City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . . . . . Thank you. Thank you.

All right, good morning. Good morning to everyone. Welcome to City Hall. Paging the council members that are sprinkled throughout the audience. I saw a couple. Come on down. We'll go ahead and call our meeting to order here, 9.06 a.m. Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Certainly, give me one second here. All right. Council Member Perea. Present. Council Member Carvasi.

Here.

Council Member Arias. Presente. Council Member Vang. Present. Council Member Richardson. Here. Council Vice President Maxwell is absent. Council President Esparza.

Present.

We have a quorum.

All right, great. So we're going to move on to our invocation, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Our invocation this morning is going to be by Chaplain Matt Markarian. Come on down. I'll ask everyone to please stand for the invocation, if you can, and stay standing afterwards for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Well, good morning, and thank you for having me this morning. Happy belated birthday to Councilmember Carbasi, and I'm always honored to be here. Today's prayer is inspired by the prophet Elijah. God's word reminds us that he needed to be renewed after a long and tired journey. And God spoke to him and reminded him that it's not weakness that makes you tired. It's that we need to lean into God when we need strength. So please bow your heads and join me in prayer. Heavenly Father, your word reminds us in 1 Kings 19.7 where you said to Elijah, Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you. It's this moment where you sent an angel to remind Elisha and provide direction for him. Lord, I pray today for those of our city who carry the tremendous responsibility. They face difficult decisions, competing interests, criticisms, and expectations of the thousands of us who look to them for answers. So today we pray for the mayor, the city manager, the city council, and the staff who serve this wonderful city of Fresno. When the journey becomes difficult, give them renewed strength, wisdom, and endurance. And just as Elijah discovered that your voice was found in the wind, but not in the earthquake and the fire, but in the gentle whisper that came after that. I help those leaders to discern what is the wind and the fire and look for your whisper. In a world filled with loud voices and urgent demands, help them listen carefully, discern patiently, and have the courage to choose what is right rather than what is loudest. Give them strength when they are weary, peace when the pressure is great, wisdom when the answer isn't clear, and courage when the right decision is difficult. May God bless each and every person gathered here today and bless those who serve our wonderful city. Amen.

Council Member Vang, would you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? Ready, salute.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God,

All right, move on to approving the agenda. Clerk, do we have any announcements or changes to announce?

Yes, I'd first like to let the public know that we do have ASL and Hmong translators online via Zoom, and we also have wordly translation for Spanish and Punjabi here in the chambers. You just have to scan the QR code up front. OK, items being removed from the agenda. The 915 file ID 261039 regarding the hearing to adopt resolutions and ordinances to annex territory and levy a special tax regarding the city of Fresno's community facility district number nine, annexation number 75 has been continued to the September 17, 2026 meeting at 915 AM. Item 2T, ID 26050, I mean 1050, regarding actions pertaining to the assessment and assumption of the OPS Villas LP Home Investment Partnership loans documents that has been removed from the agenda by Council Member Vang. Item 5H, conference with legal, I'm sorry, ID 26-1156, conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation, government code section 54956.9, subdivision D4, exposure to litigation, one potential case has been moved to the September 3rd meeting by council president. And we have item two in file ID 261113 to approve the second amendment to the lease agreement between the City of Fresno Parks Afterschool Recreation and Community Service Department and Fresno Economic Opportunities has been moved to contested consent by Council Member Arias. Item number 2Y, file ID 261131, is the Bill 24, introduced July 30th, 2026 for adoption, adding Article 38 of Chapter 9 of the Fresno Municipal Code relating to the tobacco retailer license that has been moved to contested consent by Councilmember Richardson. And that's all the changes.

Bernard, what was the one pulled by Council Member Arias? Again, can you say that? I missed that.

2N, as in Nancy. Okay, thank you.

Bernard, which closed session item was pulled?

5H.

Thank you. And then just to clarify, Council Member Vang removed 2T from the agenda, not to contest it?

Correct. That is correct.

Okay, Council Member Vang, just to be aware, it is time sensitive. So if there's any possibility we could have it on contested, that would be appreciated. But if not, obviously it's your prerogative.

Thank you.

All right, Council, any additional changes to the agenda at this point? I'll go and order Council Member Perea. Council member Vargas? None. Council member Vang? None. Richardson? None. Barbasi? None, Mr. President, thank you. Okay, all right. Motion to approve. First, second, and a third. Any opposition to approving the agenda? All right, seeing none, agenda is approved. We have a couple of contested consent items. Before we get to the regular order of business, we do have several folks here for our favorite part of the day is the ceremonial presentations, the proclamations. So we do have, we have four of them today. And our first one is a proclamation for Immunization Awareness Month. And that's sponsored by myself. So I'll invite my friends up from the UCSF Fresno Mobile Hill team. Come on down. All right, good morning. We're taking a moment today to recognize Immunization Awareness Month and the importance of making sure our families have access to the vaccines that they need. Vaccines prevented countless serious illnesses, saved millions of lives around the world. estimated over the past 50 years that global immunization efforts have saved at least 154 million lives, which is an incredible number. And it speaks to just how much vaccines have changed public health altogether. I think sometimes we forget how much progress has been made because we don't see many of these diseases in our communities anymore the way that we used to. But vaccines have helped eliminate smallpox, bringing us closer to eradicating polio, and dramatically reduced illnesses like measles and meningitis as well. But for me, one of the things I think about the most is the access component. It's not enough for health care services just to exist. We have to make sure people can actually reach them, reach those services. And we saw that firsthand highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. And I want to give a special thank you to Dr. Bond and the entire UCSF Fresno Mobile Hill team. for stepping up during that time. They went into our communities directly to people to provide free COVID-19 testing and vaccinations, particularly for residents who faced those barriers to healthcare. They administered more than 82,000 vaccines and conducted more than 94,000 tests. It's an incredible, incredible number. Dr. Vaughn and his team did not wait for people to come to them. they went where the people were. And they continue that work today by bringing preventative healthcare and immunization services directly into our neighborhoods to this day. So in this month, I do want to thank Dr. Vaughn and his team and all of our healthcare and community partners for continuing to make healthcare a priority and more accessible. Prevention can make a tremendous difference in our communities and our families' health, and everyone should have the opportunity to benefit from it and I know we have got a flu season coming up or maybe perhaps we're in it. So good opportunity to plug getting your flu shot. Dr. Bong gave me my flu shot personally last year. So I'll be coming around to probably do that again very shortly. We went the whole summer, I didn't get sick. I've been thinking about it. I'm due so watch out. Yeah, stay away. But at this time I do want to hand off the microphone to the actual healthcare professionals and the people doing the work.

Well, thank you. I'd love to thank Council President Nelson Esparza, but also I'd like to give a chance for my team and my new medical director, Dr. Dillon, to say a few words.

Thank you. Thank you, Council President Esparza and the whole rest of the council team here for this recognition. We really appreciate it. Like you said, vaccines are very, very important. So we do highly encourage, especially now that you may have heard flu season is starting and COVID numbers are slowly going up. So please, of course, try to be safe and always something that you can prevent with vaccines. One shot can prevent a lot of things. So for sure, consider getting that shot sooner than later.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So it is my pleasure to read the last, I'll have the clerk read the entire proclamation, but just to read this last part. Now, therefore, be it resolved that we, Mayor Jerry P. Dyer, Council President Nelson Esparza, and the entire Fresno City Council, do hereby proclaim the month of August 2026 as Immunization Awareness Month, and it's our honor to present it to you and your team. Thank you. Give him a round of applause. All right, clerk, you please read the proclamation.

Whereas vaccinations are a proven safe and cost-effective public health tool that helps prevent disease, protect individuals and families and reduce the burden of vaccine preventable to illnesses and communities. Vaccines have helped eliminate smallpox, bring polio closer to eradication, and dramatically reduce illness, including measles, rubella, meningitis, and other vaccine-preventable diseases. And whereas over the past 50 years, global immunization efforts have saved at least 154 million lives, demonstrating that extraordinary impact vaccines have had on the health and wellbeing of generations of people around the world. And whereas vaccination provides an important layer of protection for the entire community, including those especially vulnerable to serious illness, such as infants, older adults, and individuals with weakened immune systems. Maintaining strong immunization rates helps reduce the spread of preventable disease and strengthens the health of our community. And whereas during the COVID-19 pandemic, UCSF Fresno Mobile Hill played a critical role in bringing life-saving services directly to Fresno communities through its COVID-19 Equity Project, working alongside local government and community organizations MobileHeal provided free testing and vaccinations with a particular focus on underserved populations over the course of the pandemic response. The program administered more than 82,000 COVID-19 vaccines and conducted more than 94,000 COVID-19 tests, helping remove the barriers to care for residents throughout the region and whereas UCSF Fresno Mobile Heal continues this commitment to meeting people where they are by bringing preventative healthcare and immunization services into local neighborhoods. and communities. Its work demonstrates the importance of accessible healthcare and strong partnerships in improving health outcomes across Fresno County. And whereas Immunization Awareness Month serves as the annual opportunity to highlight the importance of staying up to date on vaccinations and to recognize the healthcare professionals and community partners working to make immunization services available to residents of all ages. Now, therefore, be it resolved that we, Mayor Jared P. Dyer, Council President Nelson Esparza, and the Fresno City Council do hereby proclaim this month of August 2026 as Immunization Awareness Month in the City of Fresno.

All right, fantastic. Our next proclamation is sponsored by both Council Members Carbasi and Council Member Perea, and it's a proclamation for Oliver Browner Day.

All right, Oliver, you want to join us? Come on up. You want to introduce yourself?

Hi, my name is Oliver Browner, and I'm from Fresno.

Fresno, that's right. So I have the honor of standing next to the third place finisher of the 2026 National Yo-Yo Contest. Let's give him a round of applause. Now, Oliver, when I was younger, I had one of those yo-yos where you just throw it down and it does all the tricks by itself, and all I had to do was stand there, and it just did the tricks by itself, but You don't use those yo-yos, right? You use kind of the old-school yo-yos where you actually have to practice over and over and over again. You have to perfect your skills. You love it. I think it's probably even a little therapeutic, right, when you're upset or stressed. Go throw a yo-yo. Go do some tricks. What's most impressive beyond just, you know, he's a very decorated yo-yo champion, but what's most impressive, and I think we can all take away a lesson from Oliver... is he was persistent. And there's times where we want to achieve something, and so we'll practice once or twice, but we may end up giving up because it's just hard. It's too challenging. Failure sucks. But Oliver didn't give up. He practiced over and over and over and over again, and what would take me lifetimes to accomplish, it took him very little time. You're what, 10 years old? 11? Wonderful. 10 or 11? Did you hear that? Today he's 10 years old. Tomorrow he will be 11. So before we're going to ask you to do some tricks, I'm going to pass the mic over to Mike.

Thank you, council member. Okay, so tomorrow's a big day. You're 11. How does it feel to be the man at 11 already? You're the coolest person in the room.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

I'm not going to yo-yo against you. You'll beat me every day. Let me ask you a question. What's your yo-yo nickname?

Usually my friends at school call me Yo-Yo God, but... A lot of pressure. But, like, you know, online, on Instagram, people call me The Goat.

Oh my gosh, yo-yo god, the confidence in this kid, I love it. Oliver, it means so much to the council member and I and our colleagues that you're here today and you're going to school us in yo-yoing. I do want to say one thing. Sydney Charles, who was the reporter that interviewed you, wanted to be here today, but she had a family emergency. But she says hello and she's so proud of you. So we're going to see some skills? All right. Put us to shame. Under pressure, look at that. And how long have you been doing this?

One and a half years.

Oh my gosh, one and a half years. I go five years, I couldn't even do that. That's wonderful.

All right, before we have the city clerk read the proclamation, we are going to declare it Oliver Day in the city of Fresno. So not only do you get your entire day... But we're also going to sing happy birthday to Oliver. So you get two cool things that happen this week, which is you get to celebrate your birthday, and you're going to get sung to by all of these incredible people. We have a cake for you, and you get your own proclamation in the city. Oh, you get two cakes? Oh, my God.

Great minds think alike.

Great council minds think alike. All right. Ready? One, two, three. Happy birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR OLIVER. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YO-YO GOD. ALL RIGHT. WE'RE GOING TO TAKE SOME PICTURES. AND CITY CLERK, WILL YOU PLEASE READ THE PROCLAMATION.

HOLD ON. COUNCILMEMBER PERREA, WHAT FLAVOR OF CAKES AND WHAT DO I GOT TO DO TO GET A PIECE?

YOU GOT TO SHOW US YOUR YO-YO SKILLS. All right. That's my thought. Okay. Thank you, city clerk.

Whereas Oliver Brower, a talented 10-year-old Fresno resident, had demonstrated extraordinary dedication, creativity, and perseverance through his passion of competitive yo-yo, inspiring others with his commitment to mastering his craft. And whereas through countless hours of practice and determination, Oliver learned the opportunity to compete at the 2026 National Yo-Yo Contest in Las Vegas, one of the nation's premier competitors for yo-yo enthusiasts. And whereas Oliver proudly represented the city of Fresno by earning third place in the boys 10 to 12 1A division, an outstanding accomplishment that reflects his exceptional skills and unwavering dedication. And whereas Oliver's achievements serve as an inspiration to young people throughout the community, demonstrating that hard work, discipline, and passion for learning can lead to success at the highest levels of competition. And whereas the city of Fresno proudly celebrates Oliver Brewer's remarkable accomplishment and commands him for representing our community with distinction, on the national stage. Now, therefore, be it resolved that we, Mayor Jerry Dyer and the Fresno City Council do hereby declare August 28th, 2026 as Oliver Browner Day in the City of Fresno.

All right, congratulations again to Oliver. Our next proclamation is gonna be sponsored by Council Member Perea. And this is a proclamation for the Fresno Young Leaders Academy.

All right, so last year, last year, last week, we kicked off the Family Affordability and Child Care Access Commission. And today is day one of our Fresno Young Leaders Academy. And so I want to start by thanking my colleagues. This is the first class that I'm going to have come up here and join me. Actually, let's get you guys up here. It'll take a minute or two and I'll keep talking. But for those of you who are familiar with the Leadership Fresno Program that is hosted by the Fresno Chamber of Commerce, you'll know that the Leadership Fresno Program is the premier program to participate in. You get a front row seat. Go ahead and come up here. Get on either side of me. Through the Leadership Fresno program, you get a front row seat and a behind the scenes point of view when it comes to anything and everything Fresno. So from arts, culture, to agriculture, to education, to politics and media, you are very quickly able to take a great sense of ownership of your city and get a firsthand look of all the great things that our city has to offer, our city and county. So we thought about adapting that program for adults to a youth program. And so I'm really excited because we all know that our youth is you guys are our future, but the future is now. And so it's critical that we continue to show our support as city leaders to invest in this generation, um, of our, of young folks. And so. This is the first class of the Fresno Young Leaders Academy, and they are participating in day one, which is Politics and Media Day. So they are going to witness how we run a council meeting, so council members be on your best behavior. They're also going to be sworn in as council members for the day a little bit later on by the city clerk. They're going to be going behind the scenes and they're going to be stopping at every city council office. They're going to be hearing from each office about what are the respective priorities for each council district. So they are already getting a very close, intimate, behind the scenes look of local politics. For better or for worse, right? It's important to learn every aspect that you can. I'm really honored to have been able to support this. And thanks to the unanimous support from our council colleagues, I'm happy to say that we set aside funding in this year's budget to do this program again next year. So this is a program for high school folks. So if you are interested in looking at this program for next year, please go to the Fresno Chamber's website to learn more. What we're going to do is I'm going to pass the mic down and just say your first name and which high school you go to.

