city first.

I see, but they could still engage in your program if the city decided.

No, the only way to participate and for us to mail is to have the program approved, which is why we go to the cities first. I see. And we could give you plenty of references, Stockton, Fresno, Yuba City, Antioch, Daly City, many cities up here. Okay. And I will clarify one thing. We were a National League of Cities partner for over 12 years. This year we joined the ICMA. We felt that after many years with the National League of Cities, the ICMA was a better fit.

What's the ICMA?

International City Managers Association. So it's the Association of City Managers throughout U.S. and other countries.

Okay, thank you.

Sure.

I do see this as a little different from sponsors for sports fields, et cetera, because they're just saying they're helping the team by providing some funding for the parks or whatever, but whether people want to engage in those businesses is a little bit different, so.

Yeah, I guess my other analogy was we send out a Parks and Rec activity guide, right, with a City of Folsom logo on it, and a good portion of those businesses that are in there are not the City of Folsom. We are putting our logo on a mailer that goes direct to people's boxes by the Parks and Rec Department, right, and it's third parties that are providing those services. I think that's the closest analogy to me of what we already do.

Thank you.

I wouldn't mind seeing this come back to us after you do some additional reference checking, just to make sure that we know how the residents of those communities have reacted to the program.

Yeah, because I think what you just said about, or what he just said about you can't access it unless it is stamped by the city. I do think some residents would find value in this, especially in light of our past with our pipes and everything. Yeah, I guess I'm with you as well.

Sufficient direction? That is very much. Thank you for the feedback, and we will do so.

We do have one public comment.

Yeah, one request to speak from Rob. Is it Arvin? I'm sorry, I can't read it. Allen. Allen. Come on down, Rob Allen. Two questions.

I wasn't planning on speaking on this, but when I heard him talk, I just figured I'd just kind of give some input. My entire career has been sales and marketing, negotiating contracts up to, I mean, $10, $20 million, just some stuff on the backside. 14,000, and no offense, I mean, $14,000, if the city decided to partake in that, is like chump change into what they're gonna make, obviously. Just something to consider, and I know you guys are gonna do further vetting. There are other home warranty companies. I don't have a home warranty. My own, but there's all kinds of hope home warranty warranting companies that participate in this type of work. I do see a upside to this though, because I've also seen some crazy stuff out there as we always obviously probably all heard. Even just on social media as far as what people experience with age fact companies. plumbing companies, electrician out there, from people just feeling like, I mean, huge ranges. I had a friend who got a quote, and her electrician friend said, no, buy this part, send me a picture, buy this part, put it on ChatDBT, $12 part, another $40 part. He came over, did it in 40 minutes, and the quote that she got from an electrician was like $3,500. And so some good potential things coming from this too, just something to think about. And I know it's just in the early stages with him just presenting today. Also, the references, obviously, checking. Something to also look into. is if they're paid on the backside. So their company paid from the vendors for getting work, which is a possibility, and not that there's anything potentially wrong with it, but also their company benefiting from getting paid on the backside from the vendors additionally. So just food for thought.

Thanks, Rob. Thanks. All right, that will move us to our consent calendar this evening. Does anyone want to pull any items off of consent?

If there are none, I'll move the consent calendar as presented.

I'll second.

For approval. Please call the roll.

Council members Leary. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Thank you for those that hung out and waited for the consent calendar. Please call the next item.

Okay, your first public hearing item this evening is item number 16. This is resolution number 11591. This is a resolution approving the final engineer's report, confirming the diagrams and assessments, and ordering the continued levying of assessments for maintenance and servicing of improvements within the city of Folsom Landscaping and Lighting Districts for 26, 27 year, and I'm not gonna read all the titles. And you don't have to either.

Okay, I won't. Welcome back. It's good to be back. Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. I'm Derek Perez, municipal landscape services manager of the Parks and Recreation Department. I'll be presenting information regarding the NLL District's final engineering report for fiscal year 26-27. This report incorporates all 30 NLL districts into a single report. As you can see here, an L&L system 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 planning area, homeowner association, HOAs, or a landscape and lighting district. Beyond the legal definitions seen here, an A&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 Natoma Station, the monument signage in Willow Creek Estate South, and the open spaces throughout the district. These are all assets maintained by the district and provide a benefit to the residents within the district. The graph 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 in 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 in to account for the increases in costs over time. So far to date, the city has completed two steps out of the three-step process for the annual engineer's report. Step three is approving the final engineer's report and holding a public hearing tonight. One additional step staff took was presenting the preliminary budgets to the Landscaping and Lighting District Advisory Committee members last month 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 of type of amenities that are maintained. The picture here is of the American River Canyon North Waterfall, which is an asset and then maintained by their L&L district. Common assets include landscaping, street lighting, sound walls, open space, mini parks, and monument signage. Here we have a graph of the consumer price index and the California construction cost index for the period of 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. Due to the cost increases over time, districts without an inflationary adjustment have struggled to keep up with the rising cost of services on their static assessments. Here's a high-level overview of all 30 L&L districts. This is a baseline budget for all districts, and there are no improvement projects planned for the next fiscal year. The current level of service has been stepped down with each of the past two landscape maintenance contracts they've put out for RFP due to the rising cost of services. Last year, council requested a table be added to this year's engineer's report showing all the revenue and expenses on the 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 26-27. This can include landscape maintenance, utility billing, irrigation, et cetera. The second column shows anticipated total expenses for fiscal year 26-27. This can include landscape maintenance, utility billing, irrigation, et cetera. The third column shows revenue less expenses projected for fiscal year 26-27. 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 incorporate into the engineer's report. Staff relies for the engineer's report to be prepared in parallel the preparation of the city's fiscal budget for 26-27. We had to move the date up to reflect the fund balance report earlier and decide on December 31st of each year moving forward. The districts listed here currently have a negative account balance and their annual costs to provide the basic levels of maintenance exceed their annual assessment. We look at each district in more detail in the slides to follow. Staff's current prioritization plan has Briggs Ranch, Hanford Cross, and Brosnan 1, 2, and 4 going out for the Prop 218 balloting process in fiscal year 26-27. Cobble Ridge 2, Reflections 2, would undergo the Prop 218 process for fiscal year 27-28 with others on the horizon. In simple terms, the Prop 218 process is a legal process in which the new district is presented to the property owners to vote on how they want their district to be maintained. It is a three-step process that starts with the resolution initiating proceedings and ordering an engineer's report next to the preliminary engineer's report is presented to the council and the ballot proceedings ordering 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's legally required 45-day period between steps two and three. Here's a high-level 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 in the gray box which shows the actual account balance on December 31st, 2025, the year the death set began, and the number of total single-family equivalent units in the L&L. 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 reference only. 15 years was used since this was set by council last summer, 2025. Briggs Ranch has a negative 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 $20 annually per single-family equivalent, or $2.33 per month on average. Two weeks ago, letters were mailed out to all parcel owners in the district notifying them of their L&L district's current financial state and invited them to this city council meeting to hear this presentation tonight. The district has prioritized for Prop 218 outreach in this current fiscal year starting in May of 2026. Hannaford Cross has a negative account balance of $66,477 as of December 31, 2025. They are projected to have an operational deficit of $54,482 in fiscal year 26-27, which they are scheduled for the Prop 218 process this upcoming fiscal year in the fall. 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 be approximately $43.03 annually per single family equivalent, or $3.85 per month.

