City Council - Regular Meeting

We'll go ahead and call the, regular city council meeting for Tuesday, 03/03/2026. We'll call it to order. Tina, roll call.

Vice mayor Bee. Here. Council member Pratton. Here. Council member Sandhu. Here. Council member Farmer.

Here. Mayor Rodriguez? Here. If you'd all join me for a, moment of silence and then the flag salute, please.

The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Martina, would you read the replay statement, please?

Do we need to report out? Do we need to report out on closed session? Oh, I'm sorry.

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. The council convened in closed session and received information and provided direction to staff, but took no reportable action.

Thank you. Okay. Mr. Farmer and Mr. Sandu, did you have a statement or no?

A statement? He was not

No. Okay.

Just move forward.

Okay. Okay.

So we're ready for the replay statement then.

This meeting of the Galt City Council is recorded with closed captioning. The recording will be cable cast on Metro Cable channel fourteen, the local government affairs channel on the Comcast and DIRECTV U verse cable systems. The recording will also be video streamed at metro14live.sackcounty.gov. Today's meeting replaced Friday, March 6 at 9AM and Saturday, March 7 at 9AM on Metro Cable channel fourteen. Once posted, the recording of this meeting can be viewed on demand at youtube.com/metrocablefourteen. Thank you.

Do we have any agenda additions and or deletions? Seeing none. No presentations? No. Public comment. Tina? The city under

government code section five four nine five four point three, members of the public may address the city council on non agenda items. The public comment section is for the City Council to receive comments. Except for brief responses to questions, no discussion or action may be taken on any item that is not listed on the agenda. Please limit comments to a maximum of five minutes. Consistent with the city council procedural guidelines, the mayor reserves the right to shorten the time limit for speakers to ensure the efficient and timely completion of all city business on the agenda.

Ken Lee.

I'm Ken Lee. I presently live at 400 Gott Place. I don't know when that was turned into a halfway house, but that's what it seems like now. I'd like to acknowledge that the flea market has been stepping up. They have a senior resource and health seminar tomorrow, and they're gonna have bingo in the parking lot.

And it would be nice to have a resource monthly or every quarter on senior scams by having the DA come in and stuff. We did have the DA come to the senior bingo to give us a lecture, and he can't bring up stuff unless you bring it up. So I brought up Timu, and he went off on them saying all the things that they do. So and, basically, the scooters that they used to drive around at the flea market, they have now equipped them all with fire extinguishers and first aid kits, which is good. Now they they can convert on a on a scene and take care of things.

You know, with the e bikes coming in, the flea market needs to make a dedicated area with with high with good poles and stuff so that people can lock the e bikes out there safely and have one camera on it. It needs to be a central location by the office and basically because that's why a lot of people won't leave the ebikes out there. There's nothing to tie them to safely. And the city needs to stiffen or make an ordinance on electric scooters. The miner in Davis just hit a bike on a bike train, crashed, and killed a senior lady on the on the scooter.

And so, basically, you know, because they don't know yet, but, you know, some people drive negligency. Is he gonna be held, you know, for something? Now that baseball season started at behind the flea market, we need to stop the wrong way drivers driving in. They drive in wrong way and they know it too because they don't wanna go all the way around because I I stopped them before, and I said, you're driving the wrong way. And they said, next time, get out of the way. I said, next time, you're gonna meet my bumper. I put a nice big bumper on my van. And if my elevator comes out of the side of the van, you won't have a windshield. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lee.

No more comments.

No more comments.

You. Yeah.

Madam mayor, I like to make one too. Although I would didn't have to, but I think I will. I also was recused from the closed session agenda item, not because of a direct conflict because of some allegations that have been made of myself being biased regarding the project that the closed session was about. So just to avoid any unnecessary whatever. Although I do believe I can be fair and impartial and honest in my evaluation, I chose to recuse myself from that item. So

Thank you. Okay. Let's move on to item I, reports by city council members on regional boards, commissions, and committees. Mister vice mayor.

Good evening. I attended one meeting for the Sacramento Public Library Authority Board, and we got the treasurer's quarterly report, which showed that they were actually dipping into their general fund more than the board would like them to. So they are reassessing those. But a lot of it a lot of that was similar to some of the conversations that we've had here because they were one time capital improvement projects. So it wasn't as concerning as we originally thought.

The other part that did concern us was we got a biannual report from the security of the Sacramento Public Library, which I didn't even realize was a thing. But, and I actually made several comments on this because the trend of incidences that are happening at the Sacramento area libraries is on an increase. So for instance, system wide, right, this is all of Sacramento County. In 2024, they had one thousand four hundred and sixty nine incidents. 2025 was one thousand five hundred and sixteen.

In 2026, they're estimating it's gonna be one thousand six hundred and forty two, which is an 11% increase. I did the math for them over two over two years. And they said that it's all under control. It's not an issue. And I brought up the issue that, no. It is an issue, and it needs to be addressed. And a couple of other board members agreed with me, so they're going to go back. They're gonna reassess. They're actually gonna make a part they're gonna incorporate this into the strategic plan with some metrics on what and how they're gonna address these issues. And that was pretty much it for that meeting. And I don't have anything else.

Thank you. Mister Patten.

I'm glad you're on that commission. Alright. I just attended one, which was the Sacramento Air Quality Management District. It's held at 700 H Street in Sacramento, board of directors chambers and, not a whole lot. There was most of the discussion was on, community air protection for the South Sacramento.

It's been a pretty big project for the air commission. They're trying to add trees and do as much as they can in the South area because it was kinda like a desert down there, and they've been working on this for a couple of years. So we had a couple subjects on that. Some of most of it was just informational. We approved some district investment in efficiency, technology, and collaboration. That was about it. It was about an hour and a half long, very informative. Not too many people there like usual.

