City Council - Regular Meeting

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All right, good morning. Welcome everyone to City Hall. We're gonna go ahead and get the meeting started. Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Council Member Perea. Here. Council Member Arias. Present. Vice President Maxwell. Present. President Esparza.

Present.

Council Member Vang.

Present.

Council Member Richardson. Here. Council Member Caibasi.

Here.

Seven members being present, we have a quorum.

All right, thank you, clerk. So next, we're going to have the invocation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. I'll ask if you can stand, please stand. I'll welcome Reverend Jim Papas from St. George Greek Orthodox Church up to do our invocation this morning. And following that, I'll ask Councilmember Richardson to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Welcome. Thank you for this opportunity. Beloved Father, with humility we approach you to seek guidance and wisdom to lead our city according to your divine will. May it be guided by love, peace, grace, transparency, honesty, and trust. Guide, guard, protect our civil servants in the paths of righteousness. And in keeping with the Psalm in verses three, five, and six, trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. May the Lord our God lead all on the paths of righteousness as we do what's necessary for this community, this truly beloved community of ours. For you are holy with none ever at the ages of ages. Amen. And one more thing. Greek Fest comes up in September, so be prepared. That's what I was talking about. I was born already. Let's go.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United

All right. Move on to the approval of the agenda. I'll ask the clerk first if there's any announcements or changes or items removed from the agenda.

Yes.

We have quite a few.

Good morning. I wanted to make everyone aware that we do have interpreters and translation services available for today's City Council meeting. We do have the Wordly system, which is providing digital interpretation services for Spanish and Punjabi. You can access that by scanning the QR code that's posted here on the front of City Hall. It's also available on our website if you're listening from home. We also have translation devices available here for in-person translation up here, and you can ask for assistance in the back with one of those devices. With regard to other interpretation provided, there is live remote interpretation provided for American Sign Language as well as the Hmong language. If you would like to make a public comment here in the chambers, you can approach the microphone. You can speak in the language that you wish, and we will have live translation provided via transcript. There are several items changed on the agenda with regard to the 9 a.m. item, ID 26-796, regarding reserve for final vote on budget if needed, was removed from the agenda as the final vote on budget was executed during the June 23rd budget hearing. Item 2R, ID 26-634, regarding approve the water infrastructure reimbursement agreement for transmission grid main between the City of Fresno and the State Center Community College District, where the item reads enterprise fund, that should be corrected to read water capacity fee fund. Item 2Y, ID 26-913, regarding resolution to exempt six residential streets in Council District 3 from certain requirements of resolution number 2022-035 was corrected to read eight residential streets. This correction is reflected in the staff report and revised resolution submitted in the supplemental packet. Items removed from the agenda, item 2J, ID 26-899 regarding actions pertaining to a lease agreement between the City of Fresno and Eddie Finucci for office space located at 1360 L Street was moved to the July 30th, 2026 meeting by staff. Items moved to contested consent for further discussion. Item 2C, ID 26-862 regarding approve the third amendment to the service agreement with the Punn Group LLP for independent outside auditing services related to fiscal year 2526 was moved to contested consent by Councilmember Arias. Item 2E, ID 26-818, regarding approved the Third Amendment to the service agreement between the City of Fresno and Sculpture Conservation Studio, was moved to contested consent by Councilmember Arias. Item 2G, ID 26-879, Regarding approve the award of the requirements contract for landscape maintenance services for locations maintained by the airport's department, it was moved to contested consent by Councilmember Arias. 2i, ID 26-898, regarding actions relating to the lease of the City Hall Cafe located at 2600 Fresno Street between the City of Fresno and Culinary Studios, was moved to contested consent by Councilmember Arias. Item 2M, ID 26-900, regarding resolution of the 597th Amendment to Master Fee Schedule Resolution No. 80-420 to establish sports field reservation, was moved to contested consent by Councilmember Arias. 2N. ID 26-242, regarding actions pertaining to the Home Investment Partnerships American Rescue Plan Program, was moved to contested consent by Councilmember Richardson. Item 2V, ID 26-883, regarding resolution authorizing the submission of grant applications to the Fresno Council of Government's 2026 Measure C New Technology Reserve Grant Program, was moved to contested consent by Councilmember Arias. Item 2W, ID 26-673, regarding resolution to adopt a list of proposed public works projects to receive Senate Bill 1, road maintenance, was moved to contested consent by Councilmember Vang. This is the extent of the changes to the agenda.

All right, thank you, Clerk. I'll ask if there's any additional changes to the agenda. Councilmember Perea? Adios? Maxwell? Vang? Richardson, Carabasi?

Nothing left to pull.

Nothing left to pull. All right. It looks like you all want to have dinner here tonight. I can oblige. Let me see here. I don't have anything left to pull. I will, just for the record regarding item 2R, require to state on the record that you all know I'm employed by State Center District, but don't have an interest in the agreements that's on the agenda.

Council President, I'd like to make the same disclosure. I am required to state on the record that I'm employed by a state-centered community college district at the moment, but I do not have any interest in this agreement pursuant to government code 1091.5. Thank you.

All right, thanks for reading that. All right, I'll entertain a motion for approval of the agenda. Second. All right, we have a motion. Council Member Thaddeus, seconded by Council Member Richardson. Any opposition to approving the agenda? Seeing none, that is approved. Let's go ahead and move on to our ceremonial presentations. Funnest part of our day. We got a crowd here this morning. I think folks are here for the proclamations. We have five this morning, so I won't be putting any time limit, but please, you know, don't milk it too long. So for the first presentation we have is the... Pet of the Month, and that's gonna be presented by our Fresno Animal Center. We've got a friend here.

Good morning, everyone. We have Pika Pika with us today. And Pika is, Pika Pika, I should say, is a four-month-old black terrier mix who, as you can see, is the life of the party. She loves kids and other dogs. She is doing so well responding to crate and potty training in her foster home. She's definitely in her puppy era, and she needs lots of space to run and play. She really has been enjoying herself with her foster family, but she is ready for her forever home. And she is a sweetie, isn't she? Anyway, so as you know, we have an overabundance of animals at our animal center. And, you know, with our adopted budget, we just, you know, made a record investment in spay or neuter. So we can hopefully, you know, avoid having a whole bunch of little pika pikas. But she's here now and we need to find a good home for her. And so if we have any takers, that would be wonderful. I'm going to hang it off to the ladies for a little bit more info.

Yes, so Pika Pika is just one of our animals in foster care. We currently have about 250 animals, slightly more, in our foster program right now. This is inclusive of... kittens ranging ranging from zero to eight weeks we've got adult dogs we've got puppies we've kind of got the whole range so foster dogs are really amazing because they get the chance to live in a home they get the chance to be trained they we know how they do around kids so they really are just The total package and Pika Pika is living proof of that. So if you're interested, she is spayed. Her adoption fee is waived. Feel free to stop me on the way out or email us at animalcenterprograms at fresno.gov.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Any takers? She'll be out in the lobby. Thank you, Council President.

And Pika Pika wants one of you millennials to look at her and say, I choose you.

I don't think it's just millennials now. I think it came full circle in the younger generations in Pokemon now. There's no proclamation to read for the Animal Center? Okay, fantastic. Well, we hope someone is able to adopt. Our next proclamation is going to be for McCaffrey Homo's 50th anniversary, and that's sponsored by Council Member Carbasi.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Mike Carbasi and I'm the council member for Northwest Fresno where McCaffrey Homes has its roots and its corporate office too. I'm going to give you some numbers today. 10,000, that's the number of homes McCaffrey Homes has built in the 50 years it's been in business. This has created 115 new neighborhoods, 25 miles of new trails, and a park called Turtle Bay Park in Northwest Fresno. Thank you for that. Another big milestone, 50, not just the number of years they've been in business, but also the number of years that Robert and Karen McCaffrey have been married, and that deserves a round of applause. But I have to admit, the child in me got excited by number 58. That is the jersey number of Robert McCaffrey when he was a Green Bay Packer. So any kids out there, bona fide NFL player right here. And I'm still sore about the USC Fresno State game, but I'll just mention, father and son, Brent and Robert McCaffrey, were the only pair of most valuable linemen in USC's history. Pretty remarkable. So, sports family here. But here's a question. Are you a Niners fan or a Raiders fan? We'll hold off on that one, though. So anyways, one of the big ways we're able to deal with our housing crisis in this community, one of the ways we're able to lower the cost of living is by building more housing. Not just homes, but all types of housing. So we really want to appreciate a company that's from Fresno, not just from out of town, They've built 10,000 homes in our area, and hopefully they'll keep building and doing more to reduce that cost of living and creating more neighborhoods, paying for all that infrastructure you guys put in when you create those neighborhoods, and help make Fresno a better place. So who are we going to pass the torch off to? This is the Olympic torch right now. Karen?

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mike. It's hard to imagine that 50 years has arrived since we first started building. And at one time, Mike was our neighbor. Our homes were back to back. I remember you and your family, and you were great neighbors. Thank you so very much for this formal recognition of McCaffrey Homes' 50th anniversary. Receiving this proclamation is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our entire team. and also the support that we have received from the community over these past five decades. You know, there's something nice about getting a pat on the back from your hometown. So this is very meaningful to us. We appreciate it. And we will continue to do our part to make the city of Fresno a great place to live, work, and thrive. Thank you very much.

And I have to mention the next generation of the company is going to be Brent McCaffrey and Ash Knowlton. Thank you for all you do. Build in Fresno. We want to have you here. Thank you all. I'm going to present this proclamation to you, Karen. Actually, to both of you. And we're going to have our city clerk read the proclamation into the record. Thank you very much.

you whereas mcafree homes has consistently elevated the standards of home building through innovative practices award-winning designs and a steadfast dedication to customer satisfaction ensuring its communities blend modern convenience with timeless architectural appeal and whereas the company has made lasting contributions to the central valley by creating acres of parks installing more than 25 miles of trails and integrating sustainable features that enhance quality of life for residents across the region. And whereas the exemplary leadership of Robert and Karen McCaffrey has been recognized through their induction into the California Home Building Foundation Hall of Fame, honoring their decades of influence and achievement in the home building industry. And whereas McCaffrey Homes has demonstrated a deep commitment to giving back, contributing over half a million dollars to local scholarships, school playground equipment, and school libraries, as well as providing meaningful volunteer and community support. And whereas the company was honored with the 2026 Best Home Builder Award, award in the Fresno Bee's Best of Central California People's Choice Awards, marking its 16th recognition as a community favorite. And whereas as McCaffrey Homes looks to the future, its legacy and mission continue under the leadership of Brent McCaffrey and Ash Knowlton, ensuring that the company's values of innovation, integrity, and community enrichment remain cornerstones of its ongoing work. Now, therefore, be it resolved that we, Mayor Jerry Dyer and the Fresno City Council, hereby recognize and celebrate McCaffrey Homes' 50th anniversary.

All right, fantastic. While we get some logistics in order, we're going to go out of order on the agenda here for the proclamations. So we're actually going to take the proclamation for Kings Canyon Middle School Volleyball Day next, followed by the Youth Climate and Economic Bill of Rights Day. So I'll welcome up the volleyball team and Council Member Vang and I, who are the sponsors, will be right down there.

Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Thank you. Everybody's awake. I'm honored to have Council President Nelson Esparza join me in this proclamation recognizing the Kings Canyon Middle School boys volleyball champions. Congratulations, guys. I've seen a lot of volleyball trophies, but this is one of the better ones with the volleyball on top. Are we good?

Yes, sorry about that.

This team proved that heart, hustle, and discipline teamwork can overcome any challenges. By working together, this team won the school's first Division I Boys Volleyball Championship. That's awesome. What an accomplishment, the very first. I also want to acknowledge the coaches. These players are on the court. Yes, they battle, but the coaches are the brains and the directions behind the team. So coaches Andy Cheung and assistant coach Ethan Hur, thank you very much for dedicating your time to these young men. Thank you very much. And of course, I want to thank the parents. I am a parent of two obsessive volleyball players, so I know what you guys are like. And so thank you very much for driving your boy to in-front practice, to tournaments, et cetera. And without you, there would be no success on the court. So I want to say thank you very much to you. And of course, thank you to the community. of Kings Canyon, who comes out, support, fundraise, et cetera. You guys made Fresno Unified proud, you made Southeast Fresno proud, and you made the city of Fresno proud. Congratulations. And I hand the mic over to Council President Nelson Esparza.

Thank you, Council Member Vang. I want to say congratulations to the Grizzlies, not to be confused with the other Fresno Grizzlies here in town. We're incredibly proud of all that you accomplished. Your team has done an amazing job representing Kings Canyon Middle School and really the city of Fresno at large. So as the first D1 boys volleyball champions in your school's history, It's a moment you should be very proud of and you should be celebrating. To our coaches, thank you for the time and dedication you've poured into the team. Your leadership has helped these athletes grow not only their skills, but also in confidence, discipline, and definitely teamwork. It's reflected in the championship win. I know the team faced challenges all season long, but continued to show heart and compassion, determination, resilience every step of the way when they stepped on the court. So what you accomplished this year is, I think, really bigger than a championship. You've created a legacy for future Grizzlies to follow in your footsteps. And so on behalf of the city of Fresno, congratulations on this very historic achievement and really an incredible season. Coach wants to say a few words. There we go, there we are.

Okay, so good morning everyone. First I'd like to thank Council President Nelson Esparza, thank you. Council Member Brandon Vang, Communicator Director Dushik Five, I'm not sure if I've said their name right, but Alina Felix, all the city of Fresno and guests here today. We're truly honored to be in City Hall. This moment means a lot to our team, school, and our family. Thank you for recognizing our boys' volleyball program. For many of these students, this is their first time being in a place like this and taking part in an important moment like this. It's something that they'll remember for the rest of their lives. To introduce myself, I am the varsity assistant and JV coach for this program. To our players, I'm so proud of you. This recognition is not about the wins. It's about hard work, your growth, and character. You showed up when it was hard. You worked when no one was watching, win or lose, what mattered most was your effort every single day. The season taught you discipline, responsibility, respect, teamwork, and leadership skills that stayed with you far beyond volleyball. Our program also had a big achievement this year, as our eighth grade boys team won the Division I championship with a huge accomplishment for the students and for our school. Moments like this showed our students that their hard work truly matter. We are proud to represent Kings Canyon and the Fresno community. I also want to give a special thank you to our head coach and our athletic director, Coach Andy, Andy Jong, and our AD, David May. Thank you for your leadership, your time, and everything you do for this program and these students. To our parents and family, thank you guys for being here today. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You're always there, you showed up to every game, you cheer loudly, and you support the boys no matter what. You bring snacks, gators, and encouragement. Your support means everything to these players and to us coaches. Seeing their growth has been one of the most meaningful things in my life, not just as an athlete, but as young men and students. They pushed through challenges, stayed committed, and never gave up on each other. To our players, thank you for trusting me and for giving everything you had this season. I will always remember this group. Once again, thank you to the city of Fresno, Council President Nelson, Council Member Brannan, and Superintendent Missier, and Communication Director District 5, Alenia Felix, and all guests here, and the Fresno City. We are truly grateful for this recognition and proud to present Kings Canyon Middle School and our Division I Championship Team. Thank you. Go Kings Canyon.

Yes, go Kings Canyon Middle School. Before I hand the mic off to the clerk, I just wanted to read the last two paragraphs of this proclamation. Whereas the 2026 Kings Canyon Grizzlies boys volleyball team's first ever Division I championship victory is a milestone that will be remembered for years to come, Their hard work proved that heart, discipline, and teamwork can overcome any challenge. Their achievement has brought immense pride to Kings Canyon Middle School, its families, and the city of Fresno while establishing a lasting legacy for future generations of student athletes. Now, therefore, be proclaimed that we, Mayor Jerry P. Dyer and the Fresno City Council, do hereby proclaim June 25th, 2026 as Kings Canyon Middle School Boys Volleyball Day in the city of Fresno. Congratulations, Coach. Thank you. Clerk, please read the proclamation into the record. Thank you.

