City Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. It is 10:30AM. I'm gonna call this special council meeting to order for Tuesday, February 10 at 10:30AM. Okay. City clerk.

Good morning. I'll take the role.

Thank you.

Council member Perea? Present. Council president Carbassi? Here. Council Member Arias? Council Member Arias will be appearing by Zoom in the closed session. He is not in the main chambers at this time.

Just to be clear, was there a just cause reason provided? Do we have to report that for the Brown Act?

It has not been provided up until this point. I will request it so

that we can report it. I do have an update on that. The just cause is childcare issues.

Understood. That's valid. Thank you. That's a valid excuse. Thank you.

Thank you. And he did just indicate he is on Zoom Perfect. Back right now. Council member Maxwell?

Present.

Council member Vang? Present. Council member Richardson?

Here.

Council vice president Esparza?

Present. Okay.

Six members being present currently, we have quorum.

Thank you. Pledge of allegiance, the flag will be led by council member Richardson. Good morning. Please stand to reach your left and right hand of the heart. Current foreign military welcome to present the military salute Thank you, council member. Next is the approval of the agenda. Any questions by council members or any motions? Make a motion to approve.

Okay.

Motion by council member Maxwell, second by council member Prea. Any opposition? There being none, the agenda is passed six to zero. We are going to go to public comment at this time before breaking into closed session. Is that correct?

That's correct. I did want to indicate that there are certain interpreters that are available via our digital interpreting system, which is Wordly. There is a QR code for that present, in chambers as well as on our website. There are interpreters available for Spanish and Punjabi at this time.

Great. I do have two cards. I really appreciate folks coming in today for the special meeting. If you wanna comment, please, and you haven't filled out a card, be sure to fill out a card. We have another one coming forward. First, I have Ashley. And you'll have three minutes, Ashley. Come on forward. Morning.

Okay. Hello, council. My name is Ashley, and I am a small business owner and artist, a Measure p recipient, and your friendly neighbor here in Fresno. I am here today to put on the official record because we believe records matter that on Saturday morning, I woke up to a flood of messages from artists, organizers, business owners, and community members were shocked and devastated by the news of funds misappropriation by the Fresno Arts Council. For many of us, this moment was heartbreaking, but it was not surprising.

For the past two years, community members have been sounding the alarm. We have organized, testified, written letters, and showed up again and again to call out the lack of transparency, lack of accountability, and lack of care shown to the very communities that these funds were meant to serve. We were ignored. We were not ignored by accident. We were dismissed, and in some cases, we were actively intimidated.

I witnessed people with power and influence use that power to silence dissent, to create fear around asking questions, to discourage scrutiny and to make people believe that speaking up would cost them funding, reputation or access and for many that fear worked. I also sat in these chambers and listened to representatives from nonprofits across the city, praised the out arts council professionalism and diligence. Yet last night at a community meeting hosted by Dulce upfront, I learned that our city manager and the council member from District 3 that while the we were pleading for transparency around grant rubrics and reporting, you were also demanding transparency around financial reporting that you were not receiving. That revelation made my stomach drop and to be frank, I lost sleep last night over this because it means our worst fears were not only valid, but they were visible, they were known, and yet the public was told to be patient, to trust the process, and to just let it ride. I say I said this in these chambers once before, but I'll say it again, these are public funds, they are the people's money and what we are witnessing is a failure of stewardship.

People are angry, people are grieving, they are exhausted, artists have missed deadlines without explanation, events were canceled due to administrative delays, programs that communities rely on are now at risk of disappearing entirely and this is not abstract harm, this is real damage to the real people of Fresno. Today, I am demanding that transparency be treated not as a talking point, but as a non negotiable. Transparency is the only way forward and ironically, I recognize that you're about to enter a closed session and I understand the legal necessity of that, but I also ask that you emerge with honesty, clarity and urgency to tell the public what was decided, act quickly, restore trust through actions and not just empty assurances. Do what you're entrusted to do and do what is right by the people. Thanks.

Thank you so much. Next, have Alicia. Good morning. You'll have three minutes.

Hi.

Alicia Rodriguez. I run the Labyrinth Art Collective. Collective. I'm also a citizen of Fresno, and I've been in chambers a few times, so I'm gonna be really frank. A lot of what Ashley said, I resonate with and echo heavily.

Two main things I do want to request before I forget to is I know there are a lot of unknowns at this point regarding the Fresno Arts Council's misuse of public funds, of taxpayers' funds, our funds, and dreamers' funds that were largely called out. And I know maybe the specific issue wasn't the same as the issue you might run into with financial records versus the transparency issues. It's all the same corruption. So I just wanna point that out. I do wanna request that even though there are lot of unknowns, that this isn't deprioritized in a in a way that we're ignoring things like the timelines, we've already suffered greatly, there's a lot of labor and effort that goes into planning events and executing them.