They go fast that way.

That's the only one I've been to since our last meeting.

Thank you. Council member Sandhu.

Nothing to report tonight.

Council member Farmer.

I need my microphone. You say the word tree, our city manager gets really excited. I don't have anything to report officially. Thank you.

Thanks. I attended I had two SACOG meetings, one the general board meeting on February 19, and then the policy and innovation committee on March 2. I'm gonna skip ahead to the the committee first. We approved draft budget that will then now move to the board of directors so I get to sit through the whole thing again. And, you know, everything looks pretty standard.

We also talked we heard we always hear advocacy, so we have federal and state lobbyists, and that's always interesting to hear what's going on in there. And right now SACOG is sponsoring a bill that did get on the docket February 20 and this is supposed to streamline some long term things. And so it hasn't been completely flushed out yet. So as soon as that happens, I'll report back whether or not we I mean, they're gonna be looking for support letters, so we'll we'll see how that plays out. But at the board of directors meeting, it was very interesting.

The City of Folsom came and did a presentation on how they have been very successful on building low income housing. And it was actually very interesting on some of the grants and different things that they took advantage of to move forward. And to be honest, I was a little surprised because, at least when I think of Folsom when I was growing up, Folsom was kind of the rich area and the nice area. So when they said they were bringing in all this affordable housing, thought, how on earth did they get their community behind it? But they did.

And they're nice facilities. And so I was very impressed. They also partnered with Habitat for Humanity and put in 10 full units, which was pretty phenomenal, what they were able to accomplish with that. And then they also are working with basically a lobbyist who in California, I think they said over the last twenty years, there's only been about 3% of the new residential units, whether it's a single family home or apartments or whatever, only it's like 3% of them are condos or something that is, you know, a small step into the housing market. And the reason is is because California has legislation that is called Condo Warranty and Accountability Act.

And what it does is it makes the builder responsible for ten years after they sell a unit. And so you can imagine the developers are that's a lot of liability. It's a long time to be liable for someone who's living in a home, you know. And and so that's why we don't see that very often. And they're trying to overturn that or to cut that back to maybe three or four years or something rather than that full ten years.

And in the hopes that then we can start seeing more condos in that short step into, you know, a smaller step into homeownership develop and build some equity and then be able to move to a single family home type unit. So something to watch and I think will be really interesting. And then I have enlisted Tina to help me show SACOG. And I brought the pamphlet that they put together with their blueprint. And it does highlight each of our communities.

Well, it's also up on their website. And so I kind of wanted her to show us, to show here that anybody can go on to it. Just go to SACOG and you can click on blueprint. And it brings you here. You can, yeah, click the bottom one, and then it shows the different counties that are within SACOG, and you click on Sacramento County, and then it lists all of the cities.

And so if you click on Galt, it gives you the blueprint for us, and it does take it a little bit of time to load. But it tells you kind of what Galt is anticipating. So I think it's good to kind of get out into our community, to the residents, that this is just another visual for them, another tool that they can use. And then you can also see what the other cities are doing in the area and in the whole SACOG area, which includes those six counties. And so Folsom does have some of their things that they talked about.

Some of that is on their blueprint. Anyway, it's just very interesting and, like I said, another way for Galt to be highlighted. It can be used as a tool to, you know, show other maybe businesses, you know, here this Galt looks like a good place to come or come buy a house here or something. Just another tool, and I just thought I'd put it out there so that everyone can see. Anyway, with that, I'll go ahead and move on to the consent calendar. Thank you, Tina. I appreciate it. It is recommended that the items one through six be acted on simultaneously unless a separate discussion and or action is requested by a council member. Do I any requests?

Madam Mayor, I have a couple question on j five.

Okay.

So I just for the transparency, let's pull that item.

Okay. Anyone else?

Yeah. I have a couple questions regarding j three.

Three?

Mhmm. Okay.

Nothing?

And we also have public comment on those. On those two? On consent items.

On other than three and five? Okay. So let's go ahead and do public comment then.

Chris Brassman.

Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity, city council, to address you. I don't usually come up and question any expenses, but this time, I saw an expense, international student and tours. And we were spending about $30,000 in one month going to them. And I'm like, I don't remember any students that were sponsoring going internationally.

And I certainly don't remember saying that we're sponsoring any coming in. So I was curious to what it was. And right before the council session tonight, I learned that this is the city council now going off to Washington, DC on another field trip. I spoke last time that we spent our 30,000. I think it was 25,000 because it was 5,005 thousand a council member against spending the money because I didn't feel like it was going to gain the city of anything on a return.

I'd rather see that money spent going to a field trip to Sacramento and dealing with our local representatives that actually we maybe stand a chance of making a difference with. So learning that this 30,000 is going towards a field trip for three city council members and two city employees, I'm really curious to see and for your guys to retro think how the last trip financially benefited us. Any business that's out there investing this kind of money is going to look for at least a three to one return on their money. Said, I certainly didn't see a return on our money from our last trip to DC. And I certainly was surprised to see I guess I was missed the meeting where we or you voted to approve sending five more this year.

So I just wanted to vocalize my comments on spending that money. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Brosman. Any others on any of the others?

The other comments are on four and five.

Okay. But we pulled three and

I'm sorry. Harry Wentel on four. Okay.

Madam Mayor would Leila do you happen to know offhand the warrant that Mr. Brosman mentioned do you know what that is

Those are for the conferences for the cap to cap.

That's what the

That is correct.

Okay.

Mr. Wintzel.

Okay, Harry Wintzel. I think most of you know me. I live on the West Side Of Galt. I'll just start off with the audit. I know this is child's play when you've just got done issuing the big financial statement.