Excuse me, I just want to be clear on this. So their current payment isn't shown on here, their annual payment. Is this the cost per single family residence just to pay back the deficit, that $43.02 a year?

This is just to pay back the deficit in the future. So the debt currently is the $66,477. In some slides in the future, a few more slides, it will show what the district's actually paying annually.

And then their payment going forward if this passes.

No, we haven't gone out for a prop to 18 yet for this district. So we would initiate the process and then start with our consultant and work with them. And then we would have to look at a budget projected of of what the maintenance is to increase the standards of maintenance. And then all the asset replacements and everything in the future, too, as well.

Okay, thank you. I just want to be clear what stage we're looking at in this process.

Yeah, so this kind of shows what the current debt is right now for this district.

Which would be added to the cost when those calculations are made.

And this is at that time on December 31st, 2025 as well.

And if I could just add to that, I appreciate the background talking about the deficit, but there would actually be three components to this. One is the current rate. The second would be the amount needed to pay back the deficit that's been incurred. And then the third would be the additional assessment needed so that we can actually maintain the assets within that district to a level that would be aesthetically pleasing. So those are things that will all take place similar to what we've done in the Natoma Station effort.

Right. I just wanted to be clear. So if the audience is watching this, they're not just thinking, oh, it's going to go up that $43 or whatever year. Thank you.

Yeah, yeah. Broadstone 1 and 2 is the original district. So 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 in that district. On the next slide, we'll look at both districts in a combined form. Both districts were paid by the same property owners for the same assets. We look at both districts together. They have a negative account balance of $802,156 as of December 31st, 2025. They're projected to have an operational deficit of $228,310 in fiscal year 26-27. This includes $70,000 in plans spinning to complete the Prop 218 process. The district has approximately 2,531 single-family equivalent units. The $802,156 equates to approximately $306.99 per unit. If the deficit was paid back over a 15-year period, the cost per single-family equipment would be approximately $21.13 annually per single-family equipment, or $1.76 per month. This district is prioritized for Prop 218 outreach in the next fiscal year. Cobble Ridge to Reflections 2 has a negative account balance of $111,408 as of December 31, 2025. They are projected to have an operational deficit of $22,953 in fiscal year 26-27 to provide the base level of service. The district has approximately 389 single-family equivalent units. The $111,480 equates to approximately $286 per unit. If the deficit is paid back over a 15-year period, the cost per single-family equivalent will be approximately $19.09 annually per single-family equivalent, or $1.59 per month. The district is prioritized for Prop 218 outreach in fiscal year 27-28. At council's directions last year, moving forward in the final 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 from the pooled cash account. Here we've provided samples of the amortization schedule for Briggs Ranch and Hanover 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 15-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, and 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 useful life. These districts are planning for outreach in 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 expenses 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 at end of useful life for their assets. The Landscaping and Lighting District Advisory Committee meets once a month. We're in recess July and August, and we meet 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're committed to providing timely information to district residents. With the help from our communications team, we have been revamping and updating the L&L District website to provide relevant documents and fact sheets for 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 of updating pages for all 30 districts. We continue to post all of our presentations on the Landscape and Lightning website for reference and transparency. With that, staff recommends the City Council adopt Resolution 11591, the resolution approving the final years report, the reference landscape and lighting district for fiscal year 26-27. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Derek. I also wanted to say thanks for my letter. I live in Briggs Ranch now, and the letter was well done. I haven't gotten yelled at by my neighbors yet. But I also haven't posted it online for those that didn't open it in their mailbox, but I will be doing so. And I thought the letter was well done. It's great to get out ahead of it and just start letting people know and letting that information seep in. So thanks for inviting my neighborhood here tonight. Questions? Council Member Kozlowski?

Yes, sir. Thank you.

Council Member Leary? All right. Any public comment? No, we're going to go ahead and open the public hearing.

You have no request to speak on this item.

We're going to go ahead and close the public hearing.

I will move adoption of resolution number 11591. Second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Leary.

Yes. Rohrbach. Yes. Aquino. Yes. Kozlowski. Yes. And Rathel.

Yes. Please call the next item.

Hey, item 17 is Community Park West alternative site development agreement amendments and determination that these requests are exempt from CEQA. Before you'll be three ordinances tonight. Ordinance 1363 addressing property previously owned by Hillsborough North. Ordinance number 1364 addressing property previously owned by Prairie City Commercial Properties and ordinance number 1365 addressing property previously owned by West Hillborough Investors.

Okay, good evening. Mayor Rathel and Council Members, Jessica Brandt with Community Development, and I'm presenting this request to consider amendments to three development agreements covering property within the Folsom Plan Area, a specific plan to identify new alternative sites for Community Park West. So brief background, the Folsom Plan Area Specific Plan identifies two locations for community parks as part of its land use plan. One of these sites is known as Community Park West, which is approximately 48 acres at the western boundary of the specific plan. The Community Park West site and service area are shown on this slide over here on the western edge. To ensure that the specific plan would maintain two community park sites, the city and specific plan landowner groups included language in development agreements in 2014 that identified an alternative site to the east of the primary site should the identified primary site be unavailable when it is needed due to ongoing remediation work. The development agreement language restricts development of this alternative site. And on the slide, you can see the Community Park West site. Lovely drawing that I did right there. And then the alternative park site over here to the east. Subsequent to this, Toll Brothers submitted their Toll Brothers at Alder Creek tentative subdivision map request in April of 2025, which includes subdivision of the alternative site into residential lots. To allow the Alder Creek project to move forward, city staff worked with the primary landowner for the western area of the specific plan, Alder Creek Improvement Company, to identify one or more replacement areas to serve as new alternative sites. After an extensive review, two sites were proposed that are shown on the slide. These are 21 1⁄2 acres of a 31 1⁄2 acre site on the northwest corner of the specific plan and 26 1⁄2 acres comprising two sites that are zoned for residential in the southwest corner. And the northwest corner site is zoned for industrial. So staff of the Community Development Department and Parks Department reviewed the proposed new sites against plan area policies and parks master plan criteria for community parks. Staff determined that the two new sites were roughly equivalent in developable acreage, park uses would be permitted, Measure W open space would remain protected, and the sites could accommodate programming expected for a community park. Staff supports identifying these sites as the alternative park site. Staff does want to make it very clear that the request before you tonight does not change the existing community park west site designated in the land use plan for the specific plan or any specific plan land use designations or allowed uses. This is only allowing amendments to the development agreements language to replace the identified alternative park site should the existing site remain unavailable at the time it is needed. The request was taken to the Planning Commission for consideration at their March 18th, 2026 meeting, and they did vote to recommend approval. And with that, staff is requesting that the City Council conduct the public hearing for this item, introduce the related ordinances, and conduct the first reading. And I do want to note that representatives from the property ownership group are in attendance, as well as Keith Wilson with Wilson Design Studios, who consulted with the City and the owners group on site feasibility, should you have any questions for them. Thank you.

Thank you. Questions for staff this evening? Council Member Hino?

i do have a question probably either for brad or keith i mean i think we do have to consider worst case scenario that the original park site does not pan out right and we have to go to this i'm just i'm wondering what that means in terms of a park so now you've got your community park split into two which means you need twice the amount of bathrooms you need two parking lots it just seems cost wise it will cost more having these these this park separated is that Correct? Keith, maybe you want to come up?

Yeah, we do have Keith. Can we bring him up?

