City Council - Regular Meeting

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All right, good morning. Welcome to day four of our City of Fresno budget hearings for the 2026-2027 fiscal year budgets. Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Thank you, good morning. Council Member Perea? Here. Council Member Arias? I'm here. Council Vice President Maxwell? I'm here. Council President Esparza?

Present.

Council Member Vang?

Present.

Council Member Richardson? Council Member Carbasi. Five members being present, we have a quorum.

All right, fantastic. Let's see here. We've got this joint meeting. Are we able to conduct this joint meeting at this point? The successor agency? Or should we do that later? It's the received annual report and approve the FY26-27 program income budget for the City of Fresno. Thought times. We can take it on now. This is one vote or two votes?

Two votes.

Okay. Yeah, bring out the mayor briefly. If you're ready to go on that item. Yeah, we'll take this item. While we wait for the mayor, what we will do is take on public comment for the joint meeting of the Fresno Revitalization Corporation of the City of Fresno in its capacity as the housing successor to the redevelopment agency. So this item is to receive the annual report and approve the next fiscal year 26-27 program income budget for the City of Fresno. and its capacity as housing successor to the RDA Fresno. So I'll go ahead and open a public comment on this one item we have. Any member of the public wish to comment on this item? All right, seeing none, I'm going to close public comments on that item. I'll entertain a motion. I'll second. I have a motion by Council Member Perea and a second by myself. Any opposition to approving the RDA success rate agency item? Receiving the annual report? Seeing none, that passes six to zero. Six to zero, sorry. Now we need a second vote of the, I was waiting on the mayor for the second vote.

Were you asking me something?

No, just waiting for the mayor. Oh, okay.

You looked at me like you asked me a question. I got busted for not listening.

Yeah, it's a two-part, but I just noticed this item was here, this additional item. I thought we'd just handle it briefly this morning. Let Marlene go on her way.

Do I need to start congratulating people on their retirement again and taking time doing a tap dance?

Play the Jeopardy theme music.

Let's see, do I have anybody here?

Tell the mayor it'll be brief. Yeah, you know what? We can kill a minute by doing the Pledge of Allegiance, which I skipped over completely. Yeah. Yeah. And to that point, I just, you know, the agenda approval, all that. All right, let's rewind. We called the roll. Let's go ahead and ask everyone to stand if you can for the Pledge of Allegiance. Went straight to it. Councilman Richardson, please lead us. All right, I'll entertain a motion for approval of the agenda. We have a motion and a second. Council Member Arias and Council Member Perea. Any opposition to approving the agenda? Passes six to zero. Let's run that back one more time. I'm going to open up public comments again for the joint meeting of the Fresno Revitalization Corporation and the City of Fresno and its capacity as housing successor to the Redevelopment Agency, the RDA. We're receiving the annual report and approving the FY26-27 program income budget for the City of Fresno and its capacity as the housing successor to the RDA of Fresno. Any public comment on this particular item?

Second. I'm sorry, Council President, I apologize. Did we approve the agenda? I had to change the agenda. I'm sorry, I couldn't hear. We approve the agenda. Could we? Motion to reconsider the agenda. Second. I'm sorry, Council President.

All right, we're running it all the way back again. Third try. All right, so we have a motion to reconsider the agenda. We have a second on that. Is there any opposition to reconsidering the agenda?

Thank you, Council Member Arias. I would like to make a motion to remove general city purpose department from the agenda today.

Thank you.

All right, third try. We're going to approve the agenda as it's presented on the public agenda. Approve it that way, as originally presented. Do I have a motion? So moved. Thank you. Motion by Council Member Carbasi to approve the agenda as is, and second by Council Member Perea. Any opposition? Seeing none, the pass is six to zero. All right, here we go. Third time. We're going to open up the joint meeting of the Fresno Revitalization Corporation and the City of Fresno and its capacity as housing successor to the Redevelopment Agency. It's like Groundhog Day. Third time I read this. So again, we're receiving the annual report and approving the FY26-27 program income budget for the City of Fresno and its capacity as a housing successor to the RTA. The city of Fresno. Marlene, I don't think we need a presentation. Does anybody want a presentation on this? We're receiving the report.

Okay.

I'll entertain a motion. Second. A motion by Councilman Barrios, second by Councilman Richardson. Any opposition to approving the receiving of the annual report? Seeing none, passes six to zero.

Thank you.

I believe we need a second vote of the... City attorney, do we need a second public comment on that? A second meeting? Yes. That first one counted for both votes, okay. So moved.

Seconded.

All right, we have a motion. We have a second. Is there any opposition? Seeing none, that passes. All right, so we had to get that item out of the way with the RDA. Thank you, Marlene. They don't want to keep you waiting here around all day on this brief item, the annual report. All right, now we're going to snap back into the budgets. First up, we do have the convention center and the stadium, but we are going to take public comment up front first. This will be the main opportunity for, primary opportunity for public comment. Folks comment any part of the budget for three minutes. Later on, we will also do some additional public comment at a minute each for each department if people want to chime in and respond to individual departments as we go along. But for now, we will do the public comment at this point. So I've got a few cards here that I'll read off. If you didn't fill out a card, you can still comment. But first up, I have Alicia R.

Morning, Council. Just some comments. Excuse me. I know I like to zoom out a lot, and I know I was here yesterday making some comments about the general proceedings and the police budget specifically. I do want to elaborate on some of that. I am going to point out again, if y'all can barely keep quorum through the week, these meetings are definitely not accessible to the public. So these budget hearings are very important. They're the foundation of spending in this city. I think that needs to be... way more transparent, way more accessible. Participatory accessibility is important to HACT in good faith, especially with the Brown Act. And I've been pretty immersed in the Measure P debacle. That's a very small slice of the pie, but in ripping off Band-Aids in that regard, we're seeing more and more how budget items in general are moved in a way that is not transparent and not accessible. And what we're seeing here is another manifestation of that. So I mean, there's folks here who have taken time to be here all week, or a good portion of the week. I'm taking time and PTO in between where I can with work. Not possible to be here all week. Citizens need to be part of this process. You guys have been sued for Brown Act violations. You've been sued for $15 million for a discrimination suit. So when we're talking about things like policing, And all this propaganda I hear back and forth and these things like just jargon about vendors causing fights and I don't know what the hell Tower of Vegas is, I'm sorry, but like those of us immersed in community, those of us in touch with our communities and those hearing the cries of people like really frustrated with how the city is run. And that's not, I'm not here trying to be facetious and mean to y'all, but there's a real problem with being out of touch, with leadership being out of touch in this city. And when it comes to the budget, these are resources for the people. You are city officials. You are serving the public. And if we're not showing up in ways that show that, that people don't believe you. And I know sometimes this is a stepping stone to another place. Cool. But in the meantime, the city suffers. So in regards to just elaborating on policing, we're presented with a lot of numbers yesterday. Like I said yesterday, data is important to be verifiable. There's no third-party accountability when it comes to policing, and they're asking for more money, and I'm sorry, in the community, we don't see tangible results. They can pretty much shoot any air-quote statistic at you, and it's supposedly believed, but there's no verifiability. So there's no third party accountability. There's no transparency. They're talking about the heart issue. One of the real statistics, 9% increase in the unhoused population. That's not tangible progress. So let's look at real numbers. Let's look at real accessibility for these meetings. We're going to start pushing for that. for next year early on, because this is deplorable. I don't know if you guys are aware of situations like Avenal, people are getting upset and they're taking action. So I would like to see cooperation with our city officials and respect. So let's make this more accessible.

All right, next speaker is going to be Bob McCluskey.

Thank you.

I agree with the previous speaker in terms of the Brown Act. I mean, you have a $307 million police budget and you give one minute comment to that specific topic. That seems not in the requirements within the Brown Act to hear from the public on all these big expenditures, which is the basic premise for the act itself. I just wanted to mention, I was at the point in time press conference, asked a number of questions, got the current numbers of those that are on the streets, 6,315 unhoused at this point. We know those numbers are flawed. Laura Moreno and others admitted that at the press conference. In addition, I asked the mayor directly what impact has a no camping ordinance and a strong enforcement of that had on reducing the numbers of people on the streets. And he said none. So my point is this has been a failed policy. You want a second heart team, you need to use the first heart team to respond to public complaints because they can't right now because they're overwhelmed with citing people and arresting people. I have the records. You've cited and arrested more than 1,700 people. That's more than all the 1,300 or so unhoused people that you have in terms of the numbers. You must have arrested all of them and some more than once. That's a point I wanted to make with the city attorney's budget. We need to find out how much has been lost or wasted on the ordinance cost enforcing this failed ordinance, which has gone nowhere. We know they've only tried to prosecute 130 of them. spent an inordinate amount of police time enforcing an ordinance that wasn't enforceable because people basically weren't camping when they got picked up. Then you have the Brown Act violation costs. How much is it costing to defend these Brown Act violations? In addition, I want to support increased funding for the eviction protection program. The mayor, everyone else is always touting preventative. Let's get that, let's increase the funding for that. And I just have to say, this city, the real cause is the grip that the landlord class has on the people of the city and the city council that run it. We have no rent control, rents are skyrocketing, poverty is increasing, unhoused are increasing. We need to look at rent control. and really look at trying to prevent more people hitting the streets. Because every day, I guarantee you, under this economy, you're going to see more and more people, especially elderly people, who can't afford to live on their measly Social Security funds. 55%.

Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Bob. Thank you. Next speaker is going to be Arianna.

Hi, Council. Good morning again. Firstly, we would like to request the terms of the grant extension and the funding remaining in the extended organized retail theft grant be made public, without which there can be no public oversight, and without which there can be no certainty that there will be no cost overruns into the general fund. The question I was getting ready to ask yesterday is why would a young person prefer to see their therapist over their parent after hospitalization from self-harm? When we're setting up a world where parents have to be away often, where it's difficult to access actual pathways to social and economic mobility, growing up, there were many times my mom had to work two jobs, and I didn't get to spend a lot of time with her. But this is the built environment, the one that we've built. So investing in child care is crime prevention. Because when women can leave abusive relationships because there's enough support and safeguards for them to get a job, when women can work and avoid being homeless, when families can afford things that they need and spend time with each other, we create a safer and healthier society. My mom had to leave me for weeks at a time when she chose to join the military and go off to basic training as a single parent. And activities that my grandma could do with a small child living near Sunnyside High School were scarce when I was a toddler. For a city that loves praising godliness and family values, I don't really see a lot of third spaces. I don't really see a lot of places where youth can just exist for free. I don't really see an investment in youth programming. One educator yesterday said, these babies can't read. I see an investment in policing first, not community first. So when the council members showed those videos of young people fighting yesterday and immediately asked the police department how much it would cost to increase patrol, I see that we are willing to throw money into punishment. I wonder, do those kids have enough to do? Do they have outlets? Do you even care? Parents came in here yesterday asking for support before crisis. We have two options. Either we meet the needs of our community on the front end, or we deal with negative outcomes of people's unmet needs on the back end. Fresno continually opts for the second one, which makes everyone more unsafe, including the police officers who react after a harm in the community has taken place and they get called on the scene. Members of the community came to speak on Advance Peace. A study from the Public Library of Science showed that in Fresno, Advance Peace was responsible for a reduction in gun-related assaults and homicides by 49%. That's evidence-based data. But we also heard people share that because of the funding cuts, Advance Peace's work has turned to reactive instead of preventative. And then all of a sudden, we have more gun incidents? Hmm, that's weird. This is exactly what we've been warning about. We have to fund these programs in good faith. And in cities where they have, I've seen the police department fight for them, just like with Advance Peace. So then you say, well, that's not our responsibility. It's the parents' responsibility. Where are the parents? Fresno has a poverty rate of roughly 18% to 20%. The national poverty average, 12.6%. The unemployment rate for the Fresno area is 8.1%. The national average, 4%, half of that. California state average of 5% during that same period. Is that our responsibility too? Or is that a reflection of an economic growth policy based on a police force that expands in a never ending fashion? Police see the unhoused as different than us. I oppose the- Thank you, Arianna.

Next speaker is going to be Shara Thompson.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Char Thompson. I'm the Central California Regional Coordinator with Tenants Together, also the chairperson with the Fresno Tenants Union. I'm a District 1 constituent. And today, I'd just like to really urge you guys to think about how the Eviction Protection Program has been working. we as the coalition and myself and at tenants together we've kind of looked at the program and we've worked with many of your constituents across the city and we have seen gaps in this in this ordinance in this policy and program one thing that we would like love to urge you to do is expand the support to tenants who are being harassed and retaliated i had a phone call last night at about eight o'clock come in monolingual spanish person so i'm kind of Texting back and forth with this person trying to figure out what's going on. He is dealing with a parking issue and his landlord is harassing and they towed his car even though he is a tenant that lives there. These are things that all of our council need to start thinking about. How are these people going to go to work if they don't have a car because their landlord's towing their vehicle? Okay. Clarification on regarding the attorney's obligation to follow through with lawsuits and proceed... proceedings through to its end. We had a tenant at the Parkview Apartments in District 3 who was able to get counsel, even though the rest of the apartment complex did not. Out of 38 people, two people were allowed to go through the intake process and be represented by our contracted attorneys. That attorney quit on that tenant during the trial. The tenant did not quit the attorney. It was opposite. I heard the conversation. It was recorded. Even without the... even without it being acknowledged that they were being recorded. Oversight and accountability. So we've also heard that there are very unprofessional things being said to the constituents that are going through this program. So we're just hoping that we can actually have some parameters on professionalism for our contractors here at the City of Fresno. And also, think about expanding the program to affirmative representation. Maybe there's a habitability case that comes from the asset program, and there's a way that these attorneys can actually go and take these folks to court on a class action lawsuit, and half of that funding goes back to the program and split with the tenants that are being harmed by this landlord. So just really, again, look at the program, take it into consideration. There are plenty of examples. We would love, as a coalition, to meet with you guys and talk further about this. We've already been meeting with some of you. So thank you again.

Thank you. Next speaker is going to be Enrique Little. Enrique Little.

Good morning, everybody. I am here to call attention to a particular interaction or a particular portion from yesterday where the police chief and Carbasi interacted towards regarding the conduct of the HART team I believe the words, is this even real, were used, something like that. I have here notes that I've taken specifically from a witness who is an elderly woman. Her medications, blankets, diapers for her own needs. Not sanity. Sanitariness? You know what I mean. And her puppies were all thrown into the back of a garbage truck by the same officer I've mentioned here a couple times, Rocha, along with Khan. These are, frankly, by all the complaints I've read about these people from the houseless community, not fit to be police, period. It's certainly not... competent to be on a team that is largely dealing with houseless people. And then when this woman who was complaining, talking about there's some puppies in the dump truck that the officer carelessly threw in the back, he said, and I quote, quit your bitching. So also including taking money and food is another thing that was cited towards these officers. So Brandy will get up here and tell you that this is not a unique phenomenon. Council Member Arias said that Brandy is The person in this room who has by far spent the most time with houseless people, I believe him on that. But yeah, Brandy will get up here and say that this is just a very common occurrence. She's been out there with the Hart team. She's seen them work personally as opposed to what they're telling you they're doing. Yeah, that's about all I have to say. I'm gonna get up here and keep saying it because I don't think these people should be out on the street, but I'm tired, I'm winded already, damn. Yeah, heart team right now, that's who we have on there, and if you have a second one, I guarantee you're gonna find even worse stories, so thank you very much.