Hello, my name is Reyhan Elhadi, and I attend Clovis North High School. Hello, my name is Alexa Gonzalez, and I attend Clovis East High School.

Hello, my name is Brianna Alonzo, and I attend Fresno High School. Hello, my name is Scarlett Vang, and I attend Central East High School.

Hello, my name is Jeremiah Gomez, and I attend University High School.

Hello, my name is Brielle Bonet, and I attend Edison High School.

Hello, my name is Alexander Borges, and I'm a student at University High School.

Hello, my name is Pedro Rivera, and I attend San Joaquin Memorial High School.

Hello, my name is Declan Gerpenstra, and I attend University High School.

Hello, I'm Ximena Ramos, and I'm the program coordinator. Hello, I'm Lorraine Priya, and I attend Clovis North High School.

Hello, my name is Maya Rahman, and I attend University High School. Hello, my name is Amelia Smith, and I also go to University High School.

Hello, my name is Jocelyn Alcantar-Rivera, and I attend Yosemite Valley Charter School.

Hi, my name is Alia King, and I attend San Diego West High School. Hi, my name is Harneet Benipal, and I go to Justin Garza High School. Hello, my name is Laniece Walls, and I go to Edison High.

Hello, my name is Gia Salazar, and I also attend Edison High School.

Hi, my name is Maria El-Ghazali and I attend University High School. Hi, my name is Sasha Walton and I go to Clovis High School.

Hi, my name is Aiden Huynh and I go to Clovis North High School. Hi, my name is Mithab Singh and I go to Edison High School. Hello, my name is Ken Yang and I go to University High School.

Hello guys, my name is Jin Vang and I go to McLean High School.

So congratulations to you all. Your journey has just begun. And if I could give one advice, just soak it all up. You're about to be on the most incredible journey so far in your lifetime. And I just couldn't be more excited to see what will come from this. As you're going through the different council offices, don't be afraid to ask, is anyone hiring? We're always hiring for interns. So if anyone's looking for a job, I heard they pay pretty well. So, um, with that being said, I'm going to hand the mic to CEO of chamber of commerce, Scott Miller.

Thank you very much. I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank the council for creating this program for supporting this program. I've had a chance to watch these young people in action. They are from every corner of this city. They are from, there are several from each of your council districts, as you know, you chose them. And I am just so confident that they're going to make you proud. So thank you very much on behalf of all of us for allowing us to partner with you on this project.

All right. City Clerk, will you please read the proclamation?

Whereas in fiscal year 2026, Fresno City Council Member Annalisa Perea championed a budget motion to create and fund a youth leadership program, an initiative that received the unanimous support of the Fresno City Council and Mayor Jerry P. Dyer, establishing a citywide commitment to invest in Fresno's young people and provide meaningful opportunities for leadership development, civic engagement, and public service. And whereas building upon the commitment, the City of Fresno partnered with the Fresno Chamber of Commerce to establish the Fresno Young Leaders Academy, creating a program that connect young people directly with the civic business and community leadership while providing firsthand exposure to the institution's industries and opportunities shaping Fresno's future. And whereas the Fresno Young Leaders Academy was created to give participants an experience that extends beyond the classroom, providing opportunities to see local government and business in action, engage with decision makers, explore career pathways, and gain a greater understanding of the responsibilities and opportunities that come with leadership. And whereas the members of the inaugural Fresno Young Leaders Academy cohort made history at the first class to participate in this initiative and through their commitment and partnership helped establish a strong foundation for a program designed to prepare and encourage the next generation of Fresno leaders. And whereas throughout the academy, these young leaders demonstrated initiative, curiosity, and a willingness to step forward, ask questions, build relationships, and deepen their understanding of Fresno and the many ways they can contribute to the community they all call home. And whereas the city of Fresno recognizes the Fresno Chamber of Commerce program's partners, mentors, civic and business leaders, and all those who contributed their time and expertise to bring this initiative to life and commands the inaugural cohort for setting a strong standard for the class that will follow. Now, therefore, be it resolved that we, Mayor Jerry P. Dyer, Councilmember Annalisa Perea, and the Fresno City Councilmembers proudly recognize the inaugural cohort of the Fresno Young Leaders Academy and commend its membership for stepping forward to be part of the first of its kind opportunity. As the Academy begins its inaugural year, we celebrate these young leaders and their potential for Fresno's future and do by hereby proclaim Thursday, August 27th, 2026 to be Fresno Young Leaders Academy in the city of Fresno.

Council Member Perea woke up hungry for the proclamations this morning. You're the sponsor of the next one, and this is a proclamation for Young Parents Day.

Okay, so I'm going to have my friends from Shine Fresno come down.

Shine Together Fresno.

So we all know, or some of us know, that being a parent is one of the most difficult things that you can encounter in life. Am I right, parents? It's hard. It's difficult. But it's even harder for our younger parents, our younger parents who are still trying to figure out how to get through school. our young parents that are trying to figure out how to balance being a new parent, being a young person themselves, going to school, working a job to support their young family. And so when I had the opportunity to tour the Shine Together nonprofit, I was very astonished to see the resources that are out there. Resources are incredible, but if people don't know that help is out there, then that's not good. And so we want to do everything possible to highlight nonprofits that are doing the good work for our young families. But this organization, and I'll give them the mic to explain a little bit more, but they basically will hold your hand and help you through your educational journey. They'll make sure that you are equipped with all of the milestones that your baby should be hitting, and they'll help you to make sure your babies are hitting those milestones. But I want to read off some numbers because the work they do produces tangible results. 91% of participants graduate from high school or remain on track to graduate. 81% improve their financial literacy. 92% experience less parenting stress and greater hope for their future. But most importantly, 95% of their children reach those key developmental milestones, which is, I think, the greatest thing to highlight of all. And so you brought some of your families with us today. Thank you for doing that. But I do want to just pass the mic over to you to explain a little bit more about what you guys offer and how people can take advantage of these services.

Hi, my name is Vanessa Padilla. I'm the program supervisor of Shine Together Fresno. Thank you, Council Member Anna-Lisa Pereira, for recognizing this day. Super important for us. But yeah, we're a nonprofit here in Fresno that serves and empowers young parents in Fresno, ages 13 to 25. So we'll have a parent come in. We're all about welcoming, safe space. You walk into our office, it doesn't seem like a typical office. It's very warm and welcoming, and that's what we want. When you come in, we ask, you know, we give a little breakdown of our program. And what's most important for us is your education because we want to break the cycle of poverty for their families, right? So when you come in, if you're not enrolled in school, that's okay. We can talk about how we can get you enrolled in school and what's the best school that fits your lifestyle at the moment. If you are enrolled in school, are you on track, right? If you are, we're going to keep a meeting with your counselor. We're going to make sure that you stay on track. We focus around four pillars in our program, which is education, child development. So like Council Member Pereira said, we do focus on the progress and the development of your child. Health and wellness, so making sure that you're connected with mental health resources. And then financial literacy. So we partner with Chase Bank. to come out to our office and do workshops around financial literacy. We're not the pros at it, but we bring in the pros to make it fun, right? Because it can get kind of overwhelming when you hear about budgeting or finances and things like that. So that's a little bit about us. I do want to say thank you again. This means so much. I think oftentimes young parents are identified by their challenges, but they're much more than that. If you were to be in our shoes with the advocates and program supervisors, you'll get to see how resilient they are, how motivated they are. Their hard work just speaks to everything. And then their children are watching them come and learn about parenting or education, right? So this also means so much to me. As a young parent myself, I had my son at 14, and I was a part of this program. So being able to serve the community and serve my younger self through these families means everything. So thank you, Annalisa, for being part of our village. Thank you.

And also, too, I just want to give a thanks to Shine. They honestly been here for us so supportively, mentally, physically. They're the most supporting group that I've ever been encountered with. And I just want to give them a thanks so much because Like, I'm very motivated. I know I see my finish line is not that far ahead, you know, and I just want to stay focused, and they helped me do that.

I as well would like to give a thanks to Shine just because they taught me how to be a better parent and also just how to be a better man in general. And I think without Shine, a lot of other young parents as well would have it a lot harder because with them, they teach you parenting skills, how to be patient with your child. And honestly, I'm just I'm really thankful for them. So thank you, Shine. And

Yeah, so we're here in Fresno. We're in the downtown area, so I don't, is it R Street? Yeah, I'm not good with that, but we're Tulare and R Street, I believe, right across from the new Starbucks. I know it's not a good look for us, because Starbucks be taking our money, but we're right across the street. We do have a website as well, so if you go onto the website, You'll be able to see our contact information. Or if you just want to walk in, there's a big sign in front that says Shine Together. And you just want to learn a little bit more, we're always open to giving tours of our office, showing how warm and welcoming it is. And then we can even give you an orientation of our program to see if it maybe fits a cousin or a daughter that you may have or a friend. So we're always welcome to walk-ins as well. So don't be afraid to come say hi.

Thank you, Cheyenne, for all the work you do for our young parents. City Clerk.

Whereas Young Parents Day honors the courage, resilience, and determination of young parents who work every day to build brighter futures for themselves and their children, often while managing and demanding responsibilities of education, employment, parenthood, and personal growth, and whereas Fresno County continues to face a teen birth rate nearly twice the statewide average, highlighting the urgent need to invest in programs that equip young parents with educational pathways, supportive services, and vital community resources that lay the foundation for long-term stability and success. And whereas for more than a decade, Shine Together has stood as the only organization in Central California exclusively dedicated to supporting pregnant and parenting youth ages 13 to 25, providing educational navigation, early childhood development support, individualized coaching, and leadership opportunities that strengthen families and foster self-sufficiency. And whereas their impact is demonstrated through measurable outcomes, 91% of participants complete high school or remain on track to graduate, 92% report reduced parenting stress and increased hopes for their family's future, 81% strengthened their financial knowledge, and 95% of children enrolled each key development milestone proving that targeted investment in young parents lead to lasting community benefits. And whereas the city of Fresno recognize that when young parents have success, access to tools, support and opportunities, they need to thrive. They not only uplift their families, but also strengthen the future of the entire community. the city commands shine together for its unwavering commitment to empowerment through compassion, education, and advocacy. Now, therefore, be it resolved that we, Mayor J.R.P. Dyer, Councilmember Annalisa Perea, and the Fresno City Councilmembers encourage all residents to recognize the achievements of young parents and to support Shine Together's dedication to helping them build healthy, stable, and successful futures for themselves and their children, and hereby proclaim Thursday, August 13, 2026, to be Young Parents Day in the City of Fresno.

All right, great. We'll move on to council member reports and comments. We'll take it in the order we have up here. Council member Ving, any reports or comments this morning?

Thank you very much, Council President. Good morning, everybody. Just a few updates on the infrastructure projects going on in District 5. The Cedar Avenue repaving project is almost complete. I want to thank Public Works Department, the community there, the residents there. for their patience and again, thank you everybody for their patience, in particular the schools and students who utilized that stretch of the road on Cedar Avenue south of Kings Canyon. Another concrete project repair is underway on the eastern side of District 5. This time is near Belmont and Fowler Avenues. And I wanna thank the residents there again for their patience while the crew is out there for these much needed improvement. Again, a lot of things are going on with regards to infrastructure improvement in District Five. This is just the beginning and stay safe out there. Thank you very much. That's all I have, Council President.

Council Member Karbasi, any report or comments this morning?

Oh, sure, Mr. President, thank you. I'll be very brief. Just wanted to recognize for Leadership Fresno, the tallest person among that group was one of my interns and he is a legacy for District 2. Alexander Borges, I don't know if he's listening, but very proud of him in his work. His family has been very supportive and his dad really schooled me and taught me a lot about politics and how to win a successful election. I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't been for his dad. So again, thank you, Alexander. I wouldn't be surprised if you're sitting up here one day. And yes, I have a yo-yo now. I am not going to be, I'll be brave in public maybe in a year from now. I'll give myself a year and then we'll see what I can do next year. And then I do want to thank Adrian Kinney. Thank you so much for being sweet. It was kind of a rough year with my dad's health issues. So we didn't really get to celebrate my birthday. But being here with my colleagues and my friends, it means a lot. And she had this inflatable birthday cake. No one was in it. It wasn't like that. But I had an inflatable birthday cake. I had to do it in front of my office. And it was decorations and whatnot. And that was very, very sweet. And that made my week. So thank you so much. And your car, Georgianne, was pretty awesome. So thank you for that. And I look forward to all the amazing work we're going to do today. Thank you.

Yeah, don't hurt yourself with the yo-yo. Council Member Richardson.

Thank you, Council President. It was a warm day in District 6 this morning. Okay, so first I wanted to point this out. This wasn't actually in my comments, but I wanted to point this out. You may not be able to see this from here, but this is a Starbucks cup. I got it this morning. On top is a hole where you drink the coffee. And right here in front of the spot where you drink the coffee, there's a gigantic hole right in the front of the lid. It's sabotage. This means when you go to drink your coffee, what happens, it all spills down the front of your nice shirt your mom bought for you for your birthday. You know where this stuff doesn't happen? Local mom and pop coffee shops. So if you live in District 6, like you're me, don't take the easy route. Support local businesses. Go to the Mug, or go to Supri, or go to Cup of Joy, or go to Wake Me Up Farms, one of the places over there that is a small business, because it's probably somebody who is an owner or a, you know, someone with a lot of stake in the business who's serving the stuff to you there, and you're not going to get goddang sabotage like this and ruin one of your shirts. So write that down. Starbucks, corporate, I don't know who runs, John's Starbucks, whoever's in charge of it. Bad. Um, anybody familiar with the, uh, the Morocco Dhamma center, uh, Southeast Asian Buddhist, uh, temple over in Chinatown. Beautiful place. I got a tour of it this week. They have 120 year old trees there. They have 1500 year old statues there. Like so much history is there. It was a very integral part of, uh, early Fresno history. And I really appreciate them giving me a tour over there. Um, and then last night, the last thing I'm gonna point out is, um, Well, one, we have the Thrive Conference coming up. If you're a veteran or you know someone in your family, August 31st, September 1st, over at the Clovis Veterans Memorial District, they have things like financial literacy, entrepreneurship, leadership, stress management, things like that, whatever you may need. It's a great resource for veterans. It's free. Tickets are free. Show up. Get in touch with my office. We'll figure out how to get you there if you're interested. And then finally, last night really warmed my heart. So we have this tradition in District 6 where if there's a new development, it's not just silent. If something new gets built in your neighborhood, we pull all the neighbors together. And if you're a developer and you want to develop something in District 6, you're going to sit down and you're going to talk to my bosses about it. My bosses are the 80,000 people who live up there who I work for. So we had one of these last night. We've got this new development. It's a vacant lot. It hasn't ever been developed. And two developers want to develop there. Well, the first one, sat down with a bunch of my residents in at me and ed's we had pizza and i got to ask whatever questions they wanted and address all the concerns with the builder last night we had the second builder show up same thing packed house people got to ask all their questions and now if someone asks them hey what's going on right behind your house what's being built there they can actually speak to it they have a phone number they can call if they have a problem there's too much light too much noise whatever else so to all you residents who came out there you're Most of you probably aren't watching. That's fine. Thank you for showing up. For the rest of District 6, we're going to keep doing it. Millbrook, the west side of Millbrook, there's a development going on there. That was approved before my time. But if you live off Millbrook between Neese and Alluvial, expect that you're going to be the next meeting because you've got some condos going in, and I'm not willing to see that project get completed without talking to you first. So we're going to continue that. I love it. It makes my job way easier. We can only solve problems when we know what they are. So, Council President, and then welcome to the three of you who are from D6. Again, Council President Sawhad.