Or Brad. Brad's in the back too. Either one.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Brad Nelson, Park Planning Manager. Your correct, Council Member Aquino, that would require, the separated sites would require the additional infrastructure or doubling up on the infrastructure of both the sites.

Okay. Give me an example of a community park we have right now. Is it Lemby Park? I'm just trying to think of size-wise.

I think Lemby is about 26 acres or so. If I can scroll. Oh, wait. So the... Okay. So... Okay. This is the Community Park West site. So that is 48 acres. For comparison, Community Park East site is 26 acres. Okay. So this is a very large community park. So there is a community center located on that site as well.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Council Member Leary, any questions for staff?

Yeah, I want to follow up on Council Member Aquino's comment, and I'm not sure that that would actually create a doubling in that if you have one larger site, you may have to have more bathrooms on that one site. one larger site and more parking spaces, where if you have two smaller parks, you could have a little bit less of each on each site. You'd still have to have the infrastructure. That would be an additional cost. I do want to know what the options are for doing something like a public-private partnership on one or the other of those sites. you know, with maybe an organization that wants to come in and do some kind of a support center that we don't have, and I'm not sure how we might be able to look at something like that in the future, should this become necessary. I certainly think it's prudent to do this at this time.

I agree, yes.

So do you or does one of the people from the developer staff have any ideas about public-private partnerships on that?

Council Member Leary, I can address that. There are options for some public-private partnerships on public park sites, and that would be brought before the City Council for consideration.

Okay.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Roba, questions? Council Member Kozlowski? Yes, sir. All right. Thanks, Brad. Okay. And we'll go ahead and open the public hearing.

Okay, one request to speak on this item. Martin Novinski, come on down.

Martin, we would have let you speak as the applicant. You didn't have to speak at public hearing.

I would. Mayor Rathel, council members, thank you. My name is Martin Novinski. I represent Toll Brothers. We're a property owned in the south of 50 Plan area, specifically in this area where the current alternative park site is located. And as Jessica mentioned, we did a seminar application for a tentative map about a year ago. And we believe that we support staff's recommendation and the Planning Commission's recommendation to adopt these three ordinances to amend the development agreements to allow alternative park site to be moved off of off of this location we also like to offer up our our thanks to the westland capital parkers so they can they have encumbered different property and they were willing to do that to solve a problem and so i think some things goes out to them too and i know it wasn't mentioned in the staff report so i just wanted to do that and that's it thank you thanks martin

Any other comments?

We have no other request to speak on this item.

All right. We'll go ahead and close the public hearing.

I can move the introduction and first reading of ordinance number 1363. Second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Leary. Yes.

Rorbaugh. Yes. Aquino. Yes.

Kozlowski. Yes. And Rathel.

Yes.

And I'll move the introduction and first reading of ordinance number 1364. Second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Leary? Yes. Rorba? Yes. Aquino? Yes. Kozlowski? Yes. And Rathel?

Yes.

And I'll move introduction of first reading of ordinance number 1365. Second. We're giving that one to Barbara.

Please call the roll.

Council members Leary? Yes. Rorba? Yes. Aquino? Yes. Kozlowski?

Yes. And Rathel? Yes.

Yes.

All right, that takes us to new business. Please call the next item.

Okay, new business item number 18. This is ordinance number 1367. This is amending several chapters of the Folsom Municipal Code concerning the sanitary sewer collection system and municipal sewer system regulations. This is introduction and first reading of the ordinance and determination that the project is exempt from CEQA.

Thank you, Krista. Mayor Rathel, members of the Council, Marcus Yasutake, Utilities Director. Two more ordinances for you. This will be the first one from Utilities, and really it follows up on what Pam and the team did probably a couple meetings ago on some code cleanup, and the first one is related to the chapter related to sanitary sewer collection system and municipal sewer system regulations. And just as background, and it was mentioned before, changes to the ordinance must be adopted by city council through two readings. The state adopted new waste discharge requirements in 2022, which outlined certain things the city had to do in order to comply with the new waste discharge requirements, specifically on how the city wrote and identified different activities and requirements within the sewer system management plan. This is what we presented back in July of 2025 through resolution 11416, which was adopted by city council. And now we're following up with the cleanup of the ordinance and our municipal code to follow what was outlined in the SSMP, and so that's why we're here this evening. These are the different chapters, and just what we were doing within each one is on the next slide, but these are the different sections of Chapter 13, and I won't read them all, but this is where we had some minor changes throughout. And really, these are kind of the highlights of the chapter and the sections in there and primarily focused on revising and expanding the definitions to match what is current and what was in the waste discharge requirement. So making those changes within the municipal code, reassigning certain responsibilities from environmental water resources director, which is no longer our name, to utilities, and then to the city manager and or his or her designee for whoever might be in that position. And so it's really effectively the administration of the chapters and then who has the authority to disconnect or discontinue service. And I think previously it was within the director's purview, but we wanted to make that one at the city manager's level. We updated various references to other city departments with the correct department names as well, including our own updating names of other agencies. Regional San is now Saks sewer. So just making sure that the names all match. Incorporated new requirements for what the state was calling the pipe block control program. It used to be fog just as fog, but they added debris and rags as another source of pipe blockage. So we're including that because that's part of our new SSMP and then modifying requirements of connecting to the public sanitary sewer system. those are all highlighted in the staff report in a track changes mode so hopefully it was clear kind of where we were making some of the recommendations and changes and with that we're recommending the first reading and determining that the project is exempt from CEQA questions for Marcus this evening

All right, and we don't have any public comment on this item, so I'll entertain a motion.

I'll move the introduction and first reading of ordinance number 1367. Second.

Please call the roll.

Are we also determining that the project is exempt from CEQA? Yes, we are.

Yes, thank you.

So we'll take that as an amended motion. Yes. Council members Leary. Yes. Rorba. Yes. Aquino. Yes. Koslowski. Yes. And Rathel.

Yes.

Okay, as mentioned before, item 19 is being continued off calendar, so we move to item number 20, ordinance number 1369. This is an ordinance amending chapter 13.22 of the municipal code concerning water system cross-connection control. Again, this will be introduction and first reading and determination that the project is exempt from CEQA.

Thank you again, Krista. This one is a little bit shorter, so good news for everybody in the audience. So again, the background, I won't get into the first detail since it's been outlined several times, but the Federal EPA Environmental Protection Agency identified a new cross-connection control manual handbook policy that was then provided direction and oversight to individual states for the city It's the State Water Resources Control Board, Division of Drinking Water, who has oversight within the state of California on water quality concerns being within the cross-connection program. So the state developed a handbook for California that said, okay, here are things you as an agency need to do to prevent CROSS CONTAMINATION OF A PUBLIC WATER SYSTEM FROM SOME PRIVATE CONNECTION. SO THAT WAS ADOPTED BY THE WE ISSUED AND SUBMITTED OUR NEW UPDATE TO THE HANDBOOK IN 2025. THE STATE WATER RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD DIVISION OF DRINKING WATER ACKNOWLEDGED THAT WE MET ALL THE REQUIREMENTS AND SO NOW AGAIN BECAUSE OF SOME OF THOSE MINOR CHANGES WE ARE UPDATING OUR MUNICIPAL CODE FOR THE CROSS CONNECTION CONTROL PLAN. And we're just recommending the changes to match what was in the cross-connection control plan. Really, again, this one is even more minor than the previous item, just updating definitions, the hazard, and the backflow device testing. So we are revising definitions just to match current staff titles and, again, the department title. Revise the title of the cross connection control administrator. We don't have one of those to a cross connection control specialist, which is what we do have in the city. Revise the testing and notification requirements in the municipal code to match what we have in the handbook. And then there was a request, and this is in red below, but if it was to clarify section 13.22090C, and this would be inserted if approved by council or recommended by council in the second to last sentence. And it reads, if the customer does not test their backflow device in accordance with the requirements described within this section, The city or a contractor hired by the city will complete the backflow testing of the device. And then the subsequent section says that the owner would then pay the city for those services. And so we just wanted to add that it was partly struck in our majority of it struck it out in the red line version. And we just wanted to make that clear that the city can still step in and do that and charge the customer for doing that. And with that, I will take any questions, but the recommendation and hopefully if it sounded well, including that last sentence or second to last sentence as part of the recommendation.