All right, next card I have for Brandy N.

Enrique's right. Although it's what I see and I don't want to get off of what I have on here, but absolutely, I've actually witnessed horrendous things and heard that universally from so many people who said nearly the same thing over the past four years. I want to jump in and say I want to support the increase and extension of EPP funding and rental assistance program. As Dyer stated in his press conference that the city needs to prioritize prevention. And I'm saying these would do that as well as we should recognize the need for rent stabilization and control. Continuing my comments, we're planning on police regarding the claim that 3% accept services. Again, we have to question the context and parameters of this claim. As I said yesterday, I checked with service providers who confirmed that most days shelter is not a readily available option. But what is offered is things like rides to showers, and they said that most people accept even these and are renting continuing care, and that refusal is the exception. And it also does not make sense, the 3%, looking at coordinated entry systems and the number of people who go to MAPS, if the acceptance rate was anywhere near as low as 3%, it would mean that there are tens of thousands of people in the street. As well, we can support expansion of existing non-police cleanup crews that we already have where people are seeking refuge and say that those who are at those often help them. Mobile bathrooms are great for those who are near there but do not meet the daily needs of sanitation, not just for the in-house but general public. I ask that you stop dismissing the complaints of injustice from those who you do not think have as much experience. People do not need to work regularly with those who are without housing to oppose the actions of heart or ask for respect for rights, municipal code and dignity because there's no justification for it. You also do not know the experience of those in the audience as well as there are many people I've spoke to who have clients who oppose us because of treatment. Youth Homeless Alliance also says that these tactics endanger people by pushing them into unsafe situations. Note that the Seven Principles of Encounter Resolution basically says that these will not work. These will not succeed, these tactics, and the And instead, we ask that we focus on the original recommendations of the Police Commission to disband the Homeless Task Force and reallocate resources to social services and community-based organizations. As noted yesterday, outreach did not go out with the police. They highlight inclusion. The principles also include significant inclusion of those with lived experience, include those encampments as well as community groups, advocates, service providers, and others to provide solutions and that these are serious solutions, not the mayor's office. The city council should.

Thank you, Brandy. I'll invite, I don't have any more cards, but I'll invite anyone else who has not had the opportunity to provide a comment to come on down. Welcome, you have three minutes.

Thank you. Yeah, that's good right there. Thank you, Council. My name is Alfred Aldretti, one of the members and founders of Fresno Resistance. I'm just going to be thanking you all once again for hearing me. Thank you, Council Member Carbasi, for being here and actually showing up. It's good to see you. I'm going to quickly thank Council Members Perea and Council Member Richardson for stepping up yesterday and asking the questions that nobody on the Council would, and then the attorneys, not the City Manager or the Mayor would, about the flock camera contract. Once again, these flock cameras are extremely controversial because they primarily facilitate mass surveillance. They enable warrantless data sharing and pose significant data privacy risk. The chief of police yesterday when asked who has overall access to the surveillance of these cameras could not answer, could not give you a defined answer as to who has complete control over all this, which I think is a huge problem. I noted yesterday how she continually to repeat herself on a story about saving a child, which is all amazing. Anytime that technology can be used to save lives is super important, but what she didn't tell you about was the dangers of its usage. Law enforcement agents, officers across the United States using them to stalk ex-partners and ex-wives, and it goes beyond that. The warrantless data sharing, The database misuse, the lack of efficiency, the vulnerability of hacking, these things are completely serious. Now, ending these flock cameras and the contract is really simple. Cities like Santa Cruz, Mountain View, Grand Chute, all over the United States are starting to do this. And I think by listening to your constituents, concerned about their safety in the streets while passing with their public, while driving around. These cameras are AI powered and already have, like I said, have been noted to misnoting information that we had a woman who was arrested and held in jail for three months because her license plate zero was misidentified as an O. pulling up information on a separate vehicle which tied her to the crime. And beyond that, I think it's time that we stop scapegoating marginalized communities, especially in the Tower District, for ongoing violence that the city has not been able to solve or come to a conclusion on how to efficiently end it. You know, yesterday when Councilmember Arias was asking the Chief if it was finally time to put a paddy wagon out in Tower District, it's kind of evil to watch the Chief of Police smile so wiggly and be like, we already are. Is that really preventative care? Is that really looking at how can we stop violence before it pops out? Or is it, once again, like many of my colleagues were stating, is it after the actions have really happened that we are reacting to these violent crimes? So once again, I urge you guys to please re-look at the budget, allocate these funds.

Thank you. I'll invite anyone else who'd like to comment. Come on down. Welcome.

Hi, my name is Joana Morales with Leadership Council. I'm just here to talk about Eviction Protection Program. I want to thank you all for meeting with us and residents have had a budget hearings. We are asking for continued and additional funding for the Eviction Protection Program. It has been a very critical. program in ensuring families stay housed, and we are going to continue to see vulnerable families targeted. We need preventive measures like this program to continue to be funded. Additionally, we ask that guidelines be updated. The program has been running for five years now, and we have heard from tenants that there are important gaps that need to be addressed to make sure that they are appropriately supported by the program. So once again, we ask that there's added funding and updated guidelines to the program to ensure that families stay healthy. Thank you.

Thank you. Any additional comments from the public? Come on down.

Hi, I'm Mars. I never feel prepared up here, and frankly, I am intimidated by y'all. And by that up there, in God we trust, as an atheist, I don't appreciate that. I'm just curious the origins of that. I know there's a lot of people in Fresno who are not Christian. I just want to throw that out there. I'm Mars. I've lived and worked in Fresno for 10 years. My child has only ever gone to Fresno Unified schools, and I'm a former tenured Fresno Unified teacher. I am here today to share that I believe we should prioritize research-based preventative strategies and creative solutions, ones that would result in reallocating part of the police budget, a very small part, to other departments who address the root of the issues. I am lucky to be a part of a group of community members dedicated to advocating for a budget that recognizes the needs and assets of the people and try to reflect that in the budget that would uplift all folks. When we uplift the most impacted, everyone rises. Have you seen the work that they've done? They have created a website with all of the research they've done. They've spent a year plus trying to find solutions that I'm wondering if any of y'all have ever even imagined. And yes, it goes against the traditional belief that police is the answer. And there are a lot of people who disagree. Um, and a growing number too. So I definitely advise if you want to represent your constituents and maybe in different parts of town, it's not so much, but I would say population wise there is a large portion of people who are interested in alternative and preventative strategies as opposed to carceral and punitive punishment. So some of the demands have changed after yesterday, right? So we demand that the city make public the terms of the grant extension and the funding remaining the extended grant without which there can be no public oversight and without which there can be no certainty that there will be no cost overruns. I also expose the expansion of heart and instead of would like to prioritize social programs like Advance Peace, which I was reading they lost, what was it, $2 million? And now they are given $700,000, I think that's it, that's a big difference. And according to a study by Berkeley, that was what the 51% decrease, they give them the credit. So how dare the police yesterday try and take credit for something that Advanced Peace has research base with Berkeley, a very reputable school. So I don't know, that was interesting to me, because even the wording on the police presentation, thanks.

Thank you. Any further public comments? Yes, instead of spending- Bob, you're out of order, please stop. Stop policing people, let's be people. I've been out on the streets- Bob, here's your first warning. Literally starving out there. Bob.

I've been giving people food bags and water.

Bob, please. Any additional public comment? Okay, seeing none, we're gonna close public comment, move over to our first department, Convention Center and the stadium.

Ready? Very good. Good morning, Council President, members of the Council. As you know, our agreement with the new Convention Center operator, Venue Works, began mid-January this year, and already in just a few months they've landed several exciting events. First, let me introduce to you the team they brought this morning. Mark Solis, the new Convention Center Executive Director, is here, as well as the brand new, just landed, Director of Operations, Matt Ruptosh. And also joining us are Mark Moreno, our Director of Sales and Marketing, and Daniel Sims, the Director of Finance. I wanted to take that moment to introduce them, but Mark Solis will share more with you at the end of my very brief presentation. So turning to the budget summary, there we go, shown here on slide two, the proposed budget for the Convention Center is consistent with the information provided by Convention Center staff during budget development discussions and aligns with the terms of the new, now current, management agreement. As Council is aware, Council approved the new agreement for a three-year term with two optional one-year extensions. Overall, the general fund contribution provided to the Convention Center's operational budget reflects a modest improvement even from last year's contribution, and this is really a result of the expertise of VenuWorks and also the result of the competitive RFP process. However, there are two main caveats. First, The FY27 budget includes an additional small amount of funding for several deferred maintenance projects and concerns, frankly. And also, there was a change in how the parking arrangement was negotiated with this operator, and that's different from our past agreements. Previously, the surface parking revenue stayed with the convention center, and that actually is continuing. But the revenue from the convention center parking garage will now remain with the the parking fund rather than pass through to the convention center. So both of those changes are also reflected in the contribution from the general fund to the convention center. Despite those two changes, the contribution is very similar to previous years. On slide three, we are just showing the debt service. Here, our obligation, of course, associated with the Convention Center and its improvements. It primarily relates to improvements completed in the mid-2000s and includes the construction of the exhibit hall in the late 1990s and some other facilities enhancements. The Convention Center contribution, as I stated, is a subsidy and it's reflected in our budget documents and also here on this slide. It's projected net operating loss plus a management fee plus the additional amount for deferred maintenance and related costs and then also the adjustment for the parking garage revenue, how we are reflecting that revenue. So at this time, I will ask Mark Solis to come up and give you a few highlights of their accomplishments over the last several months. Thank you.

Thank you, Ruthie. Good morning, everyone. I've been here about a little over three months. Love the community. Love the people here. and have amazing staff. I'm very thrilled to lead this staff. Within that short time, I've had the opportunity to visit with a lot of our users of the convention center, Valdez Hall, the Soroyan, and the arena, and just understand how we can get some of these folks to kind of come back, maybe on some of the lost business, and I'll talk about that in a little bit, but One thing that's become apparent is that we have to reshape the way we've been selling ourselves. And that is, rather than just showing rent and a bunch of expenses under that that complicates matters, we're going to an all-inclusive pricing model. So we're going to aggressively market all four venues through a proactive approach using an all-inclusive pricing package structure. This pricing will include the rent, the setup, event staffing, tables, chairs, and all those related expenses. It'll make it easier for the end user to really see they're getting a complete package rather than complicate them with a bunch of expenses they see. In the convention center and exhibit hall, for example, some of the highlights that we have coming up this fiscal year is we are see a need where we can go out and increase the wedding business, the quinceanera business at the convention center at Valdez Hall. So we are, the first quarter of 27, going to produce a very large wedding quinceanera expo. And we're inviting all of the different vendors. throughout the entire central region to participate with this. But the end result is that not only can they show what the other vendors can do, but we can show what we have at the convention center in Valdez Hall with the end goal of increasing that particular segment of the business. We're also working on the cultural weddings. We're working aggressively to create packages and pricing to accommodate these large weddings. And some of them are quite large, over 1,000 people. We're going to target previously lost business to bring back some clients. And we're working with our food and beverage catering partner, Pardini's, extremely well. We're working with them to go back and look at the list of lost business and where we can get some of these folks back and give them some incentives to come back, and a lot of those can be tied into those all-inclusive pricing packages. In the Soroyan Theater, Broadway Across America wants to extend to a multi-year agreement. For example, we have Miss California, the state competition that's back beginning next week, and they're looking to do a three-year agreement with us. We're going to aggressively book the Soroyan with a variety of entertainment, working alongside our partner ATG Entertainment to program comedy, small to large concerts, et cetera. In the Valdez Hall, we have some new activity that we're approaching there. We're doing some amateur MMA events. working with the community on that, different community organizations to put this on. We're looking to get more aggressive with more community events. The Valdez Hall is really a multi-use facility that can do a variety of different things. And one of the things we think it can do that we're kind of lacking, I think, in the market is we're going to program a once a month country concert series, or maybe we'll do some Latin-based bailas in there once a month, because we think that's an opportunity for us to not only get more bodies in the building, but it's going to create a lot of great ancillary revenue for us. In the Seland Arena, Of course, the announcement, the return of the Fresno Falcons. They begin playing in October of this year. They're looking at 28 home games, and we've got a five-year agreement with them. There's increased bookings that we're doing with some boxing events, professional boxing returning, mixed martial art events. And concerts. And I think one of the things we're going to focus in on is a mid-sized concert. That might be our sweet spot in the Seland Arena. But we're also looking to bring in monster truck, circus, comedy events, working with the community as well with some of our annual events that we do, the state and regional tournaments. the Christian congregation of Jehovah witnesses is looking to come into our facility for a five year arrangement. Um, so, uh, Feld entertainment, which produces Disney on ice, we're extending a new five year agreement with them. And there's a lot of, uh, multiple venue upgrades that we're doing at the arena. There's a new video and scoreboard that's, uh, actually going up in July. There's a, an extensive concession stand remodel, and we're doing just a lot of upgrades, including upgrades to the dressing rooms on the back of house amenities, most of which has been postponed in prior years. This is greatly going to improve the back of house client's experience and help us retain some of the business. So I thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mark. This department also includes the stadium, and at the Council President's pleasure, I can go ahead and do that presentation right now, too, or we can stop and take questions for the Convention Center. Just move right along.

We'll keep them separate.

Okay. Very good. So we'll stop for here. Of course, we're here for any questions.

Yeah, we'll do questions at the Convention Center, then we'll come back and talk about the stadium. All right. I have Council Member Karabasi punched up, followed by Council Member Richardson. Oh, sorry. All right. Councillor Richardson, do you have questions on the convention center or the stadium? Go for it. And then that's followed by Councillor Vargas.

Mr. Solis, could I have you at the podium, please? All right. Welcome. Good morning. Thank you. Great hair. You, if I'm not mistaken, city manager's office, the negotiations with IATSE are directly, they manage those, not here in city hall. Is that correct?

Correct. A contract would be between IATSE and the vendor.

Got it. Okay. When are those negotiations coming up next? They are currently... Taking place. Okay. So since getting on deck here, taking over this job, that's probably been one of the first challenges or opportunities for you. That is correct. Okay. After that, looking forward to kind of the updates of that. Secondly, is there a plan? You talked about some of the things to include inclusive pricing, which I think is great when it comes to kind of marketing. I'm not a marketing guy. That's your wheelhouse. I'll take your word for it. However, with the city of Fresno, some of the biggest events that we have downtown every year, some of the things that reel in tens of thousands of people, is there a plan to include our parking strategy to include corresponding events taking place in the convention center complex? do we have a plan to capitalize on some of those large-scale annual events that we have in Fresno, sometimes the opportunities of which we just kind of let go to the wind?

No, of course. I mean, one of the things that we're looking to do is a variety of different events, whether it's inside the facility and inclusive of even outside. And so there's some initial stages of talking with various producers of live entertainment on doing some outside events around our campus.

Okay. I would like to schedule a meeting to sit down with you. Just kind of discuss, maybe take another tour like we did last year. In the meantime, Council President, that's all I had for Convention Center. Thank you.

Councilor Arias.

Assistant City Manager, Ms. Quinto, I have a question for you on the financials. On page two of your presentation, the 2025 actuals go from $3.8 million to 2026 amended to $11.1 million. It's like a $1.7 million difference. Remind me, what makes up that substantial difference?