Council Member Carbasi, you punched it.

Really quick. So, for Leadership President for the class, right before you came in here, I was giving my comments, and I did mention one thing. I don't know if you guys get a chance to actually choose a president of your class, but Alexander Borges, would you please stand up? He was my intern. He is a legacy in District 2. His father had the distinction of serving in my seat. And this is your guy. So I'm very proud of you and glad to see you here. I'm just mad that you're taller than me. That's all. Good to see you.

All right, Council, Vice President, you didn't have anything. I'll go ahead and go. I had the privilege of attending the grand opening of AWAS Las Rancheritas at First McKinley this past weekend. Congratulations to Bernice and Susanna on their exciting milestone. Always great to see new businesses pop up and open their doors, create jobs, and add overall to the vibrancy of our neighborhoods. Additionally, I also want to recognize the Beautify Fresno team for their continued work to keep our neighborhoods clean and beautiful. My team recently joined them for a cleanup over in the neighborhood near First and Tulare where volunteers came together to pick up litter and help make their area cleaner and more welcoming as they always do. So thank you to them. And lastly, did have the privilege of participating in our inaugural Child Care Commission meeting this past week. It was a short and sweet one where we appointed the community members. So we look forward to the next one this coming week with the full roster of members, not just the council members. That'll be it for me. And city managers, is there any report from the administration?

No, Council President.

Okay, great. Let's see here. We'll move on to a few of the timed items. I think we have a couple of them. We have the 9.10 a.m. This is a hearing to vacate a portion of the street right away at Brawley and West Buckingham. This is in D1. I'll go ahead and open up the public hearing for this and take public comments on the items. So at this time, is there anybody in the public, either on Zoom or in the chamber, who would like to speak with respect to the 9.10 a.m. item vacating a portion of the street at Brawley in West Buckingham? All right, seeing none, I'll go ahead and close the public comment on the 9.10 a.m. item. Council, do you need a presentation on this at all? Okay, I'll make a motion to approve. Okay, we have first, we have second. Is there any opposition to approving the 9.10 a.m. item? All right, seeing none, that passes five to zero. All right, next we have 9.15 a.m. timed item. This is a CFD, Communities Facilities Districts.

That item was continued to September 17th at staff's request.

You are correct. Go ahead and cross that off. Good catch. All right. We do have a 10 a.m., but we'll give that a few more minutes. Meanwhile, what I'll do is I'll begin the public comments for... Consent agenda, contested consent, closed session. So we'll have a couple speakers there, and then we'll get back to the 10 a.m. 10 a.m. item. So I do have a stack of cards, and the first card I had was for Sherry Chavarria regarding item 2CC. Come on down, Sherry. You'll have three minutes.

Good morning, Mr. President Esparza.

Good morning, Mr. President Esparza and Councilman and to the public. I'm here to speak on 2CC resolution to name the park Cruz Bustamante. Cruz is my cousin. I'm very proud of him. Cruz's legacy in the Central Valley speaks for itself from presenting our region in the state assembly to becoming the first Latino speaker. His work opened doors and made lasting impact on Fresno and the Valley. As family, we've seen the dedication behind those years of service, the long days, the commitment, and the pride he carried for his community. Our roots are here, and it means a great deal to us to see the contributions, his contributions recognized in such a lasting way. Naming the park after him is truly well deserved. Thank you.

Thank you. Next card I had was for Elijah Davila regarding item 2Y.

Thank you.

Hello, council. My name is Elijah. I'm a resident of District 4. I am an ACS and Fresno County Tobacco-Free Coalition volunteer. We'd like to thank council members Maxo, Preah, and Richardson for taking time out of your busy schedules to hear our recommendations and concerns over the last few days. We appreciate all the council's efforts towards the tobacco retail licensing policy, and if changes are not considered today, we would be interested in following up and continuing to provide the council with education on annual inspection checks, penalties that apply to business owners only, and having anti-purchase use or possession laws that will not punish young people. Thank you for your collaboration and time.

Thank you. It's 9.59, so we'll give it just a few seconds here. But the next 10 a.m. item we have is an appearance by resident Neil O'Brien regarding Republic Services, resident of District 6. So we're here right at 10 a.m., which is extraordinary. Welcome, Mr. O'Brien. You'll have three minutes. Thank you.

Okay. Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council, and staff. My name is Neil O'Brien. I'm homeowner at Mansion at Court. In June, I was here to share how Republic Services totally failed waste and recycling collections at our property. Today, I'm here to share how Republic Services bills our community's fees that do not exist in the city's franchise agreement. How come it's not? These three fees appear on our bills that are not in the contract. First, container access. This fee is totally made up. It does not exist in the franchise agreement or Exhibit J. Republic does not disclose it on its website, and they charge it twice on every single bill. Second, contaminated materials. Republic Services assesses this fee without following the required process in section 8.24 of the franchise. Third, waste and recycling overage. This name also does not appear on exhibit J either. Next slide please. Look at the contrast. On the left is what they print on our invoices, container access fee and waste and recycling overage. On the right is Exhibit J. These are the only authorized special charges that are allowed in the contract. These two fees appear nowhere in Exhibit J. Next slide, please. Section 8.22 limits special services fees to three things. Unlocking containers, using a key or remote, or moving bins more than 25 feet. None of those conditions exist at Manchinette Court. Our corrals are unlocked and open, no key is required, and the bins set about 10 feet from the truck. On contamination, Section 8.24 requires a process that includes notice tags left on bins, city notification, education for residents, and an attempt to help customers reduce contamination. The public did none of that. Those fees are invalid too. Every month, the city allows these charges to continue. Our property, Manchinette Court, loses hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Last slide, please. The city must do three things now. Stop the fees right now. Number two, order credits and refunds for every single unauthorized charge already billed to us. And third, enforce a franchise agreement and exhibit J as it is written. This is an exclusive franchise agreement. We just cannot simply pick another hauler. We are stuck. The city is the only party who can enforce the written contract. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Mr. O'Brien. All right, we're going to snap back into the public comments regarding consents, contested consents, or closed session. So next card I have is for Mr. Balwinder Singh. Mr. Singh? All right, we'll move on to another card. Card for Sonny. Sonny.

Good morning, City Council. My name is Sunny Chauhan. I'm a retailer here in the city of Fresno. I'm a 7-Eleven retailer. I own four locations. I'm also the FOA president for the local association here in Fresno. I'm here to speak about Bill B-24. First of all, we're in support of Bill B-24, but there's a lot of language in there that needs to be rectified. I also want to bring to your attention that as a 7-Eleven franchisee, we take a lot of pride in and making sure that the youth's not, you know, we're complying with the laws and all the regulatory services that are imposed upon us. We, first of all, at 7-Elevens have what we call a BARS program, If we do have somebody that's shopping our store and our clerks don't follow the law, then they get written off for their first offense, and then they're terminated on their second offense. Not only that, as a 7-11 franchisee, we've also got strict contractual obligations of the franchisor. So if we get two strikes, basically, so if we sell two minus twice, we could lose our business. So it's a very, very big deal for us. On top of that, I don't know what's going on recently, but we've had the CDTFA target a lot of 7-Elevens in town. They've not only gone into the front counters of the stores, they've also asked us to open our back rooms to make sure there's no banned substances and things like that. Overall, I understand there's a lot of this going on in the city. I know the big problem in the city was with most of the smoke shops. And I know you guys have shut down a lot of smoke shops. You're strictly cracking down on smoke shops. We did speak to a couple of council members yesterday, spoke to Annalisa as well, and we did hear about that. So I feel... As far as the ordinance, as I said, we're here to support the ordinance, but I feel it's very unfair for you to penalize good operators and good store owners or good retailers with this big fee and also the language in this bill. So I think if you guys can perhaps reconsider or perhaps take some input from leaders like myself, APCA, some of the other leaders in town, and perhaps revise the verbiage in that bill. And also at the same time, you know, as far as the fee structure, like as I said, the CDTF has been, you know, they charge us about $645 per location right now. And they've been really cracking down on stores. So is there going to be an overlap with the city enforcement with them? Are we going to have more shops? Things like that. So, you know, they're already shopping us. They're already doing what they're supposed to do. So I think this is going to get overwhelming from that standpoint. And again, like I said, you know, I'll just sum it up in closing, saying that we're here to support that ordinance. But again, the language needs to be looked at. And also, as far as the fees, I know you guys got grants from the state on that. So I think the $1,000 is a very steep amount. It's a big amount. And tobacco is a dying category in our stores right now. And I feel that will really put a big dent in our business. So if you can please overlook at that. And in closing, I'd say the language needs to be changed. And please, if you can look at the fees as well, that would be great. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. MR. SINGH, YOU'RE BACK.

GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL PRESIDENT, COUNCIL MEMBERS. THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO HEAR US OUT TODAY. MY NAME IS BALWINDER SINGH. I'M THE LOCAL APCA CHAPTER PRESIDENT. I WANTED TO TAKE THE TIME TO just say that we also are parents as well. And along with being a parent, business owners of this community. Along with being business owners of this community, we are locally involved with issues that affect not only our businesses, but also the community which that business is in. So the importance of this ordinance, we agree on. But a lot of the language, we feel that there needs to be more time spent on having a better understanding of how that language and how this bill will affect businesses going on to the future. Now, we also understand that the ordinance that was recently passed that allowed smoke shops to get a CUP will also take effect recently, which we've seen that most of those smoke shops have closed down. And so as we say that smoke shops are a problem, we also adhere to strict rules along with our businesses. We have CUPs. We have a liquor license. Now we have a state license for tobacco from the state as well, too, that we pay $650 for. So having a liquor license and having a tobacco license, we adhere to strict rules and regulations already as it is. So adding more red tape on top of red tape will also hinder the way we do business. Now, tobacco already is declining. We agree that it's been an issue in this community for a while, hence we've came to the table two years past. And we also encourage the city to come up with the ordinance that would properly address the issue at hand. But we also recognize right now that this ordinance is being pushed a little bit too quickly. And in the stance that I think there needs to be more input taken. And we are ready and able to be sitting at the table to help the council be better informed with the actions that this ordinance will create. So please table this. Give us more time to speak. We're supportive of it. And we're welcome to take any questions. Thank you.

Next speaker is going to be Jay Bandal.

Good morning, council members. My name is Jay Bandal. For 28 years, I have owned and operated a retail business here in Fresno. I have followed the law, paid my taxes, created local jobs, and invested in the community. I support strong enforcement against businesses that sell illegal products or sell to minors. Those businesses should be held accountable, but this ordinance goes beyond bad actors and places new burdens on every retailer, including businesses with long records of compliance. First, the proposed licensing fee could cost nearly $1,000 per year. That is a significant expense for a small business. Before imposing the cost, the city should explain how the fees will be monitored and audited, and how future increases will be controlled. Second, the ordinance could make licenses difficult or impossible to transfer. After decades of building a business, a responsible owner should be able to sell it upon retirement or pass it on to their children. A new licensing system should not eliminate that option. Thank you.

Next speaker is going to be Andy Shikara.

Good morning, Council President and member of City Council. My name is Andy Chikara. I'm chairman of Apco, representing independent convenience stores, fuel station operation operators. Many responsible present retailers are here because of this ordinance could significantly affect their business and employees and families. First, we want to be clear Apco supports protecting young people. We support strong enforcement against any business that sells tobacco to minors, knowingly sells or illegally flavors tobacco and vapes products. And my two kids born and raised here in these stores, they were exposed with the tobacco and beer thing. We made sure that our kids knew what is right or wrong. We also support these youngsters coming down there and exposing themselves with the city's rules and regulations. Very nice job, Mrs. Preah. So therefore, we are not asking you to weaken this enforcement. We are asking you to make this ordinance fair, clear, and focus on actual bad actors. Our first concern is to propose annual license fee of approximately $1,000 per location. For hundreds of retailers, that means 590 retailers in the city of Fresno means $600,000 every year. Before imposing this cost, the city should provide a public program budgeting explanation, how the fees were calculated, how the money will be used, and how it will be reviewed. The fees should not... EXCEED THE CITY'S ACTUAL COST OF ADMINISTRATION IN THIS PROGRAM. SECOND, THE ORDINANCE MUST DESTROY SERIOUS VIOLATIONS FROM CORRECTIVE ADMINISTRATIVE MISTAKES. SELLING A MINOR OR KNOWINGLY SELLING ILLEGAL PRODUCT SHOULD HAVE SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES. BUT PAPERWORK, LICENSE DISPLAYS, RECORD KEEPING, AND TRAINING DOCUMENT MISTAKES SHOULD RECEIVE WRITTEN NOTICES AND MANDATORY OPPORTUNITY TO CORRECT THE PROBLEM. These technical matters should not count towards the revocation in the same manner as an illegal sales. Third, responsible owners should receive consideration when they have written policies, documentations, employee training, ID checking procedures, take immediate or corrective action after an employee violates those rules. One employee's mistake should not automatically place an entire responsibility on business and its employees at risk of closure. Fourth the license transfer provision must be classic clarified the responsible owner should not lose the value of the lawful business when retiring selling the owner or selling the store transferring to the family members There should be reasonable process allowing the qualified new owners to obtain or continue this license Finally the city should explain how the ordinance will work with the existing smoke shop ordinance So the retailers do not face over Thank You Andy

Next speaker is going to be Bill Bonnell.