Thanks, Marcus. I appreciate the little update there. You know, when I read it without the red line history, it was not as clear. So I appreciate you adding that back in. Questions for Marcus? Thanks for pointing that out.

all right and we have no public comment on this item so i'll entertain a motion i'll move ordinance number one three six nine um with the additional amendment that you brought forward tonight i'm determined that the project is exempt from sequa second

Please call the roll. Council Member Leary? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

All right, please call the next item.

All right, next up is new business item number 21. This is the city of Folsom, I'm sorry, CFD district number 24, Alder Creek West. Before you tonight is resolution number 11581, approving proposed boundary map and declaring intention to form the CFD. And then also accompanied with resolution number 1-1-5-8-2, this is resolution declaring the necessity for incurring bonded indebtedness for the CFD and for each improvement area designated therein.

Thank you and good evening, Mayor, Council Members. Stacey Tamani, Chief Financial Officer. Tonight I'm presenting the formation of a new community facilities district, number 24, Alder Creek West. The formation of this CFD has been requested by landowners within the Folsom Plan Area and is being formed in accordance with the Melrose Act and in accordance with city policies. The proposed CFD 24 includes four improvement areas. They'll be known as Improvement Area 1, 2A, 2B, and 3. And having multiple improvement areas allows the infrastructure and the services to be funded in a phased and proportional manner as the development occurs. The CFD will generate special tax revenue to fund backbone infrastructure and ongoing services. These include transportation, water, recycled water, wastewater and drainage improvements, parks, parkway, and open space, and also the payment of specific plan infrastructure fee program obligations. In addition, the CFD funds will fund ongoing maintenance and public services, such as landscape corridors and open space, street lighting, medians and entry features, stormwater management, long-term repair and replacement, and a portion of police fire and emergency services. The police fire and emergency services component of the special tax is new with this CFD. As part of this formation effort, the city engaged a consultant, NBS, to prepare a fiscal impact analysis of future development in the plan area. That analysis identified a negative fiscal impact related to public safety services. And so to address this, this services special tax was structured to include police, fire, and emergency services. And this ensures that the new development contributes its proportional share towards those services and helps to avoid additional impacts to the general fund. The next slide here is on the structure of the special tax. There are two primary components. We have the facility special tax levied through fiscal year 2085-86. It will increase annually by 2%. And the special tax ranges from approximately $2,500 to $5,700 per residential unit. The second component is the services special tax. This is levied and collected until the transition event occurs. And I'll go over what a transition event means on the next slide. This will adjust annually based on the CPI with a range of a minimum of 2%, not to exceed 4%. And the services special tax ranges from approximately $400 to $977 per residential unit. So as mentioned on the previous slide, this CFD will have a transition event. Once all of the bonds are repaid and administrative costs are satisfied, both the facility special tax and the services special tax levies that we just reviewed on the previous slide will cease, and what will be called a transition services special tax will replace that prior funding. The new transition services special tax will be in an amount equal to 50% of the facility special tax plus the services special tax. And the reason for this approach of implementing a transition event is to provide some funding in the future while providing some relief to the residents at that time In addition to the pay-as-you-go funds that we will have on hand, we'll now have these facilities funds for replacement and rehabilitation of the infrastructure that will then be 30-plus years old. The combined tax will then increase by the CPI a minimum of 2% each year with a max of 4%. The City Council is being asked to approve the boundary map, and the proposed development plan for each improvement area within CFD number 24 includes the following. We have improvement area 1 at 276 units, 2A at 329, 2B at 428, and improvement area 3 at 391 units. And here we have a snapshot of the boundary map. And so you can see the four improvement areas there. And this is located on the west side of the Folsom Plan area, bordering Prairie City Road there on the left. So with that, staff recommends that the City Council adopt Resolution 11581, You're approving the boundary map there and declaring the intention to form CFD number 24, and then resolution number 11582, declaring the necessity to incur bonded indebtedness and calling for a public hearing, which will occur on May 26th. Thank you. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Questions for staff this evening?

No, but it's a bit sobering when you see the year 2086 on the screen.

That it is. Questions from this side?

That'll be my 100-year high school anniversary, graduation reunion that year.

We will celebrate with you then. Thank you. Thank you. No questions? All right. No request to speak. No request to speak. All right. We can go ahead and entertain a motion.

I can move adoption of resolution number 11581.

Second. Please call the roll.

Council Members Leary?

Yes. Rorba? Yes. Aquino? Yes. Kozlowski? Yes. And Rathel?

Yes. I'll move resolution number 11582 for approval.

Second.

Please call the roll.

Council Members Leary? Yes. Rorba? Yes. Aquino? Yes. Kozlowski? Yes. And Rathel?

Yes.

OK. Next up is old business item number 22. This is consideration of a partnership with change.org for a community survey and civic dialogue.

Great, thank you. Mayor and members of the council, The item before you is another opportunity to kind of discuss some of the information that we've found from the last council meeting to now. We had the opportunity to do a little more research on the change.org efforts. I know Council Member Aquino had the opportunity to talk with some. I had the opportunity to talk with a representative from Bozeman, Montana, and Kansas City, Missouri. And in general, their experiences have been, you know, very positive. They were kind of different approaches in Kansas City. They kind of focus more on a topic. Violence was their kind of focus. And the representative had very positive things to say as far as change.org was really good to work with. They communicated really well in Bozeman. And we. included one of their reports in the packet. They said they found it useful. It was a positive experience. It helped bring ideas to the forefront to have some conversation, some of which they realized like, they're ideas that we don't know what to do with, right? I mean, as far as how do we put something in action for a municipality, there are some of those topics that they may not be able to touch. But I found it interesting as I just kind of flipped through the different topics in the Bozeman report, where this is intriguing. In this day and age, when we have a variety of ideas on topics, how do we find topics that we can agree on and focus on? As you look through the Bozeman report, There are a couple of things, like the topic was workers can afford to live here. A successful Bozeman is one where people who work here, such as teachers, nurses, and service workers, can afford to live within the city limits. And then it kind of breaks down the makeup of those who were surveyed. Democrat, independent, Republican, renters, owners. And it's kind of fascinating where in this particular topic, there was an average of 93% support. So finding topics, and that's one of the things that I really like about municipal government that it's not necessarily a party-driven environment. You know, when we talk about, oh, what amenities we should have at our park, or should we maintain our streets better, those are things that I think can all bring us together. And so, as we've researched this, I've become more intrigued and interested in this and to just identify what are Folsom residents thinking about, what is important, and what are those topics that kind of bring people together. So in general, those are just my kind of basic research items. The council may have some other information to share, but we, the original proposal or action items for the council was to approve the city moving forward with that partnership. There's no cost to the city to move forward with this. There would start out kind of a social media campaign to drive interest into submitting topics and having conversations. And then that would be phase one. And phase two would ultimately be where folks of the community are randomly selected to participate in virtual community forums that would ultimately help produce a report kind of what was seen in the Bozeman report. That's really all the information I have to share on this. I'd be happy to answer any questions or have further discussion.