Thank you. Whereas the 2026 Kings Canyon Middle School boys volleyball team made history by winning the school's first ever Division I Boys Volleyball Championship, their championship run was a remarkable achievement that showcased determination, resilience, and the power of teamwork. And whereas entering the playoffs as the number four seed, the Kings Canyon Grizzlies faced some of the league's top teams. Through discipline and determination, the Grizzlies defeated the number two seed in advance to the championship match. And whereas during the finals, the Grizzlies consistently faced teams that were bigger, taller, and stronger, despite being undersized compared to their many opponents, The team was able to compete at the highest level and ultimately earned the Division I title. The players committed themselves to improving every day, learning valuable lessons in teamwork, leadership, accountability, and perseverance. The team developed as a culture centered around supporting one another. And whereas the team was led by head coach Andy Xiong, who has dedicated nearly 10 years to coaching and mentoring young athletes, His leadership, experience, and commitment to developing student athletes helped guide the team throughout their championship journey. Assisting him was Ethan Herr, a 20-year-old first-year assistant coach and active Hmong volleyball player. Having recently transitioned from athlete to coach, Ethan brought energy, passion, and a strong connection to the student athletes. Together, coaches Zhang and Herr helped their players grow, not only as athletes, but also as young leaders. And whereas the 2026 Kings Canyon Grizzlies boys volleyball team's first ever division one championship victory is a milestone that will be remembered for years to come. Their hard work proved that heart, discipline and teamwork can overcome any challenge. Their achievement has brought immense pride to the Kings Canyon Middle School, its families and the city of Fresno while establishing a lasting legacy for future generations of student athletes. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, Mayor Jerry P. Dyer and the Fresno City Council, do hereby proclaim June 25th, 2026 as Kings Canyon Middle School Boys Volleyball Day in the City of Fresno.

All right, next up we have a proclamation for Youth Climate and Economic Bill of Rights Day in the City of Fresno, sponsored by Councilmember Arias.

Thank you, Council President. I appreciate young people being in the chambers today. It reminds us how old the rest of us are. One day we too start as young folks. But today I want to take a moment. Yami, are you here? Come on down, Yami. Just a reminder to all the young people in the room today, this is your building, this is your house, this is your space. We are simply temporary caretakers of it. This is your city, and I am glad to be here with all of you today just to call out some attention to the fact that young people have taken it upon themselves to fight for their own future, to fight for their own communities, and to address climate change in a way that's meaningful, thoughtful, and addresses the fact that this is one planet and the only planet we all have and we share, and you guys have taken it upon yourselves to do your part. Sometimes us older people, some of my friends in the back, yes, except for Annalisa, she's a young one at 25. tend to forget we get caught in every agenda item, every policy argument, every budget number, and sometimes we forget about the overall purpose of why we're here, which is to make sure that the next generation is better off than we were and that we left the city in a better place than we found it in. So as your temporary caretaker for our community, I want to thank you and turn it over to Yami to talk about what we're doing today and highlighting your work today.

Thank you so much, Council Member Arias, and for your commitment to having youth voice and having young people be a part of a conversation. It's my pleasure to be here on behalf of Youth Leadership Institute. And you see all these amazing young people who are here. I'm the Chief Government Relations Officer for our statewide organization. And I'm actually going to hand it over to our director for our Fresno and Madera office, who is Cindy Hernandez. And she's going to talk about the amazing work that the youth and the staff did.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Buenos dias. Isn't this beautiful just to see these amazing young people who have been working really hard? Thank you to Council Member Arias and to Council President, Vice President, and the Council for this recognition. It has been a year-long process. These young people have surveyed over 2,300 young people in Fresno to say, what are the economic opportunities that you have access to or what's missing? And so they have created all this data, and now it's... going to be packaged together into Tuesday on the 30th at Fresno City College. They're going to be unveiling the Youth Climate and Economic Bill of Rights, the first one of its kind here in Fresno, to showcase all of the rights based on this data that they gathered to say, hey, we have the right to health care access in our neighborhoods. That was a sneak peek. So I just want to say thank you to the young people for this incredible work and how proud we are and how proud you should feel. And go Grizzlies, because a fellow Kings Canyon here. So that was awesome. So thank you again. And again, just showcasing the incredible work, the many hours, the long hours, all of the things that they did to put together this Bill of Rights. So thank you.

City Clerk?

Thank you. Whereas the City of Fresno recognizes that young people are essential leaders, innovators, and community members whose voices and perspectives help shape the future of our city, and whereas Youth Leadership Institute, a statewide organization serving seven regions with offices in Fresno, and programming in Madera leads efforts to build communities where young people and adults, allies, create positive change for social justice and racial equity, elevating youth leadership at every stage. And whereas YLI Fresno Youth participated in a youth-led research and community engagement process to identify the opportunities and challenges affecting their health, education, economic mobility, transportation access, and quality of life, And whereas this research informed the development of the Youth Climate and Economic Bill of Rights, a youth-created framework that outlines priorities related to public health, workforce development, environmental sustainability, education, transportation, and community well-being. And whereas the Youth Climate and Economic Bill of Rights calls for equitable access to health care services, mental health resources, safe community spaces, clean water, environmental protections, green spaces, and sustainable infrastructure that support healthy communities. And whereas the Youth Climate and Economic Bill of Rights also promotes access to financial literacy education, workforce development, paid internships, career readiness programs, entrepreneurship support, green job pathways, reliable transportation, and living wage employment opportunities for all young people. And whereas the city of Fresno recognizes the importance of empowering youth to participate in civic engagement and decision making affecting their schools, neighborhoods, and future opportunities, And whereas the Fresno City Council commends local youth leaders, community organizations, educators, advocates, and partners, including Youth Leadership Institute Youth, who contributed to the development of the Youth Climate and Economic Bill of Rights and continue working to advance positive change throughout Fresno. Now therefore be it resolved that the Fresno City Council hereby recognizes and supports the principles outlined in the Youth Climate and Economic Bill of Rights and encourages continued collaboration among city leaders, schools, community organizations, businesses, and youth advocates to advance opportunities and improve outcomes for Fresno's young people. Be it further resolved that we, the Fresno City Council, and Mayor Jerry P. Dyer do hereby proclaim this 25th day of June, 2026 as Youth Climate and Economic Bill of Rights Day.

All right, fantastic. So we're on to our last proclamation of the morning. This is a proclamation for Dirksen Niikumuode. And this is going to be sponsored by Council Member Wren.

Can you hear me? Okay, thank you. Can I have the families of Dursun Nyakumwa come up here, please? All the family members. All right, everybody, to my left and to my right. Okay. Good morning. It is a personal honor of mine to recognize Mr. Derson Nyakumwa for his contributions to the Hmong community and the greater Fresno community. As many of you know, the Hmong people came from Laos. We fought with Americans during the secret war in Laos. And when the Americans lost the war in Vietnam and in Laos, The Hmong people were left behind to defend for themselves. And I am a product of that. I was born in Laos, came here when I was six years old. So I understand what Mr. Mua has done for this community in the last 50 years. And so that is why we are here, not only to honor him, but the people like him. During that time, when we first came to America, Many of us did not know how to navigate or assimilate, much less speak English. And so Mr. Mua was one of the few who can transition between my community and the mainstream community as a strategic aid. So he was the link between surviving and helping the refugee community assimilate into mainstream America. And it is a personal journey. because I know that my parents were part of that as well. And I remembered how strategic aid like Mr. Mua played a critical role to expedite the assimilation process here for the Hmong refugees. And so his actions helped hundreds and thousands of people to improve their lives here in the city of Fresno. And since he has arrived here, He continued to be a farmer, a business owner, And as we call it, an elder, meaning that he has 24 hour responsibility to his community, not only to his nuclear family, but to the greater Hmong community. I want to thank his nuclear family, his wives and kids, for allowing him that opportunity to devote 24 hours a day to the Hmong community. And that's truly volunteer work. And so it is my honor here today to present this proclamation to Mr. Nye Kumwa for all of the work that he has done from day one since he arrived in the United States to help this community assimilate and become the greater melting pot of the United States of America. Congratulations, sir. Congratulations to you. And I'm gonna give the mic to Mai Xiong, council member from Eclair, Wisconsin.

Thank you so much, Council Member Vang. On behalf of the Moa family, we extend our sincerest gratitude to Council Member Brandon Vang and the entire city of Fresno. We thank you for recognizing the humanitarian leadership of Dirksen Yiku Mo and the elders whose experiences reflect the broader history of the Hmong American community during the silent suffering and survival era, 1975 to 1988. Our father's story is one of quiet courage. Between 1983 and 1988, he guided families through dangerous terrains, protected children and elders, and ensured the safe passage of those fleeing persecution in the aftermath of the Secret War. Like many of his generation, he carried the emotional and psychological weight of this era in silence. and he has remained largely undocumented. A lot of those like him has remained largely undocumented, and today we like to honor and recognize them. This recognition from the city of Fresno is deeply meaningful to our family. It is equally meaningful to the elders who will be present at our ceremony this weekend, many of whose experience reflect the same history, and many of the elders whom in this room today share the same experiences as Dirksen. Many of our elders served as unrecognized humanitarian responders, and they're individuals who led and sacrificed and ensured the survival of many families who now resides in Fresno and contributes to shaping the communities of the Central Valley. Lastly, we want to further recognize the work of the Hear Institute, whose research and archive efforts have helped documented the silent suffering and survival era and preserve the stories of elders like our father. Their commitment to documenting oral histories has been essential to supporting this recognition. As a family, we are humbled by this moment. We honor our father and every elder whose quiet act of bravery made it possible for future generations to thrive. We are grateful for this opportunity to see their stories acknowledged by the city of Fresno and to have their experiences preserved within California's historical and legislative record. And lastly, thank you so much to all the humanitarian responders and strategic aid of these silent suffering and survival. Y'all fight. Era of 1975 to 1988. With respect and gratitude, the Moore family. Thank you so much, Council Day.

I would be remiss if I do not conclude my remarks in my mother tongue. So will you please excuse me. Uncle, thank you. I am a young child from Laos. I come to America when I was six.

And I see the importance of you and our parents. You saved us and our sons and our daughters, the Hmong people.

And I remember those like you that crossed the river

and back and forth to save us.

So now it is time for us to recognize you and our mothers and our fathers that have saved us.

crossing the River Mekong so that we can be able to come to America and give this proclamation and certificate to you. And I see it in your eyes and the importance that you guys have done for us. Thank you.

Everything that the clerk will read in this proclamation is something that I experienced I've seen with my eyes from day one from Laos to Thailand and to America. So I really want to appreciate and say thank you to you and all of the people who helped guide, saved, and rescued the Hmong refugees from crossing the Mekong River to the refugee camps in Thailand. and continue their work here in the United States of America. So thank you very much from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. I'm going to read the last two paragraphs here onto the record, and then I'll pass it on to the clerk. Whereas since resettling in Fresno in 1989, Mr. Moua has been a proud distrified resident, small business owner, farmer, and respected elder whose courage, resilience, and lifelong contributions have strengthened the cultural and economic fabric of the Fresno community. Now, therefore, be proclaimed that we, Mayor Jared P. Dyer and the Fresno City Council, do hereby proclaim June 25th, 2026, as Dersen in the city of Fresno. Congratulations. Please read the proclamation to the record. Thank you.

Thank you. Whereas the city of Fresno is home to one of the largest Hmong communities in the United States, many of whom resettled in the Central Valley after surviving the aftermath of the United States withdrawal from Laos in 1975, and whereas following the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Laos, many Hmong civilians who had been allied with the U.S. efforts were left without formal protection and faced displacement, violence, and uncertainty under the newly established communist government. and whereas the period known within the community as the silent suffering and survival era from 1975 to 1988 represents a prolonged humanitarian crisis in which Hmong families endured food shortages, untreated illness, exposure, military violence, and constant movement through mountainous and jungle regions in search of safety. and whereas survival during this era depended on the courage and leadership of unrecognized humanitarian responders, civilian protectors who guided families through dangerous terrain, helped secure food and water, and supported movement towards safety and passage across the Mekong River. And whereas among these humanitarian responders were strategic aides, individuals who memorized escape routes, scouted ahead for danger, coordinated group movement, and helped safeguard elders, children, and families during one of the most difficult chapters in Hmong history. And whereas Dirksen Nyaku Mua, born in June 15, 1959, in Nam Tan, Laos, served as a strategic aid between 1983 and 1988, guiding hundreds of Hmong families through the jungles during the silent suffering and survival era, and contributing directly to their survival and safe passage. And whereas, since resettling in Fresno in 1989, Mr. Mua has been a proud District 5 resident, small business owner, farmer, and respected elder whose courage, resilience, and lifelong contributions have strengthened the cultural and economic fabric of the Fresno community. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, Mayor Jerry P. Dyer and the Fresno City Council, do hereby proclaim June 25th, 2026 as Dirksen Nyaku Moua Day in the City of Fresno.

All right, fantastic. We're gonna move on to council member reports and comments. I'll ask if council member Perea has any comments there. Council member Arias.

Sure, council president. I just have a couple of requests. City manager, can you provide us the schedule for parking enforcement in downtown Fresno? During non-event days yesterday, I and others who were here post-5 o'clock received parking tickets in downtown, and there wasn't a concert or a special event that I'm aware of.

You received a ticket?

Yeah.

OK.

which is a whole nother thing because I have a parking permit, but nonetheless, it's more about everybody else getting tickets. The other request I have is I got a request from residents who wanted to use the Les Kimber Park, which is still under construction. And we've been declining the request because it's under construction, which I'm assuming the contractor has liability over it. But recently there was an event there. And so if you can give us a memo on how that occurred.

I can answer that right now because where the event was, was on the corner parcel, which is a separate APN and privately owned, not part of Les Kimber Park. Same concern, we really had to dig into it and that's what we found out.

Okay, perfect. Just want to make sure that we're still saying no for parks that are under construction to be used by the public. Great. And just on other reporting for the purpose of the general public, 559 Night Market begins tomorrow evening, so the cake park performances are back in Chinatown, for those of you who want to enjoy some food and activities in Chinatown. And this Friday, we also have movie nights being hosted by our office at Frank H. Ball, and they'll be featuring Shrek. And for the one resident who I think emails me every three days about the Grove Pine Picnic shelters, they are officially complete and operational. I know that's been a shelter at Roding Park that's used routinely by the homeless advocates to provide services to the unhoused in that area. And they've been patiently waiting for almost a year for the renovations of that shelter to be completed. So those picnic shelters are officially open and operational. And thank you to the Parks Department for moving on that project and all the other improvements at Roeding Park. Those are my comments, Council President.

Council Member Karabasi, any comments there? Sure. Thank you, Council President. Just one moment.

First off, I want to just reiterate, we did pass a historic budget of over $2.5 billion. That's billion, not million. I do want to, of course, thank my colleagues in the council, council leadership, council members Maxwell and council vice president Maxwell, council president Esparza, as well as our city manager and our mayor. And all your assistant city managers and department heads and the budget office and everyone that went through months of grueling work to pass a balanced budget. A lot of great wins and priorities. If you're a District 2 resident, you're going to likely get a newsletter outlining some of the wins for our district and, of course, our city as well. I also want to thank Paul Amico and DPU. There was a water main break last night in the middle of the night, and I got a text from our city manager saying, water main break, we're on it. And they were on it. In the middle of the night, power was restored. I'm sorry, water was restored, but staff was out early in the morning to make sure people understood the notices of what they needed to do. And I appreciate that quick response. We take care of our rate payers in Fresno. And with that, that's all I have. Thank you very much. Have a good weekend, everyone. Oh, I want to add, Council President, there was a conspiracy I want to make you aware of. Council Member Arias and I planned to pull many, many items so you'd have to buy us dinner. So I'm going to move for Doghouse Grill. If I can get a second. There you go.