Thanks, Council, for this opportunity to speak. Listening to all the kids from Fresno or tobacco-free Fresno and then the leader of the American Cancer Society Both during the meeting and after the meeting we came up with a list of things that we all agree on and we hope that could be incorporated into the final bill and Um, one is retailers should be not pushing products. If people want to buy tobacco, they can. When I was an AM PM, I was, I had to sell tobacco. One of the first things I did was get rid of selling tobacco. I still don't sell vapes and things like that. Uh, what I found was the customers were so upset that you're moralizing and they take it like you're trying to tell them how to live their life or whatever. So we brought them back and I don't discount them. and i don't uh... uh... you know give multi-pack discounts and i have a higher price but the cigarette tobaccos just like the beer companies put a lot of pressure on us and there's also a lot of market pressure if you're the only one not doing it you lose customers uh... what the council put together with the alcohol beverage control law like at first i don't know miguel's was a little scary but like once we started talking We agreed on 80, 85% of things, and that's what I hope we can do here. So that would be a good thing to incorporate in here, no pushing of those products through a multi-pack discounts, coupons, or a minimum margin law that's been accomplished in the state of Tennessee, the city of New York, and the state of Massachusetts. No outward facing signage so that kids walking by a store would see that. Then also no sales near schools, parks, sensitive areas like that, which hopefully we can define better in the bill. And then obviously enforce all the current laws. That's been difficult for us. because the list had kept changing and changing, but as of January of this year, it's a pretty tight list, and I don't think you'll see people making too many mistakes there. So these are the things that the kids agree on, we agree on. I had my son, who works at Goldman Sachs, run an analysis on how much money it would raise if you were to implement the minimum margin law. Just going to 10% below the national average, when you talk to the Philip Morris rep, he is amazed at how low the price of tobacco is in our area. There's five areas that they monitor, San Diego, L.A., Sacramento, Fresno, and the Bay Area. And the price of cigarettes is $1 to $2 more in all those areas. I think Sacramento is like 75 cents more. But there's a problem there. And those tobacco companies put too much pressure on us that we can't solve by ourselves, and we'd hope you guys would do that. But I think his analysis said it would raise $1.9 million.

Thank you, Bill. All right. Next speaker is going to be Sukhbir Bandal.

Respected Fresno City Council president and council members. My name is sick beer bundle Thank you for allowing me to voice my concerns about the proposed tobacco ordinance While regulations are important. I urge you to consider the potential negative impacts of the current language First the financial burden on local businesses is significant fees up to 1,000 per year can strain small business and Operating on thin margins and in a such a weak economy and we all know that How bad it is as all we are feeling that Heat buying groceries while filling up our auto gas tanks. We need to negotiate this fee to lower it to the minimum Second the restrictions on the license transfers are troubling irresponsible businesses owner should be able to sell their businesses or pass it to their children. Idea that a license could be terminated or seized for minor infractions or for employee's fault is not only unfair, it is unacceptable. I promise you that as the tailors, we do put ourselves in the public shoes. We understand the need of regulations, which is why we want to sit at the negotiating table to accept reasonable rules. I ask you to put yourself in the shoes of retailers and owners. Imagine investing years of hard work and only to face severe penalties for minor mistakes or employee errors and termination or non-transfer of the license to the family. This punitive approach creates fear instead of fostering compliance. The state already has regulations through CADTFA And these tobacco ordinance often seem more focused on collecting money rather than addressing the actual issues at hand. If the goal is the revenue, it could be achieved through hefty fines rather than termination or seizing of the licenses. Lastly, let's differentiate between serious violations and technologies. The current language risks unnecessary shutdowns and increased red tapes, which could put strain on local businesses for years or for a lifetime. While we support strict regulations, they must be balanced and fair. In conclusion, let's work together to create an ordinance that promotes compliance through education rather than punishment. Thank you for your consideration. And I want to appreciate Nick Richardson, council member. I'm from District 6. I live on Maple and Copper. One of my businesses is on Shepherd and Cedar Indian restaurant. So you promoting the local business and naming all the businesses, I was remembering all of them, Subri and all that. Thank you for doing that.

Thank you.

All right, next speaker I have is gonna be Viola Xiong.

All righty, good morning. My name is Balia Zhang, District 1, and I serve as the co-chair for the Fresno County Tobacco Free Coalition. We appreciate the sponsoring council member who brought the tobacco retail license ordinance forward. This movement means a lot to us, and it helps reassure us that the people's health is a priority here in the city. I also want to thank Councilmember Maxwell, Pereira, Anne Richardson for meeting with us and having the discussion on why this work means a lot to us. We see the impacts of tobacco day in and day out. We're connected with other orgs and cities across the state who are two, six plus years into their TRL implementation and we see that strong tobacco retail licensing ordinance are proven a way to address public health issues linked to tobacco use, reduce health disparities and help ensure that tobacco laws are followed. The coalition were committed to working alongside the city to ensure that this ordinance, if successful, if adopted, educating retailers and community members will be critical. And we believe that by working together, we can create healthier environments for our youth and family. So we look forward to partnering up with the city to make this effort meaningful, effective, and beneficial for everyone in Fresno. Our coalition encompasses folks from those that do the work full time, to youth, to members who love our city and care about health. We host bi-monthly meetings and invite the council, city staff, community members to be at the table as we continue to uplift people towards health and equity. Thank you for your time and consideration.

All right, gonna go over to Zoom. On Zoom we have Robert Park.

Hi, good morning. My name is Robert. I'm here on behalf of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. especially our youth. In addition to the strong provisions already included in ordinance, we do urge the council to strengthen the policy by requiring proactive annual inspections of tobacco retailers, ensuring penalties fall on the license holder rather than individual employees, and making clear that there are no penalties for the purchase, use, or possession of tobacco products. We also encourage a civil non-criminal enforcement structure and ask that our coalition partners and ourselves continue to be included to the ordinance. Thank you so much for your leadership.

All right. Thank you. Next on Zoom is going to be Joseph Rodriguez. Hello. Hello. Good morning, Joseph. You have three minutes. We're on consent, contested consent, or closed session.

Yeah, hi, thank you very much. Just wanted to talk to the Council about the item to you. It has to do with reappropriation of funds for the retail. Organized retail theft. I know it's not much and it's probably for something simple like staffing. But I just wanted to let the Council know that we have a petition on change.org that is wanting to deflock Fresno. We don't like flock safety. And the contract was signed during the original implementation of this grant for the organized retail theft back in 2023, December 14th, the council approved all this. And so now we have flock safety cameras popping up on every corner. It's starting to become a big problem. our petitions up to 2,300, over 2,300 signatures. Most of those signatures come from 93727, 93704, and 93722, the zip codes. And a lot of people are joining us online, our social media campaign to deflog Fresno. We just wanna let the council know that We want you guys to end that contract. We want the ALPR readers out of Fresno because they're not just picking up license plates. They're picking up all kinds of other details. And now Flock is even advertising that you could find people just by descriptions. You don't even need a license plate anymore. That's the latest from their website. with the CEO of Flock even saying that there needs to be a compromise, that these cameras are starting to get out of control with all the people around the country that are getting arrested or losing their jobs because of stalking women and putting people in danger. We also don't know how many times the government has asked for files from Flock. We have the chief of police saying things like, we don't share with ICE, but we don't actually know. And when we asked the chief of police, they weren't able to confirm that they can 100% say no to the government. They have to eventually say yes at some point. And when she conceded that, we really don't know how many times ICE has been through our systems, looking through our license plates, And in general, most people don't know when they've been flocked or if they're being stalked or followed and it's a big mess. So, you know, it's up to the council to appropriate.

Thank you. Next speaker is going to be Lisa Flores on Zoom.

Good morning and happy birthday to everybody who's sharing. Third birthday with mine today. A couple of things. First off, you need to get the plot cameras out of Fresno. They really don't serve a purpose other than to militarize the community and to create some fear personally. I would like to know where every single one of these cameras are so I can avoid them because I do not like to be tracked because I am not an animal. Second, the $1,000 for the license for the vaping smoke shop places, guys, that's just the cost of business. If it wasn't so, you know, it's cutting into your profit margin. I get it. But you know what I like? I like a healthier Fresno, and I don't like seeing our kids vaping or smoking because I look at the long-term effects of that behavior and how it hits our... how it hits a medical and the lack of good medical in Fresno to people with no money. It's really hard to get help when you have nothing in this town. Anyway, well, once again, happy birthday to everybody. And thank you for the time.

All right, thank you, Lisa. I don't have any more cards or folks on Zoom, but again, last opportunity for comments on consent agenda, contested consent or closed session. All right, I have Gurinder Singh on Zoom.

Hi.

Welcome. Can you hear me? Yes. All right. You have three minutes.

Yeah, I have. My name is Gurinder Singh. I have a convenience store in the city of Fresno holding a tobacco license as well. So here is what I think about this ordinance. We're already paying a hefty tobacco license fee, probably close to $600 yearly, which they just hugged up this year. With the electricity rates hike every year, insurance is going up almost 30 to 40% every year, and payroll hikes basically every year, I think it's already hard for enough, basically for the small businesses to survive at this point. So we don't need an extra layer of burden on top of if state is already charging a $600 fee for the tobacco license. If city wants to come up with an ordinance to educate and promote awareness on tobacco products, then they can come up with a program, you know, get on with the APCA and then probably, you know, come up with a certain kind of a solution instead of adding up on more add on fee, you know, on the burden for the small retailers. So I disagree with the $1,000 fee, which the city is trying to impose. And hopefully that fees could be lowered basically, and they could work out for everyone.

So thank you for your time.

All right. Next speaker on Zoom is Alice Sims.

Good morning. This is Elisa Sims. I'm just calling in to let you know that we would also like you to deflot Fresno. I don't know how many people have to call in and tell you guys this. They've got 2,000 signatures and that's only because those are 2,000 people that happen to see about the signing the petition. There's plenty of other people that haven't seen it. But I'm using my free will right now. So thank you for listening to me. But we want to deflock Fresno. We're tired of being watched everywhere we go. There is a map online for those who are wondering. You can find out exactly where the flock cameras are and you can't avoid them. It's kind of ridiculous that we would have to do that just to get to where we want to go without being watched and stopped. It's really uncomfortable. The same way you guys feel uncomfortable and unsafe going to work. We feel unsafe just walking around town. You guys don't make us feel safe. It doesn't feel like you guys listen to us. And now you just, you wanna watch us everywhere we go, listen to what we're doing. I guess watch us on the internet, what we're doing there. It all just seems really cruel and calculated, but the city wants you. to deflock Fresno. The city wants you to deflock Fresno. And we also want people to stop being openly racist online underneath all of the local media. We see smear campaigns about black leaders in town. It needs to stop, it's embarrassing. You can't get online and speak your truth without people underneath in the comment section calling you racist names, calling you racial slurs. Maybe spend more money on, I don't know, finding all the racists in town or all the corruption. I don't think Flock is really helping us find out anything. I don't know what you guys are looking at, but I can see you guys. And I hope that we're all safe. I want everyone to be safe. I don't want you guys to feel hostile when you go to work. I don't want to feel like it's a hostile situation when I'm simply living in my apartment complex. We want the cameras out. Just the same way you guys want to feel safe, we want to feel safe. This is super hostile. Nobody wants this. We don't want the cameras. We don't want the AI data center. We just want to be listened to and treated fairly like human beings. None of you are above us. Deflect Fresno. We don't want that in our swamp. Thank you.

I don't have any additional yellow cards. I don't have any additional speakers on Zoom. I'll go ahead and close. Actually, we have one more person, Jamie Morgan on Zoom.

Yes, good morning. My name is Jamie Morgan. I'm the Senior Region Director of Field Advocacy for the American Heart Association. And we urge you to adopt a comprehensive tobacco retail license ordinance to mirror the best practice standards. set forth by the Public Health Law Center and establish minimum compliance checks for all tobacco retailers in Fresno. This will reduce access to the products that are the tobacco industry's key strategy for targeting and addicting new smokers, Fresno's youth. We have outlined those best practices in a letter we submitted, which I can go through if you like, but I know you have been meeting for a while now, but really want you to consider amending the ordinance to include best practices and recommendations that the public health community would like to see for a strong tobacco retail licensing ordinance. We know that the tobacco industry actively and aggressively is working to addict new young people, particularly those from communities of color with flavored tobacco products. And cigarette smoking is the leading cause. a preventable disease and death in the United States, claiming an average 480,000 lives each year. Evidence shows that smoking increases the risk for heart disease and stroke. It increases the risk for blood clots, decreases the ability to exercise, and decreases the good cholesterol in our bodies. And the best way to prevent tobacco-related illness and death is to prevent people from starting to smoke in the first place. Adopting a comprehensive tobacco retail licensing to include 2026 best practices for compliance and implementation will help protect our community from tobacco addiction, and it's crucial to preventing tobacco-related death and disease. The American Heart Association respectfully asked for your support of amending the proposed ordinance to include key elements of the best practices for a comprehensive tobacco retail licensing policy. Thank you.

All right, next speaker on Zoom is going to be Nikki Real.

Hi, I just wanted to say hi. That was it.

All right, and hello back to you from City Hall. Thank you. Any additional speakers, consent, contested consents, closed session? Seeing none, we're going to close public comment for contested consent and closed session. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

Motion second.

Mr. President?

Yeah. Oh, please, go ahead.

Really quick, I just want to make some very brief comments on item 2CC. This is the item to rename a park in Northwest Fresno. after someone who is from the Valley. Cruz Bustamante grew up on the west side in San Joaquin, went to Tranquility High, went to Fresno State, my alma mater, which is why I'm where, oh, I had my other pin on earlier today. And he's a person who, while he has not been in office for just over a couple of decades, He rose from the ranks of assembly, quickly becoming the speaker, serving this community in Fresno at the state, and then became Lieutenant Governor under Governor Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. and in that time built a lot of important partnerships and delivered a lot of important resources to the Valley. And I know oftentimes when you leave office, they forget about you, but we've not forgotten about Cruz. We've not forgotten about the work he's done. And given that this park is gonna be a new park located right at the base of Veterans Boulevard, which was a major project I was proud to work on with this city, to accomplish that is the bridge between the west side and the rest of Fresno. I can think of no other person more fitting than Cruz Bustamante. So I do encourage my colleagues to vote and support this item. I appreciate that. And I do want to point out that more than likely, this is going to change in November, but as of today, Cruz Bustamante is the highest ranking Latino statewide elected official in the history of this state. He is truly a trailblazer and he did all of that without having the advantages my generation has today. He's a trailblazer and he deserves to be honored and I'm proud to lead that effort. Thank you.

All right, thank you. With that, is there any opposition to approving the consent agenda? Seeing none, the consent passes seven to zero. We have a couple of contested items. What we're gonna do, we're going to, let's see, we're going to do the 2N, 2N first. Pulled by Council Member Arias.

Thank you, Council President. This item in essence is a lease agreement between Fresno Economics Opportunities Commission and the City of Fresno for utilization of our community centers. My issue and my concerns are not with the Mosquera Community Center. My concern is that this item as written also includes termination of the Head Start program in West Fresno, and it's the first time that I received notice that such plans were under BEING UNDERTAKEN. HAVE WE FORMALLY RECEIVED NOTICE FROM PRESIDENT OF ELC THAT THEY PLAN TO TERMINATE HEAD START?