However, where I'd like to focus tonight is just how do you wrestle the beast like this? It's very hard, I think, to write a contract to to get your arms around what the audit is. And so I would think something like this, if we could add, like, like, a 10 to 20 bullet point type, you know, what's in, what's not, why do they do it, something that could be go through and then just put it up on the website because it's a it's something that I'd like to see us just have a meeting on, maybe just a town hall on and maybe even bring the auditors in. It's not a matter of what do you get for your money. I mean, it's supposed to be protection.

But when you get into it, it's like, what are we really protecting? Okay? And then just I don't wanna nitpick it, but, you know, there's things like there was like on the selection and on the there were there were bids gotten, and I appreciate that. But I'd like to point back to what public works did on the next item I'm gonna talk about. They laid it out tabular, And it was a very I mean, it's there's no doubt. It's it's a good way to do it, and I always appreciate when somebody gets the bids. But, again, it's very hard. How do you how do you choose? But on the next subject, it's it's easier to choose, you know, when you got big differences. So that's that.

And I'm always I'm I'm always very hopeful because I think that where the the, you know, the finance department has come up is is big, and there's just man, there's so much potential there with the new Oracle and so forth. So let me get into this the fiber optic. And, again, one of my favorites. I mean, I just commented. I like the way they did the the way they did the the bidding.

But I'll comment on that. That shows you when you go out to bid, you will see I don't think it's uncommon to see somebody double what the other guy was. And, of course, you kinda freak out and you start saying why, why, why. That's how you really get into it. So I'll just bring up a couple of things here.

We say citywide need to have a dedicated and reliable fiber optic data connection from city hall to park facilities, Chipola Avenue. I'd like to hear some discussion about what do we do today and what does the what does that connection do for you? It's not cheap. And, you know, like, are we going to put a router on that? That's just dark fiber when you lay it on the ground.

So you're going to have to be able to communicate with it. So that's something to think about. And then there was also brought up four leaf was another contractor. I don't know exactly what they were doing. They're gonna be doing some management of this project, which maybe there would be a discussion about that.

But what struck me is that we're gonna we had just put in a fiber line from 04:55, which is where the planning commission or not the planning commission, that's with the planning department and so forth. And it goes over to where they've refurbished a nice job on the corporation yard. But there's no mention of the police department. And I was just curious, do they not get, you know, a fiber line in there? And then also a fiber line, what about a fiber line from this building here over?

And when we talk about citywide, are we looking at doing something with the wastewater treatment plant? And I'm just trying to get my arms around, you know, what the project is. I know these guys have their arms around it for the most part. So I guess in summary, it's just, you know, are we covering off routers? How do we hook up to the Internet?

What does this do to our Internet connection? Is that something special? If we bring these direct lines in there, will we be escaping some Internet charges for Chibola and for the Gulf market? How does that all play out? I know there's a lot of moving parts to this, and there always is.

And that's pretty much it. I mean, public works does a pretty good job on their on their reports. And so and so does so does finance. So those are just some suggestions. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Wenzel.

That's it.

Okay. So let's go ahead and address. I'll look for motion for one, two, and four. So receive and file warrants for period ending 02/23/2026, minutes of the regular meeting of 02/17/2026, and number four, professional auditing services. Well, I have to turn the page. And Consuminous Groundwater Authority representative. Thank you.

Yep. I'll move.

I'll second.

Okay. It's been moved by Vice Mayor Reed and seconded by Councilman Pratton. Vice Mayor Reed.

Aye. Council Member Pratton.

Aye.

Council Member Sandhu. Aye. Council Member Farmer.

Aye.

Mayor Rodriguez? Aye. Thank you. Okay. On to j three, housing element annual progress report for 2025.

Yeah. I just had, some questions. I know miss Carlone is not here tonight. But I I just curious because I know this is a topic that comes up a lot. I talk to a lot of people about this. People come in. People come in to me all the time asking, you know, why? You know, a lot of people are not aware what the housing element is. So it's always like something that I talk to people about. And so I had a couple of questions I was thinking about so that when I do talk to people, I'd a little more knowledgeable.

The arena numbers that we're given, and I'm I'm hoping Chris, you can probably answer these. So the arena numbers that were given each cycle, how are those numbers determined? What what criteria do they use to say Galt's gonna get 1,926? Ms. Mendez. Good evening. You're the smarter of the two people.

Mayor, members of council. Agreed. I happened to just attend a meeting on Thursday at SACOG, and the discussion was in regards to the housing element process and the upcoming process for the new housing element. I say new, but it's actually going to be, I think it's the seventh round that we're working on with the housing element. And it doesn't have to be approved until May 2029.

However, they are starting the process with their regional partners. And so as I understand it, and I'm sure Chris or Frank can jump in, The RENA numbers are provided by the state to SACOG. So they receive essentially a certain number of units that have to be allocated amongst the jurisdictions within SACOG's territory. And there is a methodology that essentially is somehow they've come up with. So with the last housing element cycle, from what I understand, it was essentially a combination of the growth, like historic growth, and then what projected growth was, and how much land you had available for development.

And they came up with a very complicated formula. And one of the concerns brought up during the meeting with SACOG was that it was too complicated, it was really hard to explain to constituents. And so this go around, they are cognizant of that, and I think that they're aware that they want to make sure this is an easy to understand formula that they put in play. And there are some jurisdictions that have some caveats that need to be considered. And so historically, it's been a methodology that the jurisdictions come up with as a team, representatives from each municipality or district.

And once everybody agrees on the formula, they bring it to SACOG board for approval. And so this summer, they will be starting those conversations with the regional partners. And so we will have a representative from the planning department that will be part of that as they discuss how the formula will be determined. And they'll have several options that they present to the board. So it comes from the state to this, basically the Council of Governments, and then they have to determine how those numbers get allocated.