I like Doghouse. I just don't know what Council Vice President's going to eat from there. We'll get him a salad. Vegan tri-tip. Fries and salad. Perfect. All right. We've got to support local. We must support local. Council Member Richardson.

All right, good morning. Beautiful day in District 6. We had our second quarterly town hall of calendar year 26 last night at UCP. So thank you to UCP and the six-year 70 residents that we had to show up there. And thank you to staff, to include Director Mosier who was there. I don't think I see anybody else. And the city manager as well for joining us. But she's a constituent, so it doesn't count. The, let's see, America Fest at 9 p.m. on June 30th will be taking place at River Park to celebrate America's 250th birthday, if anybody's interested in that. If you are a veteran, or you have veterans in your family, or you are dependent of a veteran, We have a very exciting opportunity. There will be a free veteran independent vision and dental clinic taking place at the American Legion Post, taking place at 3509 North 1st Street, if you're not familiar. So if you are a veteran or a dependent, this Saturday and this Sunday, the 27th and the 28th, you can go get free vision checkup and free dental checkup. Veterans and their dependents, this is a big deal. It is free. Last year, they served over 200 veterans. It was great. They're doing the same thing. If you're a veteran and your teeth hurt, better see you at 3509 North First Street. Congratulations to Police Academy Class 180. Got the opportunity to run with them for their final motivational run from District 7 to District 3 yesterday morning, dark and early. It was awesome. I got to get out and yell cadence, not something that I get to do very often within the limits of the city. So congratulations to them. Our police force has some strong and bright individuals ready to fill in and take the watch. And then finally, just a notice to everybody in District 6 and out of District 6, it is the peak of fire season. Be mindful of that, please. If you have dry grass, trim it. If you have grass that isn't supposed to be dry, make it not dry. Get your dryer vent cleaned. If you're a homeowner or you have a dryer, a lot of home fires that aren't sparked because of people doing ridiculous, reckless things, come from dryer vents. If you need a place to clean your dryer vent, Google dryer vent clean Fresno. It's a very smart thing to do. And then clean your lint trap if for some reason you don't do that. Please, let's cut down on some of the fires that take place in the city of Fresno this year. And I believe, Council President, that is all I, dryer vents, vets, cops, UCP. That was all.

Thank you. Council Member Richardson, are you going to volunteer to do it for some of your constituents?

I'm unlicensed to clean your dryer vent, but if you need me to come clean your lint trap at your house, we've probably got bigger issues than constituent outreach.

Excellent. Council Member Vang. Thank you very much, Council President, and to my colleague from D6, that's great advice. Thank you very much. I have five kids, and so cleaning the lint is part of our daily activities in my family. Thank you very much for the reminder. Just a few comments. The Keurig Pizza Company has officially opened its newest location on Belmont and Fowler Avenue, and I'm excited to welcome another family-owned business to Southeast Fresno. and wish them continued success. If you have not already frequented this establishment, I suggest that you do so and support our local business as well. And lastly, I want to wish everyone a happy 4th of July. I encourage residents to celebrate safely and responsibly. Last year we had several fires throughout the city and I hope we can work together to prevent similar incidents this year. Let's make smart choices and follow the safety guidelines and protocols of our fire and police departments. Thank you. That's all I have, Council President.

Council Vice President, any comments today? All right. So I guess sort of the top of the morning, the top of the week, very pleased to announce that Community Health Systems and Blue Shield have reached an agreement to restore network coverage for patients across the valley. This is an important outcome for our city employees, their families, and not only them, but really the many valley residents that rely on these providers for their health care. We're I myself and as well as other council members are proud to have advocated for our employees throughout the process by urging both parties to reach a resolution. And I appreciate the administration, the Fresno City Health and Welfare Trust and our city labor leaders for their diligent and continued efforts and collaboration to help bring about this outcome. Restoring access to regular doctors and specialists will help ensure continuity of care and improve Health outcomes and reduce unnecessary visits to our already overburdened emergency room so just wanted to put that out there for the for the record and and I think everybody's happy that's where we're getting back on track and the agreement is retroactive back to February 1st when the agreement initially expired Additionally, some things that have been happening last week. Last Friday, I was honored to attend the Juneteenth flag raising as I typically do. We celebrated progress made towards civil rights while recognizing to continue the importance of advancing justice and equality in Fresno and beyond. And during the ceremony, we generally, our offices presented the proclamation these last several years. We were proud to present this year's Juneteenth Proclamation in honor of Rodney Murphy for his dedicated service to Fresno students, both in the classroom and through his advocacy in the community at large. So that was Friday, and on Saturday, I had the opportunity to speak at the Chicano Latino Youth Leadership Project, C-L-Y-L-P, Central Valley Institute that was held at Fresno State this weekend, and speak to those students, about 50 students from across the valley there. So all exciting things, all good things. I'll keep my comments short for now, and I'll ask if there's anything for the administration.

I do have a few things. Just to tag on to what you said about the Blue Shield community, we are all very pleased about them finally coming to resolution and the retroactivity back to February 1. For employees who are listening, stay tuned for information that will be coming out from Health and Welfare Trust on exactly what that means and how previous claims that have already gone through the system are going to go back and be handled retroactively, we still have to talk to Blue Shield to figure out what the process will be. Second, with regard to July 4th, I want to commend FIRE and PD who have already been out doing illegal fireworks operations and have already taken hundreds of pounds of illegal fireworks off of the streets of Fresno, which will assist in trying to keep our community safe. And just a reminder that we do have a social host ordinance So that means that if you are hosting a party at your home and one of your guests shoots off illegal fireworks, you will get a citation and it is very expensive. So safe and sane if you must, but illegal fireworks can have some serious fines attached. Last but not least, and frankly, most importantly, I would like to wish a very sincere happy birthday to our own assistant city manager, TJ Miller, who is celebrating her birthday today. So happy birthday to TJ.

She's 39 and age is a protected class.

I will just leave it as I believe that she and whoever said they're young and the rest of us up here are old except for Annalisa. I thought I was the oldest, but she now has me by today. She moved ahead of me in age. So she is now our senior member on the ties. But I love her.

All right. Well, happy birthday, TJ. Great way to spend it here. The greatest show in Fresno. All right. So we got a couple of timed items, but I'm going to go ahead and try it. We'll take the consent agenda first. We'll circle back the timed items here shortly. So before we pass the consent agenda, obviously we're going to take public comments. So I will invite the public at this time to provide public comments on either the consent agenda. the contested consent, the very long contested consent or the closed session agenda. If you have any public comment on any of those three items please come on down. I do have one card so far that was provided. I don't know if it's for any one of these items but I will call Burnett. Is Burnett with us? And again this is for the consent agenda, contested consent or closed session agenda. Any one of those items or items multiple.

Yes, my name is Brunette, and I'm with the HEAT group. And I'm in here to be, I'm objecting to any fundings that's going out. And then also, I'm objecting to, you're talking about the Kearney Boulevard, you're talking about the airport and the abatement. That should have been taken care of before they built that building. airport, and it was not done. And now you want to give them funding for it. And not only that, your substantial amendment, the NSP, the neighborhood stabilization program, you're not supposed to combine that. You can't do that. That's illegal for you to do that. You can't take funds and put them in with other funds. You've been doing that. You've been taking our funds and putting it in a general fund. You cannot do that. That's illegal for you to do that. And we're against that. And also, we're against you giving any money to the high speed rail, period, point blank. That money can be used. I say for our community. And not only that, like we're saying, we're objecting to any funding that's going out, period, even for District 3. And so far, as you're talking about, for the homeless people, you've been getting money for years, years and years and years, and you guys still haven't gotten it right. And not only that, your substantial amendments, we gave you guys this. This is from HUD. This is what you're supposed to abide by, and you guys have not done that. And you think you're gonna get away with it, but you're not. Passing bills for money that you do not deserve, you're not gonna get it, you can pass it, but we're gonna make sure that you don't get it. If we have to send it to Washington, D.C., that's where we're at at this point. This doesn't make any sense. And so far as the flag, Mr. Richardson, I want you to know we will not stand for something that's not justice for all. And it's not. Southwest Fresno has been stepped on, kicked, and everything else. We ask you guys for your support on not funding because we're not notified. Not even by the city are we notified. Now you guys got citywide. where you can pass anything having to do with saying that word citywide. We don't want to be associated with your district. We get money, and it's an insult for you guys to continue that.

Thank you I'll invite any other member of the public Who has not spoken yet if you have any comment on the consent agenda? I need the items that are pulled for contested consent or the closed session agenda I'll invite you to speak at this point Anyone else? I'll go ahead and close public comments on the consent, contested consent and closed session. I'll entertain a motion for the balance of the consent agenda. We have a motion and a second.

Council President, I'm going to register a no vote on 2L. That's 2 Larry. Thank you.

The two Larry sounded like to Larry. But yeah, the two, yes, two L, yes. Two Lawrence.

Two Lawrence.

And if I could just make a correction on the Excel spreadsheet we passed out to the dais this morning, two L is mistakenly noted as being polled for contested consent. It is part of the consent agenda.

Okay. Yeah, so two L remains on the consent and a register no from council member of eight. All right, we have a motion, we have a second. Is there any opposition to approving the balance of the consent agenda? Seeing none, that item passes seven to zero. Let's circle back here to the timed items. So you have 915, the urban water management plan. Yeah, we'll do the 915 item, urban water management line.

Council President, and this is a question for you and the clerk. On the 910, I know it says on the agenda continue to July 30th. Do you have to make a motion to actually do that? I honestly don't know the answer to that.

I think it's been noticed already. Is that correct? It's been noticed, so I don't believe so. That's a question for the clerk and the attorney. I don't think we typically have one that's been crossed off that way.

And I honestly don't know the answer. No, we don't believe we need an additional motion.

We'll state it for the record. I mean, the 9-10 a.m. 9-10 a.m. item at Barstow and Blackstone was moved to July 30th, which is the following meeting. Same time, 9-10 a.m. But now we're on the 9-15 item.

Excellent. Thank you. Good morning. Paul Amico, Director of Public Utilities. First of all, thanks for the acknowledgement about our team being out last night. We like to do what we do quietly, so while it's nice to be acknowledged, that's not the kind of situation we want to find ourselves in. But our team works hard. They were out all night, and they do deserve the recognition, so we appreciate it. So today we're going to talk about the Urban Water Management Plan. This is actually one of my favorite things to come and talk about because I am a water nerd. and it's an opportunity to have a conversation about our water supply situation and demands in the community and how we are able to provide essential utility services for our customers. So today, the discussion is to consider the urban water management plan. I have a short presentation, I'll make it concise, and then discuss the water shortage contingency plan and seek adoption of these two plans. So the first thing, the reason we prepare an urban water management plan, short answer is it's required by state statute. The benefits of having the urban water management plan for me personally and I think for the council would be, I call it our water encyclopedia. If you want to know anything about our water supply, demand projections or anything, it's a very useful tool for us to use. More importantly, it allows us to qualify for state funding. So if we don't have an approved water management or an adopted urban water management plan and water shortage contingency plan, we are prohibited from pursuing state funding. They will not approve that. And we do require, we do rely on state grants. And right now we are pursuing SRF state revolving fund loans for other projects. So it's important that we get this adopted today. The last thing it does is it demonstrates our ability to meet both near and long-term water demands with our existing water supplies. That's the urban water management plan. As far as the water shortage contingency plan goes, that is our guide for how we respond to water shortages, whether they are cutbacks in allocations from our surface water, our surface water supplies, or from an emergency. It could be a variety of things, but it gives us, and I'll get into the details of that later. So every five years, we adopt this. We come to council, and we adopt the plan, and we present it. And every five years, the Department of Water Resources hands us the requirements for the Urban Water Management Plan. So we are bound by a framework that the Department of Water Resources gives us. Keep remembering that I need to show this. And so we're required to describe our service area and our population projections, our past and projected water use based on the growth of the community, existing and planned water supplies, and then we do a reliability assessment and we prepare a water shortage contingency plan. So our urban water management plan does contain all of these. This year, Department of Water Resources was... a little late in getting us the guidance, which is why we're here on the last council of the fiscal year right before the deadline. So we would much prefer to have this prepared earlier. We're all ready with the information, but as you can see, this is a voluminous document that contains a lot of information. So our water service area includes the entire area inside our sphere of influence, and it considers all areas currently served by us and then planned to be served inside the sphere. We're required to project for the next 20 years, so that's through 2045. So all of our graphs show projections through 2050. the projected population aligns with our general plan. And we're required to use the general plan because Department of Water Resources, those demand projections there, or we're required to do demand projections using the general plan because DWR, Department of Water Resources, requires us to do this on a land use basis. And so our planned land uses, we have unit rates, unit consumption rates for those planned land uses that account for that population that would have those land uses. But because it's not just population but also commercial and business uses, that's why we use the land use for those projections. So our water demands over the next 20 years, we project that due to state regulations regarding water conservation, that our per capita water use, meaning the water use that each person uses per day, will be dropping over that timeframe. But because we forecast an increase in population, you can see that our demands grow through 2050 to ultimately between 150 and 200,000 acre feet per year. And I think during the budget discussion, I believe it was Council Member Vang came up with some good analogies for how we measure water. And so keeping that in mind, an acre foot is about one foot of water over a football field, if you can visualize that. Or about what a typical household might use in a year. So if you visualize that, it's not quite an intuitive way, but it's about 325,000 gallons, roughly. So Fresno relies on two sources of supply. Our first source of supply is groundwater. We have 260 wells around town at any one time. We have less than 200 or around 200 that are in operation, depending on the time of year and the time of day. Those wells are our base supply. That also is our savings account. There'll be a graph a little bit later in the presentation that describes the relationship between the different supplies. We manage our groundwater in accordance with state law. We're part of the North Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency. And so we not only take water out of the ground, but we also recharge it using our recharge basins around town. And also through a cooperative arrangement with Fresno Metro Flood Control District. On our surface water supply, we have access to two sources of surface water. One is through the Federal Bureau of Reclamation. It comes from water behind Friant Dam through the Friant Kern Canal. We send that water directly to the Northeast Surface Water Treatment Facility, and that is utilized to treat for drinking water and distribute throughout the north part of town. The other arrangement that we have is with the Fresno Irrigation District. That's an allocation of Kings River water And that's based on the service area. So if you visualize that before the city was as big as we are, FID or Fresno Irrigation District served this area. So by us living in this area, we have access to that surface water. And that's distributed to us through a conveyance agreement with FID. Our last source of water is recycled water or reclaimed wastewater. We have two sources of reclaimed wastewater. One is at the regional facility out on Jensen, near Jensen and Cornelia. We treat our water to a high degree of treatment, and then we percolate it into the ground through 1,700 acres of ponds. We're able to extract that water and distribute it to FID in those canals. We also have a tertiary treatment facility there that treats pure water and then distributes it through our purple pipe network that comes into downtown and goes to Roading Park and the zoo area. We also have the ability to send it north of Cornelia, and right now that pipe is extended to, I can't remember what street, but it's north of Cornelia, north of Belmont, up in that direction. We also have the North Fresno Water Reclamation Facility that was constructed as part of the Copper River development, and it is utilized to distribute irrigation water to the golf course. So summarizing everything, the city has in a normal year access to between groundwater and surface water supplies between 302,000 and up to 308,000 acre feet per year through 2050. And our potable demands are roughly half of that. What this graph is here to illustrate, and we say that our supplies greatly exceed our demands, is that we have flexibility. The investments we've made in surface water supply in the past, the Northeast Surface Water Treatment Facility and the Recharge Fresno Program gives us flexibility so that when surface water supplies are available, we maximize the use of those to push them through our treatment plants and recharge groundwater, and then we rely on groundwater as a savings account in dry years. So that ultimately results in water service reliability. The main takeaway from this graph is that when we have very wet to normal conditions, we can balance the use of surface water supplies. If it's very wet, we maximize the use of those surface water supplies. And when it's very dry, we rely on groundwater. This makes us have a very reliable supply and resilient to drought conditions. So last point I will make before we, and last couple points I'll make before we open it up for questions is on our water shortage contingency plan. So this plan details how we respond to our water shortages, ones we can foresee and then ones that are unforeseeable, like catastrophic events. DWR has more drought stages than we, shortage stages than we do. We're a little conservative when it starts getting toward that 30% availability range, we actually lump three of their drought stages into one for us so we can respond. and stay ahead of things. So our shortage response actions include year-round measures that are part of the Fresno Municipal Code, and then we have demand reduction actions depending on the shortage stage. Right now we're in our three-day watering schedule, which is actually one of our stages. Even though we aren't currently in a drought, no drought has been declared, we still maintain that because we want to conserve our water supplies and make sure that we're continuing to recover our groundwater. We have options to do supply augmentation. We can do operational changes to our city activities. And the last thing that the water shortage contingency plan does is establish our communication protocols for how we communicate to our rate payers and the public about those shortage stages. So today, the items proposed for adoption are the Urban Water Management Plan and the Water Shortage Contingency Plan. We have received some public comments, and so those will be incorporated into the documents, whether by corrections to any of the text. There were some agencies that pointed out that we were a little inconsistent how we referred to them, or other responses that may be more of a qualitative response or quantitative response, and we include that as a comment log in the document. So with that, I'll take questions.