If you look back on all of our historical presentations, it does come out like this. It looks a little bit funny. But what we do is in this, for these appropriations, we go ahead and we include all of the appropriations that The Convention Center has planned, but really what actually happens is usually a net number, which then covers debt service and any other contributions from the city. So even though their expenditures do not go through our system, we want to reflect what those total appropriations or expenditures are that they experience.

So it's fair to say then the total revenue in the Convention Center is above $10 million?

Yes, it is. Actually, for the current year, it would be, yes, above $10 million, and for next year, just above $9 million.

Got it. And our portion of that, essentially, our total subsidies around $3 million?

For the operations, it's $895,000, and then for the debt service, yes, it's another $2.7 million, so $3.5 million.

When do we finish paying off the debt service?

Oh, I should have had that. Santino...

My goal is to trip you up, so.

No, no, I actually made a note to print it out and have it with me. Go ahead.

Yeah. Yeah, Convention Center, right? Yeah, I do have it right here. So Convention Center, April 1st of 2027.

Is that the taxable or the non-taxable?

That is the non-taxable. And then there's a taxable portion as well. I just had the exhibit hall expansion.

Sure, so in essence, our $3 million mortgage would basically be paid off in 2027.

The exhibit hall expansion matures April 1st, 2029.

Okay, so about half of it, 2027, and the other half a couple of years later.

When was the last time we did a deferred maintenance or renovation assessment? Because I'm assuming at that point we get to potentially borrow more money to make a fusion of investment.

Obviously, that would be the pleasure of the administration and council. We don't have any plans for that currently. However, we are in the middle of a capital deferred maintenance evaluation and assessment. some very good information about some things that have been overlooked for many years, and so we are trying to chip away at that, at least for the health and safety issues and anything that's immediate. I will say that our former operator, to answer your question, did provide me with a little bit dated assessment, and it was from around 2019, and that was the last one that I received.

So what specifically, what improvements are you guys planning to engage in the immediate nature?

The current and most pressing issue is a replacement of the fire panel, and we're almost done with that, but that was a very expensive endeavor. Also, the HVAC in the box office is non-functional, and that's a very uncomfortable situation for the folks working basically almost outdoors with the windows. We also needed to do some cleaning and clearing of the roof in order to make sure that our insurance requirements were maintained. There have been some recent plumbing repairs that have required digging into trenches, etc. And also a big health and safety concern is the hood in the Valdez kitchen, which is basically not up to code, and so that needs to be addressed.

Wasn't that the kitchen that we spent $5 million a few years ago building for?

I'm not familiar with it. I wasn't here at that time, but I know there was a significant investment to improve it. But it was basically constructed out of code and currently remains out of code, so the hood. And so we need to address that.

And that will be done this year?

Hopefully, yes. Yeah, we've got a couple. The convention center actually has a couple of quotes, and we haven't. I don't believe they've engaged yet, but it's coming up.

Do we, you referenced the parking revenue will no longer be a pass-through to the operator per past practice. How much are we talking about in terms of pass-through that they used to receive?

So there's two aspects of the parking revenue. One is the surface lot, and the surface lot revenues do remain with the convention center in that fund. So that hasn't changed. What will change, what has changed already, is the revenue from the parking garage. And that, I believe, was estimated originally between $400,000 and $500,000. But, again, VenuWorks has come in and said that's fine. They adjusted their budget slightly. We're still within terms of the contract, and they're moving forward.

So the parking department is getting an infusion of half a million dollars a year now.

Not quite, but somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000.

And what's the plans for that money in the parking department?

Well, as you know, and I'm speaking a little for the city manager here, I'm sure she'll chime in. But the parking fund has been historically in quite a deficit. And this will help actually more properly reflect its revenues versus the expenditures that they have and the requirements of that fund. And getting very close, if not already, at a break-even status.

Yeah, unfortunately what we learned through this process was that we had not been properly managing the relationship between the convention center and parking. It was one of those where we have a lot of these in the cities of that's just the way we've always done it. And when trying to determine like what the relationship is, there was no formal relationship. And so we probably shouldn't have been doing it that way in the past, but that's no reason to continue doing it the wrong way in the future. So this was an effort to formalize and recognize that those are parking revenues. And if there's going to be some sort of sharing, that needs to be a documented relationship, not just that's just the way we've done it.

Here's my concern. Historically speaking, it was understood that the parking garage by the convention center was maybe not managed, but overseen, supervised, accountable to the operator of the convention center. Historically speaking, our parking department has allowed the parking garages, other parking garages, be run to the ground with a ton of different maintenance, elevators that don't work, EV stations that have never been fixed. My concern is, by us taking over that garage and that revenue, that then garage becomes a deteriorating asset. I know we have a couple garages in the construction phase, so at some point there'll be a lot more revenue than we've ever had in the parking department. What is the plan to make sure that the parking garage by the convention center does not end up looking like the spiral garages now?

Again, I would defer to the city manager, and actually parking was part of the planning department's budget. But I will say that they've had quite a bit of challenge that they've overcome in taking over the management of all the garages. And it was that garage in particular, and we are fortunate to have such a beautiful and relatively new garage today. IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO THE CONVENTION CENTER ASSETS THERE. HOWEVER, IT WAS A THIRD-PARTY MANAGED GARAGE AND NOW IT'S IN-HOUSE AND I BELIEVE THAT IT IS PART OF ALL THE MAINTENANCE.

ARE WE ALSO AUTOMATING THAT GARAGE AS WE ARE THE OTHERS OR STILL MANNED BY A PERSON?

IT'S BEING AUTOMATED, YES.

SO WILL IT RECEIVE ANY IMPROVEMENTS OR IS IT IN GOOD CONDITION THAT IT WON'T RECEIVE ANY UPGRADES ANYTIME SOON?

It is in good condition. I don't believe it's in need of any upgrades. However, I do know that it will be managed to make sure that maintenance doesn't turn into deferred maintenance.

Can we get just a request for information to provide us what the plan is for that garage in terms of any upcoming maintenance or upkeep that needs to be done? It has historically been a good condition garage. I don't want to see it go the other way.

Councilmember, I also want to slightly correct one of the statements that you made about that parking garage being, and I'm multitasking, so I may not have heard you correctly, about it being handled by the convention center. That's not entirely accurate when they're were events. It was more like jointly operated, like day-to-day, still managed by the parking division. But during events where it would be in use for a convention center event, then there would be, I believe actually we still staffed it, but it was more of a joint operation. But that garage has been managed by the parking division.

Thank you. I do have questions for the convention center operators. How are you? Good, thank you. How are you? Good. The historical challenge has been that we used to have the conventions managed by the same firm that manages Save Mart Center. And there was always this lack of, you know, prioritization of the Sound Arena asset to Save Mart Center. Over the years, Sound Arena has become more expensive to utilize than the Save Mart Center. That's why we've lost business from local institutions, from fundraisers, from nonprofits. Where are you in terms of our price point right now compared to our immediate competition across the city as a Save Mart Center?

Well, let's look at it two different buckets, okay? We have commercial rates, that's kind of industry standard. So we price ourselves right in the lower end, maybe for arenas of that size in California to make ourselves attractive for- So if I'm doing a concert, a sound arena, or a convention, or a state market center, who gives me the better price?

Well, selling arena would. MY OPINION, IT WOULD. IF I'M DOING A GRADUATION, A HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION OR COLLEGE GRADUATION, WHO GIVES ME THE BETTER PRICE?

WE WILL, YES. IN ALL INSTANCES, WE SHOULD BE LESS THAN THE SAVEMART CENTER.

IN THOSE TWO INSTANCES, HISTORICALLY, IT'S BEEN THE SAVEMART CENTER. THAT'S WHY ALL THIS LAST SEASON OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE GRADUATIONS ARE ALL AT THE SAVEMART CENTER. That's why Latino concerts have gone to Chachancey or Save Mart Center. So I want to bring that to your attention because I'm going to be looking very closely. Because what we were convinced of is if we have somebody who is in compromise, i.e. with Save Mart Center or a competition, if we address the catering contract, if we make investment into scoreboard, we're gonna be better situated to give a better price point. And so I'm gonna check and verify on whether we are being competitive, because if not, then I think we're gonna have to revisit how we operate, because that's been our challenge. The other challenge has been cultural events. Historically speaking, we've lost most of our cultural events to Visalia. And it's been driven by food. The cater that we have, which historically didn't provide good options. And if you brought your own better option, the Indian community knows what good Indian food is. The Latino community knows what authentic Mexican food is. And sometimes it's not gonna be the rubber chicken of a typical fundraiser. How are you managing that? Because ultimately, food is going to be the driver. I know alcohol is also a driver, the price points you all give. Are you guys... I was promised that the new contract with Pardini's allowed third-party vendors to come in without making it extraordinarily expensive for the tenant to utilize the venue. Is that the case?

Well, I will say this, that... we've had a very positive working relationship with Pardini's with the end goal to how do we make it more attractive for cultural events to come to the convention center, just business in general. And so we're working with them to, you know, uh, have meals, different meal packages. There are going to be an all-inclusive pricing as well. They can mirror what we're doing on the rental side of things. I think that's going to help us out a lot. We have been working.

I want to be a lot more direct here.

Yeah.

In my view, whether Soundrina is working, Convention Center is working or not, is whether you can attract the local Indian weddings, the local Hmong weddings, and the local Latino quincineras. If you cannot... then we failed because that is our backyard, and they're leaving to Visalia based on their ability to get their choice of food. So I don't want, again, to debate over your working relationship with Pardini's. So be it. It is good, great. It's are you giving them the quality of cuisine that they want in order to use our facilities?

Council Member Arias, let me just step in here for a moment. I want to be very clear because I know exactly what you're getting at. And I will tell you that both our operator and our food and concessionaire and caterer fully understand from me, the city manager via me, that there is an economic multiplier for keeping those cultural events here and downtown. And although we do have a contract with Pardini's, that contract does say that the city is willing to consider foregoing our share, if you will, of the alcohol sales because we get the economic multiplier of having a 1500 person event downtown. We understand that. And so what we've been doing is very plainly working with Pardini's to have their pricing reflect not only a discount on their side, but also just a discount on our side so that we can greatly reduce the cost of those events, have people bring in their own alcohol, but they can't do it for free. And they can't for two very good reasons. First is staffing. Pardini's is staffing the bar. They're using their... non-alcoholic beverages, their cups, et cetera, they need to be paid fairly for the staffing and the supplies. And as well, they hold the alcohol license. So there has to be a charge for the alcohol to the customer, to the client. BUT ALTHOUGH THOSE TWO THINGS ARE IN CONSIDERATION, WE DO ALSO HAVE THE REALIZATION THAT WE CAN FOREGO OUR REALLY WHAT ENDS UP BEING A VERY SMALL PROFIT FOR THE CITY ON AN EVENT THAT SIZE BECAUSE WE HAVE THE ECONOMIC MULTIPLIER THAT WE KNOW WE'RE GETTING AND KEEPING FROM HAVING THOSE.

I RECOGNIZE PEOPLE HAVE TO BE MADE WHOLE FINANCIALLY, BUT THERE'S TWO WAYS TO SKIN THE CAT. ONE IS A PRICE POINT DISCOUNT, AND ONE IS TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF THE CUISINE. Right.

Ruthie, talk about the food, because I know you talked bar, but he's getting out the ethnic food opportunities.

So the third party caterer option was a very distinct and inclusive section in our new contract with Pardini's that was approved in, I believe, May of 2025. And that does allow for a third party caterer to come in. AT THE CHOICE OF THE CLIENT. THE ONLY THING PARDINIS WILL DO IS NEGOTIATE WHETHER OR NOT PARDINIS WILL DO THE SERVING AND IF THEY ARE USING THEIR SUPPLIES AND THEIR SERVERS, THEN THERE WILL BE SOME MINIMAL PRICE PER PERSON OR THEY DON'T WANT ANY HELP FROM PARDINIS AND THAT'S ALLOWABLE TOO. JUST BRING IN THE THIRD PARTY CATERER AND HAVE THEM DO THE WHOLE THING.

SO THAT'S WHAT I WANT TO GET TO, ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER, BECAUSE MY CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DIVERSE COMMUNITY THAT WE HAVE IS, IF I BRING MY CATERER IN, my restaurant, my whomever, you've now doubled the price per plate. And therefore, if I go to Visalia, they don't do that. So we're going to go to Visalia.

Well, we've checked with Visalia, and that's not the case. They do also have a nominal charge. I will say it's not double, and neither is our charge double. Our charge does, it's nominal, but there has to be a recognition only if Pardinis is doing the staffing. If they're not, then there's no additional charge. It's just the rent of the facility and then whatever the third-party caterer is charging.

I think you made that abundantly clear previously, and that's why we included that specific language in the Pardini's contract. And we also, because we keep hearing Visalia, Visalia, Visalia, and so we have actually worked very, very closely with them to have a very clear understanding of what their pricing model is. and tried to either beat it or be comparable. But we aren't looking, as Ruthie said, obviously, and I don't think you disagree with this, if they're using their staffing, they need to be paid for their staffing. That's completely reasonable. But if they're not and they want to bring in their own restaurant or whatever, then they're allowed to do that. So if you're hearing something since the new contract has been in place that that's not the case, then we need to know that right away. Please.

What I'm going to do over the next six months that I have left is monitor the folks who go to Sound Arena Convention Center, wanting to reserve, and then circling back, it's my Chet Chansey experience, right? Unless you go through the process of trying to secure Chet Chansey, you wouldn't know that they're trying to bill you $150,000 to use the place until you get the line item and you're like, you priced me out. My last question for... the operator, and for you, assistant city managers, what's been the coordination like with the new hotel opening? Are we having conversations already around how we coordinate events, hotel rooms, discounts, anything of that nature, parking?

All of the above. I mean, it's been a really strong relationship. We can't wait for them to open up. In fact, they've had some slight delays in opening. And they had booked some events in there. And so we've worked with them to relocate some of those events to accommodate them at the convention center.

Thank you. I do appreciate all you guys' work on this. And I appreciate the mayor getting us a new scoreboard. But I want to see the foot traffic increase again. My last point, just because I raised it before, elementary school kids, when they use Soaring in Theater, Historically, they were put through security, which bottlenecked everyone getting in, because you know, kids have backpacks and elementary kids need to be searched. That has convinced some of the school sites not to come use Orion for events, because the delay in time to get into the facility I KNOW YOU GUYS HAVE YOUR OWN SECURITY PROTOCOLS, BUT I DON'T KNOW IF A FULL BODY CHECK AND AIRPORT SECURITY TYPE, YOU KNOW, PAT DOWN IS REQUIRED FOR ELEMENTARY KIDS IF THEY'RE GONNA COME FOR A RECITAL OR SOMETHING IN THIS ORIENT THEATER. SO JUST FEEDBACK FOR YOU AS YOU ALL GO AND OPERATE OUR FACILITY. THANK YOU ALL.

ALL RIGHT, COUNCILMEMBER RICHARDSON. JUST REAL QUICK, MR. SOLIS OR RUTHIE, AS APPROPRIATE. At Chukchansi Park, the city maintains the owner's suite up top, and oftentimes that is used to reward people, whether it's the city department is doing well, first responders, nonprofits, whatever else made as an incentive for participating in city events and things like that. Does that exist at Seland Arena as well?

We have no suites at Seland Arena. Very easy. Thank you.

Second question real quick. With the addition of new parking structures, either down there across from Chuck Chansey or up on Fulton Street, do we plan in the future, and if we don't know yet, that's a fine answer, do we plan on using those parking structures and having any sort of transportation to and from the convention center complex to be able to utilize more expansive footprint of parking structures to support events?

