City Council - Regular Meeting

Good

evening everybody. We're gonna go ahead and reconvene from our closed session. Do we have any final action this evening?

Nothing to report out, thank you.

Alright and with that, we will adjourn the special meeting and we'll call to order our regular meeting for 05/12/2026. Will you please call the roll?

Yeah, Council Member Zakino. Here. Leary. Here. Rohrabach. Here. And Rathal.

Here.

And Kozlowski is absent.

Thank you. 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 for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And do we have any updates to the agenda this evening?

Yes, Mayor. We have an additional information transmittal for the public hearing, which is agenda item number 10. We have two letters that have been transmitted to the council, and there are additional copies on the back table for the public.

Thank you so much. And now is the time where we do business from the floor. If you're here tonight to address the council on any unagendized items, you can come on up. You'll get three minutes, to address the council. This is just on unagendized items tonight. Anyone from business from the floor? Going once? Going twice? Sold. Business from the floor. Alright. Perfect. We will move on to scheduled presentations. Please call item number one.

Item number one is a proclamation of the mayor proclaiming May 17 to to the twenty third as National Public Works Week declaring May 20 as city works day and recognizing public works as emergency responders.

There we go. There we go. All right. Who wants to hold our proclamation here? Lindsay? All right. Perfect. All right. Tonight we have Rebecca Neves, our public works director, Jennifer Tio, our management analyst, and Lindsey Margatix, our administrative assistant for public works, accepting our proclamation. So thank you all for being here.

Our proclamation of the mayor of the city of Folsom proclaiming May 2026 as National Public Works Week, recognizing public works as emergency responders and recognizing 05/20/2026 as City Works Day. So whereas public works professionals focus on facilities, infrastructure, and services that are of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and to the public health, high quality of life, and well-being of the people of the state of California and the residents of the city of Folsom. And whereas public works professionals play a vital role in disasters and other emergencies and are often considered the silent arm of public safety, working diligently, often without fanfare, to support emergency response partners regardless of the hazard. Public works maintenance and operations staff are among the most visible and essential elements during the response and recovery phases of disasters. They assist with rescue, evacuation, flood control and sheltering, provide temporary traffic control and perimeter security, transport critical supplies and equipment, and restore damage infrastructure, making their broad capabilities a critical component in nearly every type of disaster or emergency.

And whereas the year 2026 marks the sixty sixth annual National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association with the theme Service Powered by Community reflecting the strong connection between public works teams and the residents they serve as well as the collaborative, interdependent partnership shared with police, fire, and other emergency service partners. And whereas City Works Day, taking place on 05/20/2026, at City Lions Park, invites residents of all ages to engage with and learn about the interconnected public works services that support daily life in Folsom and to meet to meet the professionals who work collaboratively to protect and serve the community. Now, therefore, I, Justin Rathel, mayor of the City Of Folsom, on behalf of the Folsom City Council, do hereby proclaim the week of May as National Public Works Week and May 20 as City Works Day in the City Of Folsom, encouraging all residents to participate in the educational activities and events honoring the indispensable contributions of Public Works professionals and their collaboration as emergency responders alongside and in support of police and fire and safeguarding public health, safety, and quality of life. Let's give these folks a round of applause.

Thank you mayor, thank you council for recognizing National Public Works Week and City Works Day. We just want to invite all of you and the entire community to come join us May 20 at City Lions Park.

Attendees will be able to look at approximately 35 booths, vehicles, and city equipment displays, and we expect about 2,000 attendees.

So this year's theme is service powered by community, and you may notice we don't have any of our amazing public works staff up here. It's because they're all in bed. 06:30 is past their bedtime, so they're up quite early. But I just, in all sincerity, I just really wanted to not only thank our first responders in police and fire, but also our team in public works who works alongside with them in emergencies. It really can't be understated, some of the value and how they are able to keep the community moving when unsightly things happen, when we have calls about downed trees, blocking roads, flooding.

This happened to be my favorite one. This was our this last Christmas actually. So, we had a couple of gentlemen who had just opened their brand new Christmas gift and did not want to get their new sweater and pants dirty, so they did have to go and get some slickers on instead. But we had just kind of an example of some of the work that our teams do out in the field and just really wanted to highlight the good work that they do. You know, a lot of folks are, you know, when the storm comes in, that's when our folks are heading out where most people are heading in for shelter. And so, just when you see them, you know, wave at them and say thank you. That's, you know, just they love serving this community and they love serving all of you. So, you for your patience and your care and your support of our Public Works team.

So, and

that's all.

Thank you so much Public Works. We appreciate you guys. And please pass that along to all the folks that couldn't be here this evening. Next item please.

Okay. Your second item this evening is the annual presentation by the Sacramento Yolo Mosquito and Control District regarding the regional mosquito and vector management efforts.

And if you're standing in the back, we do have a few open seats up front. You're welcome to grab. If you're on the edge and you could, if you have seats in the middle, if you can move in and make everyone feel welcome, we really would appreciate it this evening.

Hang on. I'll get it. One second.

I know it's nice to sit on the edge so you could run whenever the meeting's over, but if we can make everybody feel welcome, that's awesome. Thank you all for doing that.

Great. Well, you City Council Member for having me, Mayor. My name is Steve Ramos. I am an assistant manager with Saquillo Mosquito and Vector Control District, and I'm back out here again to talk to you about why mosquito control matters. So once again, thank you for having me. Our district is a dual county district. We service both Sacramento and Yolo County. There's about 60 districts like us, very similar to us up and down the state of California. Typically located around urban areas, more populated areas. So tonight just wanted to talk about, you know, what our mission is, kind of remind the folks here in the audience who are all here to see my presentation of course, and the city council, you know, our mission is to protect public health.

And we do that by providing safe, effective and economical mosquito and vector control. Really what does that mean? It means we want to have the folks within our community enjoy their community, be able to enjoy their backyard barbecues, enjoy, you know, their late night walks or working in their garden. And mosquitoes can be a big, you know, damper on that. Not only can they bug you, they bite, make people itch, some people are allergic to them, but of course there is also the concern for diseases that they can carry and transmit as well.

So that is our main mission is to go out there and control these mosquitoes so they're not impacting your life. And this is timely because mosquito season is really just starting now. We just had some late rains. The weather today was beautiful as well as was yesterday, nice and warm. And you can see some of the pictures in the slide here. These are the things that we're asking the folks to take a look at in their own backyards. Buckets, wheelbarrows. I myself was walking around my backyard this weekend and found a bucket with agrafts already being produced. So bad me. I dumped it though and I'll make sure that doesn't happen again until next year.

But you know, West Nile virus is still the main concern. It's the main threat that we deal with every year. It's here to stay. It is a bird virus, so the mosquitoes feed on the bird and then they can transmit that virus to humans. So one of the things that we're really concerned with is, you know, lowering those numbers within our urban areas, so that way people aren't getting sick. And then of course we have an invasive mosquito that's coming into the area. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But that also causes concern for more exotic diseases like dengue, chikungunya, and Zika. So this is just a quick overview of some of the sources that our district treats. You know, Saquiolo, we are really what a lot of people consider a rice district.

Know, every year we have about 40 to 50,000 acres of rice within our district. Rice is easy to treat. It's huge gigantic fields. An area like Folsom is a little different, right? We're more concerned with those urban sources like those backyard green pools, those buckets, those flower pots or bird baths where you may not think that mosquitoes are breeding but that's what they do and that's where we come into play to help educate, kind of point these things out to the community and let them know what they can do to protect themselves.

So our district uses an integrated mosquito management approach, is really a five pronged approach. Public information, it'd be our number one tool really is getting the word out there, letting people know we exist. We have services that we want to offer to the community. You may see our billboards or hear our radio ads or TV ads, or our you know, internet messages as well. And really that's us wanting to be a part of the community, letting them know we're here to help. We do a lots of events. I believe we've been a long time vendor at the Folsom Family Fun Expo. We're doing that again this October. I'm looking forward to that. We do a lot of school presentations as well, trying to educate the youth on the mosquito life cycle, the science behind mosquitoes and how we control them.

Surveillance, we're very proud of our surveillance program. I match with anybody in the state or the nation for that matter. We go out, set traps throughout the area, making sure we have an idea of how many mosquitoes are being produced in the area. We bring those mosquitoes back, we sort them by sex and species and test them for West Nile virus and other diseases that they may carry. That kind of points us in the direction of how we need to respond. So that's something we're really proud of and we continue to grow. Biological control is our fish that we use. Those are everybody's best friends. You could throw them in a green swimming pool, you can throw them in a pond. They do a great job because they never stop being hungry.

They eat a lot of mosquito larvae for They can last throughout the mosquito breeding season and sometimes even throughout the overwinter and they're ready to go the very next season as well. Ecological management is another arm of our district where we actually help public and private landowners with mosquito issues they may have on their land or property. Helping them move water or assisting them in coming up with plans on how to not create mosquito sources on their property. And the control operations is really a big portion of what we do. It could be anything from our staff, which is the boots on the ground that go out find those sources, treat those sources, the folks that are in your communities helping educate the public, all the way to our aerial services as well.

We have an aerial larvicide component, we have an adult control component, and we even have drones that go out now and treat sources that we just can't get to physically but still need to be treated for mosquitoes. And here's probably the most important slide of the night and this is the city of Folsom, the outlined areas. Luckily, Folsom had a very good year last year. We did not find any positive West Nile virus mosquito samples within the city district or within the city limits, excuse me. And we also had no West Nile virus positive birds.

I believe in '24 we did have one bird in the city of Folsom city limits, but no mosquito samples again. So that's good. As though you can see right on the outskirts, we do have a couple of positive mosquito samples and one dead bird was found last year in 2025. The human cases that are shown here for the state of California, hundred and thirteen last year, which is a big decrease from 2023. It kept going down.

Luckily 2023 was a really bad year. But something we like to point out with this slide is that CDC says, you know, for every neuroinvasive case or, you know, positive human case that is reported about thirty to seventy are unreported. So West Nile virus is severely underreported. So just something to be aware of if you have a family member or a friend who gets that weird summer flu and maybe they've been out and have been bit by mosquitoes, just something to consider. Something that we are really keeping an eye on, especially here in Folsom as well, is we do have the invasive mosquitoes.

And we've been talking about this for a couple of years now. We first discovered them or detected them rather in our district in 2019 and they have since spread throughout our district. They are here in Folsom now. I would say that we have a relatively small infestation but they tend not to stay small for long. Infestations tend to grow very quickly. These mosquitoes are really aggressive day biters. So they will ruin any event that you can plan. And you know, more than just them biting and being annoying, they are a very competent vector of those diseases we mentioned before, like dengue, chikungunya. In California last year, there were one hundred and ninety three travel related cases. But there were also six locally acquired cases of dengue.

So that is a main concern of ours. We have these mosquitoes which are a very competent vector of that disease. We don't want that to start being passed around locally from these mosquito bites. So to combat this, we actually started using a innovative technique last year. It's not new, it's been around for quite a long time, but a sterile insect technique is what we've been using. You might remember being used like a medfly. This is where we go out and we actually release sterile male mosquitoes. Male mosquitoes do not bite. They don't have mouth parts, there is no danger of them transmitting diseases. They can be a little bit annoying because they'll fly around, but they're not gonna bite you or make you itch.

And once they mate with a female mosquito, the female mosquito will not mate with any other males. So her progeny from that point on are no good until she is expired. So we tried this in a very small area in South Natomas last year where we had a very high abundance of Aedes aegypti, and we saw tremendous results. Really kept those numbers down, which lowered all of the work that we had to do out there and really gave those those residents some relief. So something that we're gonna probably continue to expand on as we move forward.

So yeah, as we move forward, we'll continue to expand our SIT and other areas that we deem that are, you know, becoming a high problematic area for A's at chip time. We'll continue of course our surveillance and control efforts. We'll explore more outreach opportunities. So if you have anybody who would like us to come out and give a presentation, please reach out to our district. We'd love to do that. You know, any of the clubs that are in the area, local clubs, schools, that helps us get our message out very much. We of course encourage the public to report any day pity mosquitoes. Those are typically those aegypti, and also drain all the water on your property. Discard those items too because the eggs can actually persist in those items. So it might be good once you dry them to throw them away.

And then of course we welcome everybody to go to our website, which is fightthebike.net. You can sign up for our newsletters. You can actually sign up for our surveillance outputs, which tells you where we're doing treatments, if we're doing aerial applications, you can get notifications of that through your email. And it also just gives you a lot more information on the programs that we have. And with that, I'm done. I tried to make it quick. Are there any questions?

Thank you Mr. Ramos. Questions?

If I could, if there are no questions for me, I'd like to actually introduce Craig Burnett. He's been representing the city of Folsom on our board for a couple of years now. I'm sure you guys know him.

I have one question. Sure, sure. I'm sorry. You know, you mentioned the Fight the Bite site and I've signed up years ago for the notifications. And I'm wondering if that advertisement goes out to the greater community to sign up for that because I think some people may be sensitive or concerned about chemicals, you know, use in local ponds and wetlands areas. And if there are things that you would recommend that people do to avoid those areas if they're concerned about some kind of exposure.

Sure, yeah. One of the best things you can do is sign up for those notifications. And then if you have a concern, say you even see something that's being treated, give us a call. Even during that time, would stay out of the area if you're concerned for your own personal health, but give our district, our office a call. We can let you know what's happening in real time. What that application is being applied for, what type of product it is, how long it should take. We can give you that information right there in real time.

Great, so fightthebyte.net.

Fightthebyte.net.

Yes, thank you.

You're welcome.

Good afternoon or good evening, I'm Craig Burnett. I've been your representative for a number of years for City of Folsom. I actually worked for the district when I was going to college in the early 60s and I've been a member of this Saquillo Mosquito Vector Control Board for forty eight years. So I've cut my teeth on the district and being a representative of Folsom. Steve talked about Aedes mosquitoes, day biters.