I'll just report back to that. I checked in with Columbia and they said, you know what they the value that they got out of it was was great for the amount of time that the staff had to put into it. So the staff time that was. was spent was educating uh change.org and so they could inform the discussion right so in in phase two uh when the community has a discussion together on the topic that is chosen or topics that are chosen, then somebody has to kind of provide the background information, right? And so I think one of the other benefits is that we are educating, or our staff is helping change.org educate another 100 residents on a topic that they really care about. And so even at the end of the day, if there's not action to be taken, there's education about what the role of our government could be in solving that issue or maybe it's a regional solution or a state solution or a private solution you know though at least but then we have a hundred people that thought that it was a city solution and they walk away from that knowing what parts of it the city can own and what parts they can't own questions

No, I would just also say I reached out to a few in addition to Bozeman, Parsippany, which I think is maybe in New Jersey, if I remember correctly, Tulsa, Oklahoma. As I said at the last meeting, I'm always a little bit leery when somebody offers to do something for free because it always sounds too good to be true. But the feedback that I got, I would say there were no red flags. It ranged from... We're just starting the process with change.org. It's very preliminary. They couldn't really give a lot of feedback, or the change.org staff has been very good to work with. It's been an interesting process. I don't know how helpful it will be, this process, but I don't know that it would be harmful, and so I feel like the mayor and the city manager brought this forward. Because I haven't received any red flags, I don't have any issue with going forward at this point.

Excellent. And then, Mike, to answer your question, before you saw it in the staff report that, sorry, Council Member Kozlowski, it was they're fine with not using our name in future marketing efforts until we are happy with the results. And we have said you can use our name. If we are not happy with the results, then we can say please don't use the City of Folsom in further communications. Excellent. Thank you. Council Member Leary, any questions?

Yeah, well, I took a look at all of this data and got some, you know, I appreciate the feedback that you all brought back on this. I read through the Bozeman report and I can understand how this might be helpful as an educational tool in reaching out to the residents. There were not a significant number of residents involved in this. And so when I look at their data, it doesn't really reach statistical significance for their results. in terms of directing us towards taking one direction or another. But I mean, it's free, so I suppose it may be helpful. I don't know. I sort of felt like they'd identified problems that we've already identified in Folsom. But as you pointed out, as an educational tool in letting residents have a bit more say that are randomly chosen is not a bad thing.

So thank you.

Can I just add one other thing to that? In my conversation with the communications director at Bozeman, she thought it was really important that we not try to force an issue that we want them to research, but to let the public come up with those topics organically, right? Let's see what bubbles to the surface.

And I think I can comment on that approach so Christine is going to be our staff person that's going to be dedicated to liaising with change dot org. But I think Brian and I have both offered our own time and then we're committed to that process of making sure that it's a change dot org process and we're there to help provide information and background. but we're not trying to drive it to any sort of outcome or even any question, right? Like let those come from the community because sometimes we don't know, right? And maybe social media is not the best gauge of what we should be focusing on. All right. So do we need a motion on this item? I think it's no cost, so I don't think we have any formal action to take other than we're all on a board to move forward. Sounds good. All right, please call the next item.

Okay, your next item this evening is old business item number 23, dealing with city council salaries. Before you, you'll have ordinance number 1366 for second reading and adoption and resolution number 11584.

Great. Thank you, Mayor, members of the Council. This is the second reading of an ordinance related to the compensation for the City Council salaries. This item includes an ordinance, which would be the second reading. It's an ordinance of the City of Folsom amending section 2.06.010. the fulsome municipal code regarding city council salaries second reading and adoption and if that moves forward uh the council would have the opportunity to uh adopt if they choose resolution 11584 a resolution of the city council of the city of fulsome setting city council salary at the rate authorized by ordinance 1366. in the staff report We provided information related to the ordinance and the resolution. I really don't have anything more to add.

Any questions for staff before we move to public comment? All right. We'll go ahead and move to public comment.

Okay. First, we have an online speaker. Margie, if you want to go ahead and unmute yourself. And then let me know when you're ready. Thank you. I am ready. Let me turn your volume up, Margie. One moment, please. Sure. Sure. Okay, we can hear you. Go ahead. I'll start the three-minute timer for you.

Thank you. Mayor Rathel and council members, good evening. I'm Margie Donovan. I'm a homeowner here in the city of Folsom. And I was quite concerned after the last council member meeting About the raise, it was the amount of the raise that concerned me. I do believe that I should get way more than $600 a month. However, I'm not convinced that we should more than triple that, especially at a time which we all know the city is in a financial challenge. I would really urge you guys to consider this and the impact and the social media chat about how this is being perceived. And what's most important here is how this can further divide the residents of the City of Folsom and the City Council.

I think we're in a really fragile time and

For both reasons, I would urge you to vote no on this and come back with the new proposal of maybe doubling with increment. I think the thing that's missing here, too, is that there's no increment after this. So then we'll run another 20 years and go, oh, we're behind again. And I don't think this has been thoroughly thought out in terms of that. So in closing, again, I would ask about no on this. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Margie. Okay, our next speaker will be Shelly Hudson, and Shelly will be followed by Christine Kowalowski. Sorry, I can't read the pen very well. Come on down, Shelly.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. My name is Shelly Hudson, and I'm a 28-year Folsom resident. I'm here to speak about the proposed salary increase for Council members allowed under SB 329. While I understand that the law allows for adjustments to compensation, I'm concerned more about the optics and the message this sends to the public. I want to acknowledge that increasing council salaries can have real benefits, and it can make public service more accessible, reduce financial barriers to running for office, and potentially lead to more diverse representation in local government. Those are important goals, and they deserve consideration. However, a 200% increase, especially all at once, risks undermining those benefits in the eyes of the public. At a time when many residents are dealing with rising costs, housing pressures, and economic uncertainty, such a large increase can appear disconnected from the community's reality. Even if this action is legally allowed, perception matters. Decisions like this can erode public trust and raise concerns about priorities. I urge you to consider a more measured and transparent approach, one that balances fair compensation with the current challenges facing your constituents. Seeking broader public input or phasing increases over time could help maintain confidence in your leadership. show restraint, because without that, this risks looking self-serving, whether that's the intent or not. This isn't just about what you can do, it's about what you should do. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Okay, our next speaker is Christine Kielowski, who will be followed by Gwen Willison.