It's not just an idea. It takes labor. It takes community members. It takes everything. Even if you have funding, you still have to plan. So there has been a request from several community members to extend deadlines for those of us who have been fortunate enough to receive funding before this catastrophe. For those of us who haven't, I I unfortunately have received funding, but I will never be here just for myself. And I've had I know personally know people who've lost leases, who've had to cancel events, who are having a very hard time mentally because of the future, the the unpredictable future. This should have been a straightforward damn thing. I'm sorry.

Like, this should have been an a thing where you it's it's allocated to a responsible party, and it's executed in a responsible way. This is an arts and culture grant, and I know there are lots of things in the city of Fresno I don't agree with as far as how we allocate funds and how we distribute them and how we execute those things. There's not enough time to speak on all of that, but I think this is a snapshot of the way that the city of Fresno handles things, and I it's not encouraging at all. So I think the priority should be to get folks. So there are lots there was a lot of dancing around, and while we do appreciate that you made an attempt to show up uninvited to our meeting, there's a lot of community members that still have a lot of questions as to when they're gonna receive their funds.

First of all, those who haven't been funded, that needs to be prioritized. They don't need to hear keep hearing, I don't know. I don't know. I think that needs to be known soon, and I think those of us who have received funding need deadlines extended. We were we already received our funding halfway through the grant period. I received it in January, and that's till till June to complete our grant project with a year which should have been a year. So we need at least that much time to complete the projects that have already been funded at 90%, and the ones that haven't been funded need you guys need to figure out how to fund that now, like ASAP, and how to figure that out. And I've heard it tossed around. There's not enough money. You're gonna have to find it. That's not our fault. None of this is our fault. So I just wanna emphasize that there needs to be some accountability, transparency, and responsibility on the city of Fresno's end.

Thank you so much. Next, we have actually,

Erin.

Thanks for being here. You'll have three minutes.

Do you want to

lower it?

I have a short one.

Good morning. My name is Erin Bird. I'm the executive director for arts enrichment for all. We are a Measure P grant recipient. We are also a fiscal receivership for Measure P, and we have several projects that we are looking over their their financials for.

And so, I also was flooded with lots of questions from our project that we are administering their grants. We were lucky enough, all of our projects, we did receive our 90% funds, but even with those 10%, they feel like, are we gonna be able to do what we need to do? And we've had lots of conversations about fundraising and things of that nature in the event that it doesn't happen, right, in the short amount of time. My ask today is that if you guys can collect and gather us, people who are in it, who are overseeing projects, who have a stake in this game to be invited to the table, to have active discussions about how do we solve these problems right now. And anyone who is a fiscal agent should be willing to do that.

Right? That's part of the role that I took on is mentorship for our projects. So my goal here today is just to really say, there's a problem. We all know that there's a problem. How do we fix it? And how do we fix it expeditiously? Because, yes, timelines matter, and we wanna make sure that we are serving our community the way that we said we're going to. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Erin. Okay. Anyone else wishing to comment? This is the last opportunity. Please do come forward. You'll have three minutes. Morning, Des.

Hey. You need to pick this thing up. Which button is it? Okay. Okay. Okay. I ain't that tall. Alright. So you gotta work with me around my anxiety because, you know, I really hate coming here. This is my anxiety is off the chains right now, but I'm gonna try and fly through what's been going on the past couple of weeks.

December, second, Falcon Court received notice that all tenants were to figure it out. Five people were chosen to be transferred into other units for permanent supportive housing, but the other, 45 individuals were told to figure it out or go back into another shelter. I gotta remind people that we're working with state funds state funds so that individuals have autonomy. These are the same people that five years ago, we picked up off project off ramp, put them inside shelters, and now we put them in permanent housing. So project off ramp is putting people right back on.

I don't think Dyer over there wants that. I don't think the mayor wants to see the people off project off ramp going back. This is misuse of state funds, and then you guys are telling organizations that they have a right to take public funds and use it for private choices. We cannot utilize the project on Blackstone, which doesn't have a name yet, but I understand from the contracts that I'm reading with you guys that you guys are gonna turn it over to Matt Dildyne, which means that you guys are not gonna be responsible for it, which makes it easier for you guys not to landlords and have responsibility, but I feel that since the city manager and, city attorney, people's names are on these contracts. We have to make sure that the leftover individuals that were not terrified and, forced out of Falcon Court, that we make sure that we transfer into the Blackstone, complex, 34 units.