I was in my house on my computer here a couple weeks ago, middle of the day, heard a buzzing, slapped my neck, there was blood. It was an Aedes aegypti mosquito. So I contacted the district, the staff came out, searched all around my house. I don't know if they found the source at my house, but it only takes a bottle cap full of water for these Aedes aegypti to lay their eggs and when the rain or sprinklers fill it up, eggs will germinate and produce mosquitoes. So you have to be aware any little source around your house or around your yard.

The other thing our district does, as Steve didn't mention, we do surveillance for ticks because Lyme disease is prevalent. So basically around the river areas, riparian areas, they check for ticks every year, usually November through about March. So just wanted to let everybody know, fight the bite, sign up, get more information, and I'm proud to be a member of the City of Folsom and representing City of Folsom on the Saquiola Mosquito and Vector Control Board. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Burnett. We appreciate your service and your representation. Alright. That takes us That takes us to our consent calendar. Colleagues, anyone wanna pull any items from consent this evening?

No, I'll move adoption of the consent calendar.

Second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Aquino. Yes. Theory. Yes. Rorba. Yes. And Rathal.

Yes. Takes us to old business. Please call the next item.

Yeah, old business item number seven is resolution number 11609. This is a resolution declaring the results of the Natoma Station Maintenance Assessment District 20 Five-two ballot proceedings, approving the final engineer's report, confirming the diagram and assessments, and ordering the levying of assessments for maintenance and servicing of improvements within said district.

Good evening, mayor and member of the council. I'm Derek Perez, municipal and landscape services manager for the Parks and Recreation Department. I'll be presenting a very brief presentation on the prop two eighteen results for Natomas Station Landscape And Lighting District. At the 04/28/2026 City Council meeting, council held a public hearing for the Natoma Station Maintenance Assessment District Number 2025 Dash 2. Council directed staff to tally the ballots on 04/29/2026 in the Large Public Works Conference Room at City Hall at 9AM and return with the results of the next city council meeting 05/12/2026 tonight.

The city clerk certified the ballot results on 04/29/2026 with the final results being a total of 1,382 ballots were distributed distributed. A total of 655 val valid ballots were tabulated. Ballots in favor were 467 with a weighted value of assessment ballots totaling $158,976.51 resulting in 71.84% in favor of the assessment. Ballots in opposition were 188 with a weighted value of assessment ballots totaling 62301.16¢, resulting in a 28.16% in opposition of the assessment. For Prop two eighteen, the assessment results needed to pass are 50% plus one.

The assessment passed, and the original Natoma Station Landscaping Lighting District will be consolidated with the newly formed Natoma Station Maintenance Assessment District twenty twenty five-two, pursuant to section 22,611 of the Streets and Highways Code. All assets, liabilities, revenue, expenses, and installments of the original Natoma Station Landscape Lining District will be transferred to and assumed by the Natoma Station Maintenance Assessment District twenty twenty five-two for the continued maintenance and servicing of the improvements. The new levy won't take effect until fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven, which assessment revenues won't be collected until January 2027. In the meantime, staff will be working with our landscape contractor to formulate a plan on enhancing the aesthetics in the district as funding allows. With that, staff recommends the City Council approve resolution number one one six zero nine, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Folsom declaring results of the Natoma Station Maintenance Assessment District number 2025 Dash 2, ballot proceeding, approving the final engineer's report, confirming the diagram and assessments, and ordering the levying of assessments for the maintenance and servicing of improvements with the said district.

And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

It's been a long road, Derek. Yeah. We appreciate you. Appreciate all the work you've done on this. Questions for Mr. Perez this evening?

All

right, we have no public comments. We'll entertain a motion.

I'll move resolution 100 sixteen-nine. That's fine.

It's my district. I retract. I'll second it. Oh, you're retracting?

Yes, you make it.

Okay, so I'll move resolution number 11,609, resolution of the City Council of City Folsom declaring results in Natoma Station Maintenance District Number 2020 Five-two, ballot proceeding.

I'll second that, and for the public, this is in her district and that's why we want

her to make a motion.

And she's done a little bit of work on educating the residents of Natoma Station on what this means for them. Thank you so much. Please call the roll.

Council Member Zakino? Yes. Leary? Yes. Rohrabaugh? Yes. And Rethal?

Yes. That takes us to new business. Please call the next item.

Okay, new business item number eight, resolution number 11,608, authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement with Michael Roberts Construction for the replacement of the Folsom Public Library low slope roof.

Good evening, mayor Athol, member of city council. Ryan Eaves, capital project manager in the Parks and Recreation Department. Happy to give you a brief presentation on this project. So a bit of background, the library here in Folsom opened in 2007, and the existing roof is a single ply PVC, low slope roof that's original to the building and nearing the end of its useful life. We recently had an inspection done in December 2025 that identified several issues with the roof and recommended replacement.

Moving forward with this project, we'll build on some recent facility improvements that have been undertaken at the library over the last couple of years, including some interior improvements as well as currently underway HVAC replacement, which is anticipated to be completed this month. The scope of the proposed project is removal of the existing roof system, installation of the new roof and then testing and then documentation and training to city staff. And the agreement includes a two year maintenance plan and a twenty year manufacturer warranty for the new roof. The estimated cost was $1,300,000 provided by the inspection company in December. The city put out the construction for bid and received nine bids, you know, good variety there.

The low bidder is Michael Roberts construction and upon review there were the low bid responsive bidder. And so we recommend awarding contract to them. The total project budget would include a 10% construction contingency. So it would be, the project budget would be for $940,045 The schedule for the work. So we're here tonight to hopefully award the contract.

We'll be working with our library director and team to coordinate the schedule to be most, you know, least impactful I should say to the summer programming. And so we've identified starting work after August 1. And while we don't think it'll take the full time, the number of working days, you know, we expect the project will be completed before the December. And most importantly, the library will remain open during the work. So with that, recommend approval of resolution number one one six 08 to authorize the city manager to execute to an agreement with Michael Roberts construction for the replacement of the library roof. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much. Any questions for staff this evening? I just have one for you. Once our two year maintenance agreement is up, what's the plan moving forward?

Yeah, so as part of the scope of work, they'll be providing us with some training for our in house facility staff for what the maintenance recommendations are. So we would be moving forward with that.

So the idea is so our staff would take on the maintenance after two years. And then what's the expected, you know, one lasted, it looks like barely twenty years, maybe a few years shy of twenty years with proper maintenance about how long should this roof last?

I mean, it's warrantied for twenty years. So, you know, I mean, I think that is kind of the design life. So, you know, we'll hopefully with the proactive maintenance, we'll be able to extend that. But I think, you know, planning is, you know, twenty years.

Thank you so much. Yep. And we have no public comment this evening.

I can move adoption of resolution number 11,608.

I'll second.

Please call the roll.

Councilmembers Aquino. Yes. Leary. Yes. Zorba. Yes. And Weytl.

Yes. Please call the next

item.

Okay, new business item number nine is resolution number 11,611, authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement with Lowen Pump Maintenance for the replacement of motor pump and refurbishment of a pump for the 50 meter swimming pool at the Aquatic Center for a cost not to exceed $88,400.

Jamie Mayor, members of council, Tom Hellman with the Parks and Recreation Department. Tonight, we bring resolution number one one six one one, a request to authorize city manager to execute an agreement with Lowen Pump Maintenance. The reason for this request, so we have an aquatic center that was built in 2001. This aquatic center serves over 150,000 participants that enter that facility on an annual basis. The motors for each of these two filtration units are original to the build.

The pumps for each of these filtration units are also original to the build, but those two pumps have been refurbished at least once in their lifespan. The two u two units that we're talking about tonight are the main filtration equipment that bring the water in from the 50 meter swimming pool to be filtered, heated, and then chemically treated before returning to the swimming pool. The diagram you see before you are the two units we're speaking of, unit one on the right and unit two on the left. California State Code requires that the entire water volume of the 50 meter pool be recirculated every six hours. In order to achieve that, both of these units have to operate and move twenty sixteen gallons of water every minute.

The proposal tonight is to look at dismantling and removing the motor and pump from Unit Number 1 there and replacing it with a brand new motor and pump. Then the contractor will take that pump and rebuild it off-site and return to install it into Unit Number 2 at a later date. The contractor will then also make sure that all the equipment is tested and working properly before finishing out the project. As we went forward with this, because it is of urgency, we see failure in Unit Number 1. Failure is a sign that basically we're getting air in the system.

So we contacted our utilities department, worked with them to identify some additional resources and or vendors, and they provide us with a few that they've worked with. We reached out to four companies to ask them for a quote, give them back the information by a specified date. Upon that date, we received three that you see here from these three vendors. We are choosing to go with Lowen Pump Maintenance, which, to provide this service and, get this work done for us, which our utilities department also works with as well. So tonight, I ask for your approval of resolution number 11611 for us to move forward with this and allow the city manager to execute an agreement with Lowen pump maintenance. Be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Councilman Burkina.

What's the difference in cost between replacing a unit and refurbishing a unit?

So refurbishing can be of the pump, but not the motor. So refurbishing the pump would be about 12,000 is what they quoted to do for the pool pump number one out, refurbish that, and then put that into pump number two would be about $12,000

Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm not mechanically inclined.

Let me

go back to a diagram Yeah.

Was just thinking, are you refurbishing instead of replacing in order to save costs?

So two things. So unit number one is our problem. Okay. This is the one that's showing most signs of distress because we have air in the system. And so through some preventative maintenance and other work we've done, we've identified that unit number one, the pump is bad, and then the motor is failing. And so pumps can be rebuilt, and you can rebuild those all the time because they pull everything out from the internal, and they put all new internal parts in, right? So we're going to rebuild that one to place on the Unit Number 2 so we get a new working pump. That motor is working really good. So Unit 2 is doing fine right now. But Unit 1, since we have the opportunity to rebuild all of that, that's why we're taking advantage of this because that one is showing the most failure at this point.

Got it. Okay, that helps. Thank you.

Other questions for staff?

Oh, I just have one other question. Is it possible that there may be some other components that aren't up to par to use for rebuilding? I don't know how in-depth you can evaluate these things without taking them apart.

Hopefully not. We've done work on both the influence, so where it gets pulled in, and the effluent, where it's going to. We've replaced some valves also within the plumbing system. As you also know, we also replaced all eight of the sand filter units that were there, and so with better sand filtration, this is also maybe a possibility where our motor isn't able to keep up with the demand in order to filter that water effectively or pull that water in effectively. So we don't anticipate that there's other things outside of before the pump and motor or after the pump and motor at this point. We just believe that the pump is failing. There's some internal problem that's making that happen, which is why you're getting air in the system, and then the motor is failing as well.

So right now you don't anticipate a contingency to accomplish

There's a contingency amount in this of 10%, yeah, for all of

our parts.

And not greater

than that? No. Okay, thank you.

Daniel Blinden.

We have no public comment this evening, so

I'll I'll entertain a move approval of resolution number one hundred sixteen one hundred eleven. Second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Aquino. Yes. Leary.

Yes.

Lorbach. Yes. And Rethal.

Yes. That takes us to our public hearing.

Please Public call next hearing item number 10. This is resolution number 11,613, a resolution receiving the twenty twenty six ad hoc charter review committee report to city council with recommended amendments and dissolving the committee and direction to staff regarding preparation of potential ballot measures amending the city charter and or the municipal code for the twenty twenty six general municipal election.

Thank you, mayor, members of the council. Appreciate the opportunity to talk a little bit about the city charter review. I'm going to do a little introduction about what the charter is, go through some of the history of the charter. We're grateful to have our Charter Review Committee, Bill Romanelli, who's here, who will be able to talk a little bit about the report. So just some background on what is a city charter.

A city charter is the foundational governing document of a municipality, essentially its local constitution. It defines the structure of city government, establishes rules for elections and terms of office, grants authority on local matters beyond state defaults, can be amended only by a vote of the people, provides transparency and accountability to the residents. I do want to highlight that it can only be amended by a vote of the people. I couldn't help but notice that there were comments in the community suggesting that the council was trying to take away the voters rights. That can't be done.

The charter can only be changed by you, the voters. The charter is somewhat unique in that in California there's I believe 400, I think now about four eighty cities, about three fifty seven cities are what they call general law cities, about 121 are charter cities which Folsom is one of those. Here's just a list of some of the differences. Just to highlight, a charter city is governed by its own charter for matters of local concern, has greater local control and flexibility. It can set its own election rules except for issues of statewide concern.

It may set its own contracting rules, home rule on municipal affairs. I highlight this. This is 1990 and it was Measure P and this is the vote that approved the charter, the original charter. We had 3,100 votes for, 2,001 hundred's against. Just to kind of demonstrate some of the changes that have occurred in the November, there were 42,000 individuals that voted.

In the nineteen ninety election, 5,300 voted, so things have changed a little bit. Here are some of the amendments to the charter. We had Measure H in 1994 and Measure I, it's kind of a little interesting about the history of the city. Measure H was for a bridge connecting Folsom Boulevard and Folsom Auburn Road, not more than four vehicular lanes. It passed with 8,300 votes.

I guess there was a countermeasure alternative bridge extending from northern extension of Oak Avenue to East Natoma Street near Fargo Way. That item failed. In 1996, there was Measure L, Charter Enforcement and Penalties, that amended the section to clarify enforcement, violations of the city charter or city ordinance shall be enforced by any method provided by ordinance, and then that passed. Measure P, water meter rates and retrofit rules prohibited water meter retrofits on pre-nineteen ninety two single family residences, and that passed with 8,500 votes. In 2000 there was an ad hoc charter advisory committee, a special committee was formed, reviewed the charter and submitted recommendations for the council consideration.