Thank you, Mayor and council members and city staff for hearing the public on this matter. There's been a lot of chatter on it and like a lot of people have said, none of us question the extreme value you all bring to the city and there's no way we could compensate you for all the hours that you've spent. That being said, as others have talked about, this is a matter of optics, and that matters, and it matters for trust. How things are presented, the data that is included when those things are presented matters as well. Mayor Ratheal, on your January 28th State of the City speech, you said, living within our means will not be easy, but it is the right way to run a household, and it is also the right way to run our city. So then less than two months later, those of us who don't attend every city council meeting and maybe aren't privy to all the individual discussions and things that go on within the city, we find out that The city manager, who no doubt is very worthy of a raise, was given a raise, and you're also proposing a raise for the city council salaries starting with the next election. It just seems that was January 28th so long before March 24th, I think it was, that are we now living well within our meetings and we can go ahead and start giving raises to everybody? If we are, then please help us understand that. Please share the data with us to show that, yes, the work that you all and the new city manager have done have kind of turned things around financially. And all those things that we've heard for the last, I don't know how many years, oh, we're in such a financial crisis. You know, we have all this deferred maintenance. We can't afford to do anything financially. If that's all changed, then please let us know that. That will do a lot to help us understand why this is being proposed right now. I just ask you to pause and maybe take a 360 and look at how this looks to average Joes and Jills. For years, we've heard we're in financial constraints. Sitting employees were laid off or unfilled positions were eliminated. And in January, we're told we need to live within our means. But then in March, raises have started to being given out. So again, I don't know. Please think about that, how it looks to your constituents, and I ask you to pause, maybe come back, approach it a little differently, give us all the data. Council Member Rothbrook talked about why this is important for future council members. That's a great argument. Let's hear a little more about that. I think everyone would appreciate a little pause and a little more data before you vote on this item.

Thank you.

okay our next speaker will be gwen willison who will be followed by catherine omorda good evening city council mayors city

I was kind of appalled when I saw the... This is such an awkward, awkward topic to speak with you all about because this is your income. This is what you feel like you should have. And it's really hard to stand back here and say, whoa, maybe you don't really have to have that much. Maybe it's Not all of it do you have to have right now. I would have preferred to see, as others have mentioned, maybe an incremental increase, or as most of us have to get along with, a two or a 3% cost of living increase every year. But to double or triple your income on this, and it's not meant to be a career job, it just seems excessive. I mean, we just listened to a presentation from our fire department about the difficulties that they're having providing services to the city. And I just think that this increase is unwarranted. And I would ask you to vote no on it, or at least amend it significantly. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Our next speaker will be Catherine awarder who'll be followed by what G equal.

Well done with my last name with the apostrophe and the silent H it can trip almost everyone up. So thank you. My name is Catherine no more. I am a 25 year resident here in Folsom. It is. an amazing place to live. And I just want to say thank you to all of you. I've seen you out and about in the community over the years at Community Service Day and so many other events. I've had the pleasure of interacting with each and every one of you at different points, except maybe the city manager, who I've only seen but not had a chance to interact with. I don't come to these meetings very often, unfortunately. I'd like to come more often. And it seems like there are certain topics that come up that just I feel very compelled to come and talk with you as a group about. Everyone has addressed this so eloquently and so specifically. I think you have some really good information to consider. And I would really urge you to vote no and come back to this. I really value your time so much. I know you put in countless hours that we can't even imagine. And this drop in the bucket can't even begin to compensate you for what you do. But I do think the timing is really bad, given the economy and how services are being cut. I think it's... the timing almost couldn't be worse. And I also think that maybe if it is going to be done, as others have said, it could be done in a phased way. And I'd also like to hear how it's going to affect the budget for next year. I know it's going to go in effect in December. So with everything else that's going on, what's going to be cut in the budget for next year to compensate? Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay, our next speaker is Waji Iqbal, who will then be followed by our last speaker, Justin Hurst.

I just love how you pronounce my name. Thank you. It was perfect.

Oh, thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. My name is Waji Iqbal. I'm here to read a statement of my mentor, Jag Nagendra. He's out of state right now on an important work assignment. Here's Jag's statement. I'm here today to speak about priorities, fiscal responsibility, and most importantly, trust. At the March 24th meeting, a decision was made that raises a simple but important question. Are we focused on the right priorities? And now, on April 14, council is once again discussing the proposed salary increase and considering adopting the resolution. That makes this moment even more important. Folsom is facing real financial challenges. The city's own budget shows a structural deficit. We are relying on reserves and eliminating positions just to maintain financial stability. In fact, recent shortfalls were addressed by eliminating public safety and IT positions. That may provide a one-time fix, but it's not a sustainable solution. You cannot continue to cut essential services and expect to maintain the quality of life our residents depend on. This is not a short-term issue. It requires long-term thinking and disciplined leadership, and it requires trust. Residents are watching closely. They're not just observers. They are part of a solution. Whether it's supporting future revenue measures or accepting difficult trade-offs, none of it works without confidence and leadership. That is why the decision to move forward with salary increases for council members is still concerning. It's not about the dollar amount, it's about the timing and leadership. At a time when residents are being asked to prepare for difficult financial realities, this was an opportunity to show restraint and lead by example. Instead, the message being sent is contradictory. What is equally concerning is the lack of clear explanation. There was no study presented, no urgency explained, and no clear connection to a broader financial strategy. This was not even part of the mid-year budget review. There's also an argument that increasing compensation would encourage more people to run for office. Civic participation is important, but compensation alone is not what drives it. When multi-term incumbents continue to run for reelection, and when campaign contribution limits are low, the system already favours incumbents. Raising salaries will not change that dynamic. If the goal is broader participation, then focus should be on strengthening the trust and making the system more accessible. Folsom has seen consequences of lost trust. In 2024, Measure G failed. Lack of trust was widely cited as the key reason. The lesson was clear then and it remains clear now. Before asking residents for more, the city must demonstrate discipline and sound judgment. In access, funds are available. Those resources should be directed to our essential public services, such as police, fire, and critical infrastructure. This is another opportunity to rebuild trust. I urge the council to reconsider and demonstrate the restraint and leadership that this moment calls for. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Okay, our final speaker on this item will be Justin Hurst.

All right. Good evening, Mayor Rathel and council members. I'll try to be brief. I know that I'm last speaker and it's late. I would echo many of the comments from the community, including those that rightly recognize the important work that this body does. I want to focus my comments on the concept of public trust. Social media outcry may not equate to good policymaking, but the level of attention that this issue has brought to our city and the passion and persistence of the conversation speaks to a public that remains unconvinced. You've heard tonight from some of those members of the community, members who I may add are staying here late on a Tuesday night, that are passionate enough to come and speak up on largely the same concerns. I urge the City Council to vote no tonight and consider an alternative engagement process if there is a desire to further explore this issue. I would advocate for structural reform to the city's budgeting process in order to develop a process that centers community input early on. Such a process would be more effective in justifying the proposal before you tonight. I want to thank Council Members Leary and Aquino in particular for their leadership on this issue and the members of the public who are here tonight. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, we are done with public comment, and I'd happily entertain a motion to focus the discussion.

I'll make a motion to adopt Ordinance 1366 and Resolution 11584. Second.

Do we need separate, or can we do those together?

Separate, please. Separate. So the adopt Ordinance 1366.

Second. All right. Open up for comment before vote. Anyone want further comments?

I think it would be worthwhile to just have the city attorney explain the difference between Ordinance 1366 and 11584, just for clarity. Okay.

Sure. So the ordinance is what allows the council to take the action to raise the salary to the amount listed. The resolution is where the city council actually raises it to the amount that they have the authority for if the ordinance passes first.

Got it. Any further discussion on the ordinance?

I'll comment. As I said at the last meeting, I don't support an increase to the council salary. As the public has indicated tonight, I think it is remarkably tone deaf of this council. And I also really resent the amount of negative attention this has brought to our city in the last few weeks. I'm pretty disappointed.

Council Member Leary?