GOOD MORNING, COUNCILMEMBER. BRIAN BARRE, DIRECTOR OF GENERAL SERVICES HERE. I WANT TO PROVIDE A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY. Okay. In March, actually in 2011, this lease agreement was established for five properties in Fresno, basically five community centers. In March, city council approved an amendment to the lease agreement extending the term of the sites six months to the end of August. And in that information, the plan of what would happen moving forward was disclosed about the city will be proceeding with lease agreements for long-term lease agreements for Mosqueda and Willow and Balch, of which we are still working on. This amendment, the second amendment, is asking for an additional year extension to their existing term at those two sites so that we can continue to work on those lease agreements and get long-term 15-year leases in place. When we sat down with EOC to talk about what the future had and talking about what our goals were, what their goals were, they disclosed to us that they were going through their five-year renewal with their federal grants and that based upon their needs assessment, they were gonna be changing their programs. There are more daycares out there that operate for the three to five range and there's more schools that offer TK And their needs assessment said that they needed to focus on the early head start, which was zero to two. And as a result, they were going to be reducing their enrollment from 1,500 students to about 1,200. So with the reduction sites, this aligned with what they will be doing moving forward in terms of what their program is going to offer. So there was no concern from their side about moving out of Mariella Brown, which they have already done so.

So this agreement also calls for them to eliminate the Romaine facility? That is correct, and they have moved out of there as well. So they've officially moved out of both community centers? They have, yes.

Okay, are they not consolidating into Franklin, is what I understand from Aaron?

And if you could, is there anybody from ELC here today? I do not believe so, no. Before we go and proceed with this, is this item time sensitive? Does it need to be approved today? I'd really like to hear from ELC, because I don't want to put you guys in a position to explain or justify their decision making on head starts. We're simply the landlord at this point. Does this need to be approved today?

The existing lease does expire at the end of this month, so yes, it is timely. You want to have further conversations, I would suggest approving a shorter term extension so you could have direct conversations with them. We don't want to be out of lease with their current sites is the goal.

Yeah, and I don't want to be disruptive to District 5 and Mosqueda Center and their lease or any other lease that's on here. So this lease is basically for Mosqueda Center and what other community center where they plan to expand? Willow and Balch. Willow, is that D? That's D5, I believe. D5? I'd like to table this to the next council meeting. What is the significant exposure if they're out of lease for a week or so?

They will not be able to offer the services that they are currently offering at those sites. So it is very timely that an extension is approved today for the sites that they are continuing to operate at, which is Mosqueda.

I think their funding requires them to have a valid lease. So I understand your concerns and we obviously don't want to affect the services as you've stated. So at a minimum, maybe we, I understand your concern about them moving out of the other two sites that probably warrants, I mean, it's been in the works for quite some time now, but we've got to do some sort of extension to get us through at least the next council meeting

And here's my other concern, city manager. I don't want the public, I don't want to have to entertain criticism and concerns from the public that the city is shutting down these Head Start programs. From my understanding, ELC has not notified the public of their plans to shut them down. They're out. I know. They are gone. They're gone. And nobody's aware of it. They have not notified people.

Well, I mean, the people who were using the program are aware because they don't go to those locations anymore.

When did they move out?

They moved out months ago. Months ago? Yes, yes. And we just went through a final walkthrough last week and they're cleaning up a few different things too.

So why are you informing us of this now then, if they moved out months ago?

We didn't just notify you. This has been in the works for two years. I think as we've been bringing forward the rework of Mosqueda. I can't speak to Willow and Balch, but I know this conversation has happened as we've been talking about services that are gonna be offered at Mosqueda. And we've talked about, because they were all under one lease, we've talked about how not all of those are coming forward. So probably not in, it's been within the communication. I mean, maybe not specifically, it's been within the larger plan I can't say that we've said specifically to you, these two are out of your district, but as we've been bringing forward the discussions about what's happening at the two remaining sites, it's been identified that the other sites were going away.

Correct. So did I miss a memo somewhere where you guys communicate to us that we're shutting down Marietta Brown?

That information was definitely in the staff report for the March extension. in terms of what we were doing, the plans forward and that. And the shutdown.

And the shutdown.

Yes, correct.

Thank you, those are my questions. I appreciate you guys' work. I did not realize that this has gone that far along and that the move out had already occurred. So my secondary question is, what's the plan for the space now? So I'm gonna turn that over to the Director of Parks. And, Director, if you don't have plans yet, that's a fair response, too. I don't want to have you make programming decisions on the fly. When do you anticipate having programming operations in that vacant space?

I think it's fair to have those plans by the spring as they move out. As you know, Mary Ella Brown, we have a senior program. We have our after-school program. So we're looking at expanding some services there. So we're still kind of working through our options there. And that space actually opens up some very good options for us. Is there any renovations that are required to replace the programming at that site? You know, minor. There's some IT server cabinets that are being removed, working with our internal IT departments on that. Paint, maybe some flooring upgrades, things of that nature. Relatively minor. Similar to what we did on the old library that's just to the north of that. Just to kind of spruce that up, fresh coats of paint, but Nothing major.

So it's fair to say that since they've moved out officially, you guys will start the minor tenant improvements before you start programming?

Correct. Similar to what we did with our adaptive rec and our senior program out there. When the previous CBO was there, you know, we had to go through and kind of revamp the computer lab, which is now a senior area, our big kind of what we refer to as an octagon. has become a larger after-school program space. And with that, we've seen our numbers go up too. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you again for your time and clarification. With that, Council President, I'll make a motion to approve. Yeah, I'll second that.

I do have Council Member Vang punched up.

Just a quick clarification during the exchange between my colleague and the directors. Refer to the Willow and Bulge Park site as in D5. I believe that is in D7. It's in D7, correct. It's very close to D5. There it is.

It was, I think it was previously in D5 and we're districting it.

Okay.

Whenever it's D7.

Yeah, I believe so. So Mosqueda is in D5, but the Willow and Bulge site is in D7 then? That is correct, yes. I just wanted to clarify that on the record. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, Willow and Bulge Park with the new playground and such. It's looking good out there. All right, we have a motion. We have a second. Is there any opposition to approving item 2N7? Seeing none, the item passes. Council, here's what we're going to do. We are going to break to knock out some closed session items. And regardless of whether we finish or not, we'll come back squarely at 1.30 for the tobacco discussion. Hear that item. 2Y at 1.30. So we're going to break for closed and then come back at 1.30 and we'll do the tobacco retail license item. City Attorney, please read off the closed session agenda.

Good morning. Today in closed session, we have Item 5A, Conference with Labor Negotiators. All units listed on the agenda. Item 5B, Conference with Legal Counsel, Existing Litigation, Mary Gomez v. City of Fresno. Item 5C, Conference with Legal Counsel, Existing Litigation, Sarah Sanchez v. City of Fresno. Item 5D... 5E, 5F, 5G are all cases involving anticipated litigation. They all have one potential case. Item 5H was removed from the agenda. Item 5I, conference with legal counsel, public security, discussion regarding security at city hall. We may have reportable items after closed session.

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All right, we are back and in session. We're going to take on the tobacco retail license item. It was on consent agenda. It got pulled from the consent agenda. We've heard public comments on it already from earlier this morning. So given that we've heard the public comments and We'll just come up to the dais for a discussion up here, pulled by Council Member Richardson, but as one of the sponsors, I'm gonna say kind of a few things. I do wanna hear Council Member Richardson's thoughts as well. You know, as I indicated at the last meeting, the last time we discussed this item, we met with a number of different groups, myself and my office, had several meetings about it, heard different perspectives from a lot of the different parties that you'd seen, came up here and did public comment this week and the last meeting as well. And so, you know, one of the conclusions came to is we're sort of being pulled from both directions. I mean, some parties wanted the ordinance to be a little bit stricter and tighter and wanted more meat on the bone than there already currently is in the current language. Other parties were pulling in the opposite direction in terms of wanting to loosen it up just a little bit to adjust from the industry side. Just a few observations. And of course there are some groups that are okay with it as is. So we've got sort of the range of different positions on this particular item. The $1,000 price tag, it's just short of that in terms of what the fee would be for the tobacco retail license. And I want to remind folks of two things, that the fee is based on the costs, no more, no less. And so if we were to adjust the fee, that would mean less service or less enforcement, right? The fees have to be utilized. with respect to the program that we're establishing. So it's not something that's going to be necessarily a revenue generator for the general funds or anything like that. And that's not the goal of this. The goal ultimately is to create a self-sustaining mechanism for enforcement where the tobacco retailers, not just smoke shops, but tobacco retailers at large are putting into a pot to fund the enforcement of this program and of our existing laws and regulations at all levels. And even with that, even with the figure we came up with, that is still cheaper than our neighbors over in Clovis. Theirs is more expensive than the proposed one that we have here. We are one of the largest cities in california without a tobacco retail license you know for our responsible store owners who are following the rules but are being undercut by the kind of illicit competition, they're going to be chipping in towards enforcing against those folks. And on the other end, for those who are actively violating the law, well, they'll be chipping in through their retail license to help enforce on themselves and help put everybody really on a level playing field. And if assuming this passes or some version of this passes, we may see tobacco prices go up potentially in the city if the store owners or The retailer is passing on costs. We may see tobacco taken off shelves. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think, in fact, that may ultimately be the point in terms of removing these products further out of the reach of our youth within the city. So if it feels like an attack directly on tobacco, I mean, it is. And that's a little different from the smoke shop ordinance that we passed last year and where we regulated more of the land use and establish a condition news permit, et cetera, et cetera. So this is much more narrow in scope, but broader in that it would apply to every retailer, tobacco retailer within the city, large and small and everything in between. So I have struggled a little bit in terms of trying to figure out which direction we go on this and being pulled a few different directions on wanting changes in the language. I think after thinking about it the last couple weeks, as one of the authors at least, I'll hear from my co-authors, I think I'm still inclined to say to keep it the way it is currently. And like any policy or any ordinance here in the city of Fresno, it's okay to see how it works, evaluate it, see how effective it is, what are the unintended consequences, if any. But again, there are a number of cities we've looked to in helping to craft this and did take input as we crafted it. So I will make a motion to approve the ordinance as it is, but I know we have a lot of discussion left to be had. Yep.

As a co-sponsor, can I say a couple things on this, Council President?

Yeah, sure.

Okay, first of all, I'll second your motion, but one of the things I did want to add was that Prop 10, for those that aren't aware, funds First Five across the state of California, including First Five of Fresno County. This is an organization that I met with this morning at State of the Children Annual Breakfast, and they talked a lot about the struggles that they're facing. Unfortunately, those struggles become even more exacerbated as illegal products are put into the market because they're not able to be properly assessed and taxed. And so when we have bad actors out there, which we're trying to prevent or curtail with this ordinance, it makes it harder for good actors not just in the tobacco industry, but other unforeseen consequences like groups like First Five struggling to promote the work that they do to carry out their mission, because unfortunately the market is saturated with illegal products. And that is something that we're trying to curtail while we're up here. So again, I'm supportive of the language as is. I know that my staff has reached out and talked to some folks this past week, and I've had the opportunity to meet with a few folks on this item as well. As Council President Esparza said, it seems like The path we're going really is taking the best of both worlds. We've heard from both sides. I don't think we're going to make either side 100% happy with the proposed language, but I think what we have is a solid piece of legislation that attacks the issue at hand here, which is the saturated market with illegal products that I'm hopeful that the passage of this legislation will lead to a reduction of.

Thank you, Council Vice President. We'll go over to Councilman Richardson who pulled the item. And I know you had some thoughts, pretty extensive thoughts at the last time we discussed this as well.