In 2001 the council declined to submit any of those 2,000, any of the recommendations for that 2,000 ad hoc charter advisory committee forward to the voters, so no amendments were placed on the ballot. In 2004, Measure W, this was for basically the land South Of Highway 50. Required water supply, identification, traffic mitigation, 30% open space, school plans, environmental review before annexing land South Of Highway 50. It was approved with 17,000 voters to 8,000 against. 2018, there was a charter amendment that went before the residents of Folsom.

Was titled measure C. Basically, the question was after serving four consecutive four year terms, the city council member is not eligible to run or be appointed unless four consecutive years have elapsed since their last service. That was approved 23,000 votes to 6,100 votes. Here's just a quick summary of the different charter amendments over the thirty six year history. It looks like there's been seven ballot measures, six were approved, and then that kind of brings us to the 2020 six Ad Hoc Charter Review Committee.

The committee has been convened. It's been looking at the charter. The last full review was in 2000, as I mentioned. The charter amendments require voter approval for some residents will have the final say on any proposed changes as they always have. So what's next? The committee will present findings and recommendations to the city council if approved. Measures may be placed on a future ballot for a public vote. This is more blah blah blah. You guys have heard me a little bit talk about that. Okay, so I think it's important to highlight some of the things that have happened for the Ad Hoc Charter Review Committee.

The committee met two times in March, two times in April, and then once in May, and it was interesting at the beginning of the charter review process, we had an introduction to the charter, we provided materials to the charter review committee, and talked about some of the things that the committee members would like to bring back for future discussion. And ultimately, a full review was done of the charter and all the different members of the committee presented ideas. And no idea was just thrown out, and so here's just a list of all the items that we started out with. So they identified 21 areas for potential update. There was section 2.01 amend language to recognize election by districts.

Section 2.01A amend language to clarify that you must be a resident registered voter within the district which they represent. Section 2.01 D, amend language to align with staggering of terms based on district, not on year elected. Section 2.01, City Council term limits proposed a review of term limits specifically suggesting a reduction to a to a two term limit. And so these are just ideas that were presented by the committee members. Five, proposed extending certain terms beyond, for ad hoc committees proposed extending certain terms beyond one year.

Section 2.03, consider implementing at large mayor election. Section 2.07 B, personnel powers proposed reviewing general counsel authority to allow for counsel approval of department head contracts. Section 2.07 D, franchise authority initiated a discussion on whether the power to franchise should remain with the public vote or be moved to council authority. Section 2.08B, three, council vacancies and forfeiture of office, identified the phrase crime involving moral turpitude, noting that more objective, less subjective language might be beneficial. Section 2.11 C, audit, consider adding a council member to the audit review process, noting a need for more clarity on the specific goals for this review.

Section 3.02 dismissal of a city manager recommended the removal of the ninety day dismissal limitation to provide the council with greater personnel flexibility. Section 4.03, city attorney proposed reviewing the appointment process suggesting a shift toward council led hiring. Section 4.07, boards and commissions remove restriction of only the advisory to the council. Article five, financial procedures flagged for potential updating. Section 5.04, purchasing and contracting, recommended updating procurement language from lowest bidder to best bidder.

Section 5.08, was my favorite, There was a typo, warrants and cheeks. I'll let you figure out what that was supposed to be. We've administratively corrected that typo. Section 7.02, franchises identified for review specifically regarding water meter retrofits. Section 7.05, American Bridge Crossing site proposed for removal as this was seen outdated.

Section 7.07A and 7.07B, water meter retrofits and metered rates identified for review specifically regarding water meter retrofits. Section 7.08, local control of land south of Highway 50, flag for further examination proposed expansion of the defined area. Section 9.02, transition of current elected officials, proposal to remove section as outdated and irrelevant as it addresses the transition of elected officials during 1990. I wanted to add that because the election process is what it is, that there are certain timelines that need to be followed so that anything can be presented to the voters. And so we discussed that at the very first meeting with the Charter Review Committee and established kind of a date of the meetings that we needed and and basically understood if something were to ultimately be presented to the city council for consideration to put forward to the voters, we would need to work pretty aggressively And so that's how that schedule was put together, and we'll kind of go over later on in the presentation of what is left, because there's still significant public process that has to happen if anything is to get to the voters.

So we have the recommendations from the Ad Hoc Charter Review Committee report, and I have this on our screens. I don't know if our committee chair, Mr. Romanelli, if you wanted to come up and talk about these items.

Okay,

so I'll go over these and then we'll turn some time over to the chair. So the recommendations of the committee were, and there's eight of them, is first section 2.01 city council. This was to address the transition away from at large elections. The committee voted six to one in favor of this recommendation and essentially what happened here was they removed the language that said at large. Section 2.01 term limits, this is reducing the maximum number of consecutive terms city council members may serve from four four year terms to three four year terms.

The committee voted six to one in favor of this recommendation. Section 2.06, City Council compensation and expenses. This was to add automatic annual salary adjustments for the City Council tied to the consumer price index with a maximum increase of 3% once per fiscal year. The committee voted five to two in favor of this recommendation. Section 2.07D, restriction on city utility or enterprise franchise authority.

This eliminates voter approval requirement before city owned utility or enterprise may be sold, leased for more than two years, contracted to, or put to franchise to any non governmental party. This will allow the City Council to franchise or contract for city services without voter approval. The committee voted four and three in favor of this recommendation. Five, section 4.03, city attorney, to change how the city attorney is appointed from the current system in which the city manager appoints the city attorney to a system in which the city council appoints the city attorney and related procedural structural changes. The committee voted seven zero in favor of this recommendation.

Section 4.07, boards and commissions. This was to strike language that all city boards and commissions are only advisory to the council, allowing the council to set the powers and duties of commissions and committees by ordinance. The committee voted seven, zero in favor of this recommendation. Section 9.02, transition of elected officials from 1990, This was to delete entirely as obsolete. The committee voted seven zero in favor of this recommendation.

The committee also recommends that the council submit to the voters a proposition to amend Folsom Municipal Code 2.48.030 campaign contribution limitation to increase the campaign contribution limit in support or opposition to any candidate from 150 to $750 The committee voted seven-zero in favor of this recommendation. And that concludes that item. Mr. Romanelli, if you wanted to come forward.

Even mayor, vice mayor, council members, Bill Romanelli. I had the privilege of serving as the chair on this committee and rather than repeat everything the city managers went through, I simply just wanna do my best to briefly summarize for you our discussions behind these recommendations as I as hopefully it'll be useful for your deliberations to have a little bit of context behind what we're recommending. I want to emphasize that everything I'm going to share with you tonight is reflected in and pulled from the published meeting minutes with only a couple exceptions that I will call out when I get to them. And then after that, if there's questions, I'll do my best to simply answer them. So going through the recommended changes for section 2.01 concerning the city council and language that said that the city council will be elected at large.

Given that this is no longer the case, the committee felt that some corrective action here was needed. It's not it was not a simple discussion. Some committee members felt that we should just delete the the two words at large from the section, thereby leaving flexibility to move away from district based elections if pending litigation puts that back on the table. Others argued that the language should be very specific to record reflect that we are holding district based elections. The concern with that was if we ran a ballot measure asking voters to agree on changing the charter to say that council members would be elected by district, If for any reason the public rejected that on the ballot, then we'd be creating more problems than we're solving.

So in the end, simply deleting the language at large made the most sense. For section two point o one e related term limits. As you all know, the current limit is four terms. There was discussion among the committee to keep it at four, to lower it to two, or to set it at three terms. Most of the discussion centered on striking a balance between institutional wisdom and seniority within regional organizations and the need to make room for fresh ideas and a desire to present entrenched political power.

We considered what other jurisdictions have done or are doing, particularly Roseville, and ultimately landed on a recommendation for a term limit of three terms. My view on that, it was it came about as a compromise, but that was the number that we decided to put forward as a committee. Section 2.06 concerning City Council compensation and expenses. In an effort to prevent another situation where several years, if not decades, go by without any adjustment to council members' pay, and similarly to avoid any adjustment or any future council members having to propose and vote on their own raises on a regular basis, the committee proposed embedding a simple increase connected to the consumer price index with a 3% cap. It was very interesting for me to note, that among the members of the public who were present for this discussion item at our April 30 meeting, my observation, and again this is just my observation, was that they agree and believe council members should be fairly and adequately compensated for the job they do.

I was a little surprised at, the number of people who said something to that effect. Next, section 2.07 d, franchise authority. This was really two big discussions in one, and this was obviously the subject of biggest and the most public interest. The first issue of discussion on this year was really whether or not to give the city council authority to make these these decisions without them being subject to a majority vote at an election. Majority of the public commenters felt that voters should not be cut out.

Among the committee members, the very slim majority felt that the council should have more flexibility in this area, and there were examples of other decisions that the council has made without voter approval. And one member of the public at our April 1 meeting even said, this is why we elect the council members to represent us. Ultimately, one of the swagged off arguments that swayed me came from a member of the public, who pointed out that private firms are unlikely to even submit bids to provide services if the final agreement remains contingent on the uncertainty of a public vote, which in the best case scenario would be several months away. The other big issue within this, and one discussed at great length was waste collection in the city and the possibility of that being contracted out. There were really important considerations on both sides of this, and I'll try to do them justice with this limited time.

On the one hand, there are very real and legitimate concerns related to state mandates for electric vehicles and what that means in terms of cost to the city. In other words, in cost to in terms of cost to us as the taxpayers of the city. As you know, these vehicles can be as much as twice as much as the cost of a regular gas powered truck. And then there's costs and questions related to the infrastructure for charging stations, where that's going to be. And we're talking about millions and millions of dollars all said and done that would have to be borne by the taxpayers in this situation.

On the other hand, of course, there's a lot of concern over the jobs of our city's truck drivers. They showed up in large numbers at our later meetings, and I'm sure there's many of them here tonight as well. They have a lot of important things to say about privatization, and I hope you will hear them on that. I ultimately supported bringing this idea forward to the council because I believe this conversation should be held in a larger public forum. I think the drivers need reassurance that even if this council agrees to put this change on the ballot, the public will still need to approve it.

If they do, I myself just wanna be on record saying that I will advocate strongly that no future decision about contracting waste hauling should be made without making every effort to protect the jobs of the good people who drive these trucks and provide such high value to our city. Section 4.03 concerning the city attorney. The crux of this issue was that the city attorney's client is the city council, not the city manager, and that the charter should be explicit in saying so. It was also pointed out that Folsom is currently a significant outlier, one of only two cities in the state that have their attorney appointed by the city manager rather than the council. That being the case and based on what clearly seemed like best practice, the committee reviewed language proposed by the city attorney and approved it unanimously for your consideration.

Section 4.07 concerning boards and commissions. This one was much less controversial and was one of the few things we identified as a simple cleanup fix. Most of you are already aware of why this is important, so I won't belabor it other than to say that everyone in the committee agreed that the current language hinders the council's ability to delegate specific decision making powers and that recently litigation highlighted the need for this clarification. Two things that were important to the committee in making this change. First, amending this language does not mandate a change to the existing commission structure, but rather provides the council with the legal authority to grant such power if they choose to do so.

Second, any decisions made by commissions would still remain subject to a formal appeal process. Section nine zero two was the one dealing with elected officials from 1990. Not much more I need to say on that. It was obsolete. And then finally, we felt the subject of campaign contribution limits should be included, in this discussion and that the limit should be increased.

The principal argument in support of this is that it helps level the playing field. In short, any individual or organization can donate substantial sums of money to a political action committee that may be working for or against a certain candidate for city council, but the maximum contribution anyone can give directly to a candidate is a $150. As an example, a single PAC donor can write a check for $15,000 against a candidate, but that candidate must find a 100 people to give the $150 max just to match that one pack contribution. There was strong argument that the system is out of balance and then increasing the contribution limit from a $150 to $750 would help restore some of that balance. With all that said, the only other topic I have to present is that one big item that got a lot of discussion was the idea of electing, an at large mayor citywide.

The topic comes with a substantial number of questions ranging from what this mayor's actual job would be to whether they would be an elected in addition to the city council or part of it. Compensation, limitation of powers, and so on. As the staff report indicates, there just simply was not time prior to tonight's meeting to come to any resolution on those matters. So, we all agreed that after this election year, we'd like to recommend that the council convene a new committee to take a more thorough look at that idea. I want to sincerely thank our city clerk, our city attorney, our city manager for their extraordinary support of the committee over the last eight weeks And with that, again, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Romanelli. I appreciate your service and all the committee members. Questions for either Mr. Romanelli or our city manager?

How about the city attorney?

Or the city attorney. Questions for anyone. We'll entertain questions for anyone.

So the committee was tasked with reviewing the charter. There is nothing in the charter about campaign contribution limits. And so with the recommendation, regarding Folsom Municipal Code 2.48.030 to increase the contribution limit from 150 to $7.50, Did the committee exceed its authority?

Well, committee, one of the members of the committee asked if that was an item that could be added to the charter and the answer to that question was yes, but the existing campaign contribution limits were added to the Folsom Municipal Code as an initiative passed by the voters in 1994. So the process to take that from the municipal code and put it into the charter was more complicated than simply doing a proposal to have the voters amend it in the existing ordinance. So arguably they did, but the request was made to include it within the charter.

But is that the recommendation of the committee to put it in the charter?

Yes.

To put it in the charter?

Correct.

Okay.

I didn't read that in the staff report. And maybe I need some clarity here because I don't remember that was the recommendation to put it in the charter. That was the original proposal was to put it in the charter but the committee said we can either take this up, you know, we can take, basically we went on the advice of the city attorney.

Okay, okay. With respect to section 4.03 with the city attorney, Obviously right now we are in a recruitment process for a permanent city attorney. And right now we have a system whereby the city attorney is hired by the city manager. Certainly, I guess we could notify the applicants or the finalists that this could potentially be on the ballot and it could potentially pass. But let's say we voted to put this change on the ballot and it did pass. What happens with the contract agreement with the city attorney?