So basically what you're saying is when a citizen comes to me and asks, well how do they determine those numbers? Have say, well, it's really complicated. I can't really tell you. Well, I hope that I know our mayors, our representatives, SACOG. But I just think it's just I mean, it's almost like I feel that because Galt's growth rate has historically been low that we're basically being punished and saying, well, you need to do your fair share. You know, everybody else is growing, you know, at a greater rate. So I know that it was, 900 and something, the first element. And then a few years ago when I was, you know, when I came on to council, we did the I forget what year it was, and they handed us the 1926 number. Right? It was like more than double.

And so my thought is, is the next number gonna be double that number? And then my next question, the second part is, I mean, we never meet those numbers. Right? We never met the 900. We're not meeting the 1900 based on the report. So no matter what they give us, it's like, what does it even matter what number you give us because we never meet those numbers? So it's like, it's it seems silly to me.

We don't have to build them. You just have to allocate space for them.

Right. Right. No.

I understand. We've that.

Yeah.

So we've met our obligation.

Right. I mean, if you if we've allocated space for 1,926 units and we're not even near filling that, They come back this year and say, well, we need to make available, you know, 2,700 units. It's like, well, I mean, you know, we're almost kinda landlocked getting to a point. I don't know. Can I

can I just add one thing real quick? We we can accommodate, like, their need, basically, what we have, like, in the pipeline, you know? But we know, like, they don't build right away. So what miss Mendez mentioned is absolutely true on how they get there. But they do look at, like, what we have in the hopper and what our capability is. So they try to make it rational. And, overall, I think they do a pretty good job of allocating a number. And the way that it looks, if you look at the comparison to the other regional cities, it almost looks like they're doing it based on size. You know? So, obviously, we're not proportionately, we're never gonna get as much as Sacramento.

We don't get as much as Elk Grove. We're always kind of on the lower end.

Yeah. I just you know, when you read it, it's like the what the it's just all about trying to be, you know, affordable housing. Right? And we know that's just and based on our numbers, we did like 13 low income and all the rest were all the most highest income levels. So it's like, is this thing really accomplishing what they're trying to accomplish? And and I'm just saying these statements. We all know this. Right? I'm just saying this for the people who might watch this meeting back there in the public or that may be sitting in the audience. To me, it's just frustrating that they do this trying to accomplish something, and it's really not accomplishing what they want to do. I mean, if they really want to accomplish affordable housing, need to they need to incentivize or do something from the state that's going to make developers want to build that kind of housing or else, otherwise, you're never going to see it. And so this whole rigmarole that we go through every eight years is just pointless.

Well, they're talking about it. So they're aware that, you know, just accommodating for it isn't necessarily meeting the housing requirements that they want. So when they did away when the state did away with redevelopment, they took away the most powerful tool that cities had to basically create affordable housing. I mean, most of the affordable housing projects we have in the city were the result of redevelopment. So there has been talk about requiring cities to have some sort of financing tool to help with affordable housing.

So what we talked about internally, there's a couple different options. You could do fee reductions for construction. Most cities do an inclusionary housing requirement. So for example, Elk Grove has an inclusionary requirement where homebuilders essentially pay so market rate homebuilders pay a fee per home that goes toward affordable housing. So it's like an affordable housing impact fee. That's then pooled, and they use that then to attract a affordable housing builder. And I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think our strategic plan includes an inclusionary housing program.

Okay. Yeah, and know this is a long subject, I don't want to belabor this, but I just, it is probably, you know, as you know, growth is one of the main topics that I talk to people about the most. And this housing element is probably one of the main people that 90% of the people at Galt don't even know what that is. And when you tell people that we're forced to grow, they don't understand. And this is obviously tied to that. Anyway, so I just, you know

to the mayor's point, the requirement is that we zone for those We don't necessarily have to ensure that they build, but we do have to have the appropriate land available Right. For the

general But once we zone for them, then pretty much if anybody comes along, it's a foregone conclusion. That's where the power gets stripped away from us at that point.

In addition to the zoning, there is a very comprehensive housing element implementation plan that's part of the housing element. And there are lots of requirements in there on things that we need to be doing in order to facilitate development for all types of housing units. And so one of the things we put into the update had to do with the fee reduction that we just implemented because that was for multifamily and for infill housing. So we get credit for those types of things. And so that implementation plan has guidelines for rezoning properties that need to be up zoned for things like the highest density.

So our 4A is our highest density. We have to call out properties that we can zone for that. We have to create programs to incentivize the lower income housing. We also have to encourage ADUs to be constructed. And so that housing element, have to this is that update every year that we have to show what we're doing in order to implement the housing element in addition to the zoning.

Well, appreciate the information. So again, I just wanted it to be talked to bring it out for the public. So thank you.

Mr. Farmer, I will tell you that at SACOG, it has been very interesting because there's been a little bit of a shift on that board as those of us who live in the smaller communities have realized that we actually outnumber the representatives for the larger communities. And that almost played out very it was a very entertaining board of directors meeting because there I in fact, I texted Chris and Amy during the meeting and said, there's a coup, and it's not my fault. I didn't start it. That some of the smaller communities really were pushing back on some that one size fits all mentality that fits maybe the city of Sacramento, but not necessarily Galt.

And I do know that a lot of those smaller cities have had similar issues with their arena last time as well and were upset. So there was a discussion already earlier that, hey, we definitely need to relook at this. And I think that that's why they're doing that right now.

Okay. Well,

Hopefully that's hopefully it'll be a different outcome.

Well, thank you for updating us on that.

Let's go ahead and address number five, mister Sandhu.

Thank you, madam mayor. Mister Moore, just for the clarification. First of all, thank you for your detailed report. Thank you for you did the comparison cost on that. I think there was a four bids on that. I just want the clarification for the public because since we have the big amount, one thing is, you know, that's around a month ago, there was a fiber optic company. They give the presentation. And then they time that time, they said they will do that project free for the city. But where we are on that company?