I did, and thank you. So I appreciate this being pushed off and reheard at this meeting for a few reasons, but I think overall it shows that there's a desire right or else we would have pushed it harder than last meeting the desire to get to a better solution here right a more accurate a more tailored solution to the problem that we're trying to fix and i think both of you in your own right spoke to the problem that we're trying to fix uh or the problem that we're trying to address rather in very well i think that YOURSELF, COUNCIL PRESIDENT, YOU SPOKE TO TOBACCO BEING TAKEN OFF THE SHELL. IT'S NOT A BAD THING, RIGHT? TOBACCO OBVIOUSLY HAS A BUNCH OF NEGATIVE HEALTH RISKS TO IT, IT HAS ADDICTION RISKS, IT HAS ILLICIT MARKET RISKS, IT HAS ALL KINDS OF THINGS THAT WE'D LIKE TO PUSH BACK AGAINST THE CITY AND THAT'S PART OF OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO LOOK OUT FOR THE HEALTH AND WELFARE OF THE CITY. I THINK THAT WAS VERY WELL SAID. AND COUNCIL VICE PRESIDENT, YOU BROUGHT UP THE We're trying to combat a saturated market with illegal products. Illegal products, not that I think everything needs government regulation, but the consumption, the purchase and consumption of illegal products is absolutely something that we should be paying attention to. So if we're gonna draft an ordinance like this, it should include language that does both of those things. And we talked about kind of both sides here. We talked about, you know, there's this side and that side, but I don't think that the folks over here who were law abiding and have a vested interest in the legal continued operation of their industry really differ that much from the folks over here who their biggest concern is the health of people and namely underage people, but people in general. So I have had conversations where I wouldn't even call it both sides. I think that, in fact, if I'm not mistaken, give me a little like north-south head nod here. I think the folks from the Tobacco Free Coalition, you guys have even spoken to the representatives from the industry since our last meeting. Is that correct? Well, no? Well, I can tell you I've spoken to both of you. And I've said the same exact thing, and there's a lot of agreement there. In fact, we heard some of the public speakers who got up today who said, look, we are in fan of a TRL. Is that Mr. Bunnell? Is that incorrect? Yeah, they're in fan of it. And in fact, to cut down on the council vice president's point, to cut down on that illegal product market, a TRL is one of the most effective methods. Now, as we remember, last year we came forward after having done extensive research, not just here in Fresno and next door in Clovis, but throughout the state of California. We came and we have the entire application, all of the legislation, the text and everything else from Clovis's policy. And everything we've heard from Clovis is that it's been an effective policy. In fact, this morning I met with two members of the Tobacco Free Coalition, and they stated that they met with an officer, and just to give them the proper respect here, he was a corporal and we met with him. I assume he's still a corporal. I don't really know what their promotion process is like in Clovis. But that Corporal O'Brien was, or O'Neill, sorry, you're here and it throws me off. Corporal O'Neill is very intelligent. He put together a very well thought out TRL program and the vendors over there don't hate it either. And it's had the intended effect in Clovis. And that's what I spoke about with, um, with CC and, um, I think, uh, Ms. Xiong joined us as well. Is that correct? Is she not here? I don't see her. All right. That's fine. Um, I think they're pulling for the same thing. I think if there's going to be two sides in this, it's going to be the entities who want responsible legislation, who want to do the things the council president's asking for, who want to do the things the vice president is asking for. I think we're all on the same side of that. I don't think there's a single legal operator out there who wants anything different. And I don't think there's anybody on any of the coalitions who don't want this TRL either. I think if there's another party here or a quote unquote other side, it's the illegal operators, the illegal vendors, the illegal purchasers or the illegal consumers who then are passing it on in some cases to our youth. That is the other side. They are not coming out to negotiate with us. They live in the shadows. They're the ones who are poorly influencing the kids and marketing things irresponsibly and getting people addicted to stuff they don't need to be addicted to. That is the other side. We have not heard from that side. And frankly, to bring up Council Vice President's point from a few weeks ago, talking to them would be like talking to drunk drivers in the process of drafting a DUI policy. Everybody here is on the same page. Everybody wants a comprehensive, responsible, specific, fair TRL. Now, the fact that none of the wording has changed from last meeting to this meeting shows that desire is maybe a little muted in changing this to be more responsive to the advocates on this side or the advocates on that side. But I think there are some great conversations that were had. Again, I'm not gonna make any of you guys come up here, but folks from the Tobacco Free Coalition, we had a very lively 45 minute hour conversation yesterday with what, nine or 10 people on the call. And we talked about important differences that have to be made, distinctions. Before I go through this and the amendments that I think I'd like to see, and I'd also be curious to hear from my other colleagues who have heard from either side here in the negotiations and kind of as they advocated, but a couple of distinctions that we talked about I think are important things to put in here. Let me point out one. One of them is that, and I'm sorry we don't have our youth leadership institute folks up here anymore because they're perfect for this. When you're 16 years old, you don't have a car, but you got a license. You got to borrow mom and dad's car, right? If you're a brand new employee and you're able to work at one of these convenience stores or smoke shops or tobacco stores, whatever else, you are essentially borrowing that little space from your employer to do your job, to earn your paycheck. Now, when you're a kid in the car, you asked to borrow mom and dad's car to drive to your friend's house. If mom and dad didn't make the insurance payment last month, are you really going to know that? Whose fault is that? The kids or the parents? Well, I'd say it's the parents. I'd argue it's probably the parents' fault, parents own the car. If in the process of driving to your friend's house, you go 120 miles an hour through a school zone, maybe it's your parents' fault for not spanking you, but that fault falls upon the driver of the vehicle. That is the kid's responsibility. Similarly, I think that there are certain things that we fail to distinguish in this language that hold either the owner of the business accountable or or the person making the sale accountable. And specifically, I broke this down into four categories. And if we don't address this anywhere here, I think it's probably an error. But four categories here, follow me. There's no distinction here between administrative errors, administrative issues, or administrative violations. Just call it violations. This is something like, hey, we did not give you the information about our staff being trained by the day it was due to you. We actually got it to you two weeks late, but we followed the procedure. It's administrative. I'm sorry we did that. Hey, we're supposed to renew our license July 1st. We didn't get you the money until July 15th. Now, is that comparable to having an entire stock of illegal banned substances in your business? I don't think it is. So I think that should be treated differently. So that's administrative violations. That's number one. Two is code violations. We talked about this last time. And maybe I brought up a bad example with an exit sign, but let's say your license of ability to sale or your tobacco retail license itself, if that's put up on the wall at five feet above the ground, and it's supposed to be five feet, six inches, That's kind of a code violation. Okay, again, that's not the same as having a whole stockpile full of marijuana or flavored tobacco or other things in the back. If we're trying to target the bad actors, I think one of them clearly points to a bad actor and one of them really doesn't. So code violations I'd say is number two. And my folks from code out there, I see ya. I love ya, doing great work. But clearly there are things that you occupy yourself with and things that you don't. The third one, illegal product. I am part and parcel lockstep with you. We have to be cutting down on this ELISA market that was astutely spoken to by the council vice president. But we got to target that and be specific with the language if we're going to do so. Having a stockpile of products that you're not allowed to sell in the state of California is not the issue. That's not the responsibility of the teller who's 22 years old at their first job out of college sitting out there making these small transactions. That's the problem of the purchaser. Whoever's working on the acquisition and the procurement of these products, that is your fault. You clearly broke the rules. The 300 pounds of illegal product you have back there is not the fault of the kid out front. And finally, you have sales violations. Sales violations are pretty clear. These are the ones that we pay a lot of attention to. These are, you are not carding when someone comes to the desk. Your buddy comes in who you know is 20 years old for another three months, but you're gonna give him the homey hookup and give him a pack of cigarettes or give him a can of Copenhagen or whatever else. That's not the owner's problem. All of these staff have to be trained in their job. If you knowingly disregard the rules, we have to have language in this that separates responsibility, that would be considered a sales violation, From the owner and the employee. Very different things. I'm not willing to shut down an owner's business and make he and his family look for other employment because one employee they have had a good friend and they decided to knowingly break the rules. That's not fair to them. That sends a bad message to business owners across Fresno. I'm not sure there's much else we could do in the city of Fresno that just kind of cranks the thumb screw into business owners and shows that we don't want them here. We got to step that up. With that, there were some things that were brought up today, and these are brought up by both sides. Not favoring one or the other, because again, I think that we're all on the same side here. We just need to do our part as members of your side, which all of you have done your homework. We have to do it as well. The retailer's not pushing products. That was brought up, great, fine. There was some issue in terms of the radius around sensitive areas that it was explaining to me last time, and I'll be very honest with you, I didn't understand the explanation on why it can't be included here in the tobacco retail license wording, why it's the wording for something else. If that can be explained to me by somebody, some city staff, that'll be fantastic. I'll come to you in a second. You guys can rochambeau about who loses and who has to come talk to old Nick. The second thing, the minimum margin law We talked about revenues. Council President, we just talked about revenues and how generating revenue from this could fund enforcement, right? Could really be a self-licking ice cream cone here in the betterment of the community. I'm all about that. If we want to generate revenue, why haven't we talked at all about the minimum margin fund that wasn't brought up by the opponents of tobacco? It was brought up by the proponents of the responsible. It was over here. It was the industry folks who were asking, hey, jack up our prices on tobacco. We can't do that ourselves. Do that for us. That's not against the TRL. That's saying, hey, crank that thumbscrew a little bit. It's actually going to generate some accountability in our industry. I'm a fan of it. And it generates more money for enforcement. It chases out the bad actors. It cuts down on rule violations. And it makes code's job easier because now they have fewer places that they have to go inspect every time they get a complaint. I think that's great. And again, we've had the time to incorporate that into the language here. And I don't know why it hasn't been included, but I'm not an author. I can't put that in. Now, other points here, we talked about the categories and annual review. If at the end of this conversation, and I apologize for the lengthy dialogue, but like I've done a lot of homework on this thing and I care about it, it has to do directly with businesses and families and safety and healthy kids. If this thing were to be passed with no amendments at all, none of these propositions, we don't care about the difference between a business owner and an operator, we don't care about distances, we don't care about minimum margins, we don't care about revenues, none of that stuff, we just wanna push this thing across the finish line. I would at least at a bare minimum ask that annually this be reviewed by the council. Was it effective? Was it ineffective? Did it work? Did it not work? Is it contributing to an illicit market? Is it not contributing to an illicit market? In fact, that was part of the conversation we had. Hey, before we change anything about this, why don't we look into what it's going to do to an illicit market? But even that clause was omitted from every version of language in this document, even though I've seen it proposed and drafted, which is a little unsettling. The fee composition, I would like to hear, city staff, I promise you I'm getting to you. You guys are probably done with your best of five with the rock, paper, scissors over there. Once we do that, I'd also like to talk about the fee specifically, how the fee works out, how it's broken down. And it was also mentioned in the last meeting that part of this fee is going to be mitigated from a grant that exists above the city and county level. I'm excited to hear about that. But the thing about grants, we learned this after COVID, that money is temporary. The money is not guaranteed. You've got to apply for it and it's not promised. So I want to know what that money looks like, what it's going to offset from this thousand dollars, which for the record, Clovis is also a thousand dollars. The very first time, there is a $400 fee. This is all listed in bleeding detail right here in their whole legislation that I brought with me that I have in my little binder here. But with that $1,000, how much is the business owner actually on the hook for? Are we interested in doing something that's scaled? You've got businesses that have a small rack of chewing tobacco on their counter, and you've got businesses who have three full walls full of tobacco merchandise and paraphernalia and everything else. Do we want to charge them the same? Is that the intent? If it's intent, okay. If not, if we can change that scaling fee from $1,000 to something more or less, great. $1,000 doesn't mean anything to a big retailer, and it may be backbreaking for a small one. Being thorough and actually caring about small businesses, that seems like something we'd take into account. The fee for enforcement and funding, that's one of the big questions I have for staff that I'd like answered. And again, you guys talked to it last time, so I feel like this is something we can probably easily just discuss it, explain it to me like I'm a Doberman. Um, and the second thing is, uh, when we talk about the illicit market study, I think that's the only thing I'll bug you for today. Um, it's just the, the fee and exactly how that fee is broken down. But I think to both your points, council vice president, council president, I think we can attract this illegal market, the saturated market. I think there's opportunity here. We can do great stuff with it, but we've heard from the advocates and the advocates that and none of the illegal operators apparently showed up to talk, I guess they don't want to, which great, this is against them. There is opportunity here to actually specifically target the problems and we're just not doing it. Even if we didn't, again, end all be all, even if we didn't adopt the annual review to figure out if this is effective or not, which I think good governance just organically includes, I would be happy if the authors just sat down with the people here who were law-abiding and advocates and don't have a problem showing their face on camera and saying their names and saying where their businesses are or saying what organization they're with, just sat down and all y'all together could come up with something. I can't be there, Brown Act restrictions, but I would even be happy with that knowing that we took into account the point of view of the advocates and the point of view of the industry, because that to me is what seems like good governance. I'm excited to hear from my colleagues and staff. If you guys are ready, I'd love to hear the numbers about the fee and how that's broken down slash mitigated by potential grant funds.

Good afternoon, counsel. Aaron Martin, assistant city attorney. Would you like to start with the fee? First topic, okay. There was an analysis done for doing a TRL, and it started by gathering all of the cost, the actual cost in executing it that would involve the police department, code enforcement, and the finance department. Those numbers were all put together, and that came out to a total um that was then divided by the estimated number of tobacco retailers within the city okay which i believe is at 550 currently is the estimate that then made it a proposed fee of 973 annually There is then currently a tobacco grant that code enforcement has It is a three-year grant that we're in the middle of there's also been it's a rolling grant so you can apply in between three year cycles so there is another application pending for the next one regardless after then offsetting by the funds of the grants the final proposed TRL fee at this time is a hundred and three hundred and thirty eight dollars annually and

So math for Marines real quick. That's $817 multiplied by the number of tobacco retailers equals roughly the amount of the grant that we receive minus staff hours. Is that the correct algorithm? That is correct. Okay. Thanks. If you smell anything burning in the room, it's my brain trying to work through that. Okay. Okay. Appreciate that. Is that all you had for me?

No, I can address your other question as far as sensitive uses as well, if you'd like.

Oh, yeah, please.

Okay. There's a couple important distinctions when talking about sensitive uses in this matter. And one is as between the definitions of smoke shops and tobacco retailers. And there is some overlap there. The other distinction is going to have to do with advertising. versus actual location of the business. So first, as far as smoke shops go, in the smoke shop ordinance, there is a location requirement that's based on sensitive uses. So if a smoke shop is within 1,000 feet of a sensitive use, it will not get a CUP and will not be able to be in effect after December of this year. Now, smoke shops do cover some tobacco retailers, but not all. Reason being, some tobacco retailers are, it's an incidental, as you kind of mentioned before, Council Member Richardson, you could have just, you know, one shelf of tobacco-related products, okay? Or you have your gas stations, your Vons, Walmart, any of those are tobacco retailers, but are not smoke shops. So with the tobacco retailer, because that covers so many different types of businesses that sell any type of tobacco product and have that state license, there is not a sensitive use location requirement there. However, there is in the tobacco retail ordinance, and it also applies to smoke shops because all smoke shops are tobacco retailers.

The square is a rectangle, a rectangle is a square. Exactly, yep.

applies to sensitive uses for advertising purposes so within 500 feet of any of any sensitive use there cannot be visible outdoor advertising for tobacco so those are the two distinctions and hopefully that answers your question okay no it speaks to it um but i think that this tar and this actually has been my final point that our definitions i think are insufficient in this in this language that

The definition of a smoke shop, again, a smoke shop is a tobacco retailer. A tobacco retailer is not a smoke shop. But there are also, within the category of tobacco retailers, there are more categories. You've got a Save Mart. And somebody asked me what the Save Mart down the street from my house is. My response is not a tobacco retailer. It's a grocery store. Yes, they do happen to also sell tobacco products. But I think that's an important distinction, too, that in here it does not make. If we look on page 5 of 24... Correction, six of 24. It talks about tobacco retailers. No distinction. If you're a Save Mart or a Blaze It Up Bob's, you are in the same category here, which even definitionally doesn't break out the different types. Which also raises the question, I would ask you, but I'd really be asking you to speculate, and you're a lawyer, and I ask my wife to do this all the time, who's a lawyer, and she blows me off. So I'm not going to make you do this. Thank you. But those are all the questions that I had for you right now. I appreciate that. Yes, sorry, do you want to add something? You're welcome to. You can speculate. You want to speculate?

No, thank you. Good afternoon. Angela Kars with the city attorney's office. So in conjunction to what Aaron was saying, there is a provision in the ordinance that also limits the Displays from being within the 500 area. So it is included. There is a sensitive area We're not they're not allowed to display any tobacco products within 500 feet That is under section 9 dash 3806 So we did ensure that there was some kind of restriction in it and this ordinance is part of the licensing, any enforcement would fall under the tobacco retail ordinance that was passed by council previously.

Okay. I'm looking at that now, 3806. That is, and I see the part about advertisement, which would make probably both sides happy out there. And it doesn't, except for its tie to Chapter 15, Article 26, it doesn't tie it to retail activity, just advertisement. Is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay.

not covering the actual sale of the product just the advertisement so under the sale it would fall within the ordinance itself and there is an administrative violations that you section 9-3810 that is very specific to what is considered a violation if they're selling any tobacco products, paraphernalia, retailing to underage. So there is specific language that we incorporated in here. So that's what is considered an administrative violation under this ordinance.

See, I disagree that that's specific, not only because it talks about specifically administrative violations, administrative penalties, but it doesn't break down responsibility and who is to be held accountable for them in delineating the responsibility between the person making the point of sale, sale, right? And the person who is the owner and probably, you know, acquirer for the establishment.

I believe that is actually in the tobacco, correct me if I'm wrong, the actual tobacco retailer ordinance, where I believe we put in some requirements that the business owner would be responsible. So even though it may not be in here, it would still tie back to the tobacco retailer license because this just gets them the license to operate.