So it depends. I believe the council either way would approve the contract with the city attorney, whether it's under the current system or under a different system that would pass by the voters. So I believe it would depend on what the council's view is of the contract, but the simplest path would be to amend the contract with whoever is selected as the permanent city attorney to match the city manager's contract in terms of who appoints that position and who that position reports to.

Okay. Okay. I think that's all my questions for now, thank you.

Councilmember Lurie.

Oh yeah, I actually had another question about the city attorney and in the materials that I read, it describes that the client of the city attorney is actually the counsel. However, it also notes that the city attorney clients include the city manager and other administrative department heads. And it's a little bit unclear because we have had the city manager be the supervising person for the City Attorney, but the City Attorney, even in the current position, is available to cover issues with both the Council and staff. So can you kind of clarify why there needs to be a change at this point since I'm not understanding that there's a significant difference in their job capacities?

Right, so the client, for clarity, the client of the city attorney is the city as an entity. And just as with any legal entity, any corporation, that entity acts through its board, and in this case the board is the council, the elected officials. So the elected officials are the embodiment of the city and the decision maker. So there's a variety of ethical rules that apply to attorneys including the rule related to responsiveness to the client and the city council isn't necessarily going to be involved in every single day to day decision. Those decisions by and large flow from the city manager and in certain cases to the department heads.

So under circumstances like that, the city attorney's client is the city as embodied by the decisions of either the city manager or the department head. So in terms of whether the change is needed, that is up to the council and ultimately the voters, but the bottom line is the city attorney's client is the city as embodied through elected officials and manager and department heads.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor, any questions? All right, thank you Mr. Eliminal, Mr. Appreciate

Mayor if I could, Before the public hearing's open, I wanted to provide some clarity as far as what the action is for tonight and then the next steps in the other public meeting process, if that's okay.

Yeah, that'd be great.

So the recommendation tonight is to hold a public hearing and receive public comment and then close the public hearing. The main action we're hoping tonight is to adopt resolution number 11,613, a resolution receiving the twenty twenty six Ad Hoc Charter Review Committee report to the City Council with recommended amendments dissolving the committee. Then looking ahead is on May 26, hold an additional charter discussions at the city council meeting and provide direction to staff regarding preparation of potential ballot measures, amending the city charter and or the fulsome municipal code for the twenty twenty six general municipal election. Then on June 9, if needed, hold additional charter discussions at City Council meeting to provide additional direction to staff. Then on June 23, hold a final public hearing to conduct the introduction and first reading of ordinances containing language for the charter amendments to be submitted to the voters, and then finally on 07/14/2026, Council may adopt a resolution authorizing the submission of one or more ballot measures to the voters.

So I mean there's substantial public dialogue that's going to take place before it even gets to the voters, and so I just wanted to outline that.

I think to your comment on history earlier, we've had one initial adoption of the charter. We've had one charter review commission. All of the other charter amendments were done just through this process without any charter review commission at all, without any public meetings before that, correct?

I don't know the history of how those got on the ballot. I know it didn't go through a Charter Review Committee process.

Okay. And then I think it's also worth noting in the staff report, there was a budget consideration here also. Not saying that we can't exceed that or go below that, but essentially in the budget this year, have budgeted for three items to be placed on. Obviously, we're in charge of the budget, so we can change that. But just kind of to highlight that portion, we've got eight recommendations.

I think another thing to consider is that if we put eight things on the ballot for the Folsom voters to decide, that's a lot of things for the voters to read through and have opinions on. Might be tough to get consensus on that many items. The main reason we're here tonight is the public hearing. So I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing and so we can take some input from our residents. Please call the first person.

Okay, just so you know, we have about 15 or 16 people who have requested to speak, so what I'll do is I'll call the next speaker, and then I'll let you know who's next after that. So if you hear your name and you know you're on deck, feel free to move down and be ready to proceed to the podium. And we'll start the three minute timer when you begin to speak. So our first speaker will be Macy Sherman. Macy will be followed by Teresa Garcia.

And for those that are not familiar with the process, when you start seeing the orange light, that means you have thirty seconds. When you start seeing the red light and start seeing me start to try to interrupt you, and the clock will actually start counting the other way, that means you're out of time. If we can respect that three minutes so we give everybody an opportunity to speak tonight, sure would appreciate that. Maci, the floor is yours.

Thank you. So my name is Maci Sherman and I represent City of Folsom Workers with Local thirty nine. I wanted to come here today to talk about the potential changes to the city charter specifically section 2.07 D which would remove the voter requirement to privatize public services. Some of the reasons that the committee gave for wanting to do this such as fiscal flexibility, meaning the concern that a large company would not want to give a bid to the city because of having to wait for the vote, in my opinion, is speculative. I somehow doubt that large companies would be deterred by having to wait for a public vote.

You know, what this represents to me is it is a transfer of power from the people of Folsom to the city council. Whether that transfer is voted on by the people or not, that's what it does represent. I think that privatizing public services often results in higher rates, decreased quality of service, and I think that it is something that residents should have the right to vote on. I think that this provision within the city charter should be protected, and I don't think it should be considered for the November ballot. I also wanted to highlight the fact that during the committee, the committee meetings, our members, the city residents, the city of Folsom workers did attend those.

And the first time the committee voted on this potential change to the city charter, it was six to one. And after the public outcry and all of the comments made by the workers and the public, it was it was the the slimmest, it passed by four to three versus all of the other ones. I just wanted to point that out and give my comments. So thank you guys for having me. Thanks for letting me be first.

Thank you.

Okay, next is Teresa Garcia, who will then be followed by Brad Shelton.

I am also speaking on the same issue, and that is the ad hoc committee's recommendation to eliminate voter approval requirements before a city owned utility or enterprise may be sold, leased, etcetera. My predecessor spoke more eloquently than I did, and I agreed with what she said. Basically, letting the, I don't think we need to put this whole thing out to voters to eliminate their need or your requirement or our requirement to vote on specific things. If we want to try privatizing the waste management, then put that to the voters. If you want to privatize the park, put that to the voters.

But if you put this out to the voters, I'm not sure that they're going to understand all the power that they're giving up relative to the decisions that could be made by by City Council. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, our next speaker is Brad Shelton, and Brad will be followed by Jag Nagendra.

Thanks for coming out tonight, Brad. Good evening, mayor,

vice mayor, council members. I'm also here to speak on section 2.07 d, proposed changes. You may hear this a whole lot, but it feels like we're just going to start hitting the same message. I have a lot of experience talking with legislators and folks about this. When you outsource inherently government functions, you end up with higher long term costs, reduced service quality, and lower accountability. You can look it up. Look it up on Grock, Copilot, whatever you want. It will give you the same results. Do not please do not it's like if you're gonna do this, this the the people of the city need to vote on it. And I yes.

You're not taking the power away from the voters. This is why you're all elected. You are here to make decisions. Some decisions are big, and you should involve the electorate in that.

That's it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Our next speaker is Jag Nagendra, and Jag will be followed by Julie Reese.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and members of the council. I wanna thank the charter, adult committee, for the time and the efforts they invested. I know it's not the easiest task in getting through where we are today. Overall, I support several of the recommendations out of the eight. I support having the city council appoint a city attorney directly because it creates a cleaner accountability to the elected body and representing the residents.

I also support removing obsolete languages and providing some flexibility for boards and commissions as the city evolves over the next two decades or so. I also appreciate the discussions around campaign contribution limits. The current $150 limit creates a lot of challenges for the new candidates trying to run a viable campaign, especially those without established political networks. And I can take a lot of questions on that if anybody has. However, I do have concerns with three things I want to talk about.

Well, first is on the term limits. So I appreciate the proposal to reduce the limit from four to three, but I believe the council should go further and adopt a two term limit. Eight years is enough time for any council member to contribute meaningfully while still creating opportunities for new leadership, fresh perspectives, and broader civic participation. Second, I oppose the recommendation to create automatic annual salary increase for city council tied to the CPI. Folsom is facing financial challenge and we have relied on reduction in positions, including public safety and IT positions to address these budget shortfalls.

This is not the right time to establish automatic compensation increase for elected officials. I am not opposed to the compensation increase in principle, but they should only be considered after the city's financial situation improves and long term fiscal sustainability is restored. And finally, I strongly oppose the section 2.07 d, which would remove the voter approval requirement for city owned utilities or enterprise that can be sold. To many residents, this feels like taking power away from the people. And let's not forget, the council does get the power from the people.

These decisions can have a long term impact on public services, accountability, and transparency. The ability for residents to vote on major decision involving public assets is an important democratic safeguard that we have. At a time when rebuilding trust should be the top priority for the city, reducing public oversight moves in the wrong direction. Folsom deserves governance that remains transparent, accountable, and grounded in the voices of its residents. Thank you for your time.

Okay, our next speaker is Julie Reese, and Julie will be followed by Adam Murphy.

Good evening and thank you for your time. I just want to say that I'm a local resident. I've been here a resident for fifty one years, And I'm a local business owner. I sell homes here in the town. And one of the things I promote so vehemently is the fact that we do have our own police, fire, solid waste, all of the city run entities that make our city great and that adds a lot of value. And the people that have those jobs really deserve the pay that they receive and our support and I for one support them wholeheartedly. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, next will be Adam Murphy, and Adam will be followed by Shelly Hudson.

Good evening, members of the council. I've I've never done this before. I don't really know what I'm doing. But I thought I thought it was really interesting, given why most of us are here tonight to speak on this very specific, you know, resolution that would, I think, lot of us feel give up some of our agency and give up some of our political power. And and also because it rely it's it's so central such a central part of this discussion is public works.

And we began this whole thing with celebrating public works. And I thought that that was it just struck me as something very fascinating, just this idea that we're celebrating these people, and now we're talking about potentially giving up that to people who maybe don't live in this community, maybe don't care about it as much. And that's really all I had to say. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, next speaker is Shelley Hudson. Shelley will be followed by Gwen Willison.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Shelly Hudson, and I'm a twenty eight year Folsom resident. I oppose the proposal recommended in section 2.07 D to remove the requirement for voter approval before the sale, lease, or long term contracting of city owned utilities and enterprises. These are not routine administrative decisions. This proposal shifts control of long term public assets and essential community services from the voters to the city council alone.

Once services are privatized or locked into multi year contracts, they become difficult and expensive to reverse. That represents a major reduction in public oversight of public property and essential infrastructure. For a city of about 95,000 residents, privatization also carries added risk due to limited bargaining power. A small customer base can mean fewer bidders, weaker negotiating leverage over time, and reduced competition among contractors. Solid waste services are a clear example.

In many cities, privatization has resulted in the loss of stable public jobs, replacement with lower wage private positions, rate increases through contract escalations, and reduced transparency in pricing and service changes. Once services like solid waste are privatized, the city also loses institutional knowledge and operational capacity, making it far more difficult and costly to bring services back in house if problems arise. Residents are then left with less oversight, fewer options, and reduced accountability if service quality declines or costs increase. Meanwhile, profits go to private corporations and executives, while residents take on the long term financial risk consequences. This is precisely why voter approval exists today, to ensure the public has the final say before essential public services and assets are transferred or contracted away.

If these decisions are truly in the public interest, they should be able to earn public approval through a vote. I urge you to reject this proposal and preserve the requirement for voter approval. So I'm gonna try to address section 2.06 real quickly.

Sure.

I oppose the automatic annual raises for the city council members, which you will cover this evening during this hearing. As a former city and state employee represented by local thirty nine and bargaining unit zero seven, I can assure you that employees do not get automatic raises. We negotiated justified increases and sometimes went years without them, depending on budgets and economic conditions. So it is hard to justify why elected officials should receive guaranteed annual increases while the employees doing the day to day work of the city do not. A 3% cap does not make this better.

Automatic is automatic. If residents, city employees, and taxpayers are expected to live with economic uncertainty, the council members should too. Setting up a a system where your pay rises automatically year after year, especially after a recent major increase sends the wrong message to city employees and the taxpayers paying for it. That is exactly the kind of policy that erodes public trust. If you believe you deserve a raise, then vote on it publicly. Explain why. Let the public see it. This is accountability. And I urge you also to thank you.

Okay, next our next speaker will be Gwen Willison, who will then be followed by Colleen Shannon.

Good evening, thank you. Everybody has pretty much said what I'd like to say here tonight. The only thing that I want to add that I haven't heard yet about franchising is it's a very slippery slope. Please don't go there. Thank you.

Next speaker will be Colleen Shannon, who will then be followed by Chad Vanderveen.

Gwen, you were so fast, I wasn't prepared. Super interesting topic tonight, and I just want to thank the committee for the work that they put in in reviewing the charter. It is very not sexy to read through the charter, although when you talk about warrants and cheeks, that does make it a little more exciting. So a couple of kind of questions that I wanted to bring up, things to think about. The commission part was especially interesting to me, as I have the privilege of serving on the library commission.

And I wonder how the powers that would get delegated to the commissions and committees would be decided on. Would the charter then limit the scope of what those powers and decisions are? Or would the city council just be like, we need you to decide whether or not the library will be open on Mondays and then the commission gets to decide. Or is that right now it's an advisory piece, and so it kind of leaves some questions for me on exactly what that would look like. Council Member Aquino, thank you for bringing up the difference between the charter and the municipal code when it comes to campaign contributions.

I think that's a really important distinction to make and I wonder if adding that onto the charter would really confuse the issue and make it really difficult. So I think that at this time, it would probably be best if we address that directly through the municipal code instead of confusing the issue with the charter. The at large mayor, I feel like this is kind of bringing up something that we've talked about not too long ago when term limits came up. Was that in 2018 that that was just discussed and talked about, which feels like it was yesterday. And I'm wondering if it would be possible to just go back and look at the notes from the last debate and discussion that we had on it instead of the city spending the money to go through and rehash the whole entire thing.