Director, I'm going to do public comment. We'll get you back up here right now. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and open up public comment on the 9.15 a.m. item regarding the Urban Water Management Plan and the Water Shortage Contingency Plan. So any member of the public who would like to speak with respect to the 9.15 a.m. item? All right. Seeing none, we'll go ahead and close public comments. And I have Councilmember Richardson punched up. Director good morning.

Good morning. Of all of the different Irrigation areas that we have in the city. We have a two-letter identifier for each one of those The overwhelming majority of them drain into some sort of collecting ponding basin We've got a few up in district 6 and of note We have one DK Delta kilo which stretches from chestnut in the east all the way over past the river to the 41 in the west and it stretches from copper in the north and down past Shepherd to the south. It's a big area, has a lot of homes, a lot of single-family homes, and some multi-family residential as well. This is the only one in the district, and I don't know about the city, but I know it's the only one in District 6, that doesn't lead into some sort of recharge basin and doesn't lend itself to any sort of collection of groundwater or wastewater. Instead, it drains directly out to the river out to the west. Now, being that that touches Woodward Park, where we know we have some opportunities for, in the future, some irrigation improvements, Combined with the fact that currently there are city trucks that do a lot of the watering of the trees up there, it seems like we have a too much water problem when we have heavy rains because we have to insert the chicanes and we have that huge rush of water east to west into the river, which too much water can start washing away at the riparian wildlife and things like that. We have a too much water problem right next to a not enough water problem. I mean, they touch. And it's a little silly when you look at it like that. But what are the options in the future that DK, Delta Kilo could get some sort of water recharge basin that's on city land within the limits of the city, probably right there in that crook between Friant or touching Friant and touching the northern part of Woodward Park?

So the short answer with that is that we don't manage stormwater. That's managed by the Fresno Metro Flood Control District. However, we maintain a really good relationship with Fresno Metro Flood Control District and Fresno Irrigation District. In fact, we meet with them frequently about our water supplies and how we manage water. I would need to look deeper into that with the team to see what's available and we will certainly bring that up and we do monthly water agency coordination meetings. I don't know, I'll look to our staff to see whether we've ever really discussed that. Metro Flood has some really good reasons why they do certain things. And remember when you deal with Metro Flood is they are also heavily governed by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regulations. So they may have a very good reason why the Corps requires them to do what they do. But we'll certainly look into it.

Okay, I'll deal with the Army, but it's convenient. We also have the Director of the Parks Department, Director of Public Works right here. So I hope that between our office and the department directors here, maybe we can build some sort of plan for the future that we can really protect one of the gems of our city that sometimes suffers from a lack of consistent irrigation. We will start with...

How does DK function and what what is its purpose? And and and why is it the way it is and then talk about those opportunities fantastic. Thank you.

That's all I had council president All right, I'll make a motion to approve That can buy counseling for car bossy I have questions comes president. All right. We just punched up go for it.

Thank you director What's the position of this plan as relates to purple pipes? I?

It's the plan includes recycled water as a supply. As I said, this is simply an accounting of what we have.

Specifically the plan to expand purple pipes.

That's not in the scope of this plan. We are doing a reuse master plan that discusses that.

Is the city's plan to expand purple pipes or to not expand purple pipes?

At this point in time, the reuse master plan considers expansion of the system, but only based on certain triggers and certain users that are interested in signing up. The urban water management plan does account for and increase in our use of recycled water as a portion of our supply.

By whom? If we're not expanding purple pipes, who would be the increased users of recycled water?

Well, we would expand the system. So the way that we're going to work the reuse master plan in GLAD, it's in its final stages right now. We just provided final comment to the consultant, who happened also to be the same consultant who's done the urban water management plan. One of my plan for that would be once we complete the reuse master plan, and what we've done with that is we have identified near users that are most cost effective to hook to the system to start utilizing the supply that we have, the investments we've made in PurplePipe. Once we have those users identified, we will go out and get commitments from those users and start working with them to market the recycled water to them and to get the commitments so that we can hook them up in a cost-effective manner.

And, Paul, those are by where the system currently exists? Correct. Closest to where the system currently exists? Correct.

So I recall initial pitch of the Purple Pipe program and the rationale for investing millions of dollars was that we were going to eventually connect our public...

streetscapes and our city parks is that no longer the plan it's in the plan it's in the plan and we've only the proximity of the existing infrastructure correct the plan is a trigger-based plan so what we said is as opposed to most master plans as you know are time-based but because recycled water right now has a finite supply and then the pressure in the system is finite those investments We need to get the users hooked up first so one of the things we're doing is we've identified those areas and now we're gonna go forward and market the Recycled water and start working so to address my specific question and you're now no longer planning to connect all city parks greens We are not recycled water.

Not all of them. No, okay, and who makes that decision? ultimately is it this body and through what physical plan or is it administration and through what process and

I think it's as part of the reuse master plan that will come to you. There will be sort of what our plan is based on all of the technical analysis and the costs associated with it. For instance, the cost to bring Purple Pipe all the way up to Woodward Park. is we would probably show completely cost prohibitive because it's sort of like when we do sewer trunk lines where it's in the Southern section of the city and you would have to put pipe down and infrastructure down and build that entire system up.

Understood, but as we've debated whether we subsidize SATA, which is also cost prohibitive, some people have tried to rationalize that investment. I'm struggling to understand why our city parks still cannot benefit, why Woodward Park continues to be a place that you irrigate like if you're in Mexico with the truck, when we should be a much more sophisticated system. So if it's a matter of money and investment, And my question simply was, what is the plan in which we get to weigh in whether Purple Pipe gets expanded to city parks or not? And if the answer is the upcoming plan, that's a venue.

I think it's the water reuse plan, wouldn't it be?

Reuse master plan. Okay. Like I said, we're getting real close to having that finalized.

We're talking days and weeks, not months. Fair enough. Then I'll fully engage in the purple pipe conversation then. Perfect. We're glad to have it. In terms of the exchange agreement we have with the Fresno irrigation district. Yes. For every gallon that we give them in recycled water, how much do we get in return of their water? Half gallon. Half gallon. Two for one. Two for one. When was the last time that that percentage was negotiated?

We're currently operating under, the last time it was negotiated was in... 1970.

In my mind, it's 1977. It's 74.

74? Yep. Before I was born. Yeah, 1974. We've been in discussions with FID. That exchange agreement permits us to continue with the terms of the agreement, and we're even after its expiration. So we've been working with them cooperatively to negotiate those terms to be more favorable to the city. And as you know, any negotiation, you gotta give something to get something. And so they agreed to a higher exchange rate, and in exchange, we got the ability to deliver that surface water anywhere that we request, meaning to our surface water treatment facilities or to other recharge facilities.

So do we currently have a new agreement with them, or are we operating based on a defaulted or expired agreement?

The agreement, I don't have the agreement in front of me.

I don't think it expires.

Yeah, it says the contract shall continue in effect after the end of said terms. It's a forever agreement?

I think it's one it's sort of it basically it'll continue until we negotiate something different in a non-legal way I'm describing that and I'm looking at the attorney's office or and if you could just help me understand when you negotiate new terms does this body have to agree approve those terms When it's a new agreement, you will.

When it's a new agreement, yeah. But you're not a negotiating agreement. You're just negotiating new terms. Correct. So are those terms coming to his body for approval? Yes, they will be. When?

So we'll have to get back to you on the timeline. We've been in conversations with FID and there are other issues at play that would be a more appropriate discussion out maybe in closed session. I don't really want to have that conversation. I can talk to you offline. There are a couple other things at play. Fair enough.

Can we just agendize it for future closed session so we can have that discussion?

However, I'm not sure we can get into closed session, but we'll make sure we have an opportunity to brief you, Council Member.

We need some briefing for the full body. You bet. Because in my view, that 1970s agreement is not in the interest of city rate payers, and we need to address that. And we need to address it in a very public way and transparent way so people know how much we're giving up in recycled water and how much we're actually giving back in surface water. Because all that will eventually lead to potential rate increases and how we... justify how much more we charge the public.

We'll work with the Attorney's Office.

Right. I think one final benefit discussion around that is we're part of the North Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency and so we're required by the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act to work cooperatively to restore groundwater. So there is a benefit to the repair.

There is but in my experience this is metropolitan area of Fresno has constantly been on the short end of the rest of the neighboring users of water allocation. We've always been asked to front the money, to chase down a new dam, a new project, and we're always seems to be the body that gets hit with the bill for these other approaches. So I wanna be very thoughtful about whether urban Fresno should be continued to subsidize benefits for other neighboring partners.

Council member, I'm going to respectfully disagree with that last statement, but we'd be happy to work with the attorney's office to make sure the body is briefed.

And you can definitely look at what we've paid for the fine folks and all the litigation that we entered into and all the consultant fees and contributions we've made in more than half a million dollars towards the last pursue of a

We didn't subsidize anyone. We just paid our proportionate share. We did not subsidize. We paid our proportionate share.

And a dam would have had no benefit to our rate payers.

It absolutely would have had a benefit to our rate payers.

We'll agree to disagree for the moment. Population growth. Girl, don't start with that thing because it's going to ring a lot after you're done. Population growth, you mentioned you use a general plan population numbers. Correct. So they have not been updated to reflect the actual population trends that we've seen, reduction of population across the state, through the Department of Finance?

I will let our Director of Planning answer that. We receive, we're required by state law to use land use based projections. So we receive the information, we calculate everything based on that.

Yeah, but the general plan population trends are significantly different than what we've actually experienced.

Sure. Good morning, Councilmember Jennifer Clark, Director of Planning and Development. So I appreciate that population projections is a very complex issue. I think Director Emiko did a great job of really talking about how the state requires us, kind of like HCD through the housing element, to think about capacity. So based on the land uses that are designated in the general plan, there is capacity for a certain amount of population. That doesn't mean we're guaranteed to see that population growth. And as you know, when the general plan was adopted, we used the Department of Finance numbers. Their numbers were not correct. correct as to what actually panned out or played out. When we update our general plan through our climate adaptation environmental justice element, we will be evaluating a variety of population projections um including the department of finance um there are some other ways to to calculate our potential population but again the capacity is there within our land uses and so the department of water resources requires that the city show that it has the capacity to serve all of that population. So regardless of whether or not we agree or disagree with different population projections, we still have those land uses mapped on the ground that say, here is the capacity, and we have to show that we can provide for that, just like the housing element.

Fair enough. So specifically, this is a five-year plan. What is a projected population growth that the five-year plan assumes? There was a slide in the... Director, can you remind me, what's the current population of the city of Fresno?

I don't know the exact number. It's somewhere around 554 or 556.

And what's your projection in five years? Your assumption?

The assumption in 2030 is just over 600,000. So 50,000 people in five years?

You know, again, I don't want to get into a discussion of...

I'm not trying to argue over whether it's a right metric. I just want to be clear that our projections for the next five years based on this water plan is we're assuming a growth of 50,000 based on the general plan metric.

That's not exactly what the director said. What he said was we have to show the state that we have the capacity to serve that population, that it doesn't say that it's going to happen, that we know that we're going to have that, just like the housing element.

Understand that so in essence you're tying to state that the city has a capacity for an additional 50,000 people for the next five years from the water from water supply The one dial that we do we can adjust is our forecasted per capita or unit rate use and And what conservation targets were willing to okay, so I wanted to get clear on kind of what is a capacity where a suggesting we need and what we're capable of delivering in case that need is there. So that's clear to me now. Gotcha. What is the plan call for existing users? Based on our, I'm assuming we have sufficient water capacity based on this plan, correct? For all current residents? Yes. Does that mean that we would be in a position to consider allocating additional use of water to existing rate payers? Right now we have a limit. Say we have a limit of a gallon per person. Right. Whatever that formula is for every residential, commercial, and industrial user. Do we have the ability to increase that threshold given that we have excess water?

Those two things, no, we're not. We're bound by state law for conservation to implement more aggressive conservation measures to preserve our water supply.

So state law still requires us to continue to preserve further than what we're currently doing. That's correct.

So we get punished for doing a good job and making investments like we did in Recharge Fresno to make sure that we're very resilient and have good water supply, but then the state limits our ability to use it.

So the the rate payer the residents should not expect because the city of Fresno has access recycled water surface water Because we spent half a billion dollars Processing more capacity that they should in the future expect a higher allocation of water to use

No, you're saying an individual user, because we've made these investments, should expect to be able to use more? Correct. No, that is not. It would be the opposite. It would be the opposite.

We're required to conserve more. In what plan does that conservation formula exist?

So you mean the conservation targets? Yes. There's a regulation called Making Conservation a California Way of Life. And Department of Water Resources, when they see our plan, could very much come back to us and say, you have to do more in terms of conservation.

Is this a document that outlines how much each sector of user has to conserve over the next five years?

Yes, I mean, those unit rates are, it's not in this document, correct? No, it's not.

Is it conservation or is it how much we can use or is it how much we can't use?

I may need my help from our consultant on this one because this is a very detailed question.

The reason I'm asking, Director, is I don't want to waste your time. on asking you how much you're expecting commercial, industrial, and residential users to conserve over the next five years if this is not the right vehicle and plan to have that conversation? This is not.

What is the right vehicle? We will be bringing a conservation ordinance change to the council in the coming months. And that conservation ordinance change will accomplish a couple things. One is it will permit... the department of public utilities to start doing automated enforcement meaning we can detect water waste using our metering system and then that will allow us to contact that customer send a courtesy notice you need to reduce water use and if they continue to do that we would implement a fine structure so right now we' re in a moratorium on fines. In addition to that, that ordinance will then implement new regulations related to non-functional turf and the irrigation of non-functional turf.

And that means we're not going to be permitted to do that. Are residents and ratepayers in Fresno currently in violation of our conservation targets? No. So in my experience, you only do fine structures when people are in violations and you're trying to get them to behave differently so we can meet our collective goals. Right. We're not in that space. We're not in violation of our conservation targets. And we have sufficient water supply for everyone who currently uses water. Hence my objection to starting to find old ladies for watering the front lawn if we don't need to.

I don't, I will get the data, but I don't believe that customer class, that particular customer class is our problem. So we will be bringing, when we bring the conservation ordinance, we're gonna bring real data and who are those bad actors.