So, yeah, I can clarify a couple of things. So one is the the project and the report is actually under public works. It's a CIP construction project. So the other piece is I think you're referring to a company called Unwired. So they were they gave a presentation a while back.

They were considering offering fiber Internet services for, you know, golf businesses and residents, and the city would get an Internet connection as part of that deal. That company, we haven't heard from them lately, so there's we don't exactly know what's going on. But the other piece related to that is that would have just been an Internet connection was the the primary goal for them. This project here, just to clarify for everybody, this replaces the inner city, the internal network connectivity for four city locations. So it's the Galt Market, the Littleton Center, the Parks And Rec Admin Building, and the Gora Aquatic Center.

So those four locations currently have point to point wireless connections. The equipment that they're using is really old. And so wireless, as everybody knows, or at least in this scenario, it's less stable, less speed. Less secure? Yeah.

In theory, the what we have is, you know, encrypted and secured, but but, yeah, not quite the same as a fiber optic cable in the ground. But in addition to that, the path for these wireless connections, you know, just for whatever reason, the history of it, it it's not even direct back to city hall. It's like, you know, one building to the next building to the next building. So so this project would replace those buildings and their connectivity back into the city network. It also brings it in line, makes it more consistent with some of our other city facilities.

So we have existing fiber already between city hall, police department, the municipal services center, and the courtyard. So those already have city owned fiber. So this will bring these other buildings in line with that.

Thank you. Thank you for the explanation. And the money is coming from the general fund or is coming from the CPA, maybe some kind of ARPA money. Can you just tell the public?

Yep. Yeah. I know a good chunk of it is coming from ARPA money. It's, you know, ARPA grant funding. And that's been solid. Some of this has been in the works since before I've been here, but I I think about 225,000 is what we had remaining in the IT ARPA fund, and that was moved over into the CIP project. So So whatever was in ARPA money,

we moved to CP in that project. Right?

Correct.

Yep.

Alright. And just one more thing if you can, because there was a public comment. They have some question. Can you mind me clarify what mister Winslow's question, if you don't mind?

Yeah. I I think I I addressed most of them. The only other thing I can remember him asking about was the wastewater treatment plant. So that's not part of this. That it would be ideal to get them on fiber, but but the cost of fiber is mostly based on the distance, and wastewater is just way over there. So that would be a whole different animal trying to get fiber to there. So maybe someday there will be some options for that, but that's not part of this project.

Thank you, mister Morton. Thank you for your explanation. I will support that project.

I have a couple questions, madam mayor, on this item since you pulled it. Do we know the do they have to trench to do this? Are they gonna be able to pull without doing that?

They're gonna bore and not trench.

Okay.

Yeah.

Do we know the timeline on how long that'll take? Do we know approximately?

Yeah. Trung, do you remember? I'm I'm gonna say it was about three months of

I think the contract said they had 20 to finish within twenty five days when they start. From when they

Yeah.

I believe it was twenty five working days. So Yeah.

Okay. Well, I was glad to see that it was significantly cheap. It's staggering to see what some of the bids I mean, it's a 130 some percent difference between the high and the low bid. And I am pleased to say that Bachman and Woody is a great company. I actually have been in telecom for twenty five years. I've worked with those guys from that outfit many times, and they they do really good work. So I was happy to see I don't even recognize these other companies at all. So to see them be the low bidder, think, you know, sometimes you worry about the low bidder being the company that's not as good, but I can tell you they're a stand up company and they do great work. They do a lot of huge, huge schools and college campuses and all kinds of stuff all over the Bay Area. And so I think this right here is small potatoes for them probably.

So anyways, that's all I have to say. Thank you for the information.

I I do have a question comment since mister Winslow brought up the span of from the low bid to the high bid. And I apologize if it's not in oh, it is in the board packet. Looking at their bids, it is interesting that the city did not ask for a bid on repairing asphalt and concrete. I'm I'm just gonna assume that staff is going to do that.

So if you actually yeah. If you actually look at the bid, there's three items that this goes back to four leaf helping us out. And basically, we left three items on there, including asphalt, concrete, and and thermal striping. And the idea was that if they were planning to do any of that, we knew we knew the work would be very minimum for directional boring. They essentially dig a pit. They go on the other side. They put a box where it is and terminate. And so there's very little concrete work there. But we did want to put in there, just in case we've missed something, and they can put a number in there. And at the very least we have a bid item for them to bill against.

But they there was no bid item and they we contacted the low bidder and he said it was that's included with the work for the fiber optic.

Okay. Because I did notice that the third and fourth bidder bids, actually put a bid amount in there, which helped to increase their amount. But it did concern me that the amounts were significantly different. I see this quite often in what I do, and quite often we end up calling that lowest bidder because just for Mr. Wintzel's for the public's information for a public works contract, we are obligated to take the lowest bidder regardless of I mean, unless there is something specifically wrong within their bid.

And that's to save the taxpayers money so that we don't get favoritism with a with a contractor and then they start bidding higher and we take them anyway. But sometimes in my experience has been sometimes someone bids low with the expectation for change orders. State does not allow change orders at all on ours. So I guess that would be, I guess, something for us to watch is what those change orders might look like. And if we allow them on this, I skimmed the contract or the RFP really quickly and I didn't see anything about change orders, but I skimmed really quick. Do we allow change orders?

Generally, it's basically the change order is essentially any work that's outside of what the bid work was and it could be something that we add or even could be subtract. I can I make a couple of comments just generally on the bid spread? You know, we when we open it, we looked also. It's obviously but we did check. The first two bidders from what we found out, they're essentially directional boring contractors that do this specifically.