I strongly support the city attorney being appointed by the council. I think that's a really great checks and balance that should be put into place. The term limits I got to admit that I really like the idea of four term limits. I heard a lot of comments tonight talking about giving up agency and choice when it comes to privatization and I feel like limiting the number of terms that somebody can serve on the city council is actually taking away the voters agency and choice in that. If you have a representative that you really like and you really care for, you should have the opportunity to continue voting that person onto the council.

I don't think that the charter should say that person cannot serve any longer, even if they're doing a really great job. And likewise with the privatization point on it. Somebody mentioned earlier it's a really big decision that carries a lot of weight behind it. And I can't help but feel like perhaps that big decision that carries a lot of weight should be made by the people who are most invested in educating themselves and getting informed on the issues that exist. So the voting public traditionally votes with their emotions. They vote based off the best marketing that they receive. And I think that the council could provide a very interesting kind of buffer to that piece of it.

If you could wrap it up.

That's all I've got.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, our next speaker is Chad Vanderveen who will then be followed by Jolene Livingston.

Good evening mayor and council members. My name is Chad Vanerving. I wanted to speak about several of the proposed charter changes, specifically campaign contribution limits, creating automatic council pay increases, and removing voter approval requirements before outsourcing city services. And I get these proposals are being presented as modernization or efficiency gains. But from the perspective of many ordinary residents, they probably look a lot different than that.

First, while Folsom voters did in 1994 intentionally adopt very strict campaign contribution limit rules, I do agree that the limit on the campaign contribution should be increased, but I do oppose a fivefold increase from $150 to 7 and $50. Most working families can't afford to donate hundreds of dollars to a local political campaign, but wealthy donors and special interest groups can afford it. At a time when political action committees, are poisoning even our local elections, individuals do need more power. But a 400% increase just reinforces the fact that access and influence belongs to those with the most money. That said, I suggest that council consider a more modest increase.

Second, I oppose automatic council pay increases. This council recently adopted a very substantial increase in its own compensation. Now whether people agree with that decision or not, it has at least highlighted or heightened public awareness around additional compensation related changes. At the same time that happened, residents of Folsom are facing skyrocketing fuel costs and many are barely able to afford their groceries. A lot of Folsom families are stretching every paycheck just to stay afloat.

So against that backdrop, creating automatic future pay increases for elected officials feels pretty disconnected from the realities many of us in this room are living with every day. Third and most importantly, I strongly oppose removing voter approval requirements for privatizing city services. Those protections exist for a reason. Residents deserve a voice before major decisions are made about essential public services. We're often told privatization increases efficiency and lowers costs.

But over the long term, this is often not what happens because government is not a business. Private contractors still need to generate profit, contracts get bigger over time, and oversight becomes more difficult. And each of you knows that when cities become dependent on outside vendors, residents ultimately end up paying more for worse service and reduced accountability. This is a disastrous idea that should not ever reach the ballot. The political action committees are funded by the very same companies that would eagerly take these city contracts and happily spend tens of thousands of dollars to convince voters to vote against their own self interest.

These proposals increase influence of the wealthy, increase the wealth of the council, and will lead to worse service for Folsom residents and weakened accountability. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, our next speaker is Jolene Livingston, who will then be followed by Julian Saraffian.

Good evening City Council. I'm just going to go through some of my messy notes here saying a lot of same things that have already been said. But it makes me feel better to say it.

Will Julian,

can pull that microphone down too Sorry, if it's

thank you.

I'll start with the city council salaries. I was against the threefold jump at this time when the city is struggling financially a bit. But now that's done, goes into effect after this next election. I'm opposed to the 3% automatic increase year over year. If you think about it, after five years we're paying you $3,500 more, after $10.7700 dollars more, which in ten years' time is more than someone was earning in one year, all of these years, dollars 7,500.

So I would prefer to see language that says will be reviewed on a periodic basis, that it gets public discussion and review. We just saw that it's possible to do. Franchise authority very much against the change. I do think that right now the discussion is centering around waste, very unexciting, but one day it could be centered around the pool, it could be centered on the zoo, services that Folsom holds near and dear to our hearts, and privatization to bring someone in that might lull you with profitability. Profitability for the city also would have to entail profitability for the third party and I would hate to see at some point without our knowledge and votes fees for these services being risen up to bar just the average person of Folsom being able to enjoy those things.

So because of those reasons and more, I'd like to leave those kinds of changes to a vote. I did read Carrie Howell's former council members in the Folsom Times. I agree with a lot of what she stated in her opinion piece and one thing that caught my eye is I'm aware in our waste monthly bill there's been for a while a $9 fee for SB thirteen eighty three and she's indicated in her opinion piece that's for a state service we're not using. So I'm thinking if we're not really receiving some service for that $9 monthly surcharge, that would be an immediate way to reduce our waste cost for residents. City boards and commissions, I may be the only person out here today that really feels like I'd like people appointed to boards and commissions to retain that advisory status.

I'd like the decisions and could be important decisions to be made by the people we've elected versus someone that was just appointed and you don't know their allegiance or loyalty. And again, I'm thinking developers. Last one, the campaign contributions. I really do the gentleman that spoke here earlier, I do appreciate 150. I think it's a great leveler in the right direction. There's certain districts where there's homes

If you could wrap up.

Okay. Clusters of homes that could afford $7.50 much more than other districts in the city. So I think 150 or a modest increase is a leveler and to me I think the problem would be the pack money not the individual donations.

Thank you. Okay

our next speaker is Julian Seraphian who will then be followed by Jocelyn Schrage.

Good evening. My name is Julian Serafian. I speak today in opposition to the proposed Charter Amendment 2.07 that would disempower fulsome residents from voting on matters related to privatization of city services. Fellow residents have already and many will continue to speak about the harms that privatization creates. And these concerns are real.

But I'd like to use my time to speak about a deeper concern about this proposal and that it represents a transfer of power from Folsom's voters to the Folsom City Council. This amendment, as we know, is considering removing our power, Folsom citizens' power, from deciding whether or not we want the city to privatize services. This means one less check on the Folsom City Council's power to act without the will of voters in mind. But voters in Folsom deserve to have a say in matters as important as privatizing our town's services. And voters will is especially important when the council's decisions have diverged from the preferences of our town's residents in the past, like Measure G in 2024, which was supported by the council and yet was defeated at the ballot box by a wide margin?

Carry

on, please.

AI can answer that one for us. I recognize that at this point in time, the city council has not voted on whether to move forward with this charter amendment and that it's only the recommendation of the charter committee. And I hope it remains just that, a recommendation for which no further action is taken, especially given that it passed by the slimmest margin of all proposals. But if the council moves forward with this amendment, then I assure you that myself, the Folsom Area Democratic Club, and many others in town will mobilize to defeat it at the ballot box because the power of privatization should remain with the voters, and we will prove that to you at the ballot box if we must. Thank you.

Next speaker is Jocelyn Schrage. I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing that incorrectly. Schrage, okay. Who will then be followed by Paul Kurffeld.

I'm also here to voice my reasons for disagreement for the section 2.07 D taking away voters, taking away voter power for city owned utilities being sold to private entities. I'm highly against it. Don't agree with it at all. 100% disagree. Basically my main argument is that private companies and entities are notorious for either breaking or only following bare minimum EPA laws.

Our city has lakes, rivers, wetlands that us humans, plants, animals, we all depend on with great importance. How can we trust that private companies to perform waste management, water management, or anything that is under city owned utility or enterprise to be both cost effective and a proper quality under those private companies, a. K. A. How can you guarantee costs won't go up with quality going We live here in Folsom because we love the nature and we love our community that's very pro nature, pro environment, pro clean water, pro clean air.

That's another reason we live in California, not just Folsom. It was also interesting that it was saying that the committee found that limited time available for deliberation review and analysis. It was not able to reach consensus on proposed language and amendments for these sections. I don't if that applies to all of these sections, but I would definitely recommend the council taking a lot longer to even consider moving forward on this because it sounds like there's more research time needed to research the fiscal and quality of life impacts on citizens in regards to privatizing public services and also the term city owned utility enterprises needs a more detailed definition. What exactly falls under that?

We need to know so we can you know vote as appropriate. And also in what change is recommended and why nothing in that language even answered the why it just said this is what we want to do but there was no why behind it so I guess we're all probably in a misunderstanding of why this is even coming forward And to end on that, you know, if this does go to, you know, the the voter ballots, I will be voting no and it sounds like everyone here will be voting no and more importantly, I would like to know because I know this committee voted four and three in favor of this recommendation and I think it would be great to know who those four are so I might consider not voting for them ever again and the three who were against it I will vote for you again. Thank you.

Okay.

Before you start the clock.

Our final speaker this evening is Paul Kurffeld.

Hi, Krista. Thank you.

Hi, Paul. Thank you.

Hey, I heard you say two different things. One was there was a four to three vote to bypass the voters, and the other thing you said was we would never bypass the voters on franchising something out.

There was a four-three vote to recommend that the city council consider placing this question to the voters.

That you could franchise out a department.

All of this, the only way it can even see the light of day is for the voters to approve it. It will never happen unless the voters

vote. I just wanted to make sure because I thought I heard two different things.

You probably did.

That's okay. A lot of great stuff tonight. That young man who came up here, I don't know what district he lives in, but he should run for City Council. Another guy who came up and said, hi, Alvaranakis. Public Works Week is coming up and we're talking about privatizing part of our public works. You know, pretty crazy stuff. I'm a long time resident. I'm here just to speak on that matter. You can't take the vote away from the people. You start doing that, you're gonna be out of a job because everybody would be impeaching you.

I won't get claps for this, but you brought it up at the ad hoc committee, Vice Mayor. Our utility cost for our garbage is way too high. Why is that? You guys are supposed to be overseeing that. Department heads are supposed to be why are we paying I pay a 152 something a month.

When I moved to town, it was $35 a month. There's no reason my garbage bill should be a $152 a month. And I see another other price increases coming with water and sewer and I get it. A lot of our utilities need some love. They've been sitting there for a long time.

But you need to look at these departments and how they're being ran. I know there's a couple of people from South Solid Waste here that are in leadership roles. What are you getting for the money you're paying them? Where's the accountability within the manager of solid waste and the people who are running solid waste and the department head who is allegedly overseeing solid waste? And I think that the council should take a good look at that and how my money is being spent, $152 for my utility bill because I believe we could bring our cost down which everybody would be a hero in any department if they could bring their cost down instead of raising them.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Alright. That ends our cards up here but I want to open it up before I close the public hearing. Does anybody else want to make a comment tonight that has not submitted a card? Now is your time. Going once, going twice. Alright. We're going to go ahead, and close the public hearing. I heard a number of questions, that came about.

So I'm just going to take a moment, and have staff address those questions if we could. I think the, and you guys may have been taking notes too, but the first one I heard was powers delegated by the commission. Colleen had a question specifically about the library, if we could address that one. I can, but if you guys can, I think it'd be better for staff?

So the council currently dictates the powers of the various committees and commissions by ordinance, and the proposed amendment to the charter would just confirm that the council retains that authority to do so by ordinance. The language in the charter right now says that all commissions and committees are only advisory to the council and there are certain committees and commissions, most importantly the Planning Commission and also of interest the Historic District Commission that previously had final decision making authority on certain items. And so that was really the focus. But the council retains the authority if this were to pass, the council would retain the authority to direct the role of the various commissions and committees via ordinance.

Cool. Next one was SB thirteen eighty three, the $9 charge associated with state organics? State mandated organics recycling?

Right. I appreciate the question. I'll ask Marcus Yasutaki to answer that one. Thank you.

I think the specific question is why aren't we opting out of it? It sounded like there was some confusion. Is that correct, Julian?

Alright. Mayor Rathal, members of the council, Marcus Yastataki, utilities director. I'm slightly new to the operations of solid waste and waste and recycling but it's my understanding talking to staff that the $9 isn't a wasted fee that is paid per month for our utility bills. It's all part of the compliance with the regulation of SB thirteen eighty three. Now we have talked internally as a staff and the last race study, I believe was adopted in '21 going into effect in 2022 and so we're on the cusp of reevaluating what that would look like probably next fiscal year to identify, okay, there areas in which that $9 or the rate as a whole might be modified to better identify and better contain what we've learned over the last four years in terms of the organic recycling, plus what we here at the city are proposing or would plan to do in terms of the electrification of our large and medium duty vehicles.

Because as you are probably all well aware, the electrification, not only from the supply of the power side and the infrastructure side, but also the availability of just the type of vehicles that would be needed, are not existent or if they are existent as we saw several months ago when we had to cancel the contract just do not meet the necessary requirements to do the job within the city. And so we would reevaluate

all of

that as part of a cost of service analysis to determine, Okay, if those types of projects or those types of vehicles were included, the education, the outreach of SB thirteen eighty three, you know, and understanding the program now four years into it along with the rest of the state of California and our regional partners, there would be probably opportunities to look at the city's overall rate from a solid waste perspective.

Thank you, Marcus. So in summary, there's no way to opt out of that fee. That is money we are spending every day on actually having the organics recycled.

Correct. There's not like a California opt inopt out fee

Some utilities, some solid waste services just include that in your base fee. They don't line item it out. We get a number of state mandates that we do without calling it out as a separate fee. It's just this one was very substantial. Correct. Which is why the decision was before my time. But my understanding was the reason it was it was line item was because it was substantial.

And it was to truly show this is what we the city have to do as residents or customers myself being a customer have to pay in order to comply with that specific mandate. Thank you.

Next question I heard and maybe it wasn't a question but there was a little bit of a challenge from the dais so I just want to clear the air on that. The council did not take a position on Measure G. Is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay.

And it was not city sponsored.

Not city sponsored. Was a citizens' initiative that went on the ballot previously. And then I think the only other thing is is, you know, I heard a question of, like, how can we take away the vote of the people? I think what's what's on the discussion tonight, oh, is is do we ask the voters to take away the vote of the people? Oh, right?