Yeah, I'm gonna address a couple of the questions that people asked. We did have a report on the budget in March which indicated that we had not had to dip into the $3 million that was anticipated previously in our rainy day fund and had made some adjustments so that we were, at this time anyway, around $700,000 in the black. albeit that that sounds like a lot of money, it is not. Additionally, we had a discussion that the money would be moved into unassigned fund balances from fiscal year 25 to capital improvement fund accounts, which are like savings accounts. The money was moved into three accounts, an IT fund, facility rehab fund, and a parks and trails fund. At this time, I would anticipate that the deficits in those funds and for the repairs and upgrades on ongoing maintenance that are needed are significantly greater than $700,000. I also heard the fire chief repeat again tonight that he's looking at additional reductions. They have an increased need for tech to help them accomplish their job in a more efficient manner, and I stand on opposing making this move at this time. I appreciate the suggestions that came up about doing something more in a more transitional manner in the future when we've had a chance to look at the final year-end balance. I don't object to looking at this again in the future, but I agree that this is not the time to be giving ourselves a raise. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll make a comment off of that a little bit. I think that was an important message that you just shared, Council Member Leary, that in our mid-year budget review, it was very clear that we exceeded our financial policy of being over 20%. Our financial policy is 17% to 20% general fund reserves. Anything over that would go into capital replacement funds, which is what you just mentioned, and I appreciate that. And then also one of the timing mid-year budget review, we were over a couple hundred thousand in anticipated revenue for the previous year. So we are looking pretty good. We are not in a structural deficit. We did that work. late in the summer to make sure that we weren't in a structural deficit and didn't dip into our general fund reserves. So all in all, we're looking pretty positive. That doesn't mean we can go out and build new buildings and attack everything that we need to attack. This would be a $70,000 hit to the general fund. Actually, it would be It's not going to affect this budget cycle. As previously stated, it wouldn't take effect until December. And so it's really even half of that for even the next budget. So I think there's lots of time and planning to where are we going to find $78,000 and a $268 million budget. I think that that's not going to be a problem. So I think that's enough.

Yeah, I just wanna say that I appreciate all the reachouts that I've had from members of the public, both positive and negative, to discuss this and to discuss the budget. I think it's really important that we are discussing our budget, discussing where we're going. The city of Folsom has been in a deficit since I got involved with the city of Folsom, and there is never a right time to do this. I know... We talked about it last council meeting, but the timing is never going to be right. But the question is, is what do we want to do in the future? And who do we want to serve on city council? That's the question to me. And for me, I want people to be able to run. I want everybody to be able to run, and I don't want them to only be independently wealthy or retired. And I think that we want a diverse group of folks that are up here on the dais, and those folks that are looking at taking time away, we're not going to compensate them what they would make. in the private market, that's not the intent, right? The intention is to really defer some of those costs that they're out there doing with the amount of time that they're putting in and hopefully getting a few more hours out of them a week because I think these are some of the best advocates that the city has, both at the state level, the federal level, the regional level, and I want to give them the freedom to have a few more hours a week in order to be fighting for this great city that we all love. Please call the roll.

On the motion to approve the ordinance, Council Member Leary? No. Rorbaugh? Yes. Aquino? No. Kozlowski? Yes. And Rathel? Yes. The motion passes.

So I'll move Resolution 11584. Second.

Any further discussion on this resolution?

I will just add that if I am on the council when this goes into effect, I won't accept the additional salary. I will continue to stay at $600 per month as long as I'm on this council, and it won't in any way affect the amount of time or effort that I devote to this position.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Yeah, I agree. I'm not... willing to accept the money and I would put that into our programs or things that are actually helpful to our residents. We're very short on temporary housing or low income housing. and a multitude of other projects. And again, I see this, as council member described, as very tone deaf. I haven't gone to anywhere that I usually go without being approached by someone in the last few weeks about what is wrong with the council, what is wrong with you all. All of the headlines read, council adopts a raise for themselves. And the assumption was that that was a universal five out of five vote. And I think that the residents want to see us standing up for what we believe we need to be doing for the residents, not what we believe to be doing for ourselves. And we all got into this job knowing what the pay was. Whether we had raised or lowered our income is really up to the individual. Some people continue to work full-time. Some people work part-time. And I don't see this as an incentive for people to run, especially at the proposed increase of $22,000 a year It's a little bit insulting to say that we're in better candidates if we raise the rate to 22,000 a year.

I'll just say I've had two people reach out to me that said this increase in funds would actually make them consider running for office. Two people that have told me in the past that the reason they couldn't is because they couldn't afford it.

Same with me.

So any further comments? All right, please call the roll.

Council Members Leary? No. Rorba? Yes. Aquino? No. Kozlowski? Yes. And Rathel?

Yes.

The motion passes.

All right. We will now convene the joint meeting of the City Council and the Folsom Ranch Financing Authority. Please call the roll and reestablish quorum.

Council Members Leary? Here. Rorba? Here. Aquino? Here. Kozlowski?

Here.

And Rathel?

Here. please call the only item.

Okay, the only item on this joint meeting agenda is item number 24. This is Folsom Ranch Financing Authority, City of Folsom CFD number 23 for Folsom Ranch. This addresses improvement area number seven, special tax revenue bonds, series 2026. Before you tonight is a resolution of the council, resolution number 11590, authorizing the issuance of the bonds. And the Folsom Ranch Financing Authority resolution number 015, also authorizing issuance, sale, and delivery of the bonds.

Thank you. Good evening again. Stacey Tamani, Chief Financial Officer. Tonight, I'm presenting the Community Facilities District Number 23, Improvement Area 7, Special Tax Revenue Bonds Series 2026. For some background information, the City Council approved CFD 23, Improvement Area 7 in December of 2021. This improvement area provides for the construction and acquisition of certain public improvements to serve property within that CFD. These improvements include the backbone infrastructure such as transportation, water system, recycled water, drainage, wastewater, park, parkways and open space and also provides for the subdivision improvements such as underground utilities, subdivision roadways, street lighting, sound walls and landscaping. Here you have an aerial view of the improvement area and it's just that little section outlined in red. Staff is proposing to issue series 2026 special tax revenue bonds in an amount not to exceed $12 million. Proceeds will be used to finance the acquisition and construction of certain public facilities, fund a debt service reserve account, and pay certain costs of issuance. The aggregate assessed and appraised value of the property within CFD 23 improvement area 7 is about $145 million. So in compliance with the city's CFD policy, the value to lien ratio is 10.4 to 1, and our policy is that it be at least 3 to 1. Also in compliance with the city's policy, the projected tax burden per parcel is approximately 1.69% for developed residential property. By taking action tonight, you're approving the form of various required documents that are listed here on this slide and included in the packet, and you're also authorizing the officers of the city and the Folsom Ranch Financing Authority to execute any and all documents and to take appropriate actions to prepare to issue the bonds. And so with that, staff recommends the approval of City Council Resolution Number 11590 and Folsom Ranch Financing Authority Resolution Number 015FRFA.

Any questions for the staff tonight? All right, we have no public comment, so I'll entertain a motion.

I'll move resolution number 11590. Second. Please call the roll.

Council members Leary. Yes. Rorba. Yes. Aquino. Yes. Kozlowski. Yes. And Rathel.

Yes. And I'll also move resolution number 015-Folsom Ranch FA.

Second.

Please call the roll.