The third contractor is essentially a general contractor, and he did put a lot of money in the asphalt work and concrete work, which was a little I mean, considering it's pretty substantial, so I don't know how that worked. And then the fourth bidder was way off, obviously. And I do from experience, I do know that sometimes some contractor either through either not experience or they just were in a rush and didn't have time or they just threw a number at. We've seen that before where they're just whatever. And they just put in a number.

And so, you know, you can basically, you know, throw those out. The ones we were concerned about, obviously, was a little bit, obviously. And so we definitely did our due diligence on checking their work history, their past, and Councilman and Farmer. They did do the last project, the Courtyard Pavement Project. There was a little bit of fiber optic work. That was Bachman and Woody, and they did a good job there. So we were comfortable that we've worked with them before. So everything on their end looked appropriate.

Yeah. And I appreciate that because I do know that Public Works and all staff when they have things like this before them do their due diligence and look into it. And I do appreciate. I do appreciate that.

Mister mister Trent, but change orders still have to fall within the contingency that we're approving tonight. Right? There's a 20% or is it is a 20 per 10% contingency. So if they have a change order, it still has to fall within that. It can't go.

You know, we I you know, I wish all the projects we put out, all the change orders within, you know, that's always our plan. And and when we set it do a set of drawings, we try to make it as complete as possible. A lot of times with projects above the ground, if you're changing out, like, electrical panel or something, it's very straightforward. Sometimes when you when you do underground work, you just never know. You never know from where they're directional boring all the way to where they're going, what they're gonna hit, what we're gonna find. So it's it's it's a there's a little a little bit more unknown there. And in the contracts back, it basically says that anything outside of the bid items can be a change order. So we ask for, you know, whatever. Then they have to go through the process of submitting a claim. There's contract language for all of that.

And even the bid items, if they go way too much above or below, they can actually ask for a change there also.

So But if we approve an item tonight for 284,000 plus the contingency, if they start submitting change orders and that surpasses all that, that doesn't have to come back for us to us.

Yeah. Will we will have to come back and ask for additional money. I

think to your question about the bidding thing too, being a low voltage contractor for twenty five years, you see bidders that will literally just pad their bids way higher if they know it's for a municipality or something with this understanding that, like, you know, that, well, it's for a government or a city job, so we're gonna just charge way extra because they know they can come sometimes get away with that. It's a it's a very big abuse, I'm sure, as you know. So that's why you see some numbers sometimes that are just crazy,

but

thanks.

Mhmm. Anything else? Okay. So we have standing the housing element annual progress report for 2025 and the award to bid the contractor for the fiber optic line project CIP six 26 a.

Move. Second.

Okay. Moved by councilman Sandhu and seconded by councilman Farmer. Roll call.

Vice mayor Reid. Aye. Council member Pratton. Aye. Council member Sandhu. Aye. Council member Farmer.

Aye.

Mayor Rodriguez. Aye. Passes five o.

Thank you. Okay. It looks like we don't have any public notice, public hearings. Regular calendar, police department.

Good evening, mayor and council. We have our annual report I'll be presenting tonight. And so if you could follow along, I put out some of our yearbooks to the staff. Some want autographs from me when we're done, so stay late for that, please. So we'll go ahead and start.

About us. So you've seen our format is similar each year. I will say that this product that you see before you was led by Corporal Little, but the contributors to this annual report are many, led by Mary Frances Tassano, our records supervisor, our dispatch supervisor, Laura Sotelo, all of our patrol supervisors, our investigations supervisor, and then the management team. There's a lot of data that needs to be pulled and vetted out so we can provide what we are providing tonight. But nonetheless, we are comprised of 39 sworn and 17 professional staff serving, still after ten years, about 26,000 residents of Galt under our mission of public trust, your professional service.

And last year, we handled more than 14,000 calls for service. It's noted here, and I'll talk a little bit about it in a minute when we get to dispatch, that one of our innovative technologies was bringing on the Prepared nine eleven product, which I talked to you about earlier this year. And we have some information to provide. But through all the work that we do, it's our goal to have when we can, because some of the work we do is negative in nature. Obviously, when you call the police, it's because there's a problem.

But we strive to have positive daily interactions through community events, social media engagement, and every field contact that we work to build that we have. So we work to build and sustain the trust of the public. Understanding trust is key in our success. We had two new officer hires this last year and a retirement of k nine Rex. Officer Spinelli became a corporal, and his dog was having medical conditions when we transferred him.

So it was not sustainable and required significant work in on medicine and different things to keep them healthy. But it wasn't gonna work for police work, so we had to retire canine wrecks. No other retirements this last year. That's our command staff. Same that's a horrible great picture of me, but a horrible graphic of the we get to do something better to clean that up, because some of that writing's very small, but you can see it in the book.

But that's the staff that we have in our administration. Since the year ended, we did lose Steve Warren to retirement after thirty nine years total between the Contra Costa Sheriff's Office and here in the city of Galt. So we do wish him the best, and we'll recognize his retirement in our next annual report. Going to crime statistics, you see the last three years we give you, and you can see the run of numbers. They're similar year to year.

I will highlight that traffic stops continue to go up, and I know that Councilmember Sandhu had a question about the number of traffic stops continuing to increase. And really, there are four factors that, in addition to officers just working harder and being out there doing dedicated traffic enforcement when time permits, we did institute DUI checkpoints through a grant with Office of Traffic Safety, in addition to DUI saturations. And those alone are exclusively traffic stops that are happening with the officers, either through those checkpoints or those saturations. That's new work that we're doing regularly, excuse me, and adding to the numbers of traffic stops we've had. Also, we've had targeted enforcement, like crosswalk awareness, distracted driving, and the like.

And so we run those campaigns during the year, and those add to our numbers. And then last year, we successfully were able to staff our motor officer who spent most of his time doing that motor work. And so that contributes to additional opportunities for traffic enforcement. So that's why you're seeing the increase in those numbers year to year. Our misdemeanor arrests were up from four eighty to five thirty one.