I understand that. Historically and in my lived experience, It's never the person responsible for the misbehavior that gets fined. Once you set off the green light to start the fine system, it's the everyday user who's a single occupant in their 1930 home who's watering their grass through a sprinkler who gets the automatic notice. It's not the church with 5,000 acres of grassland that's over watering on a weekly basis because they can afford to pay the fine. And historically they have paid the fine and continued to overwater. So I wanna be very thoughtful about that. Fines are meant to change behavior when we're failing to meet our collective goals, not simply to do them for the sake of doing them. If you have a certain class, industrial users, commercial users, we should be going after them and not everyone else.

Council member if I may this is why we push for the volumetric plan that DPU is going to bring to us with a plan to hold those large offenders accountable for wasting 10,000 gallons not somebody who's wasting 50.

So just a point of clarification when we talk about the fines. the department has discretion in terms of, because fines aren't required by state law, right? So when we get a notice that someone is exceeding 400, the number right now is gonna be changed to 400 gallons an hour. We get a notification from the metering system. A human being goes and looks at that notification, and then we make a decision. Is this a pattern? We do education, we do that. We have a lot of discretion.

So I'll give you an example of how your metrics historically missed the mark. In our southern neighborhoods, People wash, make dinner, and shower at the same time when everybody gets home, right? They were getting notices because they were over the hourly rate usage, but on the monthly rate, they were below it. So we got a whole lot of people that simply were going over the volume limits on the hourly time, but not on the monthly. And yet they were being fined. Because the assumption is everybody somehow is going to limit their use per hour at the same rate, and it's not. So there's... We have some older homes here that have group homes operating out of them. We have shelters operating some of them. The diversity of use in the housing units is different than a suburb subdivision. And too often those things are measured in the same way. So that's a conversation for when you bring that conservation plan. Glad to have it. My last question is... Does this plan assume that the city authorizes the southeast growth area or development area of SEDA?

There's no assumption that that isn't part of this. What it just simply says is, as I said, it's a calculation. It's a calculation if what does inside the sphere of influence require in terms of a supply to meet those projected land uses.

In the general plan, which you're basing your proposal on, does include the development of southeast area, correct?

So the general plan includes land uses in the SATA area, whether you adopt the SATA plan or not.

And does this plan have sufficient water for SATA?

What the report is showing is that there is sufficient water for all of the land uses within the sphere of influence, which would include the area that could be covered by any plan in Southeast Development.

So the reason I ask is the Salty Development Plan originally was primary residential, which we know they tend to have, the zoning was mostly residential.

Okay, so I think this is off the topic of what was agendized for today, so I want to make sure that we're not going sideways. What I would like to say is that the general plan has land uses in its sphere of influence for all of the sphere of influence, including that area. This report covers all of the sphere of influence.

What's on the agenda today is water allocation for that part of town as well, based on the zoning. The zoning on the southeast growth area was A, the most recent version is B, which is far more industrial in nature, which is a different level of water use.

So to not kind of shift direction, it is a, Moving around of land uses, not a change in number of acres. So let me just.

Let me ask you differently, Director. This plan calls for how many acres of industrial use in the southeast growth area?

That's a pretty highly detailed question that I would need to follow up with you on that. I mean, it's the general plan right now. I would need to figure out which.

The general plan calls for how much acres of industrial use in southeast growth area. We don't know. Because we're planning here for the maximum use, right?

Go ahead. So this is, and we need the consultants or Paul to, the urban water management plan is sort of a, is a explanation of what our supplies are that were required by under state law to give an inventory of our supplies of surface water, groundwater, recycled water, And I don't know what other sources there are other than those. And we're required to do that. I don't know that it gets into the level of discussion of how that water is going to be used and specifically where.

Okay, fair enough. So let me ask my question differently. How much... Can you answer this? How much excess water do we have that's recycled under this plan? Excess from what we currently need. That's recycled water?

I don't know if I specifically understand your question in terms of, are you saying How much more recycled water could we potentially deliver to our customers?

How much recycled water do we produce today? How much of that is actually utilized? Therefore, how much of it is excess?

Okay, that's a good question. Okay, so we're producing right now, we produce about two and a half million gallons per day from our tertiary treatment facility. From North Fresno, we produce about 250 to 300,000 gallons per day. The capacity of the tertiary plant is 5 million gallons per day, but we just don't have that demand.

How much do we use of that $2.5 million of recycled water? $2.5 million gallon.

331 acre feet per year, so that's about 3 million gallons.

is what we use right so what do we exchange with the irrigation district thing because we're only exchanging what we're not using correct i would that's a i would have to go ask our wastewater management folks what we're pumping out of the reclamation wells and putting into the houghton canal okay that would be helpful okay and then um how much water do we have do we produce a year whether it's recycled or not surface water And also, based on what we produce, how much do we actually use? And therefore, how much excess do we have?

So on the slide that said water supply summary in a normal year, so as you know, that varies.

Can we bring that slide up? I know your slides aren't numbered. I know.

And I know all these numbers vary based on whether we have a rainy season or good snow or not.

It's this one, Miguel, if we could pull that one up.

Oops. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So right now we produce, our demand is in the 140,000 acre feet per year range. And it varies depending on the on the conditions, right? If it's cooler, we use less. If it's hotter, we use a little more. But in a normal year, we're about just shy of 150,000 acre feet per year. As you can see here, projected for 2030, and these projections, it's not that much different than today, we have access to 302,000 acre feet per year.

So is it fair statement to... to interpret that as about 50% of our water capacity we're using? Correct.

That we have access to. Now, remember, one of the dials that we can, obviously, the surface water allocations, we don't necessarily control. We take what we can. We maximize the use of that. And then that sets the amount of groundwater that we have to pump.

Does state law or city ordinance, what limits our ability to sell that 50% additional capacity that we have that we're not using?

I think just as long as we keep it within the basin boundary area, we absolutely could sell water. We've done it in the past, not in a while, but we could sell water if we wanted to.

We could exchange it, and not just the recycled water. We could do an exchange with, we could exchange that water with anyone that, in fact, people approach us all the time about wanting exchanges. Or sell it.

Or sell it, right. Are you familiar with data centers and the amount of wire that they utilize? We've looked into it briefly.

That came up months ago when we did some calculations, and we've done some research around those.

If that was to occur, is that a sale? Is that an exchange?

If there was a data center that was allowed to move forward in our city and there would be a lot of really very high hurdles, mostly power, they would in essence become a customer, no different than, for instance, we have had companies come to down Like, for instance, who wanted to do a bottled water company in town, and they basically just become a water customer, a commercial or industrial customer of the city.

Are there any limits to how much a new customer can absorb from the system? We would definitely look at that.

It'd be limited by the infrastructure that's available. We would look at if there was a major water user that came in. Let's assume they pay for the infrastructure.

Data centers are billion-dollar investments. We would still have to condition that. But there's no system that would say no new user can take up more than 20% of the existing capacity of...

there's there's we would study it we would have to study it there's nothing by policy that says that we have to say this user you have a max amount that you're going to use but we are we are water conscious we want to be resilient and we would study that in depth because we do have a limit of how much residential users can use right we do we do but we don't have the same limit for a new customer

Well, that's a little bit of a different... Yeah, they're paid...

So does state law have limits? I mean, they have GPM targets for residential. Are there GPM targets for commercial and industrial?

I don't... Heather's going to come and rescue me on this one. Okay. Thank you, Heather. Thank you for entertaining my questions. Yeah.

Yes, so I can speak... Hi, Heather Freed, WSC. I can speak on the state's conservation regulations. There are buckets of water use targets that the city's going to have to meet. Most people are familiar with the indoor residential water use targets. Right now it was 55 gallons per person per day and then it ramped down to 48 and then it's going to ramp down in the future again. There is also residential outdoor water use targets. There is commercial, industrial, outdoor water use targets if they have a dedicated irrigation meter. And then there are some variances for large industries. So if you did have a data center, there could be a variance in there that would adjust your water budget. And I do want to say an important aspect of the water budget and those conservation regulations is that the city has to meet it on a whole. and not like the individual sectors. So if you have opportunities to reduce your outdoor water use more and less on the indoor side, then that could alleviate some of the residents.

You could see circumstances where we tell everyday users, useless to water your landscape, while allowing a data center to open up with no limits.

And I want to make sure I put on the record, because I don't want this. Yeah, it's a data center conversation. You know that we as an administration, you know, first of all, I understand the data center industry is already starting to shift because of the issues of water, you know, across certainly the western U.S. So, We have also, and the mayor's made it clear, like that, you know, traditional data centers are, you know, not something that we think that our community can support, but also from the PG&E perspective, we just don't, they are heavy, heavy, heavy power users.

Absolutely. But I just want to be clear. We're judged on our conservation numbers as a whole, so we could easily trigger the fine structure for individual outdoor users, residential users, the grandma watering her plants, and then allow a data center or industrial use of whatever kind used a million gallons of water with no limits, as long as they keep a drought-tolerant landscape on the outside. correct it's it's possible we would we would definitely study it I mean we don't we take our water resource management but that's even in our current policy sets targets for new users on what how much of the system they can use right as our consultant said it's it's buckets we we're looking at this and we're very now we're yeah those are all my questions Thank You city manager and director okay and Heather all right we have a motion and a second on the table I don't have anyone else punched up

is there any opposition to approving the water management plan and water shortage contingency plan? Seeing none that passes five four to one.

Thank you and I just want to acknowledge my team that helped us do this but has been working very hard on this so greatly appreciate everything they've done thank you. Thank you.

All right, I got a request to do item two I. So let's move over to item two I. This is the lease of our city hall cafe downstairs. Pulled my customer ideas. Staff has a brief presentation, I guess.

Councilmember Arias. I believe you pulled this item.

We're ready for you Did I read the lease agreement correct that your way being read for the first three years Good morning councilmember Brian bar director of general services that is correct. That is part of the lease agreement Is is is there another lease agreement that does the same thing?

I'm sorry, can you repeat this question? I'm having a hard time hearing.

Is there another lease agreement that replicates rent free for three years?

Council member, we're wondering why we have elected to abate rent for the first three years. There is a couple of very significant reasons.

Correct. But first, I want my first question addressed. Is there any other lease agreement that also waives rent for the first three years?

We have many $1 lease agreements still in. It's $1. Amtrak, Greyhound, and Amtrak? Greyhound, Amtrak, Discovery Center, a whole host of others that are multi-decade leases.

In terms of recent retail arrangements, is this the only one where we're proposing rent-free?

Yes, but this is a much different arrangement because we are in City Hall and there's a clear and convincing benefit to make sure that our employees in a total of more than 550 that work in this building have access to food, of which we've been trying very hard to do to attract a very qualified tenant to do so, and we have today before you.

So is it rationale for rent-free convenience of employees having access to the food in the building? That is the primary reason, yes.

And we did try the standard process once the previous tenant left and we could, we just couldn't find anybody that was willing to come in who had any sort of experience. And so we had to get creative in order to be able to find a business that, that, would come in and be able to offer. As you know, I'm sure you heard it many times, as did we with our employees really clamoring for food options in the building.

Absolutely. But I have also been here seven years and my office has had to pay rent for our space here.

Well, not lately.

Because we paid off the mortgage. We've all paid parking permit fees as council members because we all got to pay our portion.

And the idea, you know, it's only for the first three years because it's to give an opportunity for the business to become profitable. So, you know, wanting to have someone of high level with experience who can be successful to be able to come in and do what they need to do, set up. And then once they are through that ramp up period, then obviously they are gonna be paying towards the city.

So we are open as a city to lease agreements where they don't pay rent for the first three years, giving an opportunity to make a profit. Correct.

I would go back to this was about serving our employees in this building. So if there was a, if it was about city hall employees and the ability to provide options, you know, there have been some things within OSHA that talk about services for employees. I'm not going to say no, maybe. Okay. Should the same fact pattern present itself, I think we could consider it.

Okay. Well, I'm glad you could consider it because I'm going to bring something forward similar.

Can you, what are you thinking?

It's not on the agenda, so I don't want to go there. Okay, sounds good. Let me know. The PG&E arrangement, this agreement also calls for us to pay the PG&E cost. Can you walk me through the rationale for that? Because in other leases, even though they're in city buildings, they're responsible for the PG&E utility cost.

We are only able to make PG&E a responsibility of a tenant as if there's a separate meter. In many commercial spaces, Cockeys, Fresno Arts Council, et cetera, those are all separately metered. With City Hall, this is under one meter. It's all one meter, the whole building?

That is correct. That makes sense to me. Okay, is the tenant proposing any tenant improvements funded by the tenant, or is that city-funded tenant improvements?

We currently are under construction of leasehold improvements, so improvements to the space, which mainly focus on changing the configuration. So I sent a trade memo out about this last week. One of the major challenges for us to get a tenant in was, The space is very representative of 1980s. I grew up watching the Saved by the Bell and that cafe from that show. It reminds me of that very much. With modern cafes, really championed by Starbucks, coffee beans, where you have a front of house counter and you're able to serve food and drinks and whatnot and prepare some stuff in front of the customer so they can see the menu and really... have more options to buy. That doesn't exist in our current configuration. So a lot of the improvements that we're doing are that, as well as adding seating within the cafe itself.

And to be clear, those tenant improvements are being done by the city, not by the tenant? That is correct, yes.

What's the cost of those tenant improvements? So we are spending $400,000 on the actual construction, and we've also purchased another $100,000 in equipment. All in all, we have a little over $600,000 budgeted towards the improvements of the cafe.

That's a lot of tenant improvements funded by the city.

Really? It is necessary to have any tenant, any vendor come in and do business. Understood.

Council Member Arias?

Yeah.

You think the $600,000 is a lot?

For an existing building? A space in an existing building?

Okay, I just like, we just spent $2 million on the water tower to put coffee, a coffee shop in there.

No, it wasn't for the coffee shop, city manager. The water tower is a number one historical asset in the city.

I understand, but the improvements, the new transformer, all of the main, with the exception of the painting, which absolutely needed to be done to preserve all of the internal- The city manager, you weren't here when it started.

Yes, I was. The roof- The roof was deteriorated. That was a responsibility. The exterior was a responsibility. The transformer was a requirement to separate the police department headquarters from the system.

It was for the purpose of being able to have electricity in the water tower to be able to run coffee machines.

There was already electricity inside the water tower.

No, council member, I was here. And one of my first duties as city manager was taking this over from the previous city manager. So we'll leave it at that.

So we... We are making $600,000 of tenant improvements for the private operator.

We are.

Is there any tenant improvements that the operator is going to fund themselves?

That would be anything specific to the branding of their cafe, Crack Pepper Cafe. some appliances, and other minor things that are more decor related.

What's the city on the hook for downstream for equipment, structural items? Are they on the hook for that, or are we on the hook for that stuff?

So because we own the equipment, we will be responsible for the repair, but the tenant will be responsible for routine maintenance.

Got it. So they maintain the coffee machine. If it needs to be replaced, we replace it.

Yeah. Well, the coffee machine is actually one of the more expensive items, and that is being brought by the tenant. OK. So that we're not buying any coffee equipment. OK.

Council member also, it's not just the physical improvements. I mean, we really have looked at this as an investment in our employees. And then also, there are people throughout downtown that will be able, not just us, it's users of the building, it's the public coming in. I think many of us who have gone over to the federal courthouse to frequent the restaurant over there, I think, you know, downtown folks are always looking for additional food options.

Your legal conclusion for charging zero rent was convenience to city employees, not benefits to the general public.

Well, it's both. I'm saying, and I 100% agree, I'm saying it's an investment in our employees as well who have requested time and time again for us to be able to open this cafe again that was shut down due to COVID.

Did we do an RFP for operators? We did. Did we offer at that time no rent and tenant improvements funded by the city?

So we did a lot of outreach, cold calling, meeting in person. Ultimately, we were able to collect 10 proposals, walking probably 20, 24 people through the space itself, and 10 were interested enough, including Avache, to send us a proposal. We looked at that. We looked at all of our options, and we said, you know, In fact, we were actually pretty close with one other vendor in late 2024, but ultimately they went out of business. And that would have been a great option, but things happen. But yes, as we were going through these things and having serious conversations, we were telling them what's on the table because we were very interested in having someone be successful here.