Great question to ask, and the short of it is... Yes. I think I mentioned earlier that we're talking with some live producers of doing larger outdoor events. And that's thousands of people. So they need to get here via whether it's a park and ride system or it's at another parking structure and we do shuttles to get them back and forth. So, yes.

Cool. As we get to the completion of those parking structures, I think that'll be a really important way to be able to benefit people, get them good parking, but get them transportation to and from. So that should be an exciting step. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And Council Member Richardson, if I may, also, we do have for the event that Mark was just talking about, which hasn't quite been landed, but we're hopeful. And then also for the Central California Women's Conference, which is in September, we have put them in contact with the trolley services so that we can be running trolleys back and forth throughout the other downtown garages as well. I think that would be a nice touch. Okay.

Ruthie, city manager. Since February, what has, under the sort of two components of compensation, what's been paid to VenuWorks under the limited financial performance guarantee? Are we on track? Is it tracking with what we estimated?

It is tracking. We do not yet have an excess where we go into the variable management fee, but absolutely from a monthly perspective. And then how we work the... the contribution for the operating losses, we deposit it upfront for, so we deposited basically five and a half months upfront and then, um, and then we'll do a true up at the end of the year, which is what the contract calls for.

Okay. Thank you. Um, all right, let's get into the stadium, the stadium component of this.

Very good. Thank you, Council President. So the second part of our presentation this morning is for the stadium. And I'd like to mention that we have Abby Lawson, Assistant General Manager, and also Jonathan Bravo, both from the Grizzlies here in the audience. And of course, they're available to answer any questions you may have along with myself. at the end of this very brief presentation. Starting on slide five, this is a summary of the stadium department budget. This reflects the terms of the 2023 agreement with DBH Fresno, and the revenues are budgeted at $4.35 million, or about $125,000 over the current year's amended budget. Charges for services are budgeted at $247,000 of which 104,000 is the required capital contribution from the city, excuse me, from DBH Fresno. And then also the city has a required capital contribution as well of 52,100. We also have some ARP APES fees that are anticipated in other revenue and we use that to help offset our debt service, which is included here on this slide. I also just want to mention that part of the expenditures or the contribution from the city covers utilities, as stated in the agreement, of $300,000 a year, and then those parking pass-throughs of approximately $84,000 a year. And I believe that's all I had. If you have any questions, of course, again, we're here to answer them. Thank you.

City Manager, who's with us today from the organization?

Abby Lawson. The new president, Andrew Milios, had a few days of scheduled vacation during this time, so he wasn't able to be here. But Abby's here, if you have any questions. General Manager.

Assistant General Manager. That's unfortunate. It's bad enough our team is lost in a black hole of private equity. We can't even get the local face to be here. I don't know.

Well, I have to take responsibility. I did not let him know in time for him to change his vacation plans. He actually offered to change his vacation plans, and I discouraged him from that, so I apologize if that was a misjudgment on my part. Yeah, defend my budget.

That's later in the morning. All right, I have Council Member Carbasi followed by Council Member Arias. Oh. Oh, there he is. Okay.

Speak of the devil, he shall appear.

Okay.

I kind of asked my question earlier about the stadium. It's a wonderful stadium. It's a real gem. I asked for an RFI on the elevator. I'll just wait to hear back from that. But anything we can do to fix that elevator would be great. And if it needs funding, we should talk about that during the budget process. That's really all I have to say about it.

Yes, and we'll get that back to you, I'm sure. Brian Barr is working on it. It has been evaluated in the past and at the time was considered prohibitive, but we do need to look at it again. It's been many years.

Okay, thanks. Thank you, Council President. Assistant City Manager, and if you don't have this answer now, you can just get back to me on a request for information. How long before our agreement with Major League Baseball expires? There's an agreement that we have in which they guarantee to keep a team here. After that, they don't guarantee to keep a team here anymore.

Our agreement with Major League Baseball?

Yes. Part of the last renewal of the contract, we got an agreement with Major League.

I think I've seen... Brandon, you can help me. I believe that what I saw, and by the way, this was prior to our administration, I think I've seen a letter that was between the previous mayor about making best efforts, kind of a lukewarmie, but...

i don't have that i'm having computer issues right now but i can try and dig that up for you i know i've seen it in the file yeah if you could just give us that again and remind us when how long they're guaranteed to remain here because i think it's 2028 if my memory serves me right we last renewed and changed the terms of the agreement in 2020 where we gave them a much larger subsidy and in exchange they promised to be here for a certain date um On that similar front, when was the last time we authorized or used our authority to do an audit?

We have not actually gone in and done any specific review of their financials. However, they are required to provide annual audited statements to us. They're about a year behind, I will say, since the changeover. There's been a little bit of a hiccup, but we do get those regularly.

I know the contract allows us to order an audit, an independent audit. I'm going to be making a motion to that effect later today. Okay. I want to prepare the next legislative body for one, some clarity around when are they guaranteed to remain here? Two, have we looked at their financials in a bit? I know they do self audits and that's just a requirement. Because I suspect that in the near future they're going to come back asking for a larger subsidy and for additional renovations. REMIND ME, ASSISTANT CITY MANAGER, HOW MUCH MONEY DID WE RECENTLY PUT INTO THE STATE IN THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS?

YES, I WAS NOT THE ASSISTANT CITY MANAGER THE LAST TIME A LARGE INVESTMENT WAS MADE, AND MAYBE THE CITY MANAGER CAN HELP ME. THERE WAS A COUPLE MILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF IMPROVEMENTS SEVERAL YEARS AGO, ACTUALLY BEFORE I GOT HERE. I THINK IN THE LAST TWO BUDGETS. IT'S BEEN AT LEAST THREE, BECAUSE THAT'S HOW MANY YEARS I'VE BEEN HERE. It was for the lights, for some turf.

The sound system, the lighting, the turf. Mayor, I know you're...

I'd say it's $7 million, right, Mayor? It's about $7, $7.5 million we did. Painted the stadium, all lights, LED lights. We did the... The sound system, I think it was like 100 speakers. The turf. Scoreboard was over a million, the turf. And then we did the bedding cages. We've done some restroom improvements now.

Did you say clubhouse? The clubhouse. Clubhouse.

Yes. So there's been about $7.5 million, I believe, in upgrades over the last three and a half years.

And that was above what the contract requires, right, from our joint deferred maintenance fund?

SOME OF THAT WAS REQUIRED BY MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL.

SOME OF IT WAS REQUIRED BY MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL. SOME OF IT WAS THOSE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE CAPX FUND THAT I WAS DISCUSSING, THE CONTRACT CALLS FOR THE GRIZZLIES TO PUT SOME RESOURCES AND THE CITY TO PUT SOME RESOURCES. Those resources, frankly, over the last several years have gone to improve every single restroom facility on both floors of the concourse and then the third floor as well.

And that has been ongoing for several years, but I'm not aware of any- Council Member, I found the Major League Baseball letter and the information.

Send it to us.

I have the letter, but I'm looking also at the binding letter of intent, which...

It was, I think, a pinky promise crossing your heart.

Yeah, so what the binding letter of intent said with regard to Major League Baseball was... MLB would sign an agreement with the team for 10 years. MLB would sign an agreement with the city to keep professional baseball in Fresno through lease termination December 31st, 36. MLB would make their best efforts to bring AAA or AA back to Fresno. If and when the team regains a AAA franchise, the existing sublease terms would be reinstated given PCL dissolution and restructuring. The actual letter from Major League Baseball, which I'm looking at, is dated December 9th of 2020. And on their letterhead, it basically says that, one, encourage all major league clubs to consider selecting the city as a future location of AAA or AA affiliate. Have a major league club continue to maintain an affiliation with a professional development league club located in the city through the 2030 season. We'll use its best efforts to have a professional development league club located in the city City from the 2031 season through at least 2036, unless the California league or any, I'll circulate this. I don't want to read it, but we did get a signed letter from major league baseball with regard through 2036.

Back to the stadium. What's the current status of the joint fund for improvements in this proposed budget? How much money is in there and, What was the contribution by both parties?

Again, the contribution from DVH was 143,000 and the contribution from the city is 52,100. And the current budget or the current balance I think is what you're asking, is that correct?

Yes, it's about 200.

It's 285,000.

And is there any plans this year to draw down that money?

Not yet. There are a couple of things that I have walked the stadium with Andrew that he is considering, but he has not yet put a proposal forth for our consideration.

Do we have any control in the contract on whether the company is allowed to engage an exclusive contract with a third party for food vending or any other event? Can they sub-lease or do an exclusive agreement with any third party without our approval?

There is no exclusivity. There is preferred vendors and there's primary vendors and that any change in those vendors is required to be put in writing and the city is given notice, but we don't have the ability to direct them or to. deny them that change. And no, they do not have the right to exclusively only require that a client utilize their preferred vendors. In fact, it's very clear that a client can come in and utilize a vendor of their choice. There's a difference for the alcohol, and again, with the alcohol license, there has to be agreement because, of course... And choices.

Yeah. Who's their preferred list of vendors?

I don't have that off the top of my head. I don't know if Abby can respond for catering and concessions.

I'm not asking about your in-house. I know you guys have your own concession. Do you have a preferred list of external vendors?

Historically, we've used Fresno Street Eats. They have a large network of food trucks.

Are they officially a preferred vendor?

They have been historically, but that doesn't mean that we haven't used other just single food trucks that have, you know.

What does one have to do to be on your preferred list?

Simply knock on our door and let us know who they are and make sure that they're credible and, you know, we go through all the checks that they have, you know, all their permits, licenses, insurances, things like that.

At this point, is your preferred list just one vendor?

No.

So you have other vendors that are preferred?

Yeah, I can't name them off the top of my head. Yeah, of course.

If you can provide us a list of your preferred vendors, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Do you mean all vendors or just food?

All vendors. Okay. Thank you.

It'll take some time. It's fine. Absolutely.

Thank you. City Manager, is it possible for us as a body in the request for information to get a If a concert for 10,000 people wants to come to Fresno, what would be the cost at Jachancy? What would be the cost at Sandrina? And what would be the cost at St. Mark's Center? you know, all things included, that you all include, what would be the cause? I'd like to understand where we're at, what market we've created locally, because I get the complaints from sponsors and promoters, you're too expensive, you're too this, but there's so many variables, so much authority by our primary operators that they have to waive, to credit, to discount, that's really hard to understand. So I'd like to understand what the market is, as there's been conversations about maybe another soccer stadium, you know, I'd like to understand where we're at in the market.

And that's absolutely, we can do that for the stadium and for Seland Arena. I think whatever we get from the Save Mart Center, you know, it would be, like you said, it's variable and difficult to be able to tie that down if we're just doing an informal market check, but we'll reach out.

Thank you. Just my last comment on the stadium. I think Under the mayor's leadership, it's seen some improvements, thanks to the infusion of money from this council and our willingness to invest. I'm still struggling to deal with the lack of landscaping around the stadium. It still, at times, looks like bare dirt. It looks like the apartment complex that is 50 years old and people don't invest in the landscape anymore. I know there's always a trick on who's responsible. Is it Public Works? Is it the stadium? can we get an idea of, you know, what would it cost? I know the lines exist. There's got to be some irrigation lines underneath, but, um, we can figure out how to beautify that.

You bet. What, what was, I'm sorry.

The landscaping.

The landscaping around the stadium. Around the stadium.

Yeah. For a while there, there was like a missing palm tree at the entrance that finally got addressed. And then, um, The landscaping typically floods every year from a broken sprinkler, but it's flooding because it's just dirt. So at some point there were bushes or some type of landscaping there that over time died and nobody replaced.

Yeah, and I think even bigger than that, Councilmember, we had that meeting yesterday, downtown partnership. And just a lot of concern about not just around the stadium, but around Fulton and so forth. So we're going to put together a group of folks, including Mark Standreff and others, about just beautify downtown. And what can we do to enhance a number of things around there, from lighting to trash to graffiti to pressure washing sidewalks, as we had a lengthy conversation this week. It's so important for that whole area to be attractive when people come in. So I totally agree.

Yeah, there's that circular planter, big circular planter. There's nothing inside of it, right? Like at some point that had landscaping, had some. If we can figure out how to spruce that up, because we did spend quite a bit of money on the exterior face of it, but the landscaping is not matching up. Those are all my questions. Thank you.

Council Member Richardson.

Yes, these may be for you and it may be for directly for the stadium staff. These are stadium questions. If you highlight everything on a page, you've really highlighted nothing. So like my sole focus for the stadium is ADA accessibility. I was banging this drum last year. I'm going to keep banging it this year. Can you speak specifically to what upgrades have gone in in the last year that have increased the ADA accessibility and facilities at the stadium?

I I don't know that there were any additional ADA access improvements, but I do know for sure, because I viewed them with my own eyes, that every single restroom has an ADA-compliant stalls. We did check into the request from last year that you made regarding the changing tables for adults, and that was not part. We had already done the concourse restrooms, but that was not part of the restrooms on the third level. And we can go back and revisit that if we wanted to add them. But, you know, we just made those improvements. And I know although they're compliant, they don't have the additional amenity that you requested.

Absolutely. I'm going to chase this one down until I either leave office or get stricken from this mortal coil. So I went and looked and took a tour of the stadium after budget season last year and walked through there with Mr. Franks. And he said, yep, this is a bathroom where I can easily go in. This is an ADA accessible bathroom. This is perfect spot for it. The studs in the wall and the space and everything were perfect for it. He did price cost analysis for what the different styles of table would look like. Everything checked out. I'm just not sure at what point baby went out with the bathwater.

Yeah, it might have been when Derek was, unfortunately, was leaving us, but I was not aware of that, and so I will definitely reach out both to him and then circle back around with Andrew and pick up where that left off.

Okay.

We didn't realize that that had occurred. No, didn't know. So very difficult for us to follow through.

Okay. Well, luckily, someone's continuing on this path, so I'm going to continue pushing this and expect that... I will probably go take another tour of the stadium, and that is going to be my sole focus. So next time I see you guys, because we haven't really had a chance to meet yet, I'm going to follow up with that. The ADA accessibility of that stadium, that is such a... A great opportunity for the city to come together, whether it's holidays or whatever else, and the fact that we're not making it accessible for some people in the city sucks. That's not our job. We have to make it for everybody. So I'm going to continue. Thank you for the information. I will round up all the information that we have that we got from Mr. Franks. Hopefully some of that remained organically with the stadium staff, but we're going to chase this down, and whether it requires a budget motion, money out of my office, whatever it is, we need to make that really a place for everybody. So thanks.

All right, Council, any further questions, comments, motions, et cetera?

All right, yeah, you're off the hook for now.

I'll go ahead and open up some additional public comments on this particular department, whether it's regarding Convention Center or the stadium. Any member of the public who would like to chime in, now would be the time. All right, seeing none, we'll go ahead and close that up and we will move on to the next. So our next department we have listed is going to be, let's see, you know what, we'll move, we'll skip over that. We're still missing council vice president and airports in his district. We'll move over to the city clerk's office. Council, do you want a presentation on this? I have one member requesting. A couple requesting it. Does anybody want a presentation? City Clerk, keep this brief. Oh, sorry, we're just gonna do Q&A. I don't have anyone. Yeah, stay up there in the hot seat.

Can you put up our presentation just in case so I can?

I'll make a motion to make a member per a council president for the day. All things run through four votes, yeah.