And it and it's a matter of do we want to ask the voters to have more efficiency in local government, or do we not want them to have that efficiency? I think that's what the real question is. And so I just want to make sure it's clear that we could put this, our vote on anything will be to put it on the ballot or to not put it on the ballot. The ultimate deciders will be the voters of Folsom at the ballot box, in November to choose whether to take away that option or not. Oh, so I just wanna make sure there seemed to be some confusion on whether us making an action on it could give us that power.

That is no way we could give us ourselves that power. Those are the questions that I heard. Were there other questions that staff heard that needed to be addressed before I go to council deliberation?

I didn't have a question, but there are a lot of I think there's a lot of fear out there that this speaking of the franchise item that this would take away the power in your hands privatize the aquatic center that will pool fire police do can you explain Brian how that actually doesn't any of those don't have to go to the vote of the people at this moment the only ones that we're discussing and that are in our charter that has restrictions is water and garbage.

Yeah. So when you read through the charter, it talks about city services. I mean, think as I read it and the city attorney can correct me on this is any city service if we were to privatize it would have to go to the vote of the people. So you know some of the dialogue that we've heard is it's a slippery slope if we were to privatize or allow for privatization that was afforded you know the authority to the council that one would fall over and over and over. And so it would be solid waste and water and sewer and I do want to just not that this is, I mean this is just a statement of there's four eighty or so cities and many of them do not have this provision and we don't see all of those cities just franchising out because in many cases it doesn't make sense.

So right now the current charter basically any of those changes would have to go to the vote of people. One example where we've contracted out and it didn't need a vote because it wasn't it was another government agency was our transit. So the city had a transit operation and then now it contracts out with STA to provide that. So that that's how it is now.

So maybe I don't because we had an ad hoc committee. I think it was last year to kind of evaluate our fire compared to metro and how we could maybe partner with them on a few different things. Would that have to go to a vote of the people?

No, that would not because it's another governmental entity. It wouldn't be a private franchise.

Okay. Any

other questions from public comment we want to address? All right. So myself and the Vice Mayor served on the ad hoc committee. Tonight was to me really about one, receiving the report from the committee and then dissolving that committee. So there's one action there.

And then the second part is giving direction to staff going forward. So I think if we could just start with each council member saying, hey, these are the priorities for me, if any, to put before the voters in November. I think that would help with the discussion. I'm happy to turn the floor over to one of my colleagues or start on my own priorities, but Council Member Aquino, you want to kick us off? Alright. I I I'm happy to kick us off. So, I think for me, the first and foremost priority is the city attorney. Oh, change. I think it's really important. We are an an outlier.

There's one of only two cities and we're one of them. The other option for a city attorney is a directly elected city attorney. Some large cities have in their charter that they directly elect the city attorney. That doesn't make any sense for us. Really what makes sense I think for us is to have that city attorney report directed to us.

So that's a priority for me to put before the voters. And then I think the next one for me is the boards and commissions and resolving that conflict in our charter. Right now the Planning Commission and the Parks Commission have authority that is clear. But then this next section talks about all boards and commissions, even though that section to me is very clearly not the Parks and Planning Commission. And so to me, it does open us up for litigation, which we've already had on it.

And so clearing up that section in our charter makes a whole lot of sense to me. I've served on a number of commissions, both those that were really purely advisory and also our planning commission in the past. I've also served at the county planning commission and that has even more authority than our planning commission so I think having the the elected body set that authority level which is pretty limited makes a lot of sense for our city that's our size. Those are the two real priorities for me. From the franchise standpoint I could see putting this to the voters.

I think the main challenge and it was brought up sorry I forgot is Fred? Sorry anyway one of the last comment the last commenter oh sorry Paul Paul brought it up. I think our solid waste services are really high oh and I think that is where a part of the challenge is coming from oh I look forward to the next rate study I think we can put this in front of the voters if we need to but I think that's where the pressure is coming from for me oh is is is my trash bill has gone up substantially. When I look back at the 2021 rate study, we are the highest in the region. We were given comparisons, and this was before I was on the council, but the comparisons are like Santa Clara and Napa oh it doesn't make any sense everybody else in our region has a much higher or much lower solid waste service oh I think we can put that in front of the voters you know and ask the voters personally Not not this time.

I don't think we could get it for the ballot together. I also think there's a rate study coming up. There's an opportunity for efficiencies there. There's an option to bring in, you know, an auditor or some sort of consultant to improve operations there. I think there's a lot of opportunities there. That to me is really the only service that is an enterprise that's an outlier here from a cost standpoint. And I think that would if we could get that cleaned up, maybe that pressure goes away. And if it doesn't, we could bring it to the voters in the future. I think I'm not arguing for anything. I'm just kind of laying out where I'm at on it.

I know when I talk to voters about Measure G and in my own campaign, I heard a lot about the significant increase. It had been I want to say almost twenty years since the solid waste rates had gone up and they went up substantially overnight. I want to say it was like 70%. They went up back in 2021. And the voters you know, we talk about affordability and we talk about cost. And I'm hearing a lot of concerns about in our community about that. You know, thank you mister Vanderveen for bringing that up. I think that's one of the challenges we're dealing with. I love our refuse drivers. I love the great service we provide.

I didn't hear anything at the charter review about concerns with quality. I heard all positive about that, but I have heard concerns about cost. I wasn't on this commission or on the council for the last rate study. So I think that to me is is, you know, if if we wanna keep the voter authority in there, could I could go that way. And if we want, if the voters say, hey, we're fine with paying an extra couple $100 a year in order to maintain that service works for me great we'll we'll keep at it all day long just knowing you know I also think we need to get a handle on what this electrification cost is going to look like for a small entity like the city of Folsom to move forward with electrification.

We are going to be an outlier. And so we just need to make our residents really, really aware that we're going to be an outlier and costs are going to go up if we're operating electric fleet, solid waste fleet, and other folks have the economies of scale to do that. Totally fine with putting that before the voters but we'll have to put together with numbers that they can understand and what they're voting for. So I'm totally fine with you know, kind of going a different direction on that one, or I'm fine with moving forward with with striking that and letting the voters weigh in at a council process. The last one for me is is the the change in contribution limit.

I could see how people would say $7.50 is a high. I think it was on the ballot last time for 500 and was relatively close to passing. I didn't look up the numbers before this. That's just my recollection of what it was. And so I think that makes a lot of sense. I think the PACs do have an outsized influence. Oh, just with the Citizens United decision, the PACs do have an outside influence, on campaigns, and we need to be you know, I'd love to be an idealist and and say this is a great way to limit money in politics is to keep that campaign contribution limit. But the Supreme Court took that decision out of

our hands.

Citizens United changed the game and allowed basically unlimited money in politics through political action committees. And so, I would be supportive of raising that. Seven fifty is fine. I could go for a lower number too if seven fifty I get I get the point seven fifty sounds high and may might, feel, too much. I do want to say also the original proponent of that Tom A.

Setuno was my appointee to the Charter Review Commission. He was the original person that actually helped get this in to the municipal code and the campaign. His preference I think was to eliminate it completely. But he said that might not fly with the voters and so we kind of ended up with a compromise. There was a lot of discussion about whether this makes sense in this day and age. It made sense when it got passed, but it doesn't make sense anymore. A bit long winded, but those are my priorities for what we ask the staff to bring back at a future date and take more public input on.

So I'll go ahead and try. There's a couple that I would I'm not interested in continuing the conversation on. That's basically the first three that were suggested. The taking out Out Large, I don't think that's just striking those two words is gonna make a difference even though it is I mean, it's a language change. It is in conflict with our ordinance and state law, but I don't think this moves the needle on anything.

So it's not that important for me to spend $9,000 to get it on the ballot, unless we can do a bigger, broader one that cleans up other languages, then I'd be fine with that. The next two, the term limits, yeah, not interested in putting this on the ballot, and I'm especially not interested in putting the third one, the 2.06, the increase in salary pay, CPI, and putting a cap on it as well. So those are the three I would take off right away. I do agree with Justin on 4.03 the city attorney should be appointed should be hired by the city council. And then I do also agreed with the boards of commissions due to the lawsuits that we are currently undergoing right now because of the languaging.

This is a simple cleanup. It doesn't take away any it doesn't change anything in our boards and commissions right now, but it gives the council flexibility to and I think back to Colleen's question to appoint different things if we want to in the future. And then the third thing I would say that I would probably be supportive is the and it is just to clear that up, it is the donation levels. But this would not change the charter. That was not our I don't believe that was what we were suggesting.

It was because the municipal code was voted on by the public, the only way to change that particular code is to go back to the public for a vote. And so we were talking as a whole. It came up because of the charter discussion, but the council can decide to put that on the ballot or not. I also agree that I think $7.50 would be too big of a jump. Would say going from $150 limit to $300 or $500 would be much more amenable.

And I do the important part about this is when I ran four years ago, you know, I didn't know a lot of people either. And the packs were very, very, very influential. And their IEs, as already stated, they can spend thousands, if not even hundreds of thousands sometimes against or for a particular candidate. And while that is not something that we can control, limiting a $150 for each person to donate to a candidate does hamstring us getting new voices on a city council, for example. So I do believe some I think the intent was good in beginning.

But what it actually did is give PACS and I independent expenditures more power, not less. And that is what I want to shift. So that's where I would be and I think that would be great to have a council discussion on if there's a majority of people that want to put that on the ballot, where is that number? What is that number? One thing that was mentioned at the beginning is we did have a few conversations about at large not at large, I'm sorry, elected mayor. And the reason that the committee did not decide to go forward with that at the time is because it would require redistricting most likely. If we had an at large mayor, then how do we figure out where they're coming from? What do we do with the other? Do we add a mayor? Do we add a position?

And then the duties and roles was going to be way more complicated than we could get done by May. And even this council, even to get done by November. So I think that what was kind of suggested and talked about, and this would be up for the council in the future to decide, so this would be only my opinion, is that we start having these conversations now about our elected mayor because we have to by law redistrict anyways by 2032, I believe. And so starting those discussions now and by 'twenty eight maybe putting on valor, maybe even 'thirty, there would be a much easier, bigger conversation with our public on how we would go about that. So that was kind of that transparency part.

So that's where I'm at on that so far. But I would really like to hear from especially the two of you that weren't a part of the committee and what you feel. Because one of the things that I think was great is the committee was making suggestions only, recommendations, and it's really up to the council. And I was kind of dying to hear what my counterparts were.

What did you say about Section 2.07 D?

I didn't.

Oh. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I can go. I'm not going to address the campaign contribution limits, because as I said, this was the Charter Review Committee, there is nothing in the charter about campaign contribution limits. So I'm skipping that one. Things that I would be generally okay with, but I do want to have more information about how much each of these ballot measures is going to cost the city to make a final decision. Removing the words at large from how the council members are elected would be okay with me to put on the ballot. Deleting the section that is obsolete now because it refers to elected officials from the 1990s would be okay with me putting on the ballot.

Section 4.07 to strike the language that all city boards and commissions are only advisory to the city council, I'd be okay with putting on the ballot. I don't feel a need to put the term limits one on the ballot that was just voted on in 2018. I don't think we need to spend the money to do that again. Also, when you go back and look at the history of everybody who served on the city council, the average number of terms that people serve is well under three terms. It is only in recent history that people have served three, four, or more terms.

So I don't think it's necessarily to reduce that even more. City attorney, I can go either way. I do understand that we're an outlier, but there is a provision existing in our charter that, for example, if there is a conflict between the council and the city manager and we want to bring in outside council who doesn't report to the city manager, we can do that. The other thing is we always have the ability as a council to say to the city manager, look, you get rid of the city attorney or we're getting rid of you. I mean, so I don't think it's not a make or break for me.

The two I absolutely will not support putting on the ballot is city council compensation, the automatic increase. I agree with what was said that there's a lot of people in this world, especially those in the private sector who do not get automatic cost of living adjustments. Our employees don't get automatic. We have to negotiate that every few years. And if we put that in the charter, there is no way for the council to say, we don't want to do this this year or next year or whatever.

So I'm not in favor of that. And I'm not in favor of putting section 2.07D about the outsourcing of city services on the ballot. I agree with the comments that were made that to outsource solid waste or any other service that the city currently provides is a really big deal. And I think that does warrant the public weighing in. The other thing is, I take a little bit of issue with this idea that no, for example, just with solid waste, a private company wouldn't bid because we have this extra step in the process.

If you look at a city like Citrus Heights or Rancho Cordova or West Sac that already has privatized solid waste service, they are going out to bid eighteen months or more before their current contract expires. So to add four to six months to say, hey, we got to go to a vote of the people, I don't think is a huge deal. Then when they actually are choosing their solid waste provider and they're signing a contract, they're signing a ten year contract. So, it's not like, we're dealing with contracts that are executed very quickly and short term. The other thing is, you know, those solid waste providers, when they are bidding on an RFP, they're spending time and money and resources with no guarantee that they're going to get the contract, same as it would be with us.

Yes, it's an extra step. Yes, it adds some complexity. I don't think it's a deal breaker. And I do agree, you know, we do have the highest rates. I think there are some opportunities for savings. I've actually received messages from multiple solid waste drivers with their suggestions, and I think we ought to explore those and listen to those. But I will say unequivocally, no one, no one complains to me about their solid waste service. So those are my thoughts.

There's already been

a lot said here tonight and I really appreciate the people that showed up to express their concerns. It's great to actually see the council chambers full of people that are actively wanting to be involved in how we make decisions. I think one of the things that I struggle with and I think a lot of people here did is that, you know, lot of the language in this charter is relatively vague, you know, specifically in terms of this, the proposed language on enterprises and, you know, clearly restriction on city utility or enterprise, no city owned utility or enterprise or any portion there of which lies within the corporate boundaries. The city may be sold leased for more than two years, contracted to or put to franchise any nongovernmental party without complying with the procedures, you know, requiring an election. That goes to the people, and one of the questions that came up was when our city manager mentioned that there have been things that we have not sent to the public, and this is creating a lot of concern.