And just to be clear, you offered everyone the same thing on the table. Ten improvements funded by the city, zero rent for three years. The... Or was that just to this one when you finally got somebody interested?

We... Okay, so there's a timeline to consider here because we've been looking for many years, right? And we've collected proposals and whatnot and helped kind of determine what is CONSISTENT WITH THE SURVEY THAT WENT OUT TO ALL EMPLOYEES, WHICH WE HAD GREATER THAN 80% RESPONSE FOR CITY HALL, WHICH WAS TRULY FANTASTIC. TRY TO FIGURE OUT SOMETHING THAT FITS WITHIN THOSE LINES. When we were going through and trying to identify how to do this, free rent was on the table. But every vendor that came in here and said, hey, this is really risky. We're not really sure because the space doesn't work for us. We listened to that feedback. And in an FY25, we programmed $450,000. Excuse me, 26 programmed $450,000 into the budget to address these things. After that, we met with Vache and said, hey, you know, here's what's going on. We've had other conversations with other people, but he really brings a lot of experience that is just not in either proposal.

This isn't about the operator. Let me be clear. I think I've been to his restaurant once. I hear the bread pudding is great, but it's not about the operator. In the last months, two months in downtown, we've lost a couple of restaurants. Las Mañanitas, La Chaca, most recently. And I struggle with us having a space in this building in which we were willing to offer that level of tenant improvements, that level of startup support, first three years of rent-free. And... know that we either didn't reach out to those folks, we didn't give them the opportunity, and that we had to go all the way north of town to get somebody to be enticed into this, which is amazing. You've done an amazing job of providing the most support generous lease proposal that I've seen in my tenure. And I'm confident that that will lead to a higher likelihood of success, which is what we all want. But my hope is that we would have done that for existing downtown eateries who have committed to downtown decades ago and who are equally struggling to find somebody, a landlord, as generous as we are today with our space.

I think it's just a matter of timing. I think, you know, we were accepting proposals from everybody, and I think, as Brian said, the one vendor we were so close on was one of those eateries that was downtown. Correct. And we thought we were there, and unfortunately, they had some sort of personal issue, I think,

I don't want to get into the individual stuff again. It's not about the operator. Yeah, it's I've asked my questions We're establishing in my view of precedence on how supportive and helpful we are to operators who operate within our public facilities I'm going to use this as a Standard for how we operate other public facilities for the benefit of our employees the benefit of employees and the public which you've said on the record is

I said predominantly it's a benefit for our employees.

And our employees get coffee down the street. They shop down the street. They eat down the street. That's what government employees do in downtown. So thank you again, Director. And with that, I'll make a motion to approve.

We have a motion and a second. Council Vice President, are you punched up?

Yeah, good morning, Director. I just wanted to say, I'm not sure why this is being scrutinized so much. I think this is really a fantastic opportunity for the thousands of people that call City Hall their work, that come here every day, work late hours. I know there was some stiff competition. I'm glad to see, you know, such a well-respected restaurant in our community be selected. I really think it's going to be a good thing for the employees working here to have that option to not have to necessarily walk outside to get food when it's, you know, 40 degrees or 112 degrees outside and they could you know, grab breakfast or grab a snack, lunch, or even, you know, a later meal if work calls for it. So I just want to say good work. I know it was a long process. I know there was a lot of interested applicants. Happy to see Crack Pepper moving through, and I'm looking forward to your tenure here at City Hall. Congratulations.

Thank you, Council Member. Yeah, I'm going to be an enthusiastic yes on this item. I finally got up there and tried some of the breakfast items recently, and they're great. So presumably it's a cafe. We'll have some overlap there. I don't have anyone else punched up. Is there any opposition to approving item 2i? Seeing none, that passes, again, enthusiastic 7-0. Thank you very much. Thank you. Let's move back over. We had one more timed item to get through. That was the 9.20 a.m. hearing item on the text amendment application. All staff there. Welcome.

Yes. Good morning, Adrienne Osidore and Gilbert, Supervising Planner with the Planning and Development Department. We did initially hear this item at last week's council meeting, so did just want to reshare the summary of this text amendment. This text amendment does permit ministerial approval of developments that provide at least 20% of the units affordable to lower income households on housing element sites. We do have a full presentation if you would like, or we're available to answer any questions as well.

We'll take a brief presentation.

Okay, great.

All right, so just to touch on a bit of the purpose and background for this text amendment. The purpose is to ensure the development code complies with California government code and that the city maintains a compliant housing element. AB 1397, which was passed in 2017, revised state housing element law to require that local governments provide a credible inventory of land within the capacity to meet our regional housing needs allocation, which is otherwise known as the RHNA, at each designated income level, which is known as our housing element sites inventory. AB 1397 requires sites included in the inventory to be both available and suitable for residential development. The inventory may include both vacant and non-vacant sites that have a realistic demonstrated potential for redevelopment during the eight-year planning period. To incentivize development on sites that are included in the site's inventory, California government code section 65582.2c additionally requires that any vacant sites included in the prior two housing elements and any non-vacant site included in at least one prior housing element shall be provided by right development when at least 20% of the units in the development are affordable to lower income households. Let's see. So as you all know, the City of Fresno 2023 to 2031 housing element was adopted by the City Council in December of 2024 and subsequently certified by the State of California Department of Housing and Community Investment in January of 2025. The housing element identifies 37 programs the City is required to implement over the eight-year planning period. So Housing Element Program 9 is one of those 37 programs that was established in the housing element. And it commits the city to amending the development code to permit ministerial approval of developments that provide at least 20% of the units affordable to lower income households on non-vacant sites identified in a prior housing element and vacant sites identified in two or more consecutive housing elements. So this means that the city cannot require any form of discretionary review or approval for such projects, and they are approved ministerially. And as mentioned previously, this is already a requirement of state law that has been established through California Government Code Section 65583.2C. And this text amendment ensures that our code reflects both state law and implements the commitments that we did make in our housing element. So just to get into the text amendment a bit here. So it does amend sections of the Fresno Municipal Code. But again, it does not propose any changes to zoning. So qualifying projects will be processed ministerially through the zone clearance process and will not require discretionary review by the Planning Commission or the City Council. And I'd like to note as well, currently residential projects that meet the provisions of the base districts today are processed through the development permit process. Those do not require public hearings by the Planning Commission or the City Council. And housing projects downtown that meet the provisions of the zoning code as well are also processed with the zone clearance today. So the provisions of this text amendment do not change the city council's authority for those types of projects that do meet the provisions of our development code. So in order for a project to qualify through the provisions of this text amendment, it would have to meet all of the following. First, it would need to be located on a non-vacant site identified in a prior housing element or a vacant site included in two or more consecutive housing elements. The project would have to provide at least 20% of the units affordable to lower income households. And the project would have to comply with all development standards identified in the Fresno State Municipal Code for both the base district and for our zone clearance process, which is identified in section 15-5102 of our municipal code. And while I know we are all familiar with the discretionary versus ministerial approval process, I did just want to touch on this a little bit further. As I've mentioned previously, residential projects that do meet the provisions of our development code today are processed through a development permit that does not require those projects to be heard by the planning commission or city council. And those projects are approved at the director level. And similarly, housing projects in downtown that do meet the provisions of the development code are processed through a zone clearance, again, processed at the director level. So this text amendment does not change the authority for residential projects that are permitted today that meet those provisions in the development code. The project, again, this is a text amendment. It is not a development project. It was determined to be exempt from CEQA pursuant to section 15061 of the CEQA guidelines. And again, it does not propose a development project or commit the city to a development project. The project was presented to the district committees on the following dates shown on the screen here. And to conclude, staff is recommending adoption of environmental assessment P2601326 and text amendment application P2601326 to amend the municipal code relating to compliance with our housing element and state law. That concludes the presentation.

All right, thank you. I've got Council Member Carbasi punched up, followed by Council Member Richardson.

Adrian, the maps were actually very helpful. Looking at the maps, it looks like District 2 happens to have the most red. So the most land that would actually be affected by this text amendment would be in Council District 2. Maybe Council District 5 is a close second.

Yes, I don't have the allocation number-wise of the exact amount of parcels. We do have spreadsheets that correspond to the maps here. And again, these sites have been sites identified in our housing element that have potential For the ability to be developed at you know with housing It doesn't commit these sites to be developed with housing and it doesn't require those sites as well If a project were to be proposed on those sites It doesn't require that it has to be housing and that it has to be low-income as well When I this council recently approved a text amendment for office to residential.

Yeah, there was a buffer in the text amendment Are there any buffers with this item?

So that text amendment specifically for office zone parcels, these housing element sites were included as part of our recently adopted housing element that was adopted prior to that text amendment in which you are referencing. So the sites that qualify today do not include those office zone parcels.

Fair enough. But these parcels identified, the ones in red, again, there's no buffer for these sites as well. not baked into the text amendment right now now i'm assuming it's a little too late to do that but what would the process be we wanted to create a buffer

Yes, so this is state law, the provision of this text amendment. I get that.

You're going to get some pushback from me on state law. I totally understand that.

Right, so we are unable to change the provisions of state law. So this text amendment, the purpose of it is just to bring our code into compliance with state law. A project could come in right now, even without us bringing our code into compliance, and utilize that state law.

Well, we'll talk about state law in a second. Do me a favor. Let's say I'm in a room full of my constituents. And yeah, I've been doing this for seven years. So I know a little bit more about land use. You know way more than I do. But they know very little about it. This is change. In two minutes or less, explain to me how you would tell someone who has no experience what this means for them and how things will be different moving forward.

Right, so this doesn't change any of the provisions that are currently permitted on the site today. So it doesn't require that a project has to come in and develop a housing project. It provides an avenue for a future project if they do decide to develop residential on the site and provide 20% affordable and meet all of our very strenuous development and impact thresholds that we have baked into our development code. A project would have to meet all of those provisions in order to develop a project on that site, you know, pursuant to this text amendment. But essentially, this text amendment does not change anything about the site today.

Okay, so let's say there is a lot here right by the El Paseo. I think it's under construction now, right by Rio Vista School and Riverside and Herndon. That's identified in red. I think it's under construction now, but regardless, let's say it wasn't. So if I live in the neighborhood just south of there, right now it's zoned for, I'm assuming multifamily because they're building multifamily out there. If it's by right, they can just build it, correct? Yeah.

pursuant to meeting all of the standards in our development code, which what has been added into through prior text moments in our zone clearance section of our development code is a number of very strenuous development and impact thresholds that a project would have to meet in order to even qualify.

So if they qualify under those requirements, they can just, they don't have to go through the planning commission or the city council?

That is correct. However, that provision currently does exist today. So if you did have a residential project that didn't meet the provisions of our base district.

That's my question right now.

Right now, that is the standard. It would be processed. Well, this we are proposing to be a zone clearance. Today, that application is a development permit, which does not require a public hearing.

Well, here's where I get confused. If it's already permissible in the process now, why are we changing it?

What's the change? It's a matter of the entitlement that you are required to apply for. So today, the process is an entitlement. This is just for a regular residential project that meets the provisions of our base districts. That is processed through a development permit. This text meant before you today has a bit more nuances in that In compliance with state law, it's specifically for projects that provide 20% affordable to lower income households. So that's the difference here. And then the difference is also the type of entitlement application that you would need to apply for. I get that.

But whether it has some affordable or market rate or all affordable, if it's by right, it's by right. I'm still confused. Why do we have to do this? Forget the state is required. How is this going to make a difference?

Right. So I don't know if you want to clarify as well.

Does this reduce costs for someone building a project? Does this time?

It could. It could absolutely reduce costs. So what is the state trying to accomplish here? So we've had sites that we've identified in our housing element for a number of cycles that say, hey, there's capacity on this site for housing. But nothing's been built for seven, 14, 21 years, right? Nothing's been built. So the state is saying, hey, put a little carrot out there. Make it a little more attractive. So a number of things have to happen before a project might even move forward. There has to be a willing seller. There has to be an interested developer. They have to commit to follow every single rule in the development code and not have any minor deviations or waivers or modifications. Thank you. And they have to commit to a minimum of 20% affordable housing. So it's just a carrot for us to say to the state, hey, we're trying to make it as easy as possible for people to develop affordable housing in areas of opportunity, which is a requirement of the state. So we're just hanging a carrot out there. It's not saying that there will be development or what type of development will occur. And that's really the purpose of this is just another incentive. And it's a processing incentive.

I'm trying to see what the carrot is, because here's my concern. We were able to compromise, and I'm grateful for that, on the Office to Res text amendment. I'm not a big fan of the state interfering. I don't think they actually help. That's just my personal opinion. We have two powers in this council. One we saw yesterday, or two days ago, that was budget. The other is land use. It's really hard for me in any way to cede any authority. Now, I know that we may not be actually ceding any authority, but it kind of feels like we are.

Yeah. So let's talk about that just a little bit. So there is still an opportunity for appeal. There is still an opportunity for any project, whether it's a development permit or a discretionary project or a ministerial action, to be appealed to Planning Commission, to be appealed to City Council. The question then is different, right? So a discretionary project allows you to, as long as it meets a nexus, a connection with a real problem or a real issue, it allows you to add conditions to a project. Ministerial, your question will be, does it meet the code or not? So when it gets appealed, your question is boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Here are all the requirements. It's a yes, no question. We have no discretion, no choice in the matter, right? So that's the difference. It's like issuing a building permit rather than a traditional planning entitlement. The ministerial versus discretionary is about whether or not you can apply additional requirements above and beyond those that are in the code. And that's really the difference. And so yes, it does make processing faster and less expensive. And if they know that they're following the code, gives them a more certain outcome.

That was actually a really good explanation. I mean that. It actually helps. I think this is just going to come down to a philosophical difference. I don't know if I'm going to quite get there. I can see why developers would love this. I get it. But we have to balance that need and need for housing with also the needs of our constituents and their concerns. I just worried if there's less chance for an appeal for whatever reason, that's less public input. And that's what I have a hard time wrapping my head around. That's just where I'm at.

And absolutely, we understand that there are many state laws that we may or may not like, but this was one of those things that to get our housing element approved by the state, we had to commit to do.

Now, is this one of those where we get points towards it or this is one we have to?

No, this is a yes or no. And if we don't do it, we will not be in compliance with our housing element. And therefore, everything goes out the window, whether that's pro housing or other applications were asked on a regular basis by other departments. Hey, can you show us that we're in compliance with our housing element? we would no longer be in compliance with our housing element. And that could trigger disapproval of grants, not just in our department, but in transportation and in public works.

I'm a very foolish politician because sometimes I get stubborn on principle. If someone has a gun to my head, I'm going to say, shoot. This is one I can't move on. I just can't do it. I understand that. You actually did a really good job of explaining the process. I understand. Maybe for city attorney or director, what is the penalty other than losing the housing designation? Is there a financial penalty, like when CARB hits us with a daily penalty for not being compliant?

If we are out of compliance with our housing element, I'm going to let our housing element guru address what the penalties are.

Thank you. I know it's not going to be pretty, Sophia.

Thank you, Director, members of the Council. Sophia Pagalates with the Planning and Development Department. And yes, if we are out of compliance with our housing element, essentially a multitude of funding sources that we are now eligible to apply for, we will no longer be eligible to apply for. And those run across the board, as Director Clark said, affecting things from housing to transportation, and of course, the pro-housing designation. Right, right. We can be legally challenged by the Attorney General.

That's fun. I'll actually support it for that reason alone. Sorry, Andrew.

No, I'm only teasing. Okay.

No, I get it. I get the reality. If I had to guess based on the previous support for text amendments, I would assume this will pass today. This is just an assumption on my part. I'm just not going to be there on a matter of principle. I understand where you're coming from. I know the risks and it's tough. I think this will probably on paper affect district two the most. If there's any potential where it can in any shape reduce public input, that's something I just can't, I can't be there with you on that, but I do appreciate the presentation. This is very helpful. Thank you.