I might vote for the motion, I don't know. All right, good morning.

Amy Aller, city clerk. I won't give a presentation, but I'm happy to take your questions.

Yeah, good morning, clerk. Thank you. Yeah, we're gonna ask you to sort of bypass that, but council, floor's open for council.

JUST COUNCIL PRESIDENT, I'D LIKE TO MAKE A MOTION TO ADD $50,000 TO THE CITY CLERK'S BUDGET.

ALL RIGHT. WE HAVE A MOTION AND WE HAVE A SECOND. PUT THAT IN THE HOPPER. MOTION BY COUNCIL MEMBER ADIOS, SECOND BY COUNCIL MEMBER PEREA. COUNCIL, ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, MOTIONS, ET CETERA?

WHAT FOR? During her review, there were some items that needed to be addressed. So as a new city clerk, I want to make sure she has some additional funds to execute some other priority work that we've assigned her. And she'll come back with a plan to expense the $50,000 if all is necessary. Is it something that is best not discussed in the open?

Correct.

All right, council, any additional or further comment? I don't see anyone punched up. Thank you, clerk.

You're very welcome.

And congratulations again.

Thank you.

All right, at this time, we'll go ahead and open up some additional public comments on the city clerk specifically, city clerk's office. Is there any member of the public who would wish to add comments with respect to the city clerk's office? Now would be the time. Come on down.

City Attorney, I just want to say on the record, I'm not intimidated by all the friends you brought to the room. I know that's a lot of moral support you need, but great.

All right, so at this time, I'll go ahead and close the additional, the extra public comment on the city clerk's office, and we will move on to the city attorney's office.

Mayor, it's a reflection of how many women it requires to pick up after you boys.

That's right. Good morning, members of the council. I want to start by thanking the council for its ongoing and continuing support of the city attorney's office and our code enforcement division. Uh, a few thank yous to my management team and, uh, our new law office manager, Brittany Fechner, who has, uh, come in and done a really good job, uh, has kept us in the black this year. So we are very excited and happy to have her. Um, and just as a side note, she's doing double duty, also working for a capital projects. So welcome aboard Brittany. Okay, so for FY27, our total proposed budget is $33.7 million, approximately up $2 million from FY26. The vast majority of the increase is due to personnel costs. In terms of budgeted positions, this budget proposes 194 positions. spread throughout code enforcement and our legal departments. Here are some of the duties and assignments that are assigned to our four separate and distinct units. Here, this slide represents our vacant positions. As of right now, we have 17, the vast majority being in code enforcement. Laborers and inspectors, these positions have been left vacant to achieve our attrition savings goals. As to grants, we have several grants in code enforcement, tire waste cleanup, tire waste amnesty, waste tire enforcement. We also have a tobacco grant, the same grant that the Fresno Police Department is a part of. And then we have about $166,000 left in our wage theft grant that we need to expend by the end of July. We are still hoping that we will have an opportunity to apply for that same grant next year. We have not heard back yet from the state whether that will be a possibility. There is money in this budget to cover those costs using general fund dollars in the event that that does not happen. Here are some stats related to the Eviction Protection Program. Total intakes for FY26, 389. Here are some stats as it relates to our tire amnesty events. One thing that I just wanted to make note of, location is very important when we do these events. We have found that the best events occur in Central and South Fresno. Chandler Airport is one of the best locations for having this event. Here are some stats as it relates to our cannabis administrative prosecutor program, also known as CAP. Total inspections, 94. Citations in excess of $17 million. To date, we've been only able to collect less than 60,000. That can't be right.

Okay.

Okay.

So that 59,000 is just as to FY26. These are some of the types of things that we see in smoke shops. Some of the things that we see in warehouses and other grow operations. Here are some stats as they relate to our tobacco enforcement. I will bring it to the council's attention that we need to begin planning ahead for December when the vast majority of smoke shops are supposed to come into compliance. I've been told that those who have applied for CUPs, I think, how many? 15? None of them qualify because either they're close to a sensitive use location or a school or something like that. So we just got to have to plan ahead for December on how we, um, handle the places that are still operating and open illegally. Um, here are some stats as they pertain to, uh, our night code enforcement team, uh, that was created by council member Perea. Total citations are approximately $12,000 for mobile vendors, $29,000. Here are some assignments that are being handled by the transactions unit. As you can see, they assist many departments on many areas of the law. Now I want to especially call your attention to this slide, as this represents the amount of work that the city attorney's office conducts. essentially on a daily basis. As you can see that you can see that we have trended up significantly, uh, going back to 2021, we received close to 10 legal assignments per day from the administration. And these are calendar days, not business days. Um, this also does not take into account all of the assignments we've received from your offices because we did not require council members to complete a request for legal services, also known as an RLS. One billion a day. Just a quick update on our criminal prosecution unit. We currently have over 2,000 criminal cases open. I think the vast majority are the encampment cases. This slide shows an update as to our litigation unit and the types of cases that they are handling, the amount of cases that they are handling. You all received this in an email, really just demonstrates what kind of cases we've adjudicated and for how much. As you will see, the vast majority of our cases are settled for under $50,000. That's within my settlement authority, which typically doesn't go to you. So you wouldn't see these. 120 cases settled for $0 or for no cost at all to the city. So I think that's significant to note. I've also noted some cases where the city was able to actually bring in an award, namely Adventure Church, Shell Oil, and Sebastian. And then just as to the asterisk, the federal grant lawsuits are still proceeding. Another slide that I want to bring your attention to because we've seen some coverage of this in the media, the PRA workload. In 2021, we received 2,600 requests for public records. Last year, in 2025, we received close to $7,500, and we're on track to beat it this year. I do not know what to attribute this to. We are seeing requests from all sorts of people, media outlets, attorneys. We haven't been able to figure out why this trend has been happening. And last but not least, I know that Council Vice President Maxwell is not here today. Hopefully he's listening online. But here are some stats as it pertains to our wage theft unit. To date, we've collected close to $30,000 worth of restitution. And the pending cases and investigations that we have open is valued at close to $900,000 worth of stolen wages. Many of those cases are still currently under investigation or filed in court or somewhere in between. And with that, I'll take any questions.

All right, I have Council Member Karabasi followed by Council Member Richardson. City Attorney, great job.

I do want to ask about the PRAs. Now, I'm fully in support of the fact that anything we do here has to follow the law and the public has access to it. It's their money. We serve at their pleasure. But there is a cost to the PRA work, and that is general fund dollars that are taken away from things like parks and roads and things like that. Is there anything that we can do? Is there maybe... I'll make something up. Let's say they're asking for how often we spend money on buying paper. Let's say we get a lot of requests for that. Is there a way we could just put it online where they can just go easily find it and we can reduce the PRA load? Are there trends like that where most of the requests for a particular type of item where we can make it easier for the public to access that information, thereby reducing the costs?

Yeah, we're hoping that with what the clerk has been doing with the online portal, that this will assist. I will give you an update six months from now, maybe we'll have a better idea of where we're going in terms of a trend. I've been speaking with the mayor regarding the use potentially of AI to streamline some of these requests. So I think there are many things that we can do without expending general fund dollars to hopefully try to bring these numbers down or make the process more efficient.

Thank you. Do we have a dollar amount? I might have missed it, where how much these requests are costing your budget, which is, again, general fund dollars.

I do not have that, but I can get you that information.

That's okay. I'm just assuming it's not negligible.

No, I mean, we're paying for, it's mostly personnel and staff. Which is expensive, right. And they are reviewing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pages worth of documents every year. And a lot of the requests that we're seeing now are also things like body camera videos where they sit there and they have to watch, you know, an hour's worth of a video. And that's very time consuming. So...

It's one thing for the public to ask, which is completely understandable. If there's a media arm doing it, and again, they have an income stream through clicks and whatnot with their stories, can we charge them for staff time only? No profit, but are we allowed to be able to charge for staff time?

I think we're allowed to charge reasonable... No?

Okay. Just copies? Okay. All right. Understandable.

We'll get you an update in six months. Hopefully the portal helps. And then we'll explore other ways to try to bring those numbers down.

And again, I think we'll do whatever we can do to make it easier to access this public information. It's just, unfortunately, there is a cost to that. And the more and more we get, it keeps your... attorneys and paralegals and staff and being able to do other things that are important too.

Yeah. I mean, we've made, I mean, here's the deal. I mean, we've made it easier to make requests. And so, you know, back in the day you would have to fill out a piece of paper and now you just go online and click some buttons.

Okay. Well, it's important for public to have access. I appreciate that. I'm just going to make a quick motion. I'm going to make a motion to allocate $150,000 to the city attorney's office for outside legal services and any other needs funding source to be determined. Second. Thank you. That's all I have. Great job.

All right.

Council Member Richardson followed by Council Member Carabasso. You punched up again? All right. So then, sorry. It'll be Council Member Richardson and then Council Member Vang.

Do you mind taking two steps to your right real quick, City Attorney? Your military right, your other right.

Thanks.

You all back there, ladies and gentlemen, you guys are fantastic. The work that you've done in the last year, great stuff. Thank you for all your work, extreme professionalism, timeliness, the whole rest of it. All right, thanks. First question I had was, I don't know if this can be disclosed in its entirety, but you and I spoke a few months ago, and I'm interested in following up on this, and this is why I'm okay with giving you guys extra work for an RFI, because I think you probably have already started looking into this, but we talked about the success and the settlements and the lawsuits and how much the city has made or lost or whatever else in lawsuits, especially ones that are filed against the city. I would like to analyze, of all of the outside firms that we bring on as a city, I want to make sure the juice is worth the squeeze. I want to make sure the firms that we're paying for these legal services, that we're getting our dollars worth, that the citizens of Fresno are getting their dollars worth. So what I would like to see, I'll be very specific with this, is specifically where we are, the defendant, in these cases, whether it was internally handled by us or externally. If externally, who was the firm? Did we win or lose? How much money has come out of the pockets of taxpayers in those cases that we've lost? That's what I'd like to see. Essentially, if there's any way that you can boil down and distill which law firms have brought us success, which ones are middling, and which ones do we continue to hire despite the fact that maybe we're not having the success rate with them that we would prefer.

I can definitely work on that for you, but the... Winning and losing in the legal world is subjective. Totally understand.

It's not based on skill.

I can pay out a dollar, and some people might consider that a loss. We can beat Fresno Land in an injunction case and they declare it a victory. We think of it as a win. So I can give you the raw data in terms of outcomes and the firms that it's associated with, and I'll let you determine if it's a win or a loss.

Love raw data. I'll work with that. What I expect will come out of this is probably some direction from the council after we distill this and process that data for your office to consider this firm or that firm or whatever more or less is what I would expect the outcome of that would be. So there's not definitively a timeline on that. Don't worry about knocking it out specifically during this budget, but that's something that's going to inform our decisions going forward and maybe get us more involved in the process of direction for you. Hopefully that's helpful. Thank you, Council Member. The second thing I had, with the PRAs, it's funny, you mentioned artificial intelligence, and some of the folks who are lodging, I would imagine a lot of these PRAs, are also some of the most vehement enemies of artificial intelligence use anywhere, which is kind of a conundrum, right? It's like they want the process to cost more money and take longer, which is masochistic. Would you be able to provide... to us and or the clerk's office a list of things that you think would be helpful to include in the transparency portal? that would take that load off, whether it was the example of Council Member Carbasi, of paper requests, or what have you. If you can use your subject matter expertise and the staff expertise behind you who deal with these PRAs to provide that information to the clerk's office and say, hey, this is something we get a lot. This is something that can be transparent. This is something that is not privileged or protected information. This will make everyone's lives easier and reduce your own workload. That would be really helpful. Is that something you'd be able to do? Yes. I appreciate that. And then clarify for us, the folks who are actually handling these PRAs and tracking this down and watching all this stuff, they're not an entry-level employee who's just coming in to do PRA stuff. These are attorneys or legal aides or paralegals who are spending their time not doing their primary function in life, but watching hours and hours and hours of videos or contacting departments to try to get their information from them. Is that correct?

That's generally correct. These folks are exclusively assigned to handling PRAs, and so we have very experienced folks that work in that unit. Some of the more tedious work in terms of reviewing hours and hours of video, we've tried to be creative in maybe having a law clerk or a lower-level employee handle some of those types of cases. It's really case by case situation. I mean, if it's a PRA that's, that has the potential of being a, um, a, a, a big issue, then obviously we put our best on it. Exactly. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. I appreciate that division of work. And then my last question is with EPP, it's been a hot topic since we've been here. Um, Similar to the police department last night with Hart, I'm interested in our metrics for success on this. So everyone's asking for more money for, not everyone, but there are a few folks out there saying we need more money for EPP. And I noticed, if I'm reading this correctly, the EPP funding has stayed consistent, barring any council motions, it stayed consistent last year to this fiscal year, the money that's being allocated to it. What? What is that based on? There's no way that we spent the exact dollar amount on it that we were supposed to, and no more, no less. We're either not being able to handle cases because we don't have the funding and staff time or legal fees, or we're not using the entirety of the funds. Can you speak a little bit more to where we fall on that spectrum? Sure.

Just in terms of the first part of your question, I measure success in people being able to stay in their homes. So we're preventing people from becoming homeless or being driven out of the place where they live. And so I measure success by how many people we can help out. In terms of funding, we've gotten in the last two years $1.5 million and we try to make that amount work. I can tell you that this year we're trending up in terms of intakes and cases that are coming in. I think a lot of that might have to do with the current economic climate in our country and in our region.

um and so we you know whatever whatever the council allocates towards this program we will we will make it work i i understand that and hey we'll do the best with what we get is i i have been there totally understand but i want to know specifically with what you're getting now what Is that able to warrant? Does it need more? Does it need less? If it needs more, how much more? Because making motions that just give, well, we'll give another $100,000. Is that going to work? Is it not? Is it more? Is it less? What's the number? More information on the EPP and specifically the budget that we have. This is where we fall on where we need to be given that budget would be very helpful. I mean, like, take, you know, the Animal Center came a few days ago and presented. We could just throw another half million at it every year, but what is that measuring, you know?

Right, so just being very sensitive to the current budget situation at this city, I can tell you that in the first years of this program's inception, we were allocated $2 million a year, and we never went over...

Hi, Christina Roberson, Chief Assistant City Attorney. The first few years of the program, we may have gone over a little bit on the 2 million, but the situation was different then. There was emergency rental assistance funds. Our volume was very, very high, and the cases took less work to get through. What we're seeing now is that the cases are more complicated, and they take more attorney work. I would say, though, that in the last couple years that we were allocated $2 million, We were very close to meeting that budget the last couple years when it's been 1.5. We have gone over. In fact, last year the council did, towards the end of the year, make another general fund allocation of 250,000. So the budget for FY 25 would have been actually 1.75 million. 26. No, the current year there has not been an additional allocation. So 25, there was an additional $250,000 towards the end of the year. This year we have, we will go over the 1.5. Okay.

I appreciate that, Christina. Thank you. We also heard from the public that whether, I doubt this is policy, but concerns over things like not providing quality legal services to someone in the EPP or dropping off their case halfway through or not following up or what have you. Someone even brought up affirmative lawsuits just going out and chasing down without having a request made, chasing down landlords. Can you just speak to your policies there?