We use incumbent resolution funds, you have to be in compliance with that. We use Project Homekey, you have to be in compliant with that. There is no state funding or federal funding that states that that contract or that grant or them funds are only specifically for 18 to 24, and transitional age youth is 12 to 24, not 18, so people are choosing who they go in there, plus there's supposed to be a lease agreement, I would like to request that lease agreement that Matt Dale Dine was supposed to hand over to you guys, there needs to be a certain kind of application that when you're applying for affordable housing, permanent supportive housing, there has to be a different type of criteria on the application, and I have not found that in your guys' file yet. So I would like to know where that application is, where the sample is. Also, if you guys are pre leasing these, I want that written down so I can go ahead and hand that over to the state because from my understanding, you cannot pre lease state funded apartment complexes.

We have individuals that are senior citizens on oxygen tanks. They will die, Kerbossy, if you allow them to go back to the streets. You have the power to sit up here and force Madill Dine to utilize these specific projects to put the senior citizens in there. If we care about senior citizens, then let's see it. I wanna see it. I don't want you to tell me you care. I want you to prove it and put them over there today. No reason, we're still sitting on state funded $10,150,000, and it's still empty.

Thank you, Des. Okay. Anyone else wishing to speak at this time for the special council meeting? Come on forward. Just state your name, and you'll have three minutes, please.

Okay. Let's see. So is this this public comment period or pertaining to the closed session meeting?

It's all of it together. So this is public comment for the day. Yep.

We're gonna we're gonna figure that all of that together stuff out. Because I

I This is your opportunity speak.

Just talked on yeah. Okay. I think my time started. I appreciate you giving me the hard copy of the Brown Act because it gets kinda your like, your eyes on heavy on your eyes, like, phone all the time. But all this kind of let me see.

I mean, 1.5 is kind of a big amount, but maybe not really because money gets spent so much here. But this is just one thing. There's many other things I'm sure that we we don't see right now. And so when we ask for transparency and you try to find a way to dodge it, that's why it's, like, bothering to people. But see. Three minutes. Hold on.

I don't know. I

I like to say though, just public comment, that the way this meeting is structured with regards to comment on stuff that's on the agenda that we should be allowed to view the presentation before giving our comment. That way we're informed. Even though it doesn't say that in the brown, like, exactly, we're supposed to be able to engage in a meaningful way. And so when you have us make like, give our comment before we're able to, like, get all the info. So yeah. So I'd like it. I maybe the county has it better structured or I don't Sometimes you guys all change it different times. But, yeah, that's basically it, I guess.

K. Anyone else anyone else wish to provide public public comment for this special meeting? This will be your opportunity. We welcome you to do that. You'll have three minutes.

Last call. Okay. We're gonna close public comment. For the benefit of the public, just in in compliance with the Brown Act that we have here today, any documents that we consider when we make a decision are always available online. They're always available through our agenda. Today, because this is a special closed session meeting, there are no supporting documents that will be reviewed by the public. And that's why there's nothing available right now. I'm gonna make a statement before we we break into closed session. This is in relation to an issue that's that's we no one's discussed today. These are completely my own comments.

This has to do with Fresno Unified. Fresno Unified School District faces budget deficits for the upcoming school year. The district has stated that their focus when faced with these cuts is to prioritize student outcomes. As a city council president, it is important to me that our students in Fresno are given the best educational opportunities. This is why I strongly recommend the district should not balance their budget by by freezing wages on the lowest paid employees in our district.

I'm talking about our classified employees. Classified employees ensure that Fresno students get to school, have safe and healthy schools, and are fed every day. Without classified employees, Fresno Unified School District could not operate. And these workers deserve respect and dignity because it's their jobs that provide for the care of the children of our community. That is my statement on that matter. I do also wanna state today, forgive, I appreciate my colleagues for their patience. Today is my dad's birthday. He's 84. He's probably watching, so happy birthday. And it is Andrew, Clousa's birthday in my office as well.

Andrew, your mom made me do that, so happy birthday as well. So thank you all. On a more serious note, we are gonna break into closed session. City attorney, if they'll read off the roster, and we may may potentially have something to report after closed session as well.

Good morning. Today in closed session, we have item a, conference with legal counsel, potential litigation, potential case. Item C, conference with legal counsel, potential litigation, one potential case. Council President is correct. We may have reportable items after closed session.

Thank you. We're gonna resume, the open session of the meeting. We've just broken from closed session. It's 12:48PM. City attorney, is there anything to report?

Sorry.

Yes. As to item, c for the special meeting by a vote of five to zero with council members Carbassi, Arias, Bang, Richardson, and Esparza voting voting in the affirmative absent Perea and Maxwell directed the city attorney to draft a resolution in support of the Health and Welfare Trust to ensure the contract dispute between community and Blue Shield is resolved quickly and favorably for city employees, which would include a retroactive provision to be part of the resolution. Drafted for the next meeting.

Thank you, city attorney. And while there was no action taken on another item, I wanna make it clear that the administration and city council will be issuing a joint statement shortly. So be on the lookout for that. Thank you very much. Meeting adjourned at 12:49PM.