No, Angela, I agree with you. it is written down out there it doesn't delineate responsibility for different types of violations that's my issue not that it's not spoken to it's that we haven't specifically looked at these are different types of violations of varying degrees of problem i think we can all agree right that's not delineated that's the issue and i'm not honestly i'm not going to make you stand up here and defend it because it's not your idea council member i can i can address it uh i think a little bit better um in in the sense that i i think and i'll let the authors jump in um

with a lot of these enforcement mechanisms we want to give our code enforcement officers the ability and not have because we can't think of every single scenario in which these violations would occur right they have discretion within certain parameters for example like the kid behind the counter right I mean that's not going to be the same thing as you know a full scale. underground market that's hidden in the back or whatever, right? So there's that level of discretion that we give to our enforcers to make that determination. And depending on the situation, it goes up to the chain of command and eventually comes to me.

So that is- And I get that, but we're not asking for a consideration of every possible outcome. I'm saying there are four categories that every violation falls into. It's either you have stuff you're not supposed to, You're selling stuff in a way you're not supposed to. I mean, that's a whole business right there. Or you did your paperwork wrong, or your building is wrong. I mean, I can cut off my most offensive finger and still be able to count to four.

Understood. I just think that the authors trust our office to make that determination on a case-by-case basis, and I'm not advocating from one side or the other. And I think that is the thought.

Do you guys have the mechanisms to be able to punish a teller and not punish the owner of the business under this legislation?

I mean, yeah, and existing law. We've had a situation where we've had a...

and revoking or having an infraction against their tobacco retail license.

So are we talking about licensing? Because if we're talking about holding someone accountable, I mean, there's criminal civil penalties, right? And so we've had miners working in smoke shops, right? And so there is a way to hold the teller accountable without going after the business owner. Yes, there absolutely is that option right now as the law stands. This, I don't think adds or takes anything away from that.

Okay.

If that makes sense.

If, if I'm going to take your word for this, if you're comfortable with the delineation there on how to hold people accountable and responsible, and we've got the ability not to have marks or infractions against the tobacco retail license, but rather to hold the employee responsible when appropriate. We have that discretion right now as it stands. If that's going to fluctuate at all or not be in the, in the spirit of this, maybe that's something that we talk about at our one year review, if they're amicable to that. Um, I think we're almost there. I think we're almost there. I would like to hear from my other colleagues. I'm very glad you're here for this one. The last discussion was lively. And as one of the co-authors, I'm very glad you're present, Council Member Carbasi. I'd like to hear from my other colleagues who met with advocates. Pretty much all the advocates here are on the for side. And I'd love to hear kind of what you came away with. But, Council President, like I said, I'd like to hear, one, a meeting between the authors and the advocates here who want a successful TRL and, or if that doesn't happen, at least an inclusion of an annual review to come back and see if this actually fixed a problem we're trying to try. That's all my time.

Yeah. Thanks. Councilman Richardson, you know, and it was lively discussion last meeting around. I don't want you to think that I didn't take any of your ideas and consider them. Obviously, there's already three co-sponsors on the item, so I couldn't go talk to you directly, but I did take notes of your suggestions. I talked about a number. I consulted legal counsel on a number of them. And there was just, you know, and maybe you did too. Maybe you had the same conversation. I have no idea. But as you're entitled to the same information, but it was tough. Some of them were tough to incorporate. Obviously, I can't get into the details of that. But, you know, I appreciate how much time you did put into this effort and did certainly consider some of those ideas. I have Council Member Carbasi punched up, followed by Council Member Perea.

I just wanted to call the question, Mr. President.

That was my comment. Thank you. Lots of discussion already. Thank you. Council Member Perea.

Thank you, Council President. I'll be quick. I know the folks from APCA weren't able to be here this afternoon. They had a conflict, but there was some good clarifying information about how that $1,000 fee was generated. I know their questions were, you know, how did we get to this number and what will it be used for and how is it broken down? And so I appreciate the information about how exactly that fee was, how we arrived at that. And it sounds like that cost will cover the license administration, education, training, and enforcement. So there's no money making off of this. We're not in the business to do that. So I hear concerns from my colleague from District 6, and the way I read this ordinance is, and perhaps the co-sponsors can clarify this for me, but it sounds like there is a 15-day period. If you are found in violation of A, B, or C, it sounds like there is a 15-day, I don't know if it's a cure period or something type of period to where you can provide documentation to ensure that, in fact, you know, perhaps this violation was issued incorrectly. So, for example, if your TRL, which is beautifully framed on the wall, it falls down for some reason and an inspector comes and sees that your license is not displayed. If a business owner were to, within that 15-day period, show that, in fact, the TRL is there, would we be able to waive that ding, or is that automatically considered a violation noted on record, even though they were able to correct that?

They would be able to correct it, and we would work with them.

So that would not be counted against them?

I mean, we would document it for future purposes, but yeah, we would have the ability to waive any original notice.

Okay, and I think that was perhaps one of your concerns, Councilmember Richardson, is will every dean be created equally, be handled and be punished equally because I agree that if somebody sells illegal product that is different, that is not as curable as it would be to simply re-put back your TRL that just perhaps fell off the wall.

Yeah, I think it's fair to say that some things are dingable and some things aren't, but I'd like that iterated as opposed to putting that weight of decision on every single code enforcement officer with the ability to be very clear.

Yeah. And it will, it sounds like, go up to the level of our city attorney who does have discretion when we are the other. Is that right, Andrew?

I mean, it would be a case-by-case situation. I mean, they're not going to bring to me, you know, a sign that was put in the wrong spot. I don't imagine, but... I trust my code enforcement officers to make that call appropriately.

I do too. And I don't see that being abused. And I do appreciate the flexibility for our code enforcement officers to be able to do that and use their discretion to determine what should be dingable versus not. I did have a chance to meet with, I don't want to say both sides either, just everyone, everyone that asked to meet with me. And one of the questions that came up was, what is the annual renewal look like? And the way I read it is it's going to be the burden of the business to take initiative and to come to us every year to renew their TRL. Is that correct?

That is correct. And I do want to also reiterate that there is an annual compliance report that would be given to the city council as well that includes any applicable changes to state law.

Thank you. And then it does, I did read that at any point our officers could go and randomly inspect, do their inspection to ensure that these smoke shops, these retailers are in compliance with this ordinance. Is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay. So I think there is a good bridge between accountability holding these businesses accountable to this ordinance. I think there's flexibility in it to where our code enforcement officers do have the discretion not to perhaps inappropriately deem more of the, I'll say minor offenses, but to give our small business owners a little bit more wiggle room when it comes to conducting business. And these are mostly family operated businesses, and so I'm sensitive to that as well. And so while I know that this ordinance in its current form does not 100% appease everyone, I think there's good compromise. And just with any other ordinance, we can always come back and make changes if need be. But in its current form, I will be supportive of the co-sponsors. Yeah, thank you for all the work you did to get us to this point.

Thank you, Council Member Perea. Council Member Karabasi, followed by Council Member Arias.

Yeah, so there's been lots of discussion on this issue, and the problem is there's perception versus fact. And I think the issue of fees, it's really important to be very clear. The fee is set up by a study. It is not meant for profit. We're not in the business of profit. We are in the business, though, of making sure we do recover whatever costs go into this measure or any measure. I wish the state would do that, but Fresno does, and I think it's really important to get that note out there. Another issue is I'm very sensitive to the issue of transferring licenses to kids. We have multi-generational businesses and that's important. But even if you had an ABC license, you can't just give it to your heir. They have to go through the same process that you did. There is a process and ours is very similar to that. So I don't think the fact that there's worry about that, it's what they already expect to see from the state. I don't blame the folks for being here that were here today. for those that are very concerned about the policy. I get it. They have a business. Change is very difficult. My family has a business too. And if this was happening to us, I'm sure we'd be here as well. But we also have to understand that there are disreputable businesses out here. No one that was in this room And I think if you don't sell illegal tobacco products, you don't sell to minors, you have nothing to worry about. This will not impact you. Who it will impact and who should be scared are those that are the bad actors, the folks that don't care about the legitimate businesses out there, the folks that are selling illegal products, the folks that are undercutting your businesses and your profits, the folks that are helping sell flavored tobacco, which the reality is it is illegal in California. It's not a city policy. It is a state policy. If you're concerned about that, call your assembly member, call your Senator, call the governor. That's where that, that's who would deal with that. But that is the reality. They are illegal products. And unfortunately, Maybe it's true. They are made to go after kids and target kids and get them to want to use those products. This is a public health issue. It's balancing commerce and health. And if we gave the advocates what they wanted, then you'd be really scared. This is a happy medium that allows us to go after bad actors, support our small businesses, even though I know it's tough. support the small businesses, but also go after the black market legitimately. Because if right now the system is, and correct me if I'm wrong, city attorney, the system is right now the people that would go in are the state to see if the product is legal or not, if it's flavored tobacco or not. Is that correct? For smoke shops, yes. Okay. And waiting for, I've never been one to wanna wait for others to solve our problems. We'll wait forever. We can't do that. And it's time with this council, with the experience we have, it is time that we actually take action to protect our kids, protect the public's health, but also protect the small businesses that are undercut by bad operators. That's who is being targeted here. Let's make no mistake of that. I think this council and the city attorney's office is flexible enough to know we're not looking to punish anyone with good intent. but we are looking to punish those that are punishing our children's lungs or their bodies. And that's pretty much all I have to say. I appreciate the robust discussion. I'm proud to be a part of the group putting forward this policy because we finally have to get active and serious about this crisis we have with kids and illegal products. Someone has to protect them, and I think we're going to do that today. Thank you. Thank you.

Council Member Arias, followed by Council Member Vang. Thank you, Council President. I want to kind of pivot a little bit to the types of questions we've been kind of going through so far. Not so much into the substance of the policy, but more into the implementation of it. I know that there's been some reference to the fees that will be captured for execution. Can staff walk me through, one, is this item, when would it take effect? Is it this traditional 30 days after adoption? Two, is the item vetoable by the mayor? THREE, HOW SOON WOULD STAFF BE READY TO EXECUTE THIS NEW POLICY FROM INSPECTIONS TO FINES? THREE, HOW MUCH MONEY DO WE HAVE SUFFICIENT MONEY IN THE CURRENT BUDGET TO BEGIN EXECUTION OR DO WE NEED TO DO AN AMENDMENT TO THE CITY ATTORNEY'S BUDGET FOR THAT WORK TO BEGIN? FIVE, HOW MANY STAFF MEMBERS DO YOU ANTICIPATE HIRING TO HAVE TO EXECUTE THIS WORK? And six, where essentially is the execution plan if the council was to approve this today? And how soon can we anticipate execution? And please don't feel like I'm putting you in the spot if you don't have an answer for those detailed questions and just say we don't have that plan yet and I'm okay with that. I just want to get an idea of how far along have we gone in the planning process to be able to turn key and start executing this policy and when should we expect that? Because execution requires money, so how much are we talking about?

So I can I can talk at about a thousand foot level and just at least what's in the ordinance. They have 90 days to apply after this goes into effect. So it goes into effect 38 days, about 120 days is the ramp up period. And in terms of enforcement, we're going to rely.

Just slow down for a bit. I want to be able to get timing right because the public's probably hearing this for the first time. So if this goes gets approved today or going to affect 30 days from now. Basically end of September.

The ordinance will go into effect 30 days from now, but the retailers will have 90 days to apply for a license.

So are we talking effective January 1st where there is a portal for them to be able to apply?

Well, as we've talked about before, our FITE team is out there every day, and they've been out there for over a year now inspecting and educating all tobacco retailers. Again, this is gas stations, grocery stores, all them. And so we have a team in place. We're ready to go.

When will a system be ready to accept the first application for a license? Because that's what this is about. It's a license. It's not about inspections. Is that more of a finance question? Because we currently have the authority to do inspections on these issues already. So this is requiring a new license. At least on the city attorney's end, we'll be ready in 121 days. I don't know administration-wise what needs to happen. So from the administration side, I'm assuming somebody's going to be able to go to the business office and apply for a license permit?

I did not have the benefit of being in the meetings with the finance department in your office. So I'm at a little bit of a disadvantage there.

It's fine if we don't know then that's fine.

I don't know as it stands at this moment. I can certainly find out.

Got it. So we anticipate that sometime in January we will have the infrastructure set up where a business can begin applying for a license. Is that correct?

I can tell you from the finance perspective, whatever we need to do could certainly be done by January. Figuring out an application, that's more than enough time, I would think. Without having zero information, that sounds very reasonable.

And what about allocation of funds? Does this work require additional positions over time? Filling of positions that are currently vacant that we've, you know, held vacant intentionally to solve our budgetary problems? Are we talking no additional people, existing people? Do you guys have enough capacity? You don't have enough work with the current enforcement duties?

Council Member, obviously we could always use more people. I mean, that's always a... That's always out there. We have a team in place. We're ready to go. We're about to finalize a new grant with the state that will help with enforcement. I think we would, just from a financial responsibility standpoint, like to try it out for a couple months. And by that time, we're going to be rolling into 20, what, 28 budget. And we can have that conversation then, but to answer your question, we're ready to go now and we feel comfortable with the staff that we have.

Council member, just from a process perspective, generally speaking, when we're doing a new program that has a fee associated with it, it would require an amendment to the master fee schedule. And then there would be an estimate from the department as to how much revenue they would feel would be generated by the fee. And that would get appropriated into the department. And since there is sort of an offset of the grant revenue, then the staff would be charging part of their time to the grant. and then part of their time would go to the offsetting revenue source. That's, generally speaking, the way these types of programs are set up.

And given the proposed fee license that we have on this ordinance, how much revenue do we anticipate generating on day one, assuming everybody comes and applies for a license? whenever they're ready.

Revenue meaning how much we're going to make in the positive, or?

So if the fee is $5 and we have 500 businesses that we anticipate would require a tobacco license, how much revenue do we anticipate generating just from the fee itself? Aaron, was this the math that you did earlier? Not the fines, just the application fee. Yeah.

$75,900. $95,000?

WHAT'S THE COST OF A CODE ENFORCEMENT OFFICER? IS IT MORE THAN $75,000?

YES.

SO A YEAR, WE ONLY ANTICIPATE ABOUT $75,000 IN REVENUE FROM THE LICENSE FEES, WHICH IS LESS THAN THE COST OF ONE CODE ENFORCEMENT OFFICER. CORRECT. SO IN ESSENCE, WE WOULD JUST ADD THIS TO THE EXISTING DUTIES OF CODE ENFORCEMENT AND CHARGE AGAINST THAT $75,000.

And the grant, correct?

Yeah, that's what the offset of the grant. And the grant.

The grant is already a revenue source.

How much is the grant?

I can't speak to that, what your grant revenue is, but generally the way you have an employee, let's say they're making $100,000 and you have one employee, $75,000 of their time would be charged to the fee and $25,000 would be charged to the grant. Understood. In very round numbers.

So how much is the grant?

The grant is a three-year grant that we currently have and it's 1.4 million. Got it.