Okay, that'll be board members Leary. Yes. Rorba. Yes. Aquino. Yes. Kozlowski. Yes. And Rathel.

Yes. And we will now adjourn the joint meeting and reconvene the regular city council meeting. And I will turn it over to our city manager for his report.

Excuse me, Mayor Rathel, if I could just go back to the previous item. I was just reminded that it's late and we neglected to open the public hearing. So if we could just go back and redo that, please.

I will get that eventually by December or January. So we're going to go back. We will open the public hearing tomorrow.

You have no request to speak under this item.

We will close the public hearing. Adjourn, reconvene, report.

Great. Thank you, Mayor and members of the council. Just a couple of items to go through. Just want to thank the phenomenal community of Folsom for its efforts for the Castle Park build. Despite rain, lightning, thunder, wind, people were out there just doing a phenomenal job. Also an update related to kind of the sinkhole that's near Castle Park in the Lexington Hills. That area on Pruitt Drive is secure. We're working diligently to get that street back open. Appreciate everyone's patience with us. We work forward to get that done. So that concludes my report. Thanks. Thank you. All right.

We'll do council comments. Um, randomly I was parked on the sinkhole on Saturday all day. Apparently my truck was doing something to the road that I didn't anticipate. I have no other report. Thank you. I was going to comment on the work out at Castle Park. It's extraordinary, the amount of effort that everybody put into it. And special thanks to our buddy John Lane, who's been part of everything in the community and really went over and above working on some pretty, extremely safe false work that I built for him so that he could build the top of one of the towers.

Well, we're glad you're still with us since you were parked on the sinkhole all day.

We made it, yeah.

Vice Mayor?

We had a SACRT board meeting yesterday, and I wanted to, just to the public, they're implementing a SACRT Scout Transit Patch Program. There's five activities. It's teaching kids how to navigate, riding the buses and the rail system, and you can just go to sacrt.com. transit-patch.program. It's a really fantastic program, so I hope some of the people in Folsom engage in it. And then I just also want to say thank you, especially to our volunteers, and thanks to the mayor for having me on his minute with the mayor yesterday. But I do want to say a special thanks to our Parks and Rec Department, all the departments that came and helped, but especially our Parks and Rec Department. I don't see any of them in here right now. They're sleeping. They're exhausted. They're exhausted. And hopefully our community can give them a little grace. Not only were they night and day out there, but also, you know, then we had the storms come through. And so, you know, as soon as Monday morning came along, they had to go and clean up all, and they still probably are cleaning up a bunch of stuff. So just thank you for going above and beyond. And I really appreciate our city staff for helping.

Thank you. Council Member Leary?

Thank you. I unfortunately had to miss the dedication for the Hart Tiny Homesites, the find that they're building for community college students at Oak Hills Church out on the corner of Blue Ravine and Oak Avenue, but I was able to have a private tour of the site and explanation of what they're building there. It's some wonderful work that will help a lot of students make it through college and move on to a career where they're able to afford their own homes. I want to let you all know they are having a fundraiser on May 6th at 5.30. You can take a look at their websites. uh, online and, uh, you buy a table for $250. I'll be sponsoring one. Uh, if anybody would like to add their name to my table, that would be lovely. Um, I also attended a couple ribbon cuttings over the weekend. One of them was for umbrella ice cream, which is out in the Safeway, uh, shopping center on, um, Blue Ravine, no, Iron Point and Prairie City Road. And then also a Pilates 12 opening, also in the same shopping center, which is a lovely site run by two young women. It's their first adventure into business. And also on Saturday, Fire and Ice, which is a new gaming store out in the Palladio. So there's a lot of new things to do in town. I hope that we'll see you participating in supporting these businesses, and I hope to see you on May 6th at the Hart Fundraiser. Thank you.

Thanks, Barbara. Council Member Cano?

I just wanted to echo the comments also about Castle Park. I want to thank all the volunteers, city staff, particularly Parks and Rec, the restaurants who kept everybody well fed. But I do want to give a particular shout out to Chris O'Keefe. I think some of us, multiple of us heard this from Justin from Leathers, who was kind of the big boss out there. But he said of the 25 plus years that he's been doing these community builds, the 300 plus parks that he's built, he said Chris O'Keefe was in the top two or three percent of any staff member he had ever worked with. So thank you so much to Chris for coordinating all that effort.

That's awesome.

Hear, hear, yeah. I've got a few announcements tonight. Well, first off, just an update on Sacramento Transportation Authority. They are continuing work and discussion on a VMT mitigation bank. SACOG is also working on a VMT vehicle miles traveled mitigation bank. And so Council Member Kozlowski, as our representative for SACOG, and I will be talking about the potential overlapping of those efforts and how they impact potential projects in Folsom and in our region. Saturday night, I had the honor of attending the Blue Star Moms gala, where we were able to announce that Vargas Andrews Way is going to be named in Folsom after Sergeant Tyler Vargas Andrews. He was a Marine that was injured in the evacuation of Kabul years ago. Some of you might have been at the rodeo welcoming him home a couple years ago. He now lives in Tennessee, but he went to Folsom High here. He enlisted at 19. He's a hometown hero, and so Blue Star Moms had approached me about naming a street after him, and I asked Whole Brothers, so I know they were here earlier, but I also want to express my appreciation to them Because when I brought the idea up to him, they went, absolutely, we would love to honor one of our veterans. We have the gold star streets for our fallen veterans in my district and Natomas Heights. Dean Way, McCarran Inn, a number of those that have the gold star on them. for our fallen veterans. We have World War I, World War II, and Vietnam veterans that are honored in that way. So this will be our first Silver Star, but it'll be a similar street design for that. So we shared some of the photo mock-ups of that street sign, but the idea is to bring recognition to our Silver Star veterans and their families and what they've gone through. The other cool thing I think about this is that this street that was selected is right on one of the city parks and a school site. And so one of the things I love about the Gold Star Streets is it encourages you to look up that person's story and read that and understand what that person sacrificed. for our city and for our freedom. And I hope this does the same as those kids are going to school there, as people are going to play at the park. They look up 50 years from now, 100 years from now, and read the story of Tyler and what he did for our folks over in Kabul and what him and his family went through and the sacrifices that they all made. So thank you most off to Sergeant Tyler Vargas Andrews for his service and for allowing us to tell his story. Thursday, I am going to be presenting a proclamation to the Vex robotics crew. They're headed to St. Louis for the world championship. And so we're excited that they're going to represent. They're the only Sacramento County team that qualified for this world championship. So I wish them luck in St. Louis and hope they bring us back a big gold trophy. Uh, from there, I also want to say, thank you to those that are going to cap to cap. I'm headed to DC on Friday. Uh, vice mayor and I are on the transportation team, trying to bring back funding to our region for transportation projects. And then we also have our city manager and our police chief attending for that legislative advocacy at the federal level, which is really important. And finally, Dragon Boat Races. If you have not been to the Dragon Boat Races, supporting Powerhouse Ministries, it is a super fun day. There are still room on some teams if you want to sign up and support Powerhouse Ministries. You can also just show up out at Black Miner's Bar on Saturday and watch the teams. It's 17 people getting a boat up to speed in a very short amount of time. When they tell you how quick the races are, it's like one minute. You're like, oh, that seems really easy. you are completely gassed after one minute of heavy rowing and getting these boats up to speed. So it's a really fun day to watch and go out and support one of our great local nonprofits. Thank you all for being here tonight. And with that, we are adjourned.