Yeah, thank you for giving me that opportunity, and I was able to listen in on some of that. I will tell you that our EPP team, everyone from where it starts here at the city attorney's office in terms of intake, to our outside counsel, treats everybody, all cases, with respect and dignity. What we've seen are challenging tenants. You have to remember that we only can take cases where there is an illegal eviction. If the landlord, property owner, has done everything by the letter of law, we have to drop that case. Ethically, we can't proceed. In other circumstances, if we have a difficult client who refuses to listen to the instructions of their attorney, does something contrary to what the attorney has recommended, we terminate that relationship. And that's well within our rights to do. And so I think that some of the folks that have come in and spoken out are really a small, small minority of the folks that take advantage of this program and use it successfully.

I'll be honest, when the program was enacted, I didn't know how it was going to go. I wasn't on this council yet, but looking at it, I was a little tenuous about the success that it might have, and I've been very pleasantly surprised. I will also say that I think that maybe some of those claims, being that this program doesn't exist everywhere and that it's new and that we actually enacted it for the protection of tenants in the city, is a huge, huge step and a huge boon to the tenants that didn't exist. But of course, something that comes into play and takes millions of dollars to do successfully is not perfect and everyone's a critic, which is great. Thank you for the elaboration on the EPP. The last question I have, and this is a legal question, which I'm comfortable asking out loud. Whether legal counsel is being funded personally or by taxpayer money, the requirements under the bar, as a barred attorney, the requirements for your quality, professionalism, and honesty of legal services is the same regardless of the funding source. You are not able to breach any of your privileges or break your contractual obligations to the client if the funding source is different. Is that correct?

That's correct. Our ethical obligation is always to our client, first and foremost.

Regardless if you're a government attorney or if you're... To me, if I'm paying $500,000 for legal representation or someone who's getting taxpayer-funded legal representation, the requirement and the obligations to them are exactly the same. Is that correct?

That's correct. And just to be clear for anybody that's listening, my client in this situation is the city of Fresno. It's not one individual person here at the city. Sure. Okay. Thank you. Council President, it's all you.

Council Member Vang, followed by Council Member Perea.

Thank you very much, Council President. Good morning. Good morning, Council Member. Good morning. I have perhaps a clarification and then, if possible, an RFI. But first I want to thank the women in your department. No, you can stay where you are. You don't need to move two steps to your right. I'm not D6. I'm just dancing up here. You guys represent the legal apparatus of the city. And my most concern is to ensure that you have the means to carry out that duty, to ensure that the codes of the city are being enforced. And so that's my position. City Attorney, I want to bring you to slide number five. Bernard, can we put that up, please? And in particular, the vacant positions, 10, under the category inspectors and labor, I know that 10 out of 86 is a very small percentage, and it is because due to attrition, those numbers, vacant positions, are there. Could you, if you can, elaborate in terms of those 10 vacant positions due to attrition comes from? Are they from cultivations, EPP, rental inspection, et cetera, or are they all over the field?

It's mostly rental housing and community compliance. Mostly inspectors. Okay.

Thank you. And again, with regards to that as well, the EPP program, in fiscal year 26, there are 389 total intakes. If you can, could you break that down by districts in terms of where those 389 are from? And if you can't... We can do an RFI for you. Okay, RFI, yes. Appreciate that. Do you want specifically for your district or you want everybody? All the districts. All the districts, sir. Thank you. You got it. And that's all I have, Council President.

Thank you. Council Member Vang, I do want to expand a little bit on your question regarding the rental housing inspectors.

Yes, go ahead.

Erica, can you come up and talk a little bit about where we're at on rental housing and the revenue?

Good morning, Council Members. Erica Camarena, first, Chief Assistant City Attorney. Good morning. As you may recall, last year you allocated some funding to our department for a new software program to – be able to continue with our proactive rental housing inspection program. And we are very, very close to the finish line with getting that program up and running. We are working very closely with our ISD department as well as our contractor. And we are currently still in the process of converting some information into the new program. and we'll begin the testing process and then the training. And so once this program is up and running, we will be able to generate more revenue within our department and for the city through our proactive rental housing inspection program because then we'll start being able to bill uh property owners for inspections a hundred dollars per unit and so we're hoping that you know for one year a hundred dollars a door we average about 1200 inspections a year that would bring in and generate an additional 120 000 per year is is the goal and and just a reminder these are these are the worst of the worst bad actors um they're not you know people following the rules and that sort of thing

Thank you for the update.

Thank you.

Does that have Council President? Thank you. All right. Council Member Perea.

City Attorney, you'd mentioned that the wind down period for the smoke shops is when?

It's at the end of December.

And what's our plan to get those folks into compliance?

I don't want to get too far into legal strategy, but I think my recommendation to you will be for the smoke shops that don't close voluntarily, that we begin initiating legal action, such as injunctions, to have them shut down.

And we have the staffing and resources to take that on.

That's something that we're going to have to talk about, and that's why I brought up having to plan ahead for that. I don't think that that's something that we can handle exclusively in-house. I mean, we have really smart attorneys that can do that, but we're talking about 100 injunctions being filed simultaneously. That's a lot.

Okay. And I don't know if I missed this, but does this current, does the proposed fiscal year budget include monies to tackle that, whether we take it on in-house versus external?

I would say no.

No?

I would say no.

Okay. Can you get back to us on what that potential cost would look like, worst case scenario? I know that policy was a priority for several council members, and so I think we do want to see a clean execution of that policy coming to fruition.

I can provide you probably with... you know, three recommendations, one exclusively outside council, one internal, 100%, and then one combination of both.

Thank you. You're welcome. This council was very aggressive with that policy, so we want to be sure we see it through to the very end. I just want to thank your team and outside council. They partnered with my office to host a tenants' rights workshop. Had a fairly decent turnout, but I do want to see and maybe this is something my colleagues can take on, but I would like to see more tenant rights workshops citywide in every council district, especially now that we are making it easier to build more multifamily housing in our city. I want to make sure everyone's armed with their rights.

I can tell you that our outside council, at least this year, and I think they've committed going forward to doing free workshops pro bono, which I think is very admirable that they want to do that. Double-edged sword, that'll bring in more cases. So more cases mean more costs.

Yep, understood. With that being the case, and I did run this by one of my colleagues who isn't here, but I would like to make a motion to increase eviction protection to $2 million.

First, second, third, fourth.

Thank you, and just want to thank your team. You guys are proactive, you're reactive, but I get the most compliments because of the work from you and your team. So I just want to thank everyone for all the good work they're doing.

Thank you. Thank you for your support, Council Member. All right, Council Bodies.

City Attorney, when was the last time you updated our list of attorneys and the hourly cap for outside counsel? I do not recall. Do you need a council direction to update it? No, we have that, I think, on hand. I can provide that to you. And what action do you need from us to utilize attorneys under a new cap, a new hourly?

So there are certain rules regarding who we can bring on. If they're a specialty type of attorney, for example, retirement, We're allowed to exceed that limitation. Tina, what's the limitation? Is it 400? When was the last time that was revised?

That's been years.

Okay.

So how long will it take you guys to bring back a revised recommendation? I know that, Tina, you've been working on something recently. Okay, how long would it take you to get us the request from Member Perea on the smoke shop plan for outside council or inside council? I can get you that before next Tuesday, before you guys come back. Okay, my intent is to make a motion for that additional allocation, so I need it ASAP. Are you planning to re-notify and notice all the current smoke shops about the pending deadline of December? Yeah, we're going to do that too. Okay. The inspection fee of $100, why is it so low? Because I know that's not the cost of sending one of our employees out. It's just master fee, right? At the time, but it's been a bit. We've done adjustments to salaries. We've done cost increases. 2020? What do you need to revise that? Because that's not sufficient to recover our cost. Do you think we would need to do another Nexus study? Can you guys get back to me? Okay, all right. Get back to me because we're working off, you know, 10-year-old price points, and that's not going to recover our cost. And the whole idea is, in my experience, these mega-landlords... are allowing us to inspect them instead of them hiring their own inspectors and staying on top of their own properties, because they find it cheaper to use us as a default employee than to pay for their own employees to do their work. So if you can get back to someone, you can have a revised amount. Yes, Council Member. On my favorite subject of vendors in Tower, Where are we at with that? I'm still seeing every day, including yesterday when I drove home, tables being set up on sidewalks, chairs being set up on sidewalks. I thought that was a very basic, you don't do it, or are we not taking property? Are people not being fined? What's the...

The vendors are definitely being fined, warned and fined under the program. The fines for vendors cooking food were increased, so that was helpful. Obviously for sidewalk vendors, it is a lower citation amount. So when they're fined, often we see that they are coming back. I saw in those videos yesterday that there were some vendors with tables. I do know that there is a problem, just candidly, about vendors. coming out, setting up 1 a.m. or later, you know, when they are probably aware that the code enforcement is not out there. But they're, you know, they're definitely being fined. They're being, you know, educated, talked to. But we do not take property. We only issue the citations.

So yesterday I was driving back south at 7 p.m. and they already had tables set up.

Okay.

And chairs set up. So it's just now become like, their front porch they're just setting up as if it's their private property i mean i know the team is out there every single weekend but i can make sure that they're out there tonight earlier to try to are the findings the same for people having tables and chairs in open areas the reason i'm pressing on tables and chairs is you saw from the video people are fighting at some point they're going to use tables and chairs as you know the equipment to get into the fight And that just increases the danger for everyone. So that was very basic. They were not doing that previously. Now it's become a standard of tables and chairs on public sidewalks.

OK. Yeah. I'll make sure that the team is addressing that.

OK. Thank you. City Attorney, is there any other items that this body has assigned you to do this year? I know so far it's from today's hearing, smoke shops, execution of that. EPP, that amount. Is there anything else that we've assigned you as a body that is not resourcing the proposed budget?

No, I just, you know, the one that we're hoping and praying on is the wage theft grants to come in. Again, given the the budgetary picture for the city. We want to make sure that we're applying for all the grants. We applied for a new grant, too. What was that one? The cannabis one. There's a cannabis grant that's outstanding we think we're going to get, so there's potential for more money to come in, and I think that I sufficiently addressed some of our issues today.

How much money is being captured by the general fund on your attrition rate? 1.5 approximately. If you kept that money, what would you do with it? I would fill all the open positions. So an option for accounts of we wanted to fund the EPP to two million, we wanted to fund execution of smoke shops is to allow you to keep your attrition instead of adding additional money.

Explain that again. I'm sorry. I'm not following.

So we're taking $1.5 million in attrition from you? Correct. Right, back to the general fund. We essentially allowed you to keep that money and to fund the smoke shop execution and the additional funds for EPP. That should cover it, correct? We would still have vacant positions.

Yeah, you would.

I think the positions that are vacant are probably not the same positions that you would need to execute for the smoke shop. Am I correct? Correct. City Attorney?

Yes. So can City Attorney, you provide us a recommendation before Friday on whether it'd be better to have you keep your attrition rate or whether we allocate additional money to execute the work? Before Friday means today because we're not coming back here tomorrow. Correct. So we need to make a motion this afternoon on your budget. So I'd like to know what is the, maybe city manager, assistant city manager Kinto can weigh in also. How would you like to, as they say, shave a cat?

What did you say?

Shave a cat. I'm making sure you guys are awake. Skin a cat, but I didn't want to say skin, it's too much. How do you shave a cat? It's too much.

You're gonna get all the animal people after you, Miguel.

I'm sure it'll be recorded as a city manager said it, not me.

So I was just looking at the vacant positions on slide five and it looks like, you know, obviously the large majority are the inspector's labor and so you might have to juggle, we can certainly.

You guys can disconnect offline and get back to us this afternoon. That would be helpful. And in full disclosure, when I ran for this office, my campaign slogan was I would cut the city attorney's budget because there was way too many lawyers. And I have found myself over the years increasing your budget and adding more lawyers. Not as many as council president. Yeah. So we all have to eat humble pie sometimes, but if we want to do things like reduce the density of alcohol shops, remove smoke shops and improve quality of life and deal with slumlords in California and the U.S., attorneys are required. So I appreciate you guys as we're on this.

All right. Councilmember Bray, you're up again.

Just so we don't forget and so that it's in the hopper, just want to make a motion for an amount yet to be determined. to execute the completion of the smoke shop wind down.

All right, motion in a second in the hopper. We can amend that later once we get some revised numbers before the end of the day, ideally. City Attorney, speaking of smoke shops, has your department revisited each smoke shop in the city since the adoption of the ordinance? If not, then how many would remain?

Since the adoption of the ordinance.

Erica, raise the podium. We have started with approximately 151 businesses that we have identified as smoke shops and have visited those. Of those, 49 are no longer operating as smoke shops. 26 of the 49 are now vacant buildings.

and 23 of those 49 are now operating a business as something other than a smoke shop clothing right and that's what we're kind of finding is this trend of them rebranding their smoke shop into more of a clothing retail store up front and so you know we coordinate with pd to go out and do these inspections and so our hope is that we can completely sweep the entire city before december so and well before december so that we know which smoke shops we need to address with the court or whatever our plan is which we will draft and get to today presumably where we remain suspicious somewhat suspicious of the rebranded uh establishments there are quite a few that are very suspiciously rebranding yes if i may council president the one on belmont and vaness

now is a retail shop, but it's operating at 2 and 3 in the morning. And it's full with the unhoused and the transient population. I've never seen a retail t-shirt shop, you know, be operating at that hour. And it's a 24-hour operation now. So it's, yeah, they're doing it. So is the one on Olive and Palm.

We will definitely take a better, closer look at that one.

Okay. Sounds good, thank you for the update there. Council, any additional comments, questions, inquiries, motions? City attorney? Okay, all right. Thank you, council members. Thank you. We'll go ahead and open up some additional public comments on the city attorney's department, city attorney's office. If there's any members of the public who would like to chime in, please come on down. You have one minute.

Hi, Giovanna Morales with Leadership Council. Yeah, I just want to say we appreciate the investment in the EPP, and we just look forward to working with you all on future implementation. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there any additional public comments from any members of the public who would like to speak with respect to the city attorney's office, the budget? Okay, seeing no, we'll go ahead and close that up. Council Member Carvasi, you had a request. You wanted some time to make some motions.

Yep, so we can avoid having an overflow day. I just have some questions for Public Works and Capital Projects. That sounds good. Be very brief. That's fine, yeah. Capital Projects first.

Well, while they come up, Council, as I noted, we're not going to convene tomorrow. So we will complete these four remaining departments today. And I encourage you to get your budget motions in, which you can make at any time, as long as you're punched up and recognized.

What do we do now? Go ahead.

Yeah, out of courtesy to our city manager who's been nice to me today, I'll make my motions before lunch so she'll have some time to argue with me after lunch. Just not during the soccer game, city manager. Motion to allocate $200,000 for ADA accessible restroom improvements at the water tower and the garage nine, unit A, lease space.

Second.

Motion to allocate $200,000 for the repainting and repairing of the tower theater marquee.

Second.

Motion to allocate $320,000 from Measure P Category 1 for netting for the cricket fields at JSK Park.

Second.

Motion to allocate $657,000 from Category 1 for the Fink-White top lot project. Motion to allocate $2 million from Measure P, Category 1 for the construction of the Tetsey-Wills Park improvements. Motion to allocate up to $2 million for the acquisition of a new park at Adams Elementary neighborhood. Second. Thank you. Motion to allocate $50,000 in the planning department so that publications of legal notices continue in the Fresno Bee.

Second.