What I'm trying to process from my own head, I'm on my way out. So I don't want to leave this place in the worst place that I found it financially. I want to make sure that whatever commitments we're making as I exit the council, that there's sufficient revenue to cover those commitments in terms of execution of the work. That come January, you guys don't have to do a budget amendment slash from Peter to pay Paul to cover this body of work because we didn't have the money set aside. So that's what I'm trying to get clear in my head is are we ready to essentially execute on day one, which seems to be 30 days from now? And I'm hearing that you guys have plenty of grant funds to do that.

That's what I'm hearing. And once again, I can't speak to this specific, but I can speak to process that if there isn't, the fee for the license is based on the cost of the program. So if there is insufficient grant revenue, then theoretically we need to go back and re-look at the cost going in and the cost of the license. Maybe it needs to go up $20 because you're, at the end of the year, you found out the grant is gonna, we're just a little bit short. That's what we, that's the whole Master Fee Schedule process that we go through every single year.

How long is the grant for?

It's a three-year grant.

We're in year two. Starting in year two? So it ends when?

Next October.

So come next October, you won't have any grant funds to charge us against. You would have to get general fund or you'd have to raise fees significantly to cover the cost.

We currently have an application pending for another grant cycle. And they're rolling cycles. You can apply in between the years as well.

And what's the funding source for the grant? Do we know what the funding source is?

DOJ.

Okay, so it's not like the tobacco tax that's dwindling every year. It's DOJ? Correct.

Understood.

The other questions, city attorney, is there an end period for this ordinance? Or if it doesn't work out, can the next council, through one action, simply cease the program? Or is this kind of baked in permanently?

It's not permanent. I don't see a sunset in here. And so obviously council can always make new laws.

So the council can sunset it. It is not working out as envisioned. All right. Those are all my questions for the moment. Thank you.

With respect to the council member's questions about the fee, obviously we have sort of the full cost as determined. That was 972, I think. and then that's subsidized heavily by the grant. If the grant is not renewed, if we are not successful, would then the full fee be charged to the retailers?

That's gonna be a policy call, we could. I would have that conversation with council leadership.

Yeah, because right now, I mean, it's effectively subsidized by the grant, effectively, right? We're subsidizing the retailers because of the state grant. They keep it relatively low, but the full cost, we know what that is. Okay. All right, Council Member Vang.

Thank you very much, Council President. The enforcement... Logistic and financial part of this legislation has been discussed by my colleagues. I'll make my statement brief. But first a question for staff. There are 550 tobacco retailer sites in the city of Fresno. Do you have a breakdown of how many sites are in each district? One, two, three, four, five, six, and seven. If not, that's fine. I just wanted to see if there is a concentration of tobacco retailer in certain parts of the city or certain district comparable to liquor stores.

We do have that information, but not off the top of our heads. We can't get that for you.

Okay, appreciate that. Thank you very much. It's not often that this body have legislation that focuses on the most vulnerable members of our community who are our kids. And as a father of four adult kids, I know what it's like as a parent to talk to your child about the dangers of again, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, et cetera, out there. And so I want to thank my three colleagues for bringing this legislation here today. This is the third time that this body has extensively discussed this, and I'm ready to move forward in support of this legislation. But at the same time, I am glad that today we are talking about having an annual report or annual review of this legislation. And I believe it's WE ARE, CORRECT?

COUNCIL MEMBER? IT'S INCLUDED 9-3815 IS THE COMPLIANCE REPORT, AN ANNUAL REPORT, AND THAT INCLUDES AN UPDATE AND CHANGE TO ANY APPLICABLE LAWS.

YES, THAT WAS IN YOUR COMMENT EARLIER. SO I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO EVERY YEAR TO IMPROVE UPON THIS LEGISLATION. I UNDERSTAND THAT MOVING FORWARD IS THE BEST PRACTICE that I'm looking at and most legislations when in its inception, there may be opportunities that we fail to see or the discussion is not robust enough where we will miss certain aspects of that. And so having that opportunity to review this on an annual basis will give us an opportunity whether this body, these people here or different bodies here in a year from now to add or to change to better have a legislation. Again, at the end of the day, I'm glad that we are putting forth a legislation that protects our most vulnerable. And I want to thank the people who make comments either in person today and the previous two discussions, and those who submitted their support online and in papers. I believe there's over 200 people who wrote and sign in favor of this petition. And I am glad that the people who are here today and in the past, and the people, as my colleague to my left here indicated, the people who sit on this side of the aisle and that side of the aisle, we have a 99% compromise. And I'm glad that, I believe if that's the fact, then I'm glad that this legislation will move forward. But again, at the end of the day, if a year from now, if we can find a better way to improve this legislation, I'm looking forward to having that opportunity to do that. And so whether it changes materially or not, I am ready to support this legislation as of today. So thank you very much, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Vang. I don't have anyone else punched up. Going once, going twice. I appreciate the thorough discussion and did go back and take a look at the language. It looks like the question I had asked about the fee being adjusted, it wouldn't be an amendment to the ordinance. It would be adjusted in the Master Fee Schedule for the future council. I will not be here if or when that occurs based on what grants may continue to be received or not received anymore. All right, we're gonna call the question. Is there any opposition to approving item, what item number is this? Two- The Yankee. Two Y.

Are there any amendments have been added to this or no?

There have not been, it is the language as presented. Okay, I am opposed to the language as written. Item passes six to one. Thank you, council. I think the last component of the open session that we have this afternoon is going to be unscheduled communication. So we'll go ahead and move over to unscheduled communication before we go back to closed session. I have one card for Emily Hanson. Is Emily with us? No, I don't see anybody coming forward. That's the only yellow card I had. If you have a card, yeah, come on down. Meanwhile, we'll go over to, well, actually we have a card coming. Harman Singh, welcome.

Just to clarify, was the item about the Veterans Barstow naming, park naming discussed? Or is that still on the agenda for later?

It was on the consent agenda and passed in the morning.

In the morning? Okay. So I'm just doing unscheduled communication about it. Good afternoon. My name is Harman Singh. I live about a block and a half from the lot that this resolution was about. I'm assuming it was passed. Yes? Okay. uh as expected uh let me say up front that i have nothing against Cruz Bustamante uh graduate of our very own Fresno City Fresno State uh you know first Latino speaker so he would definitely pass any sort of review that the city would have put him in put him put him through for the park naming what this is about is due process and really how difficult It is for residents, for neighbors to find out what's going on around their own neighborhood. Back in June, there was a community meeting for this park, the first one. At that meeting, I mean, Councilmember Karbassi was there himself. Folks were agitated, a little frustrated that they didn't have the information. We were told, hey, we would get another community meeting a couple months later. I followed up with Council Member Kerbasi and Parks Director Aguirre, asking, hey, can we get those initial designs? Mr. Kerbasi replied to me saying, hey, that was the original design. I had folks hitting me up from our own neighborhood saying, hey, how is this park gonna look like? birthday boy over here says, hey, you cannot, because we don't want any intermediaries or folks in between us and the neighbors in the cities. I'm just an involved neighbor. If folks are hitting me up asking, hey, what is this park gonna look like? I'm going to try to find out that information for them, right? You're the gatekeeper of information. So I filed a public records act on my own city, right? About a park that's being built like a block away from me. My thing is that we have a process in that resolution you all passed there. You guys are waiving resolution 2020 272. When you read that resolution, we have a clear naming procedure for parks. This is, a park that's gonna be going through, or gonna be utilizing Measure P dollars. I don't get why we don't have it go through that process. I mean, you guys already passed the resolution. I didn't know you guys were gonna change up the agenda and stuff, so at this point, it is what it is. But I just wanna say that for someone that is trying to represent West Fresno in a few months, you sure do damn don't take public input at all for the area that you're actually gonna, trying to represent. And that's a damn shame. So shame on you and happy birthday.

Yeah, briefly, I just want to state for the record because facts do matter. When we named Puppy Love Dog Park, our Achillean family kennels offer Pia Vang Police Station, which may rest in peace, Rashad Al-Hakim Jr. Trail, Chief Kerry Donnis Regional Fire Center, Les Kimber Park, Dolores Huerta Park, and the Paul Capriolio Community Center, we followed the same procedure. Let's remember the council holds the final authority. Thank you.

We're gonna move over to Zoom. I don't have any additional yellow cards, but if there is anyone in the chamber, you're welcome to fill out a yellow card for unscheduled communication. So moving over to Zoom, we have Lisa Flores.

Oh, okay. Well, hi, guys. Good afternoon. Hope everybody had a good lunch. I'm going to talk about the issue of naming parks as well. You know, Cruz did a lot of great things for the state of California. Yeah, he was a role model. He was a person. highest ranking Latino until Xavier gets in. Here's the bigger question about naming parks. I thank you. I was totally shocked and surprised that you named the dog park at Roding Puppy Love because I just threw it out there. I didn't know you guys were going to take it and run with it. I appreciate that, but I really would have appreciated more transparency and the public involvement And I sit here today and I understand the reason why you're doing cruise. I understand that it is in your purview, but each one of you have talked about including the public transparency, transparency, transparency. But here's the one thing that you really need to think about when naming the parks. You need to get public input because I have been talking about when is something in Fresno going to be named after Mary Curry? This woman is 90-something years old, has been a community leader on the west side of Fresno, and nothing in this town is named after her. Why is that? Why doesn't she meet the standard of getting a park named after her? Why isn't she meeting the standard of getting a building named after her? Why isn't she meeting the standard of getting a school named after her? For all the time and everything this woman has done for the community and lifted the community and created organizers as one of her legacies, why isn't she named? That is just some food for thought I want you guys to think about. So when you have your constituency come to you like this gentleman just did, you really need to think about it. That's all I need to say. Just, you know, I'm promoting, want you guys to do more transparency, more public input. And it doesn't hurt to have somebody talk to you guys about designs of a park. Because if I didn't put my two cents in to the design of Puppy Love, we wouldn't have the little things, the obstacle courses for those dogs out there. You never know when a good idea is going to come up. That's all. Thank you very much for your time this afternoon.

Alfred, you have three minutes.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Hello, Council. My name is Alfred Aldretti. This is the first time I've been able to talk to you guys from this side of the screen. Good to see you all. Wake up, Mikey. Hey, so just to let you guys know this last week, citizens all over Fresno and especially in the tower district gathered shoulder to shoulder to take part in a week of national action against ALPRs, automated license plate readers and flock cameras here in Fresno and against mass surveillance in general. We took part and had a press conference in front of the city hall building there where you guys are at right now. We asked and shouted your guys' names pretty loud, asking you guys to stand and hear the community As we stand against these cameras and any other surveillance technology that's going to monitor our citizens, catalog our information and data, sell it to the highest bidder, and share information with federal law enforcement agencies like ICE. Tuesday, we were out in the Tower District. Annalisa Perea, Miguel Arias. Miguel, we actually seen you passing by. It would have been nice for you to stop and grab some information that we were handing out about the dangers of these cameras. Like I said, we were out there having people sign the petition. As my good friend Joseph mentioned earlier, over 2,300 people have signed it and are urging you to deflock Fresno now. End the contract with Flock. Save $1.6 million. Reallocate those dollars to real community needs, like a library in the Tower District, like more cooling centers for the unhoused. We can pour this into education, into these better roads and safer streets. um but on top of that we were out on blackstone and knees protesting raising signs and awareness once again calling all of you guys out and on top of mayor jerry dyer who appointed uh city manager georgian white who approved the re the amendment of the flock contract three times adding more contracts each time Chief Mindy Castro says there are only 70 cameras in Fresno in use, but we know that there are over 200 cameras total thanks to those amendments. So as the representative of the Fresno resistance flock out of Fresno and standing with the citizens of Fresno, we are going to urge you once again, all the way up until the contract is spoken about and ultimately ended to deflock Fresno, not to come, behind them with any other third party surveillance system that's going to profit off of our information. To hear us, we've already asked and demanded the Fresno Police Department for another public forum so we can have all of our questions and concerns answered for those in attendance, not some...

Thank you, Alfred. Let's see. Nikki Real, you have three minutes. Nikki, you have three minutes. Okay, moving on. Joseph, you have three minutes.

Hello? Hello?

We can hear you.

Okay, and this is for unscheduled communications?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay. Hi, Council. Joseph Rodriguez here. And I just wanted to touch bases with everyone on the fact that yes, like Fresno is rising up to say no against mass surveillance and AI powered cameras. We don't want it in Fresno. We definitely want to deflock Fresno now. But on top of that, there's a new surge of interest and not having data centers implemented through CETA, the commission kind of pushed through an approval. I know you guys are going to hear this next week, and there's going to be plenty of opinions. So I just wanted to let you know, a lot of people that we know are really worried about the flexible research and development, a portion of CETA, South CETA is what it's called, because it's the first part of the plan for what would be the whole development of CETA. And The city wasn't able to really even explain how it's going to pay for itself. We're really concerned. That was probably part of the commission's job to figure out if it could pay for itself. And they pushed it through before they could figure out if it will or not, which is a huge red flag concerning for us. And we're hoping you guys as council members will really ask the tough questions and really consider not passing CETA as it is. We don't know how everything works, City Hall, but we definitely feel like the commissioners got it wrong and rushed approval, and now it's going to you guys. So we're asking that you don't rush through this and you really consider what flexible research and development is, because it's going to be close to me. I'm in District 5, and we hear terrible things about data centers, the noise they make, the energy consumption. the water pollution, and it's all that for profit of these corporations who are coming here to bring us dry and take our land and make it theirs. And we as the people, we just don't want it. We want you guys to really consider a moratorium of halting any AI data center development in Fresno. And we need that expedited. We need it immediately. We heard the president of the United States state that they want to take away the ability for the people to rise up against data centers, and we're very concerned with this. We hope you take this very seriously when considering, and we definitely want you to say no to CETA. Thank you.

Thank you, Joseph. That is all I have online. Council Vice President.

Thank you, City Clerk. That'll conclude the public comment portion of the meeting. We'll go ahead and retreat back into closed session chambers at this time. City Attorney, I believe you've already read off the entire agenda. Is that correct? Okay.

Council President, would you mind real quick if I ask one question of the Planning Director who's sitting out there just to address some of the concerns?

The Florida Council Member Richardson.

Appreciate that. Jennifer. Director Clark, would you mind just joining us? I have a single answer question for you. And it will sound familiar from an email that we discussed earlier this week.

Good afternoon.

Now, I don't want to spoil the punch before we drink it, but is data center a currently listed allowable use for any zone, any zone code in the city of Fresno?

no so one word answer and i say attorney you want to chime in it's this is not an agendized item i would i would recommend that it's not heard at this time okay thank you for obliging director thank you yeah and thank you for your one word answer it's perfect

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That's the end. That's the end. That's the end.

Good afternoon. We have one item to report out of closed session. That is item five F and by a vote of six to zero with council member Vang, not present council has voted to initiate litigation against an unknown defendant or an unnamed defendant. The defendant will be disclosed to any person once litigation has commenced.

Thank you for joining us. Council is going to be adjourning from closed session at 4.21 p.m.