Councilmember Richardson followed by Councilmember Perea. Sure.

I think this is probably the right group of subject matter experts to ask this, but is it fair to say that any low-income housing project that would be built under the auspices of this plan would be exempt from any CFD that overlaid that parcel? No. They would pitch into the CFD being that it's taken out of property tax and these would be low-income housing?

So it depends. Just because something is 20% affordable doesn't mean that it is owned or operated by a not-for-profit or a governmental entity. But I would defer to Scott if he's here who could potentially tell us which projects may or may not be exempted from paying their CFD obligation. That is a really great question that I don't have the answer to.

Scott the question was an affordable housing Develop I don't want to put words in your mouth councilmember, but if a project came through under this And it was affordable housing. Would it be exempt from a CFD?

Good morning council Scott Moser public works to my knowledge. There's not any exemption for that to exempt a development from from paying that special tax into the CFD basically means that the city of Fresno with just general fund dollars, what have you, would be maintaining that infrastructure. So that would be... The only exemption, of course, is if it is city-owned. If it's a city-owned parcel and the city were developing that, there's not a special tax on that, of course. But if it's privately held, then they are subject to community facilities district annexation. Otherwise, the city would bear that cost out of the general fund.

Okay, and specifically why I asked, because the planning department presented us with a map, and there's a significant red sliver that's up in what is otherwise CFD for the West Copperett neighborhoods. Thank you, Director. That's actually all I have for you. Director Clark or appropriate subject matter expert as you see fit, is there really any difference here between the implications of being quote unquote ministerially approved and being a by right use once you really boil it down?

Yeah. So, there are some very fine nuances We only use the word by right twice in our development code. It is not a very well-defined term. We use the word permitted. So land uses are either permitted, conditionally permitted, or not permitted at all, prohibited. So generally speaking, a permitted use is permitted by right, right? we've all seen the big table of land uses every land use has a p a dash or a c right and so if it is a p it's technically by right but you still have to meet all of the requirements of the code ministerial simply means the way it's processed do you have discretion or are you required to issue The permit or the entitlement, if it meets, if it checks every single box, just like a building permit, as long as they follow all of the laws, we're required, it's ministerial, we don't have discretion in issuing that permit. If it is discretionary, we do have discretion and we can have a judgment call based on facts of the matter and if there is a nexus to make that decision. So that's the difference between ministerial and discretionary. Ministerial is not the same as by right. By right simply means it's a permitted use.

that make is that better it does and the reason i ask and councilmember carbasi kind of touched on this as well if we push back on something that's being proposed to be built in our district or anywhere in the city um and the developer we there's no quote unquote good reason or legitimate fight against it or real harm to the neighborhood um that can be divined on paper are we going to find ourselves in court again with a judge directing us You need to approve this. I mean, it says here, as he asked, this is one of my questions, this isn't a nice to have as far as abiding by the tenets of our housing designation. This is California government code.

Yes.

And if you break that, I know California doesn't enforce all of its laws, but I would imagine since we're pretty easy to find here, they would kind of come down on us. Is that...

The state has a team called the Housing Strike Force, and they do go out and seek cities and jurisdictions across the state that are not compliant.

But there are a lot of fun parties, yeah.

But what I will say is that as long as the city follows its own rules and is consistent that we would have a better case than if we are—if we—

use by exception by exception by exception yes okay yep um all right thank you i think that's all i have council member perea no questions director um i just want to say that we are in a housing crisis throughout our state but we don't always act like it As electeds, we preach affordability, affordability, high cost of living, what can we do to bring costs down? But we don't always act upon those statements. This is a policy that allows us to practice what we preach. This is not a policy that requires affordable housing anywhere in our city, but it allows a pathway for future affordable housing units in any corner of our city. not just South Fresno, not just North Fresno, but affordability transcends our respective council district boundaries. And so I'm a huge fan of this policy. I'm a big fan of making it easier to build housing at every income level in any part of our city. And so I will proudly support this policy today. Thank you.

Council member Karabasi, you're punched up again.

Again, I want to thank you for the presentation. It was a fair discussion. I'm going to add, I think this is a council that just recently approved the South Stadium project, 174 new units. I think 70 of them will be affordable. It's a good blended project. It's not about the type of project. It's about the principle of the issue. I think the state's philosophy is NIMBY is the problem. And I get it because when people speak up, they don't want that. Sacramento wants to do what it wants to do. I think the real problem, and we've seen this with how our PER was challenged, it's these billionaire funded groups that like to use the legal system to usurp local authority. I think that's the big problem. That's what's hurting us. And Sacramento is turning a blind eye to it. I wish the AG would focus on them instead of enabling them. But maybe something will change because, yeah, I agree. We are absolutely in a housing crisis, but we should really solve the real problem. So thank you.

All right, I don't see anyone else punched up. Council President, I just want to say thank you to staff. You continue to be very good on your feet and very thoughtful in your responses, so thank you.

Thank you.

All right, is there a motion? I don't think there's a motion yet. Oh, you know what? Have we gone to public comment on this? All right, you know what? Well, I'll open it up. is there any additional public comments on the 920 a.m. item regarding the text amendment we're discussing any public comment on this I'll welcome you up now seeing none we're going to close public comments now I'll entertain the motion we have a motion council member Perea second is there any opposition to approving the All right, 1148. Council, is there any one of these items you want to lobby for and get through here in the next 10 minutes?

Yeah, Council President, if we can hear 2N is in November really quick. It should be real short. And we have Assistant Director Skye here in front of us already.

That sounds good. We have a taker. 2N. 2N is in Nelson. excuse me i would like to say something and i can do it in five minutes or less sir uh you're you're out of order but uh thank you i'll ask you to have a seat are you going to get to me sooner or later uh no i you've submitted a public comment card but we're not going to get to unscheduled communication till after lunch please have a seat

Well, I want to discuss the problem I'm having on my property. Sir, you're out of order.

I'm giving you one warning right now. We have a police officer coming up. Take a seat or I'll have you escorted out of the chambers. Well, come on down then. Yeah, we're going to have someone from staff chat with you, but you're out of order right now. What are your cross streets? What are the cross streets of Dakota? What's your cross street?

Probably, I'm not gonna be sending my staff out at this time, but we have.

Okay, all right, so we know where you're at now. All right. Please take a seat or be escorted out. Thank you. All right, staff, we'll take on item 2N at the Home Investment Partnerships.

Go ahead.

All right, good morning. Yeah, Phil Skye, Assistant Director, Planning and Development Department, here to answer any questions.

Councilor Richardson, you're... You're up. All right. Really, just one question. So this agenda item talks about not necessarily outreach or shelter operations, but it talks about homeless prevention services. So this is between $200,000 and $300,000 for homeless prevention services. Most residents don't see that when it comes to whether they're calling police or they're calling HART or whatever else. Can you speak to what those homeless prevention services look like, where this money is exactly going to go?

Sure, happy to do that, Councilman Richardson. I'll point, I think, just the public to our staff report, which is provided as part of this item. We have two separate agreements. One is with WestCare and the other is with Pavarello House. There are an array of services that were proposed by each organization in response to our public NOFA agreement. I think what they share in common in terms of the types of services that each organization is proposing to provide are rental assistance, security deposit assistance, first and last month's rent support, additional supportive services that link people to the services that they need. But ultimately, as you stated, Councilmember, this is about homelessness prevention to ensure that people that are in permanent housing environments, such as apartments, that they do not fall into unsheltered homelessness.

Okay, so this is ARPA funding?

No, I'm so sorry, Councilmember, it is not. These are federal dollars from the Housing and Urban Development Department, so from HUD, Home ARP. It is a special one-time allocation we received as part of the American Rescue Plan, but it's separate from ARPA. what perhaps I think many would attribute to the ARPA dollars that we had received in two tranches in prior years.

So I understand in the last year, each of these services has helped dozens of families. How did they get that money if it wasn't from this fund, if it's one time?

It is ultimately from the American Rescue Plan, but I wanted to differentiate it from the ARPA funds that we had received in prior tranches. This is directly funded through HUD.

So this isn't city money. This is specifically just allocation of federal dollars to go to help stopping new people from becoming homeless? That is correct. Council President, motion to approve. All right.

We have a motion, and we have a second. Is there any opposition to item 2N? Seeing none, that passes five to zero. Any other ones we could take on here quickly?

Council President, just for the record, you did ask for the police officer to remove that individual after various warnings, is that correct?

Well, yes. We did have a few minutes. If he had waited around, I could have obliged, but he was... Understood. I just want to make sure the record's clear. Very much out of the order, yeah. We had a few extra minutes here. All right. Yeah, he's not here anymore. Okay, yeah, I think we're going to go ahead and take the lunch. We'll come back here at 1.30, council. Thank you all.

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All right, let's go ahead and resume. Bring the meeting back to order. We've finished our timed items. What we have here in open session is really just the balance of the contested consent calendar, I believe, as well as closed session thereafter. So we'll continue to knock out the contested consent. We'll go to item 2C that was pulled by Council Member Radius.

Thank you, Director. If you recall, during the budget adoption process, we included a motion to fund an external audit of the Diamond Group that operates at Grizzly Stadium. So my question is really, this contract relates to hiring outside independent auditors for the city, as I understand it. Do we need to modify this contract to allow for the audit to proceed with the Grizzly's operators, or would SAP be bringing something back later for that?

Yeah, our plan was to bring something back separately. Actually, typically when we have new scope of work, we go out for RFQ or RFP. So our intention was to follow that process and protocol and bring something back to you once we work through that process.

So this contract is simply being amended to add more work to them. Couldn't we simply amend the existing contract to add that body of work?

We're not adding scope of work. We went through the first four-year term of their agreement. Council allowed staff at that time to have three one-year successive extensions, we're bringing forward the first extension of the agreement.

So wouldn't it be better and more efficient for us simply to table this item and have you guys amend it to include the Grizzly audit into it since the money is already allocated for it?

I would say a couple of things. So for the external auditor, Well, first let me back up. When we've done additional scope of different type of audits, again, we've typically done the RFP, RFQ, and in the recent past, we've hired different firms to do that. The reason from my perspective is to keep the external auditors focused on our city work, the scope that they have now. I'd be a little concerned about adding that any additional scope, quite frankly, not just the stadium audit, because they're pretty consumed with the current workload they have for us. In fact, in times past, we've approached them about the credit card audit that we did a couple years ago, and they weren't interested. They just don't have the bandwidth, and so I don't know that it'd be likely that we could add it to to their workload.

So I'm glad you brought up the credit card audit, because that's what is in my head. I'm concerned that it's going to take staff a year to come back with audit options, because everyone is booked, right? So the money is allocated for the audit. I don't think it took us a year. So your best guess, when do you think you guys will be in a position to bring back a contract for the Grizzly Audit?

So let's think about this, Santino. Budget, July 1 is when the money is available. We can work on an RFP. It's not a huge scope of work. It's a 50, right? Yes. $50,000 probably would take us, I don't know, a couple weeks to do the RFP. A couple weeks at the most through the attorney's office. I think we could have the RFP on the street within 45 days of July 1. And then it's just a matter of who we get responses from.

And if we don't get enough responses, because I know it may be hard to get a response for one audit for that small size, is there an ability to simply amend an existing audit contract to include the work?

There is that option. What we've done in the past is we've reached out to other firms who maybe didn't respond and talk with them about why we've been able to engage with them ultimately if they didn't respond or So that that is an option.

But yeah, I think that timeline okay I don't want to be disruptive to your body of work I just want to make sure that the 50,000 is such a small scope of work that I don't want to get lost and Have to have a conversation six months from now. Why didn't it get done?

Got it I appreciate the question and I appreciate your consideration for this contract. Thank you.

Thank you director motion to approve All right, we have a motion and a seconds is there any opposition to approving item to see I All right, seeing none, that passes six to zero. Move on to item 2E, the Third Amendment regarding the Sculpture Conservation Studio. Sure. Hey, Director.

I promise this will be easier than the last conversation we had. But I don't know if we need some expert city manager. I forget who's the point person for sculptures.

Well, I would say on insurance, it's Heidi Briggs. On the conservation, it's Brian Shop, and I can help fill in the blanks in between probably.

Perfect. So can you give me just the background? I know we had significant vandalism and damage to our sculptures on Fulton Street. I think they're called the Three Fires officially. What was the settlement from the insurance company? And is this the last portion of the money that we have to fix those?

I mean, I can speak about where the funding from this comes.

If you can leave the settlement part out, speak to what is the plan to repair the sculptures that were damaged?

So maybe my staff can remind me for three fires. When did we, we did talk to Andrea about that one that was going to be ready. being handled with insurance money. This maintenance is being paid for with annual money. So to kind of repeat my assistant director, Cliff, Three Fires is in LA being repaired. I know we did talk to her, and she said I think she would have it to us in several months to be ready to install. But there's a lot of fluid with this work in terms of timing, because other vendors are relied upon. The funding for the conservation that we are using, it doesn't come from any sort of settlement. It is an annual appropriation in the Department of Public Works budget. And that's why we come to council every year to basically spend $100,000, because that's what they have.

Got it. And that is all we have set aside for the sculpture repairs that we need to do, right? For all the sculptures?

Outside of any sort of risk reimbursements, yes. That is what the annual appropriation is.

I don't know if the city manager has had a chance to follow me on social media because I know she has so much extra time.

But yesterday... Somebody was napping.

Yes. I saw it. Yes.

In all my extra time.

Yes, I know. So in the past, this has been a very frequent occurrence. People were hanging clothes off the sculptures. Kids typically climb them. Adults have been climbing them. Some of these sculptures were not designed for that kind of weight. The specific sculpture that I interacted with a lady yesterday on, And it's not in this right away the sidewalk It's on a platform which leads me to believe that it was in design for people to physically climb or sit on Can anybody speak to that because I've gotten some feedback online on some of these? Public art and sculptures are designed for interaction of this type, you know Have you been to Mexico City? There's some amazing artwork where it's physically meant for people to sit on and things of that nature. Is this particular sculpture designed with the structural integrity for that kind of use?

Is that the one that's in front of the old CVS, right?

Yes, that one.

I forget the name of it.

I can't remember the name of that one either.

I'm trying to look it up in my database here, but the internet is not cooperating. I don't recall the exact name. I would have to look into that and get back to you, Councilman, which I can do. I have no problem with that.

I've never heard that before, that any of our art is designed to be that interactive. But we should definitely look into that. I don't know.

It's called the official name. It's the visit. The visit. It's two ladies essentially sitting next to each other.

Visiting.

Visiting.

I'll look into that.

Yeah, and if you could also look into any other sculpture that we have in the public right away, just confirm whether it's designed specifically to allow that interaction, because I definitely don't want to be telling people not to climb on a sculpture if it's designed specifically for that purpose. But I'm just not aware of any of our public sculptures or fountains that are designed for that level of interaction. if we only have essentially $400,000 a year to do maintenance of sculptures, outside of insurance claim settlements, then the public needs to understand for every penny we spend on fixing our piece, it's a penny we don't have to produce new art pieces. So if you could just get back to me on some memo, whether or not any of our public sculptures or art that we're responsible for are designed for interactive engagement and climbing and sitting by the public.

Okay, I will absolutely do that. I thought I heard you mention that we have $400,000 annually. It's actually $100,000 annually. I wanted to clarify that. And we also do have dusk to dawn security, roving security that drives around making sure that people are behaving at night and we don't have those issues. So I understand those occurred during the day. So this is something I'm going to look at from that perspective as well.

Yeah, it is just, you know, On a monthly basis, if you look at the artwork, the sculpture that's on the list for improvement in this case is, what's it called here?

Dos Amantes. Dos Amantes? Yep.