Those have increased each and every year. Felony arrests were up over the previous year. And criminal citations down slightly, but within the range over the three year period. Then our NIBRS crime statistics. So we had one homicide this last year. That would be the one we posted where it had to do with the infant with blunt force trauma. That did not initially come in as a homicide, but it was later reclassified. You see our rate categories and robbery. All the numbers are pretty stable or similar. Assaults were down slightly, along with thefts.

The biggest drop was motor vehicle theft. And really, I cannot attribute anything specific to that other than it's just not something we got exposed to, luckily, during this last year. Likely next year, you'll see that number go up because it bounces from year to year. You can go to we put a link. It's obviously going to be online.

But you can look at more information related to our crime statistics and our clearances through the link provided through the NIBRS crime statistics. In the professional standards world, we had 23 uses of incidents excuse me, incidents with use of force. We had 14 vehicle pursuits during the year. We had 27 complaints. Those are internally driven or external complaints that we receive, and we investigate those.

And within that, there were 11 policy violations that we addressed through different vehicles to ensure that we were operating appropriately. The traffic unit over on two collisions. Obviously, is, as council member Farmer and obviously the other council members who field these complaints from the citizens regularly, Traffic is a complaint that all communities get. Our traffic collisions, we were up slightly, but within the margin for the three year run. Hinton runs down slightly, as you can see.

I won't run through each and every one of those. But total citations were up to just over 2,000. Those citations include all forms of enforcement, but those can include traffic or excuse me, parking citations and other and other things. Our moving violations, though, you can see we're up over a thousand to over a thousand for the year, and that's up over the past two years. So the staff has done tremendous work ensuring that we stay on top of that issue in order to have at least stabilized, if not improved, traffic safety and less complaints in the community.

And so here's some statistics for our property and evidence. I know last year there was a request for weights. We talked about that. We like the percentages better. And some of these, I'll tell you, they're five grams and two ounces and different things.

And really, it doesn't attribute to how much needs to be used to be a usable quantity and so on and so forth. But we think this is a better metrics as to what you're seeing with the drug of choice, or things that we're catching out on the field. And then you can see through the DEA drug take back that in pill form we took over 600 pounds this last year. Communication center. We talked in this a lot about that prepared nine one one product.

And I should have started by saying the human resources director told me I had five minutes, and I apologize for going over. Nonetheless, the prepared nine eleven product is something that we were on the forefront of. This organization has fielded calls and been on calls with agencies as far as Kansas. We've done presentations for the entire Alameda County contingency in Napa for their their conference that they hold explaining what this program is because they've had interest. We've talked to, you know, Folsom, Sacramento, Stockton, all up and down the state.

Antioch was the latest one that was in the building about this product, because there is a lot of enhancements for the service based on being able to triage your, I guess, business line calls. And as you can see with that, that we had over 7,800 calls. 36 of those actually had to be answered or handled by the communication center. So that was 46% of the calls, business line calls, that we received went to the communications center, which means nearly 54% were handled by the AI program, and either to 211, 311, whatever the program is, those get pushed to the county in the different formats. There was 1,176 where nobody declared what they wanted to do, so they just, of that thirty six forty four, 1,176 came to the Conn Center.

So I think that, really, the thing that drove success for our comm center was we accidentally had it on in our testing phase, and we were handling a high priority incident, actually with Vallejo PD and Elk Grove and others, up and down 99. And when they were done with that call for service, obviously they were not in a place to handle business calls, but the program had been turned on. Those calls had been hand either five or six calls had been handled and cataloged and ready for deployment and dispatched to the officers without having the dispatcher have to pick up the phone. And what's nice about that is when that business line is ringing nonstop while you're trying to answer 911 calls and talk on the radio, there's a lot going on. And so that's been a huge benefit.

In addition, this program does transcribe all our 911 calls, and so we can even have dialogue in other languages, which is a time saver in us trying to figure out what's happening on the street. So this is one thing that our dispatch group, who's incredible, did to support and embrace, and I believe that has been an enhancement to the community. There are those, that are not liking technology, that might not love the AI, but you have a way to opt out and come into the comm center the normal way anyways. And as you can see, 46.5% of the people still do talk to our live dispatcher. They just don't get that same quicker service.

Sorry for spending a lot of time on that. That was an important program for us. Used services. Within the body of this dialogue here. There's two things that I wanna highlight that in April 2025, we did our first well, not our first. Since COVID, we did our first active shooter training at Galt High School. Staff did an incredible job. Detective Franklin, who's in the back providing security tonight, was a part of that program and provided some good tactical realistic experiences for the officer. So I do appreciate that. And it was well received by the staff and the school district and the school district's liability folks who are on scene.

So we're doing it again this next month. We will go over to Liberty Ranch this year and do that. That does not mean it will always be school based, but we can use localized businesses and other places as we move forward for this training. We do anticipate that to be on a yearly basis. Because it was school based, we tasked youth services with doing that.

The other thing that we did is the, as you all know, was the bicycle safety program where we got out to the schools for the fourth through eighth graders and gave classroom demonstrations, did a lot of work to codify our ordinances, and we were on the front of the curve for that in the county. So great work on the staff for that. Some numbers about graffiti abatement. 6,500 charged to measure r. There is there are other funds that it does the graffiti does cost, but this is just related to measure r because that's the funding for the police department.

The volunteer hours, over two thousand seven hundred hours by your volunteers. They're listed in that picture. So as always, we do support or appreciate their support. We will recognize them in a luncheon this year. This is the K-nine program. Again, this is Officer Austin Steele, who has our newest K-nine. We do have one K-nine opening. We do have some openings we're trying to address. So until we can get stabilized on our staffing, we're holding off on placing that second K-nine. Our bike unit has four trained members.