Motion to allocate $250,000 to the South Tower Community Land Trust and Casita Collaborative for housing at their Fulton facility. Second. And let me see, I made those motions. MOTION TO ALLOCATE FUNDS, UNDETERMINED AMOUNT AT THIS POINT, TO REPLACE THE REMAINING 126 PICNIC TABLES AT RODING PARK USING MEASURE C CATEGORY ONE FUNDS. MEASURE P, SORRY. MEASURE P. MOTION TO ALLOCATE $200,000 TO COMPLETE THE TREE RESTORATION AT RODING PARK FOR MEASURE P. And those are all my motions. Oh, and a motion to fund the audit of the Grizzly Agreement, whatever the name of the company is.

Do we have an amount? Huh? Do we have an amount yet?

No. Stop. Oh, yes. I'm sorry. The mayor reminded me. I don't have an amount. Do you need an amount, assistant city manager, on the audit? Or is it finance who does the audit?

I can, if you're asking for us to hire an independent auditor in lieu of their auditor, then just give me until this afternoon and I will do a little checking.

And final motion, motion to add $250,000 to the special events fund for the city. Second. For city sponsored events.

Thank you.

Great. All right, Council Member Carbasi, we'll give you the floor. Mayor, are you okay? You're watching your budget go out of balance a little bit? All right, Council Member Carbasi.

Okay. Speaking of Monopoly money, no, I'm kidding. Dennis, thank you so much for being here today. You know a project that is very dear to my heart is the San Joaquin River. I've served on the Conservancy for many years. Council Member Richardson is now our city representative on that Conservancy. Thank you to the Mayor for those appointments. We are on the cusp after generations of having actual access that's easy and convenient through the city of Fresno. We haven't had that for a long time. And it's the River West project I'm talking about, which you're very familiar with. I think we're on the cusp of some great things this year. Are we on track? How are we doing? And if there's a gap, what is the gap?

Yes, good morning, Council Member. I'm Denix Anbiya, the Director for Capital Projects. The Eaton Trail Extension Project is almost 100% complete in design from the design perspective. We are ready for advertisement. We are going through some final set of comments, some of them internally, some of them externally. And we hope to get that soon. And we are targeting advertisement towards the later half of next month. And it should come to the council for award sometime in October. And the construction should actually start before the end of the calendar year. And then we have about 180 working days for construction.

Meaning, theoretically, next year it would open up, which is very significant. Yes. Anything that could potentially get in the way? Are there any other outside agencies waiting on permitting that can delay this timeline? Is there a funding gap to worry about, anything like that?

We are waiting for encroachment permits from Caltrans and also an approval from DSA, the state architect.

Okay.

Which we hope to get it in an untimely manner. But those are the external ones. And then we have internal comments.

That's not too bad. Yes. That's great. Okay. Well, that's great news. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. And thanks for your support in the past for this project. Yep. I appreciate the work you're doing on this.

This is a big deal. Thank you. And then if you don't mind, Public Works. Yes.

Yeah, that's fine.

Good morning, Council. Scott Moser, Public Works Department.

Good morning, Director. How are you doing? Doing well, thank you. Thank you so much for being here today. I appreciate that. Okay, a couple of things. I don't really have a lot of public works motions this year. You've all done a fantastic job. We've had several over the past few years. Things are getting done on time. They're right at the number they need to be. So I really just sincerely appreciate all the wins you've delivered. for my constituents in Northwest Fresno, among others. But they really see government when you do all the projects and the work. That's where they see their money spent well. So thank you. I did request a couple of memos. One was for some trail lighting. That was RFI 6. The other one was... I believe there was another one. RFI number 4. I'm sorry, not 4. I apologize. Number... Three, regarding the median islands. My only concern, and I know this is something everyone's facing, but the staggering costs of work is just so ridiculously high. I think the median island issue has already been resolved, as you mentioned, but I think that cost, there were just two rather small median islands, and it's over half a million dollars. What's driving our costs so high?

In terms of the median islands, it's actually a pretty sizable area. And so to set up that median island, it needs an irrigation service. So that involves tapping into a water main and then setting up the typical cage that you see out there with things like the backflow preventer, the irrigation timer, the controller. And then it's actually a fairly wide median on Carnegie itself. So, yes, that drives it. But as always, we would hope for good bid opportunities. We can hit the timing right and bring that in lower. Thankfully, that one is funded not by any discretionary city funds, but it's through regional Measure C funds. Great.

Okay. And then the other one were the trail lights. There is a, because, and I understand, because that portion of Herndon is an expressway, they typically, expressways don't have street lights illuminating the street. Is that correct?

That's correct. The expressways just have lighting at the intersection and then entering and leaving the intersection. But mid-block on Herndon Avenue or on Friant Road. Right. They do not have roadway lighting.

And that's understandable. I understand. That's the standard. With the work that was done on Veterans Boulevard, there is a section of Herndon. That's still the portion of Herndon going westbound. You can still travel west on Herndon. There's no deviation there. if you're going just westbound on Herndon, but between Hayes and Polk, that trail, the Herndon, Herndon trail, is that what it's called? Uh, at the moment? Yes. Yeah. At the moment trail has no lighting. So it gets pretty dark and, and think there are some shrubs in the area. So I've had complaints from residents about visibility issues, but the cost to put in lighting, um, Sorry about that. There's two different options you presented for us. Option one would be almost $900,000. Option two, which is just a standalone trail lighting system that would actually have more lighting is almost $1.4 million. I can't make the motions as much as I want that. That would just break our budget. This isn't the right year for that. It's just the costs are ridiculous. It is what it is. It's just, I feel like from when I started till now, it's been seven budgets and things are double or triple in some cases. What is it causing that? Is it just factors beyond our control? Is it labor costs? What's driving that?

Council, I would say that a lot of that occurred really through the pandemic and afterwards, especially in the area of electrical components. Structures, electrical, those all went up quite a bit in the area of things like lighting. A lot of part of that is driven by the components, the materials. where it seems like it'd be a great business to get into. There are a limited number of lighting suppliers, and then just the cost then in the electrical arena of subcontractors has gone up. A good example is with, let's say, traffic signals. We've seen that double in price over that same period. Thankfully, things like just roadwork, paving, have not seen as much of an increase. Recently, the bidding climate has gotten a lot better.

Some of these are, or a lot of these are external, but is there anything that we can do as a city to help with that process, to help you bring those costs down? Are there any policy changes, anything that we can do at all that bring costs up, not related to labor?

One of the best things we can do, of course, always we seek outside grant funding, seek to be competitive wherever possible to reduce the strain on the city's limited budget. And the second thing is just to be shovel ready wherever possible, have plans in place where we can hit those cycles. When bids start coming in lower, that those projects are available, ready to go.

Last thing, I may have asked you this already, but forgive me. The options for trail lighting, would it be cheaper in any way, have we done this before, where if we just had standalone poles with solar lighting, that maybe is a higher quality solar lighting, or is that just not reliable in terms of maintenance and whatnot?

Our staff has been pursuing that, meeting with vendors. However, at the moment, I'm not sure if the technology is quite there yet. It has not met standard lighting levels and specifications. One challenge we have is that if we were to install non-standard, the lighting level wasn't there. or during inclement weather, foggy days with stormy conditions, and then the lights don't work. If there's an accident in that area, that could, again, I defer to city attorney, but that could create a potential avenue for a risk claim, a claim against the city. But whenever we have a case of, well, we have something there, like we have a street light that's in place, and then it doesn't work, it's off. it's out of service, that typically is something that's challenged.

Okay. Well, that's really all I have. I do appreciate it, Director. I wanted to just give a couple of kudos. I know that, of course, we have Brian Russell here as well, members of your team. I want to reiterate, you guys do a fantastic job. Now, River West, Mindy, we just talked about that. I know you were heavily involved in that. You pretty much single-handedly figured out how we can get access for the parking lot over at Spano because it was just going to be no way to park and get to the trail. And I call it Scott's Trail because you figured that out. So I just really appreciate that creative thinking, the work we've done on Herndon Avenue, all the things we've been working on for years, the work being done on the realignment of the overpass. and also Shaw Avenue that's coming up with the support of the mayor and Council Member Perea. All these are great things that we're getting done. So I just want to reiterate how grateful I am to your department and your staff.

Council Member, and thank you for the compliment. I do want to give lots and lots of that credit to Capital Projects Department, our project manager, who took the question and the idea and really made that reality.

Okay, Dennis, thank you to you and your team, by the way. You're right, it is a team effort. Yeah, forgive me, but back in the day when we were working on this, there was one department, but now it's two. But thank you, really. Yeah, thank you. Oh, I think... Director Moser.

Sorry. Before you get comfortable. Also, Councilmember Carbasi, I'd be excited to share with you some of the advancements we've made in autonomous solar lighting demonstrations along trails specifically. Brought it. My question is just about essentially centers around CFDs. So one, if there are current CFDs that lend themselves to the maintenance of trails, if that exists, or if it's entirely outside of the CFD scope. Take Shepherd, for example.

Yes, so Councilmember, yes, it depends upon when that CFD was formed. and then which features were included in the maintenance. So today we have numerous residential subdivisions and commercial projects that when they come in and the council approves that annexation into the maintenance district, they do include trails. Just recently there was, in council district three, there was a Starbucks at Church and MLK And that includes the maintenance of the trail on Church Avenue. We have a number of subdivisions. For example, in your district in Copper River, the Copper River Trail is included in the maintenance district. In older areas, let's say Shepherd Avenue, with that in mind, through the Dominion in that area, That was not included in any kind of maintenance district. So the city is really on our own using a variety of non-CFD money, whether that's general fund, community sanitation revenues. So that's really the challenge. If we want to add something later, it's either not in the CFD or you need a Prop 218 basically registered voter election to add it.

Would cost matching by an HOA fit into one of our applicable funding schemes?

Cost matching by an HOA certainly is very helpful.

Fantastic. Last question I had. What level of direction does your staff need to calculate a CFD impact analysis, i.e., how much will the CFD rates go up to include operation and maintenance for a bathroom at Copper River Park?

That's something... I think we could calculate what we would do. Our parks department is really the experts on park restrooms, what those typically cost.

They directed me straight to you.

It was one of these. No, not a problem at all. And I think that's information parks department has available. What we would handle is look at the CFD. We have information on those assessments. how many parcels, what that rate is, and then what the change in max tax per year would be. That would require a two-thirds majority of return ballots to pass.

Would that require money from my district, from the general fund, or anything to get that just CFD impact analysis done, or is that something internally you guys can handle?

I think we could generate a really high-level figure without a lot of effort within our existing means, in our operation. However, if we were talking about the actual documents, resolutions, ballot preparation and such, then that would require additional resources.

I want to go pull the residents up there and ask kind of what the taste is for it. In CFD, I believe it's 15. If it's wrong, just leave it in the comments below. But I want to go to them first and find out if they're okay with that CFD increase before we push forward with trying to fund a design or a construction phase.

Very good. And for the record, that one is in 12. Just in case we have any listeners in 15 who are concerned, it would be part of CFD 12.

Copy that. Thank you. It's all I have.

All right, Council Member Vang, you indicated you wanted to make some motions before we adjourn for lunch.

Yes, I do. Thank you very much, Council President. Just a few motions right before we adjourn for lunch. As Matthew Dildine, CEO for Fresno Rescue Mission alluded earlier, federal funding for nonprofits has been slashed like before, and so I'm hoping that the city can at the very least step up and help fund some of the nonprofits in our city who are doing great work. So with that, I motion $60,000 for Familias en Acción, source to be determined, to continue supporting their program operations related to afterschool community programming, youth leadership and development, senior resources, philanthropy, and community services.

Second.

Thank you, sir. Motion $60,000 for a hopeful encounter funding source to be determined to continue supporting their program operations related to seniors mental health, philanthropy, community service, youth empowerment, recreational arts and cultural preservation, specifically relating to the Southeast Asian community in the city of Fresno.

What was the name of the organization?

It's A Hopeful Encounter.

A Hopeful Encounter.

Thank you, City Manager. Thank you very much. Motion $90,000 for FIRM, F-I-R-M, source of funding to be determined to provide support for their existing community gardens that operate throughout the city of Fresno. There are five sites, Kings Canyon and 10th Street, Fresno and Ashland, Fresno and Weldon, Olive and Willow, and Cedar and Woodward.

Second. Second.

Thank you, sir. And motion, $70,000 for financial support to businesses for the renaming of Kings Canyon, Ventura, and California source to be determined. And also my office will contribute $10,000 from the operating budget. with a total of $80,000, and I want to thank D2 and D6, each contributing $10,000 to the financial support of businesses, along the renaming of Kings Canyon Inventory in California. If approved, total 100,000. Second. Thank you very much. That's all I have, Council President. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Perea, do you have any additional? We have still the rest of the day as well, but no pressure to do it right now.

Yeah, I'm going to do a few motions. Go for it. $100,000 set aside to do public art in the Tower District. Second. $400,000 to finish concrete repair in the Palm Clinton Harrison Shields neighborhood.

Second.

And then an amount to be determined to redo the sidewalks in the Tower District along Olive and Wishon Avenues.

Second.

That's it for now, Council President. Thank you.

All right. Council, we are right at 1159. Any additional comments, motions, inquiries? We've got three departments down out of the seven for today. We'll come back here at 1.30 and take on the rest of it. Thank you.

Council President, do you know if there will be a particular order or just kind of just kind of

No, at this point I'm not entirely sure yet.

Okay, so we'll just have everybody here ready to go.

Yeah, thank you.

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All right, council, we're back. We've got the bulk of us here in the chamber here. We'll get going. I think what we're gonna do here is move on to general city purpose, GCP. This is a brief one, I assume, Edward? Sorry? Pretty brief one, I assume? Yes. Yep.

Okay. Okay. Good morning, Council President. Afternoon. I clearly wrote this a while ago. Good afternoon, Council President and members of the Council. I'm Edward Shinnevere, Assistant Director for Budget and Management Studies. Today I'll be presenting the General City Purpose Budget for Fiscal Year 2027. The General City Purpose Department houses two main functions. Those are the Retirement Department and Debt Service. I have been advised that from the Retirement Department, should you have any questions for them after my presentation, we do have in attendance Retirement Administrator Robert Deller. And let me pop forward here. Okay, so as you can see, the General City Purpose Department's budget is increasing. That increase is primarily due to the annual increases in retirement's contractual personnel MOU obligations, similar to any department. And the department is also housing a portion, the General City Purpose Department, that is. It houses a portion of the general fund appropriations for the city's self-insurance funds for liability and workers' compensation. The detail for those two items is also provided on an upcoming slide. This slide shows the retirement office's budgeted positions. And as you can see, the only change is that the one position which was added in FY2026 at nine months is budgeted in FY2027 at 12 months consistent with the city's practice. Slide four shows the operational impacts, including a breakdown of the debt service payments that flow through the department, as well as the workers' compensation and liability self-insurance funds that I mentioned earlier. So we've got the dollar values for each of those here on the slide for reference, should you need to take a look at that.

And I just want to clarify on slide three, when we're talking about the deputy chief investment officer, I don't believe it was added. Was that not the item that got removed from the agenda?

city manager to be clear that um i think the confusion is that it was approved during last year's budget process at this time but then when the the salary resolution was brought forward for the excuse me the par was brought forward for that change then council removed it so i think we missed that in the okay in the slide sorry that's okay keep going and that actually does uh conclude my short presentation and with that

Georgeann is here for your question already.

Great. I got Council Member Carbasi punched up.