I'm concerned about this, and I agree with what Council Member Aquino had to say about our current garbage services. The other piece of information, you know, of these other pieces of information are missing is that we're the highest in the region. It would be nice to see money outlined on a table of what everybody's spending in different regions within the area, whether it's the county or the other cities. But I don't see that this is necessary to put forward to the voters at this time as these kinds of lack of information and confusion about the wording exist. And I haven't heard any complaints either about our existing garbage service.

I do hear a lot of concerns about our other utilities and enterprises, and I don't want us to end up on a slippery slope where the interpretation here is made to cover something, you know, that could be independently decided by the Council without taking it to the vote. Some of these are absolutely necessary, and I think that's a question for our city attorney, and that was addressing the change about at large elections. And the change regarding boards and commissions so that we're actually compliant with state law and able to function allowing our boards and commissions as they have previously done make decisions. And right now I believe that there are, right now we've had to go back to having everything come to the council. And previously there were definitions of what had to come to the council from the Planning Commission or the Historic District Commission or the Parks Commission.

And so those kinds of constraints have already been put in place. So it seems logical to go ahead and bring this up about the boards and commissions. Is that, can you clarify a little bit on that? What kinds of constraints are already there about what those commissions decide or don't decide?

Sure, so in the Folsom Municipal Code, each existing commission is laid out in its own section. The one that really was the primary driver for this proposed amendment was the historic district commission, which it still today existing language in the Folsom Municipal Code, was drafted and approved by the council, gives the historic district commission the authority to make final decisions much like the planning commission within the boundaries of the Historic District. It is effectively the Planning Commission for the Historic District. However, based on the language in the charter, a court found last fall that that was inappropriate, and as a result, the Historic District Commission has maintained its purview, but it can only recommend final decisions which then come to the council for approval.

Previously it has been making decisions.

Correct, it went into effect I believe in the late 80s, possibly the late 90s, I can't remember at this time, but for more than twenty years the Historic District Commission was making final decision on most of the planning matters within the boundaries of the Historic District.

Can I clarify something about that? Final decision, but the decision was always able to be appealed to the city council, correct?

Correct.

So actually the city council did have the final authority if you appealed the Planning Commission or the Historic District Commission's decision.

Correct, and that happened multiple times.

Yeah, okay, thank you.

So Council Member Aquino also brought up cost of the election and you know so I feel like we have to pick wisely off this list of what we're going to send. So things that are can you cite with Caso or maybe the city manager?

The clerk can remind me of what she told me, but I believe it's between 8 and $9,000 per each ballot initiative.

Well, thank you city manager. The County of Sacramento sets the fees for any item that the city puts on the ballot, and they have kind of a somewhat confusing schedule of how the fees go, but essentially they charge a certain rate for your base setup fee for your first question or ballot measure, and then there's a reduced rate for each ballot measure after that, and it's set up on a per registered voter fee. So the first ballot measure question, the county is telling us it's going to be about $83,000 and about 80, I'm sorry, dollars 10,700 for each ballot measure after that.

So it sounds like I was spot

on. Well,

your defense, this is a significant change from how the 2024 election fees were charged. So our experience just two years ago was quite different than the fees that they have restructured going forward. So to answer your question, it's about $83,000 for the first ballot measure, about $10,700 for each one thereafter.

Mr. Mayor, can I ask a question? So as it relates to the normal election that will occur with three council seats, that's different. Is that what you're saying is that we would have our normal charges for that and it would be that $83,000 charge would only be if another item was added or a ballot measure was added.

That's correct. That additional $83,000 would just come into play with the first ballot measure that's added to the ballot. The charge for each district election is distinctly separate from any charge for ballot measures.

Okay, thank you.

So I'm going to go back here and ask the city attorney for more. So it seems that it's, that we need to correct the section 2.01 about addressing the transition away from at large elections just by eliminating some of the verbiage in there?

That is at the will of the council and the voters. State law has required the process that we are currently engaged with and our ordinance is being followed with respect to the district elections.

Okay, thank you. Term limits, I agree with others that they were just recently changed and I don't see a need to change that again. City Council compensation and expenses, I am opposed to moving forward with that. I'm opposed to moving forward with Section 2.07 on the restriction on city utility or enterprise franchise authority without a vote of the residents. And I think it was made pretty clear that if, that the process can move along slowly and there's an election every two years so that if we're planning ahead, we could plan ahead enough time to get this on the ballot if there's a particular enterprise or utility that the city wants to have privatized.

So I'm opposed to that. City attorney, I don't see that it's necessary to put that on the ballot, given the explanation earlier about how that functions, about the city attorney's function. Boards and commissions, that appears to be necessary if we want to continue as we have for decades. Now with having our boards and commission make recommendations and they still can be appealed to the city council if residents feel it's necessary. Transition of elected officials from 1990, it sounds like that needs to be eliminated and we can't do that by making an administrative change that wouldn't need to go to the ballot.

This is too big just to treat like the warrants and cheeks. Terms of whether you have to do it, if it has been existing in the charter for many years without causing any problems.

Yeah, item eight about changing the donations for candidates for individuals from 150 to seven fifty, I think that number could potentially be negotiated, but it is difficult when you're collecting donations of a maximum of 150 and not everybody can afford to get, know, give you a donation of 150 that there are. During the last election there was more than one independent, or I guess more than one candidate that received independent expenditures that amounted to more than 80 or $100,000 which is a significant amount of money when you're thinking about electing a council member to cover about 5,500 houses in each district. So I'm plus minus on that one, but I think we've narrowed this list down between everybody's votes and wishes to somewhere about around maybe three items being placed on the ballot.

Thank you to my colleagues for your input on this. I do have a couple of clarifying questions before I try to summarize and see if I've gotten it correct. First off, I want to go to you, Council Member Aquino, on the campaign contributions. I recognize the challenge. I think the reason this was in there was is because it it's one of those weird situations where we have a municipal code that was put in place, not by the city council, right?

It was put in place by the voters. And so we also asked all of the committee members, are there things that are not in the charter right now that should be? Like it wasn't just a are there things that we should change or delete from the charter, but it's also are there things that we should add to the charter?

Right. But I thought you clarified earlier that that was not what you were asking to do.

Well, I think the city attorney gave that advice to the committee that it makes sense to kind of do this in the process. But I'm open to bringing this back as separate item at a future. We have time. And so if it makes you more comfortable, I'm happy to bring this back as a separate item. Think don't think

it should be brought back as a separate item. I would support a modest increase. I think maybe going from 150 to two fifty. I agree that fivefold is too much. You're correct that it was put on the ballot in 2018 at 500. It narrowly lost, it was very close. But I think 150 to two fifty is a reasonable jump in my opinion.

So maybe we can can that be direction to come back in a couple weeks on that particular item with some of those proposed changes?

Yeah. And staff, if you could separate that item out from the charter review and just bring it back as a city council item, that would be great, a new business item. And it sounds like we probably need more discussion on the dollar amount. I just I just look oftentimes to our neighbors. Does that work for you, clerk, also? Yeah. I just saw some eyes going back and forth so if we're not gonna be able to bring it back in time then I will take this discussion in another direction.

Well I think we can bring it back. We're trying to figure out if it has to be a public hearing or just a new business item.

Oh, sorry.

With respect to the public noticing and all of those.

That's our pause. We'll bring it back.

Bring We have time for a public hearing for that. If

I could ask a clarification, under the current process that we have since we've listed that item, it's covered under the current public hearing that we have.

Correct.

So one thing we can do, I mean if we wanted to keep going through the process, although it's not necessarily tied to the ultimate charter, I think you could probably have a discussion where it's a separate resolution that is specific to that outside of the charter changes. So just as a reminder, we're having this meeting, May 26 as an option, June 9, June 23, and then that will be our final public hearing. So I guess in some ways just to keep it simple, I appreciate Councilmember Zakino's comments because it is separate, but as we tie it to this hearing process, we can list it out differently in the report just as a suggestion. I don't know, Councilmember, if that works for you.

All right. So I think we're clear on that. The other question I think that's important that we kind of address head on is the cost, right? We have sections of the charter that are obsolete, that are clearly obsolete, and that make no impact to the daily runnings of the city. So is it the will of this council to put it to the voters to possibly be very confusing of, like, why am I deleting this section on water meters?

Or, you know, why am I deleting this section on transition of elected officials? Why does it matter, to the voters? And so I just kinda wanna get people's thoughts on whether we should even bother with the cleanups. And I and I think you look at all these charter cities that are out there, there is a lot of extra language, that is in all of these charters because this process is very cumbersome. So I just wanna kinda get a straw poll on whether it even makes sense to do any cleanup. To me, I'm kind of leaning toward no, just because it's $10,000 we could put to a park renovation or fixing up a trail or, you know.

Right. I mean, I guess I would kind of defer to the city attorney about what, you know, legally what we need to do. The thing that we need to keep in mind is the county's fees are not going to decrease, right? They're only going to go up from here. And it's the first charge that is so expensive. The other ones are nominal compared to the $85,000 $83,000 So yes, while I agree with what you're saying, I think there's also an, if we have five things, don't put four on this one and one two years from now, because then that's going to cost you more in the long run also.

Is there a way to combine some of those that wouldn't seem like there's no conflict here? The voters probably wouldn't have conflict with taking off out well, I don't know, actually. I don't know. But some of the obsolete sections, is there a way to combine any of those into one?

Theoretically, yes. But based on the list that we have here, the only one that I think truly counts as a cleanup item would be number seven, section 9.02, transition of elected officials from 1990. So that one I think could be considered clean up, but I think everything else would need to be a standalone.

Are there other clean up items in the charter that you guys did not bring forward as recommendations?

There was some conflict on them, because, like, certain things, like the bridge one was discussed. Right? One of the things that was in the charter that was passed by the will of the people was is that it's limited to not being a beltway. So it's limited right now to four lanes and bike lanes. So if we were to delete that entire section, the people once said we're fine with this bridge being in this place, but we don't want it to be six lanes later on.

And so there's just like those little nuances. The water meter one was the other one. Largely that's obsolete and state law has superseded it, But there was enough conflict still around it and some confusion of, like, well, if I vote against this, does that mean I get to go back to my flat? We all miss our flat those of us that had flat water rates in Folsom and didn't have a meter, we all miss those. And so then you put it on the ballot and people vote against it.

And then you go, well, You still don't get your flat water rates back because state law supersedes you. So that's the challenge with these cleanups is trying to explain it to all the voters in a way that makes sense that like, you can vote for or against this, but your vote really doesn't matter because state law has superseded you.

Yeah. And then I wouldn't want to spend $40,000 or whatever on things that the city will operate just fine whether the thing's in there or not. And

I think our goal was to anything that is affecting what we're trying to do or what the council can do in the future, that's what we addressed, and so some of those that may be a little unusual because of just the change in time or the passage of time, it hasn't negatively impacted anything that we're doing, so it may not be worth that effort. So

I'm fine with not going forward with the obsolete section and the at large for those reasons. But that's not a heated debate, is it? One of the things that, Justin, I think you said that you would like to continue to discuss well, it seems to be, first of all, clear that there's some negotiation or discussion maybe to bring forward about the city attorney. I think all of us here agreed about the boards and commissions one, right? That's what I wrote down anyways.

And then the other one and then we're already going to bring the code suggestion back. So I think we're narrowing it down. I think we're doing a good job. The other one is the franchise one, which you brought up. And I guess I'm conflicted on that one because I'm concerned about four years ago when I was campaigning, I met a lot of people on fixed incomes.

And they kept saying, I don't want my rates to increase. They mentioned garbage. They mentioned everything. And so it's interesting that we're looking at comparisons. And I saw some comparisons today where we're like $20.30 dollars more a month for our garbage service than our community neighbors.

And while this doesn't really I don't have an issue with this too much. But I'm concerned that if we tried to go out to a vote of the people to franchise out, for example, how would we get that data? How would that RFP process work? And because there's a public process, and then there's a when they're putting their bids in, that's a very private process until it's at the end. So how would the companies feel about bidding?

And then how would we even be able to decide to put it on the ballot if we can't compare? So I appreciate Barbara, you started this table of cost comparison. I would be interested in that kind of some real data to really see where we're if we're off base, how we're off base, and then what is that information about that bidding process? How would we go about that to put it on the ballot? And if that is something a future council wanted to do? And I'm not saying that I want to do this or not, but what if they want to do it in four years? How would that process work?

Well, mean, I think it wouldn't be a terribly difficult process. We would follow our normal kind of either a request for qualifications or a request for proposals and then we would get to an endpoint where we would identify who the selected vendor would be and what the price point would be, and then you would put it on the ballot much like what we have the opportunity to do now. And then as part of that, the vendors would just have to determine their rates based on having to wait a certain period of time before they would be awarded or not awarded.

And that would be probably like a nine month waiting period.

It could be. And know, Councilmember Aquino brought up some points that related to franchises or companies that deal with franchises because it's such a big operation that maybe it would be okay in that realm. So I don't think it would be overly difficult if this were not to go forward on a ballot just posing the question that if we went forward with a more specific question later on the council could do that, where the question actually in some ways would be very clear as opposed to this question is not very clear to make the change to the franchise. It would be simply a magic question if it actually panned out that you would do it for company X was the lowest bidder in this privatization effort. Citizens of Folsom, do you want to proceed in this manner?

And then they would vote on it.

I think you brought a good point in the beginning when you started this whole conversation that the amount of people that voted on this charter or vote on things were so small compared to we have 95,000 people residents in Folsom now. I would look at putting this on the ballot not to go out for a franchise, but go out to see what the public wants us to do. Kind of like the citizens not the cities the citizens sales tax measure. That was really informative. That was in a true poll of where our public really wanted us to stay and live within our means.

So I appreciate everyone that came in here and who came to the Charter Review Committee, especially those last two meetings, because there was a lot of opposition to this. But I'm not looking to this as a reason to, oh, I want to go out and I want to privatize everything. I really want to hear from the voters, so I'm conflicted because I understand the fear around it. So I guess maybe I would like to continue the conversation maybe at the next meeting.