That's been something that's been on my radar. I know I've given Public Works Director Scott Moser a headache over the last few years because it's such a huge culture. It's in a, what I would call pedestrian mall. But my daily interactions is asking people to get out of it. When they had water, they were showering in it. They were washing clothes in it. Everything that is not designed for So it would be helpful if we would know which ones are designed to be interactive and which ones are not sure That would be helpful. Thank you with that. I'll make a motion to approve.

Thank you All right emotion we have a seconds any opposition to item 2e Seeing none that passes 7 to 0 Move on to item 2G, also pulled by Councilman Barrios.

I just had a general observation and this is a national landscaping company. Given the landscape that we have, no pun intended, locally with the amount of landscaping companies we have locally, do we know why we didn't get any responses from a local company?

I can't speak to whether Brightview is national, state, or whatnot. I'm sure they're big. They're a national company. We did get five responses, Brightview, Briner, Elite Maintenance, which is local, New Image Landscape Company, and Pride Industries, the last two being from the Bay Area. So we got one local company? Well, three have Fresno offices, Brightview, Briner, and Elite.

Okay, so they're national companies with local offices.

I don't know any more about them than you do.

Is it purely a price point? They submit the lowest bid. Is that what we're doing, or is it... What's the rationale for them?

So for this particular procurement, we used a best value approach. We interviewed, reviewed their responses, their proposals, and we made a determination based upon their capability, their manpower, their equipment, and how best to serve our needs.

Was there a local company that was the lowest bidder?

In terms of lowest bid, Brightview was also the lowest bid.

Okay, that's my questions, thank you.

Yeah, and they, obviously, I'm looking at the procurement evaluation form, and they, Fresno, all the top three were either Fresno or Clovis. Fourth was Fremont, the last one was Roseville.

Yeah, yeah, but their national company would look offices. Yeah, I was just curious. I mean, there's so many local landscaping companies in Fresno. I would think it'd be pretty, we would get a lot more local bites, but so be it. Motion to approve. Thank you.

I have a motion by Council Member Arias, second by Council Member Richardson. Any opposition? Seeing none, the item passes 6-0. We already heard item 2-I, so we're going to move on to contested consent item 2-M, as in Mary. This is a resolution to adopt the 597th Amendment to the Master Fee Resolution. This was pulled by Council Member Arias. Council Member, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Council Vice President. The rates that you're proposing to set, are they the same rates as Sports Regional or are they the same rates of the current operator of Granite Park?

Good afternoon, Council. Aaron Aguirre, Park Director. These are the same rates that we use at the Regional Sports Complex.

What's the difference between the current rate structure that the current operator has and these rates?

Quite frankly, I don't know what their current rate structure is. I have talked to a few and I think that Depends on either the sport the size of the tournament. I haven't been able to get what their actual rates are at this point They don't the rates are not public. I have not been able to find anything on their website They had some information but not a ton and then the website did go down.

So I kind of lost my Kind of conduit at that point that makes sense the There's been commitments and remarks about we're going to honor all reservations that are booked. Does that include honoring them with the rates that they signed up for, or are we going to convert them to the proposed rate that you have before us?

So I believe the comment you made about honoring their rates, we're looking at any of those that have current agreements in place, we would honor that. I know there are a few organizations that have schedules booked out in advance for next year. We'll work with them on that piece of it. They don't have binding agreements at this point, but anyone with a current agreement, we are honoring that commitment.

So let's play this out. If I have an agreement for next week and the current operator is charging me a dollar for the hour, the city's proposed new rate is 50 cents for the hour, do I get to request a lower rate?

I'm sorry, can you say that again? If you have the lower rate of 50 cents and we're charging a dollar?

No, if the current operator is charging a dollar and our rate is cheaper by 50%, does the reservation get to request a lower rate?

I'm going to answer that. The answer is no, because the current operator has already accepted payment, which we are not going to get, but we are going to be having the expense. So no, because we never collected the revenue to begin with.

Now let's do that the reverse. If our rates are twice the price of the current operator, do we get to charge them the higher rate, those who already have a reservation booked?

That's not what we're planning to do. We are trying to, in response to the concerns that any team, kids, youth, whoever, are gonna be sort of left in the dust, the intent is to, for anybody who can, SHOW AN AGREEMENT IS JUST TO HONOR THAT AGREEMENT. WE'RE NOT GOING TO CHARGE THEM EXTRA IF THEY HAVE ALREADY PAID. IF THEY PAID $500 AND OUR RATE IS $1,000, NO, WE'RE NOT GOING TO CO-COLLECT ANOTHER 500. I THINK WHAT AARON WAS MENTIONING, THERE ARE SOME OF THE BASEBALL TOURNAMENTS who we understand have multiple tournaments booked, but have not yet paid for all of them, for the ones who are not paid yet, then we will have to charge them our rate. For ones that have already been paid, then they'll be held harmless.

I just want to make sure that the public understands that, so that it can potentially reduce the amount of claims that we get from council offices about, they switched it on me, they're charging me more, they're charging me less, whatever it might be that we decide. One other question. The current operator charges an admission fee. Are we proposing an admission fee?

With this current master fee schedule, we would.

had the ability to charge that admission fee if we decided to do so why would we do that if we don't charge admission fee for any of the park it's well we we do at so we do at the regional sports complex um it's it it depends on on how we do the tournament so if we um

I wasn't under the impression that as a city park, we were going to eliminate the admission fee for the public. That was one of the benefits of us.

So when somebody rents the regional sports complex to hold, okay. So it depends what you're talking about. If you're in the morning when nothing's going on, there's no events, it's open. People can go in, walk the fields. That's what we've talked about.

If my kid plays soccer at Granite Park, you're charging me to watch my kid play soccer.

we will, yes, we will likely be charging. Now with soccer.

If I may city manager, I'm just trying to get clarity.

It's a little bit difficult because we don't know how it's currently being operated. There's a lot of, and so.

I understand that, but irrespective of how it's currently being operated, I'm talking about under our control.

Yeah.

Right now, if my kid plays soccer at Atraca Park, I don't have to pay to watch my kid play soccer. Correct. You're suggesting that you're now going to start charging as like the private operator was charging for me to watch my kid play soccer.

Not Clovis Crossfire, because the way I understand it, their league does not charge, is not allowed to charge parents. So what we understand as what has happened is that in essence, the league has paid a fee, a monthly fee that is inclusive of the parents being able to, enter without a charge, Aaron, is that accurate?

That's correct, yes. But I'm not worried about Crossfire, they're the most affluent

Well, that's who's currently at the city park.

We're not going to allow new leagues to use it. We're not going to allow new reservations to occur. If my league uses radio park two years ago, my kids league use radio park. I get to go to radio park and watch my kid play soccer without being charged. That is a standard for every city park.

Except the regional sports complex.

Correct. But that's typically adult recreational league play. It's not kids.

They do charge, some organizers do charge at the sports complex for various tournaments, the entrance fee, which is part of their tournament structure.

I've been to sports complex and I haven't been charged to watch my kid play soccer. Not soccer.

Not soccer. I'm talking about softball in the hub there.

I'm talking about soccer and baseball at Granite Park. Are we charging the public to watch your kids play?

Again, it depends who it is. For baseball, everything we are seeing is that people are being charged. I can tell you, the mayor, other people who have gone in, they are being charged entry for baseball. For soccer, we are being told that who's currently there, they do not charge because the league pays the costs for the attendees.

I don't want to get into a debate of Do people pay for parking at Target Ever Park? Yes, it's part of the lease agreement to Target. The store is here, we have parking garages, we have to pay for parking to the parking garage meter. I don't care about the league models. For me, what is our intention as a city-owned park? Are we gonna treat it like Chachancey, where everybody pays to come into those doors? Or are we gonna treat it like Al Radka, and radio park where it's a neighborhood park and you get to watch your kids play for free. What is our intention? Because these proposed fees would allow you to treat it like the Chansey Park.

No, I think the closest would be the regional sports complex. That would be the most closely aligned would be the regional sports complex, not a neighborhood park like Al Radka.

In the regional sports complex, I don't have to pay to watch my kid play soccer.

Sometimes people do and sometimes people don't. So you're asking us, we haven't operated this park. We're trying to meet the expectations of what's happening now without having had the benefit of dealing with these leagues ourselves. And there's very little information that's been available. So I think what we're trying to do is to establish... a fee so that I know there's been concern about utilizing city money. So we're trying to find a way to also generate revenue to help offset the costs of the operations, similar to how we operate regional sports complex. So I think that's the closest.

City attorney, can you get us a memo on whether we can charge admission fees for parks funded by measure P? Yes. Because this park is being fixed and funded by measure P. Chinchilla is not.

I want to- Regional sports complexes.

Not all the time. It's not privately operated. Regional sports project is not privately operated.

What do you mean privately operated? It's our park.

Yeah, we operate it.

And we are going to be operating Granite Park.

Correct. But you're suggesting that you're leaving the door open to charging the public of Granite Park unlike we do at Southwest Regional.

We, and I feel like we're going around in circles.

And I understand that you guys don't have a plan fleshed out completely. I get that. Right, but one of the arguments for eviction and for taking the park back was, now everybody gets to enter the park, nobody has to be charged to come in anymore, we're using measure P money, cool.

I specifically said we did not have a mechanism to charge entrance because we didn't have a fee established in the master fee schedule.

And now you do have a mechanism that we approve this.

That we can charge entrance.

And now your intention is to charge.

we are intending to try and operate as close to the regional sports model and how the users of the park who are currently have reservations have been operating to hold them harmless.

Let me try and make this final point City Manager.

Okay.

Granite Park from the get go was developed as a private facility to with superior facilities, grounds from any neighborhood park. And therefore it was charging above market rate of any public space. And it was attracting a lot of out of towners. It was catering to out of town leagues and to the most expensive soccer leagues in existence. Fundamentally, as a city park, that's not our task. Our task is neighborhood kids. Our task is to keep the price point down, especially with Measure P, where we're all paying extra to fix our neighborhood parks. So what worries me is that Granite Park is looking like A PUBLICLY OWNED FACILITY, PUBLICLY FINANCED AND OPERATED FACILITY, CATERING TO THE PEOPLE WHO ARE ABLE TO PAY THE MOST, AND CHARGING PEOPLE TO WATCH THEIR KIDS PLAY. WHICH IS A FINE MODEL, IT WAS PRIVATELY FUNDED AND PRIVATELY OPERATED. THE SALES PITCH WAS, AS YOU KNOW, CITY MANAGER, WE STILL OWE MILLIONS ON THAT PROPERTY. WE HAVEN'T PAID IT OFF YET.

Yes, we have.

We are now gonna spend.

Granite Park is owned free and clear.

We are now spending Measure P funds meant for neighborhood parks and for public access for a facility that we're gonna charge a public to access. And I'm uncomfortable with going down that path, especially if you guys don't have a complete picture yet of what the environment is. And I have a bigger problem, city manager, when you're when you're trying to articulate that your goal is to keep it the same for the target audience that's been using it.

That's not what I said. I said for the people who currently have reservations in there, we're trying to hold them harmless until we are able to have a free year of being able to handle it exactly the way that we want to. We're trying to hold the people who are already scheduled to be in there harmless so they don't have a lot of change as we take over management and operation of the park. That's what I said. And the attempt, and I'm not quite sure, we absolutely, we did put city resources in the budget to be able to operate the park in anticipation of having to absorb operations of the park for people who already paid the previous operator. And so we did put money in the budget. We can do it two different ways. We can certainly have this discussion. We can do it in a revenue model where the park can have revenue generated so that we don't have to put any city resources in it, or we could pull back and do it completely different. We're right now need something to put in place because otherwise we're going to be having leagues that are going to be, we're gonna be honoring reservations that we will not have the legal ability to charge them anything.

I understood, but I just wanna be clear. No public facility generates revenue to operate itself or pay for itself. Every single public facility we own is subsidized by the city. Sound Arena, Convention Center, to Chansey, right? None of them. It's a matter of, if we're gonna pay for it, what access are we promising the general public? Not private leagues that can pay an exorbitant amount of money that includes their entrance fee. My last question on this subject is, as you know, Southwest Regional in Woodward Park and Roding charged a parking entrance to come in. Are we intending to charge for parking to come in for the spots that we have under contract?

We don't have parking. So it's not up to us to charge for parking. We don't own the parking.

Do we intend to charge? I'm assuming at some point, city manager, we will have to get parking rights.

We will, yes, absolutely. We will have to get parking rights.

Because you can't operate a 20 acre park with no parking.

Correct. And currently, well, I should say under the previous parking license, we just paid a cam charge. the common area maintenance charge for, I believe it was 134 parking spaces. We will have to work with the parking owner to determine if that will be the same model. And it is certainly my hope that we will be able to enter into a similar model where we're just paying the CAM charges like we were before, with the exception of I don't even wanna open this can of worms, and I'm gonna put it. I have special events, which I don't plan on doing right now.

Irrespective of the model or the vehicle for us securing parking, you've indicated that you want to match this up at Southwest Regional. Southwest Regional charges for parking. I think it's five bucks, right? They're going right everywhere. Are we intending to charge for parking at Granite Park since we're trying to treat it like a regional park?

We don't have that fee in here to charge like a regional park. Why not?

Because we don't own parking.

But we're going to at some point.

Well, we can come back then.

Why not just do it now?

Because we don't know what the parking owner is going to charge us. So we have to have a fee that is based in some level of nexus and analysis.

And so- We already have the analysis that justifies a $5 parking fee for every regional park. If you're saying that this is a regional park-

Correct. That is at our facility because we know how much it costs us. We can't, we would have to charge a fee that has some sort of proportionality to what it costs to pay for our, so let's say that the parking landlord decides to charge us $5,000 per month for a hundred spaces. I'm just making this up. we would then have the basis by which we could turn around and figure out what each person should be charged for parking, if any, because by the number of visitors, it may come out to be 50 cents. So we would have to have the conversation. Do we wanna pass on a charge for parking or do we want to do the admission, the admission like the previous operator was doing? I'm sorry, the what?

The gate admission.

Gate, yes.

City Manager, just a reminder, we're also in litigation over the parking with the owners too. So there's that aspect as well.

Thank you for the reminder.

Okay, so it's clear that city staff's intention is to charge a gate fee into the park for parents to watch their kids play. So thank you. With that, I won't be supporting this item. Thank you, Director. All right, Council Member Carbasi.

Yeah, I just want to verify one thing. So my understanding is current practices, the public is not allowed to bring their own drinking water into the park. Are we going to change that?

Currently, they aren't allowed, but our model, you would be allowed to bring water bottles in. Okay, thank you.

City Manager, so it's my understanding that we're establishing a fee here. And that fee is to maintain essentially status quo with the park currently?

That's the intent.

That's our short-term plan. What's sort of the long-term? I mean, how long do we intend for that to...

Well, we're going to have to come back once we have established operations to figure, we'll know exactly how much the actual costs are. And that way we can determine what each fee needs to be. As you know, with every ball field in town, every soccer field in town, When we bring the master fee schedule forward, there has to be some level of analysis that those costs are justified. So right now, they're based on the most closely similar park that we have, which is the regional sports complex. And then once we have some operations under our belt, that will determine if those numbers can come down or not.

Yeah, I mean, I wasn't around the city. The last time we were sort of like the operator or, you know, it kind of just sat there. Obviously, we struggled as a city back then. And so, you know, it's tough to impose fees. It always gave me heartburn generally, right, that we had a public park. We can't. But in the interest of at least maintaining status quo, we figure out the longer term plan. I probably will support the... the item.

We can't make a profit. We can only cover our cost. We're not allowed to make a profit off of fees in the city of Fresno. So, yeah, I just wanna make sure that's clear.

Yeah, understandable. But I mean, we're going, aiming for sort of revenue neutral as opposed to subsidizing like we would a traditional city park is what the plan of action I think is. Council, Vice President? All right, I'll entertain a motion. Second. We have a motion, we have a second, no one else is punched up. Any opposition to item 2M? That item passes six to one. All right, moving down the contested consent calendar over to item 2V.