Thanks, Ed. Excuse me. Looking over the presentation, the first slide under notes, it says personnel expenditure increased due to citywide workers' compensation charges and retirement offices' contractual personnel increases. I'd like to know a little bit more about that second statement. I don't know if you want to do it or Mr. Othello. The director is here or the administrator is here. You can answer those questions.

Sure. Yep. If we can, we would like to invite up the retirement administrator, Robert Othello.

While we're waiting for Mr. Feller, is there a page in the line item detail binder that this begins on? Because all I'm finding is general services, which we heard from Director Barr two days ago, I believe.

So it's under general city purpose department. It starts on page 105 of the line item detail.

Thank you.

Council President, Council Members, I'm Rob Feller. Happy to answer any questions. Specifically about the salary.

Sure.

Just what the union step increases were. That's all that I know of.

Can you speak in the mic? I'm so sorry. Sorry about that. Go ahead, sir.

Sure. Again, the only increases that I'm aware of are per the union step agreements.

Hmm. I'm wondering why it was specifically mentioned in the presentation then. So have you had any salary increases for any of your, you said union salary. Have there been any non-union salary increases for personnel?

Yes, sir, there have.

Can you go into detail on that, please?

I don't have those numbers with me, but we can provide that information.

Okay. It'd be also good to know the dollar amount and the percentage amount for the different positions. That'd be helpful. So I'll do an RFI for that, please. Mr. Feller, what is your salary?

$279 and change at the moment.

Is that including total compensation?

That's my salary.

So you make salary-wise $279,000 a year. And do you know how much that is with all the benefits and things like that?

I do not.

It's a public record. You don't know the answer to that question?

Again, I do not.

Okay. Is there any way to pull that? I was able to pull on Transparent California. You were in 2023 at 281 and change, and that was full pay and benefits. So now your regular pay is almost more than an amount. Should I just move on or we're able to pull that number? I'm sorry. I wanted to know what Mr. Thaler's total compensation is. Okay. So.

Mr. Carbasi, if I could just say that the contract is a matter of public record and so we can produce that in response to a request for information if you'd like.

Let's just use the number Mr. Thetler just gave me, $279,000. So.

I'm looking at the information that we, the 2025 state controller report that were required to provide to the state controller. And according to that, I'm showing annual regular pay 262,541, lump sum 12,147, other 3,965, and then the pension contribution, employer pension contribution at, make sure I'm on the right line here, 33,755. And then deferred comp, sorry, no deferred comp. And then health. So the way that the state controller shows it, and Santino, I don't know if you have that up in front of you as well, is I think all in with everything 286.622. That's including the value of health. CONTRIBUTIONS AND EMPLOYER RETIREMENT CONTRIBUTIONS.

CITY MANAGER, I'M SHOWING 325.

OH, I COULD BE LOOKING AT THE WRONG LINE.

YEAH, I AGREE. JUST ADDING UP THOSE SAME LINES, GEORGIA, AND I HAVE A TOTAL OF THREE.

OH, YEAH, YOU'RE RIGHT. THERE WAS ONE MORE COLUMN. THANK YOU. 325, YEP. ONE SECOND, PLEASE.

OKAY, LET'S JUST USE THE 325 NUMBER. Mr. Thaler, do you know what the average household income, the median household income is in the city of Fresno?

I believe in the high 70s.

I wish it was. It is, according to the U.S. Census, $74,491. My question for you is your total compensation, and that's not individual, that's household income. Your total compensation is 4.36 times higher than the household median income in the city. And do you think that's equitable?

For the job that I do? Yes.

Not for performance, just for the job itself. the job that i do yes sir okay well interesting um i'm actually surprised to see you today and i'll tell you why i was led to believe that you were going to retire what happened didn't you file for retirement yes sir i did okay boards the two boards uh asked me very nicely to stay uh that's not the story i heard let me ask you this hold on so when did you file for retirement

January of 2025 originally to retire at the end of the year. Okay. I was asked to stay. So I extended through July and I was asked about a month ago to stay permanently.

Okay. And that was, so about a month ago is when you rescinded the retirement?

Yes, sir.

Okay. Okay. The reason why I'm surprised is In that period of time, I had to waste time from my daily responsibilities to meet with some of your surrogates who serve on the board, advocating for you to make 4.36 times the median household income in this community, because if I didn't comply with their request, you were going to leave, all the retirees would be up in arms, I was given the excuse that the fund would be negatively affected, and all sorts of other things trying to push me to make a decision which I think was completely irresponsible. Then the move was, let's create a new position to reduce his workload. All to keep you here. Why are you instructing some of your members of your board to come and advocate for you to get a higher salary increase?

First correction, if I may, Council Member. Sure. I don't instruct my board members. I take instruction from them.

Well, one of your board members then has very loose lips because that's not what he told me in my office with another witness there. So my understanding is he is here because this is what you want him to do. That's my concern. Let's just... Save for the sake of argument, it wasn't true. So you've stayed, despite the two members who have talked to this council, saying that if we don't pay you more, you're going to leave, you've decided to stay. My question for us is, we're doing budget right now. How much can we pay for you to leave? What would the dollar amount be?

It's never come up for consideration. I can't apply a number, sir.

It is today. I'm happy to make a motion.

Not a consideration for me, but please name a number.

Well, I'm asking you the question, sir. We can come up with a number, but you said you think it's totally equitable that you make 4.36 times the median household income in this city with what you do, which is what, $325,000? My question for you is... You're not going to leave. You were going to leave, but somehow magically you decided not to leave, despite what was said. So is there a dollar amount we can consider paying you so you would actually leave?

I politely decline. I don't want to consider it.

Fair enough. Appreciate that. That's all I have.

All right. Thanks, Council Member Carbasi. Anyone else for GCP? Questions, motions, comments? You're excused. Thank you. All right, so at this time I'll provide some additional opportunity for public comments on general city purpose department. If any members of the public would like to chime in or add comment on this matter. All right, seeing none, we'll go ahead and wrap up general city purpose. We'll move on to Office of the Mayor and City Manager.

Good afternoon, Council President. If it's okay, may I provide the presentation from here?

Council, would we like city manager's office down there more formally, or are we okay up here on the dais? Is there a difference?

Due to some reported hamstring constraints, I'd be okay with the dais presentation, but

We've been up here stretching hamstrings from sitting so long this week.

You look familiar. Have you been up here today?

Yes, I have. Thank you, Council President, members of the Council, Mayor Dyer. I am happy to present the budget presentation for the City Manager and, excuse me, for the Office of the Mayor and the City Manager.

Well, that was really quick.

Okay. As shown on slide two, you can see that the total budget for the department has decreased, and that reflects a 5% reduction as we did participate fully in the 5% reduction exercise as part of our budget development process. As well, our personnel budget accounts for an attrition rate, in addition to the 5% reduction, an attrition rate of 6.18%. What's listed on slide three is the positions, as you can see, the full-time equivalents for all of the different offices and divisions in the mayor and city manager's budget, and there were no changes in those positions proposed. And then on slide four, we have some program highlights and also a restatement of the mayor's one Fresno vision for an inclusive, prosperous, and beautiful city where people take pride in their neighborhoods and community. A government that listens, keeps its promises, and is owned by the people. Of course, we have the Office of the Mayor, the Office of the City Manager, the Office of Independent Review, which, again, just to remind you, is funded at 0.8 full-time equivalents per each FTE there, or excuse me, for each position there, the Office of Emergency Preparedness, the Office of Special Events, and the Office of Community Affairs. And I won't read every one of those descriptions for you, but they're there for your pleasure. Of course, if you have any questions, we're happy to answer them. Thank you.

All right, I don't have anyone punched up at this time. Any comments from council? This is, yeah, mayor's and city manager's office. The entire top brass of the administration.

Yes. Okay. Good afternoon. I'm more than happy to have you answer the questions, but if there's anybody who can speak a little more into the OCA, Office of Community Affairs, I would invite them to the podium, please.

I think I'll defer that. Well, it depends on your question, Mr. Richardson. I'm happy to answer to the extent I can, or we can have the mayor answer.

Okay. How many members are, so what's the original intent of the OCA, if you don't mind? One question, and you, okay, all right. Yeah, that was it.

So I know Council President probably has an answer to this, too, because we jointly created the Office of Community Affairs, just happens to be situated in the mayor's office. And the original intent was, at that time, we were not necessarily experiencing hate crimes here in our community, but abroad. and it was as a result of hate crimes against our Asian population. And so at that time, Council President Esparza had made a recommendation that we have a liaison, and we hired that first liaison, and then since that time, we actually expanded the program to represent other groups in this community that were of a significant population and oftentimes considered to be underrepresented and people that oftentimes find themselves as victims of hate crimes as well. And whether that is the African American population, Indian population, Latino population, all of those were brought on. And then the last individual was really at the recommendation of Councilmember Perea, and that was for somebody from LGBTQ. No IA. I didn't want to get all the letters. But the LGBTQ, and that was Robin McGee. And so we now have five people, and they all respond or report to Santaya Rose, who's the communications director. But they are liaisons with the community. They attend a number of events. They do an incredible job, in my opinion, and we're very fortunate to have them. And I'll have Council Member Esparza, if you want to speak to it.

That's an accurate summary. And at that time, at the origin of the division, the mayor and I worked closely with our local AAPI community to create the division and create the position. And it's since grown, right? Yeah. As a reflection of, you know, some of our marginalized communities here in Fresno have been an arm of outreach, if you will, you know, to... More of a direct arm of outreach from our city government.

And I'll add, not necessarily that. I think one of the things that happens is we find, when I said the reason was we had hate crimes, not necessarily here. We had hate crimes in Fresno. We have, but oftentimes they're underreported. And the purpose of this was also to be able to give people a comfort level in reporting, even if it's through our liaisons. But there were some high-profile incidents across the state and the nation that really got our attention. Something.

Thank you for that, sir. I will say that from my experience working with the OCA, every single member, regardless of which demographic they represent, has done a fantastic job communicating not just with us and the rest of City Hall, but also communicating out to the city. And I think their work is important. I'm very glad that happened, and it happened before I got here. To that point, I think that very specific... requirements to add a member of the OCA should exist. I don't think that there should just be an open door for anybody to get hired by the city and come on and regardless of the size of the demographic or whatever else you represent, that it should just be everybody. I think that the way we've selectively chosen who serves on that committee is very important, and I think we've made good decisions to this date. What is the total pay and compensation for the members of the OCA, who I understand to be part-time employees?

Yeah, initially they started out being full-time, and then two years ago, I believe, we made a decision in the budget to reduce those to part-time employees. Point eight percent I believe is what they're funded at and so point eight percent I could not tell you what their total compensation is somebody Ruthie somebody probably could or It okay if it can provide that to you No, no, no not not for them Yep, I've got that value here for you mayor.

I For the five permanent part-time positions, those are each at 0.8. The total compensation, including all of the fringe, you know, the payroll taxes, et cetera, is $329,867 for FY2027.

So is it fair to say that divided by five should be the pay and compensation for each member, each representative?

That would be fair, yeah.

Okay. Okay.

65,000 per.

OK. Bernard, do you mind pulling that map up, please? So, Mayor, given the criteria that has led to each member of the OCA, many of whom are present today, so it's great to see you all, many of the criteria that have led to them to be employed on the OCA, you mentioned, to include having underrepresentation locally. I would imagine that means probably in elected bodies, but maybe it sometimes could just be a voice, right? A population, a significant population here in the city of Fresno, which I believe multiple times we've talked about being the somewhere around the 10th most diverse city in the country. Ninth in the country. Ninth in the country. And having a significant impact here on the culture of the city, whether it's in education, religion, cultural arts, economy, industry, you name it. I think that's important. Now, if I can direct the attention real quick up here to the map. We have got a significant population here in the city of Fresno who doubtlessly enriches the culture that we have here and have made contributions in all walks of life. That stretches from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, in North Africa, down to northern Nigeria, parts of Mali, Chad, Niger, all the way over to the Philippines. Arabian Peninsula over there to include Yemen, Oman, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq, Iran, all the way over to, one could argue, the mountains in Afghanistan, the Hindu Kush. All of those, I mean, you have languages that vary from... Arabic, Hausa, Tunisian, Berber, French, Hebrew, Druze, French, Yemeni dialects, Amharic, Somali, Coptic, and Farsi. Religions, as varied as Protestant Christians to Catholics, Druze, Sunni, Shia, Protestants, Orthodox, Ethiopian, Eastern Coptic, Zoroastrians, I'm sure somewhere over there in the former Persian Empire somewhere, Animists, Jews, and Kurds. who in the city of Fresno, at least on the OCA, I think represent a significant population here in Fresno, again, in all those different forms, have been, whether it was after 9-11 or more recently with some of the interactions going on in the Middle East, have been subject to hate crimes, whether it was just a misunderstanding of one culture or another, whether it was a competition or a disagreement between two parts of the culture and their diaspora here in the city, and have been contributing to our community ever since its founding. I think it would be responsible to give them a voice. Now, that's a large swath of the world, but it's a lot of people who go underrepresented. I have full faith that our representative to the Hispanic community is able to speak up for everybody from a country that is south of us. I have no doubt that our Southeast Asian liaison is able to speak up for the different needs, whether they be from Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, or the Hmong population. And I have full faith that our representative from the Indian subcontinent is also able to reach out to the different religions and different ethnic groups and different languages to be a representative and a voice for them here I would be remiss if I especially after having worked extensively in this part of the world if I didn't reach out and try to advocate for a voice for those who might find themselves lacking representation or maybe being persecuted here in our community I think it's part of our responsibility to keep them safe but also to have that upward and downward communication So knowing that, and after having some conversations inside the administration, with the community, with some other council members, I'm not big on budget motions, but I would like to make a motion for $65,000 to be amended, but the full pay and benefits of one of the part-time OCA employees. And also I will add some direction for staff to look into what that would mean, hiring, interviewing, making the administrative changes to make that possible. But the $65,000 from a... Source to be identified, likely general fund, to fund an OCA position for the Middle East and North Africa. Someone who we find who can responsibly lower the temperature, speak intelligently about some of the concerns there, and represent that part of the community here.

Second.

Very good. Okay.

Mayor, that's all I had for you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Sounds good. Council, anyone else punched up?

I have a couple questions, Council President. Yeah, you're recognized. Thank you. Could you remind me, what's the size of the Office of Emergency Preparedness? Is it a couple of employees still?

We'll let Assistant City Manager Miller answer that.

We have three members of that division within the office.

And are they fully funded by the general fund?

Yes, they are.

There's no outside resources, grant money?

Correct.

And where are we at with the Office of Independent Review? Do we have an auditor or is that position still vacant?

Currently the position is still vacant. I'm working through a process to get somebody on board.

How long has the position been vacant?

Independent reviewer? Okay, sorry. It has been vacant for four, five months. I'd have to look and see when he retired.

What's happening to the workload while there is a vacancy?

So I literally, right now, for the OISs and in-custody deaths that have occurred up until about a month ago, we are going to be contracting with an outside group. to do the reviews of those cases because we don't want to go any longer without an extra set of eyes. We did engage the services of an outside recruiting firm to help us recruit for the position itself. We had done an internal recruitment And we had frankly an excellent candidate that we had offered the position to and unfortunately He had a change in family circumstances and was not going to be able to move to Fresno so he had to reject our offer and we so we after trying to figure out how to get additional candidates in we decided to engage a recruiting firm to help us and that contract got executed I think three four weeks ago, but We've got a handful of cases that we don't want to just let sit, so we are having an outside contractor do that review for us.