And if I could just describe the process. You know, so tonight, I mean, was mainly to introduce the item. Our goal would be, you know, the staff's recommendation is that the council would adopt resolution one one six one three, a resolution receiving the 2026 Ad Hoc Charter Review Committee report to the city council and recommend that we dissolve the committee and then, we would also recommend you know, that, you know, do you want to follow the schedule that's outlined, have additional conversation on May 26, and then at the May 26 meeting, can get to kind of decide where you're at if you want to move forward with the June 9 meeting if needed, and then we already have scheduled June 23 for a final public hearing, and then July 24 would be the date you'd have to approve any language that would ultimately go on the ballot. So my recommendation would be that if you're comfortable adopting the resolution and dissolving the committee, and then just saying, hey we're closing today's public hearing, which is done, but there's more public comment coming at the future council meetings, and then we just put that on the schedule.

Well I'm interested in hearing more hopefully people would come out in two weeks because I want to I want to know if people really want us to the city council to have the authority to look at every option available to us to avoid a sales tax measure, to avoid what do you want us to do to actually save you money going forward? Because it's a little I feel a little conflict there in what I'm hearing on one hand and hearing on another. So that would be the question I want. If we move forward in a couple of weeks and even in the next meeting, that's what I want to hear. Are you guys you want us to take the time and the effort and look at overturn every rock that we can to make sure that we can live within our means as we are?

And that's kind of what I'm curious about right now.

I think it's really difficult for me to keep hearing this live within our means because that's not really what the voters said. They said they didn't want to increase the sales tax. They didn't pick out certain things they don't want to have or want to franchise out. And it's just a broad definition and it can be used to make an argument in any direction. And I agree that we need to be able to afford to pay for what we currently have.

But I think unless we have a better idea about what people really want to franchise out or what kinds of services they give up, I don't think it should be a unilateral decision made by the city council about what kinds of services we are doing that with. Even though it's open to a public comment, it's not, you know, the public doesn't always show up. The public always doesn't, you know, they don't read the agendas every meeting. And so I think that we're missing a piece there in making a decision about what we want to franchise or privatize if we move forward with doing that.

Yeah, I think there's, Brian, a comment you made of like it's asking to remove, asking the voters to remove voter approval is very vague and unclear and I don't think will be understood. Although, you know, in a technical body like a charter review commission, or here at city council where we nerd out every couple weeks on public policy, and talk to residents constantly about what's what's best for our city like it can we can understand it but it's going to be really tough for our voters to understand that whereas if we if we were to go forward with something that's very specific and that, hey, we can't get costs down, hey, this electrical vehicle mandate is going to kill us or drive up costs significantly more than we have to either partner with another agency, which wouldn't require you know, partner with another public agency, which wouldn't require charter approval or privatize, which would. We would then go to the voters, right, if that's the case with a very clear, hey. Here's what it is. You guys make the decision.

It's your pocketbooks, that are gonna pay for it, going forward. So I I think there is some something to be said for the clarity, of a ballot resolution, in that we get, you know, hey. This is the clear option. Like, we've gotten bids, and here's what the savings are. Or hey, we've done this efficiency on operations, and if we go out to bid and the bids aren't any better than the service we are providing, that could have happened too.

Hey, we open bids and they're no different. Hey, this is the efficiency or we're asking for ten or twenty year commitment from somebody. We open those bids and it doesn't look like it. It's going, hey, putting us on the ballot. Oh, you know, doesn't even make any sense. We can even put that in our RFP. Like, hey, if if costs aren't, you know, 20% below or something significantly below, then we don't even bring it to the voters. Right? We don't even we don't even ask them for their opinion because we know that they're going to be fine with this great service they provide if it's relatively close. Think we've just got a gap that needs to be closed. So that's where I'm kind of leaning on it.

So do we have three that we've kind of circled around?

Think we've The city attorney, board

So of if I could offer a suggestion because I mean I think staff may be able to help for the public conversation and for the council conversation for us to come back with kind of a report highlighting some of the conversations today, but even coming up with cost for the ballot, right? So we can say, hey, here are the costs. If we're going to do the initial ballot, 80,000, and then this is what your options are, you can see clear. We can put it up on the screen, then also we could put together a matrix of the eight options, and then we can kind of just go through the conversation, and maybe we'll have council member Kozlowski here as well that can kind of help be a part of that conversation. The fact that we're going to have to talk about this at least two or three more times anyway, I don't think we lose anything by, you know

I do want to make a suggestion, though. There were two, the term limits and the salary that no not one of us is supporting, really. So I don't think that you even need to the staff needs to bring that back.

Well, I'd be fine with that. Less is more for me. Yeah. So

Alright. So I'm gonna entertain a motion to accept the report and dissolve the committee.

So moved. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Please call the roll.

Council members Aquino. Yes. Leary.

Yes.

Rorba.

Yes. And Rethal.

Yes. And now I'm gonna look to staff. We've provided a lot of direction tonight. I think we've been crystal clear. Just kidding. Do you guys need further direction from the council on how to move forward at the next meeting?

Well, from my perspective, I mean, let me describe what I think we will do and you can tell me if that makes sense, is we would bring back mainly kind of the eight items and if you would like we can kind of include in there, I would probably prefer to wait do this, but almost come up with the matrix and we can kind of double check with you at that meeting that hey, where do you stand on item one through eight? You know, like, hey, we want to keep these or we don't want to keep these or hey, let's have more conversation about that. I think it'll become clear when we get some of the budget figures and I think I'd like to have conversations with our city attorney as well as far as the cleanup language, so we can make just a definitive statement like, hey, we're not going to go forward with at large or I guess that was the main one there. But I think we can, there's so much information out there that I think if we come forward it'll just be a more narrowly focused conversation.

I think you just bring six back, not the term and the salary.

Okay so if that's the case then we would need a motion to remove the term limits and the salary.

I so move. Second.

Please call the roll.

Council members Aquino.

Yes. Leary. Yes.

Rorba. Yes. And Rachel.

Yes. Okay, thank you.

Are there any, before we move on to the next item, I'll also entertain motions to remove anything else from the discussion. Let's make our city manager and staff's job easier if we can.

Well, just for the sake of financial reasons I would move to not put forward Section 2.01, removing at large, and Section 9.02, deleting the language from the 1990s.

I second it.

We have a motion and a second. Please call the

roll.

Council members Aquino. Yes. Leary. Yes. Vorba. Yes. And Rachel.

Yes.

I love it.

All right. We will now

move Can

I do one more?

Yeah, of course.

I move to not bring back anything, so reject the committee's recommendation on section 2.07, outsourcing of city services.

Second.

Alright, we have a motion and a second. Please call the roll.

Council members Aquino. Yes. Leary. Yes. Rohrbach. Yes. Anna Braithel.

Yes.

Motion passes.

Going once.

Oh hold on, I gotta, so we've taken out the at large, we've taken out the 1990s.

I think we only What have

you're left with is number five, city attorney, number six, boards and commissions,

the municipal

Number and eight.

Okay. Yeah, the contribution limits.

Okay, all right.

Oh, okay, and that.

Is that right?

No, because we voted, yeah eight has not been addressed. The contribution limits has not been addressed.

Five, six, and eight.

Right, the eight we're just bringing back is something standalone correct? Yes. Okay.

Well we would bring it as part of this item so it would fall under the public hearing requirements, it would be a separate

Okay.

Basically our report next time we'll have discussions on the city attorney item, boards and commissions and contribution limits, is that correct?

We

were being very respectful of staff's time and all the time they've put into this already. Thank you for the late nights. City manager's report.

Okay, thank you. Mayor, members of the council. I just wanted to provide an update related to Castle Park. There's been a lot of interest. You know, we really appreciate everyone's efforts to in the community build to get that moving forward.

If you were one of the volunteers out there, I'm sure you got to experience some rain and the reason why I know that is because there was a lot of rain which limited the number of people who were able to come out and even the amount of work that was done. So, with the goal of completing the project during that week, we were unfortunately not able to complete it. Leathers and Associates, which is kind of our guide, the company behind and supervising that effort, they only had on their calendar that week to be with us and so they had to leave and handle other jobs and they came back just this last week to do additional work and so we're really close to getting it finished and our goal is to fine tune everything, get everything in place to have kind of a grand opening kind of mid June. So that's what we're shooting for. So we'll have more information related to that.

Also just a big thank you to everyone involved. Kelly, did you want to comment on that at all? Okay. Then, just big thanks to all the volunteers, city council, city staff, community members that were involved in the eightieth anniversary, and then birthday party, Then Folsom Bike Park grand opening, have on May 16, Folsom Parks And Recreation And Fat Track will host a grand reopening celebration for the redesigned Folsom Bike Park on May 16 from 10AM to 2PM. The event will include professional rider demos.

I'm not one of those. A jump jam, bike safety checks, raffles, and family friendly activities. More than thirty one, zero was raised through community support to help rebuild and sustain this park and we're extremely grateful. City Works Day is on May 20 during National Public Works Week. The free community event will feature interactive exhibits, work vehicles, public safety demonstrations, and hands on activities.

More information is on the city's website. We also have Battle of the Badges Blood Drive, the Folsom Fire Department and Folsom Police Department will host the annual Battle of the Badges Blood Drive on June 3 from 10AM to 02:30PM at the Folsom Community Center. So we involve everyone who can participate to participate. Fire Station thirty six, some information, we've temporarily relocated the staff at Station thirty six as a result of a water leak that damaged portion of the facility and so we're doing the environmental cleanup to make sure it's a safe location for our employees. So personnel and apparatus assigned to Station thirty six are temporarily operating from Fire Station thirty nine and Empire Ranch While repairs are completed, emergency response service and community coverage will continue without interruption.

That concludes my report.

Thank you. Council Member Kino?

I would just echo the thanks to everybody involved in the city's eightieth birthday party. I heard nothing but positive feedback from folks. I think it's one of those things that helps our growing city kind of maintain that small town feel. So thank you to all the city staff, to the vendors, to the volunteers, to our community partners, and to everybody who came out. It was a great time. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member O'Leary.

I was just going to go over a list of some of the things that I've been involved with in the last two weeks, and one was the Indian community in the region has a presentation called Guru Vandana, I'm not sure if I said that correctly, but it's to honor all of our teachers and it was really nice celebration and I'd encourage council members to go again next year. We all participated in a Folsom Cordova Unified School District joint meeting to understand some of their focuses on programming. The mayor and I visited the Sacramento Food Bank facility, which distributes, I couldn't tell you how many pounds of food tons throughout the region and it's an amazing facility. And they also help provide a lot of the food for our Twin Lakes Food Bank here in this region. Tree Foundation had their annual kickoff for a fundraiser, but they are also one of the sources for providing trees for people's lawns at home and also through our city when there's some tree planting projects with the Friends of Folsom Parkways.

And I'll just add one more, I had a couple but I'm not going to keep you all longer. The mayor and I and utilities manager, Marcus Yasutaki attended the signing of the water form agreement for the region, which ensures that we continue to work on collaborative water efforts and have water both to drink and to recreate on in our region. This agreement goes through 2050, so it was nice to be there last night. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice Mayor?

Just, yeah, the eightieth celebration was super fun. I know the mayor and I were both in the dunk tank. You were really cold. I was. It was really fun. I mean, honestly, that whole event, just as Sarah said, just walking in the whole environment and just all the kids running around, it was such a it was a free event. Several people showed me their snails. I did not care to touch them. It was creepy. But love a snail. But that was just I mean, I hope we do it every year. I mean, I wish we could, but maybe not. Sorry, staff. Sorry, Kelly. Never mind.

Every five years maybe. But on that with Parks and Rec department, I managed to make it out to Leathers was in town for three days, I believe it was, and managed to make it out to help out on one of the days. And I was there when the cranes were lifting the turrets, I guess you would call it, up on the top. And that was really fun to watch. I just want to acknowledge how hard our parks and rest staff is working, and I'm sure Public Works is involved too. They just worked really hard from the time that we ended the community build to this last weekend as well. There's still more to do. I'm just really proud of your whole staff, Kelly. So thank you. And that's it.

Thanks so much. I'll echo the thank yous on Castle Park and also the eightieth birthday. I was really excited to see that the final winners of the snail races were all children. Holding that giant trophy, it really made my Saturday. So thanks to staff. Thanks to those folks that came out and the vendors. It really was a special day in the organizations that that helped us run it. It was really very much appreciated. We got the opportunity to participate in the fire promotion ceremony on May 6. So, thank you for those folks that stepped up into higher roles.

We couldn't do that job without those folks in leadership and stepping up and and promoting to the next level. So, congratulations to those that that promoted and we appreciate your service to Folsom. I want to say the I was honored to sign the water forum agreement but I didn't participate in the water forum and so I was probably the wrong person to sign the water forum. I just had my mayor hat on. Really just wanna give a big shout out to council member Leary and and Marcus Gasataki for all the work they put in, to get that agreement.

It was long time in the making and long time in the renewal, so thank you both. I did get a chance to go down and just want to give a shout out to Sutter Health. They're the new health care partner for the Sacramento Kings. They gave me a giant cowbell today and it's luckily in the other room. But the it's pretty exciting for them and just want to congratulate them.

The Sutter Health facility is coming along at East Bidwell and Iron Point. It's looking beautiful. So, congratulations to them. May 15, we've had 60,000 votes so far for ideas for change on almost 400 ideas submitted by our residents. That is over 1% right now of the population of Folsom that's participated and I would encourage you that we still have two more days so ideas4change.org/folsom still time submit your ideas go make your votes heard and we appreciate your participation in that And finally, I want to give a big shout out to my mom who's in the front row.

She came in town for Mother's Day and she stayed awake for the entire city council member meeting. So with that, we're adjourned at 09:28. Have a great night.