They do our, you know, obviously the Kevin Taunton run, the fourth of July, Christmas parade, and other appropriate, you know, homecoming and other things like that, parades. You know, just to put it on your radar, at some point, we're gonna go off the pedal bikes to something more motorized like all the other kids have. So I think staff would appreciate not having to pedal for four miles straight, you know, a 110 degrees. So that's on our list of things that we're trying to achieve, and so we're working through budget on that. But that program has been successful in the organization.

Our drone program, you can see the work there. We are working on a drone as first responder program. We'll be coming back to you about that once I work better through the assistant city manager and the city manager about where we're headed. We're actually going to go to Concord next week and look at their program because they have the pro I think the equipment and the vendor that we want to use. It's on that.

So that is going to be an enhancement for our organization. So our thanks to that group for their work this past year. The POP Unit, that is now vacant. I lost that officer to Lathrop, but this is the work that was done this last year. Posted and cleared dining encampments doesn't tell the whole story because that's actually the hard work that we had to do to get those encampments cleared.

There was a lot of compliance through contacts and other things that Officer Cho was able to do to get folks moving and off the street and the things that are expected for quality of life. And you can see the statistics that he had while he was here. And then lastly, we recognize our two fallen officers, Officer Kevin Tawn and Officer Graywall. And so with that, I'm sorry to be so winded, but that is our annual report. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. Any questions or comments from counsel?

Sure, I'll kick it off. Thank you, chief, for the presentation. It's very thorough. And I have some questions and then also some just statements. First, I I do, like to see that I mean, the, how do you say it? The n I b r s? That's

the NIBRS.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in every category of crime, the numbers are down with the exception of the one homicide, which you mentioned was the infant, and then the statutory rape category. But everything else is lower. And some of them are close, but they're all lower. Some of them are significantly lower. I would like to think that's because you're doing a good job. I mean, I don't know how else to say it, but I mean, if crime's down, that's a good thing. We'd like to see that. On the traffic, interesting enough, a lot of those are down.

They're either level or they're down. The only thing that's actually up is the total citations going from 1,023 to 1,400 and now 2,000. I feel looking at that, as you know, I'm you know, that's one of the things, like you said, we get a lot of complaints about traffic. We live in a town where we don't have you know, knock on wood, we don't have a lot of, you know, a big epic problem with serious crime. So we're with a lot of lower level crime.

And traffic is one of those things that I hear about a lot. And I think that, you know, and I think you guys at PD know that. And that's why to see the total citations, I believe that, you know, giving out 2,000 citations has driven the other numbers down. The bottom line is that people are getting stopped and they're getting cited. They're gonna slow down or they're gonna do better at stopping at the stop sign or whatever it is that we've had problems in the past.

So I think those numbers, you know, basically reflect with each other. I am curious if it's possible in the future. And, again, I may not be here at the time, but I think for the future, in a report for the traffic statistics, would there be any way to break out? Because as we know, and we had a public comment about it tonight, but as we know, we've been really proactive with the e bike, e scooter. Right?

You guys, we were the first to roll out our municipal code for that. You guys have been doing a great job. I am curious, though, because that stuff's not going anywhere. It's only going become more and more and more prevalent. I would be curious if, like, in the future, if this report would reflect how many citations or whatever were involving either electric bikes, scooters, whatever. If it was just one category that could be bulked, I think that would be interesting to see that broken out separate from every everything you know, from what is probably most likely all automobiles. Right? Yes. And then I can say graffiti is definitely I very rarely see that. So I appreciate the proactiveness on that.

The only other thing I had is just some questions about the prepared AI. So just for the public, so 91 when someone dials 911, it doesn't go to the AI, right, at all. Right?

Yeah.

So I have had some people, not a lot, but not a lot to where I actually have contacted you. But I've had some people, I think, that come to me and they've they're like, oh, I called in. I got the AI thing, and it's like, it's kinda cumbersome. And and I was like, well, it's not for 911, so it's not like it's an emergency situation. And so and I don't get a lot of complaints, but I have had a couple.

And so my question is well, let me give you a scenario. So I actually called once. So there was a vehicle there was a gentleman who parked his car right in the middle of the road out in front of our shop. And he went in one of the business he literally just left his truck sitting in the of the road, just locked it and walked away and we're like so I obviously I called the non emergency and and you they ask you what you're calling for. And it felt very like they ask you the same questions over and over and it was still you know, and I was on the phone for like five minutes.

And I was like, I don't wanna zero out and go. I think I did end up zeroing out or whatever to to talk to someone. But I felt like it was so cumbersome that I was like, you know and then and then I never actually, you know what? I didn't zero out on that because I just went ahead and and then for, like, a half an hour, nobody ever came. So two things. I think people are like, well, did my because I was talking to a computer, did that get passed on to a real person? Because there's no, like, follow-up, I guess, where they come back and say, hey, we did get your call and we've taken care of it. You know I'm saying? When you're talking to a real person, they say, well, we'll send an officer over. And you're like, thank you to the dispatch, and then you hang up.

You're confident that they know when somebody can get to it. But with the AI, you're like, that did it get resolved? Was the answers that I gave to the thing clear enough to get an officer so that there's that? And then second of all, do you guys ever do, like, just a random test where you call in and have somebody go through that to see, like, firsthand, like, hey, I did make a call, I think there's some bugs to be tweaks to be worked out? Because it is new emerging technology, right?

Right.

So hopefully those are clear questions, but

So what we probably should do is we can bring a presentation to you so you can see that here at councils. Everybody's got the kind of same baseline knowledge on that. And we can show you how it works in real time. When we brought this program on, we did a lot of work to troubleshooting and trying to use the proper keywords and other things like that, because we were on the front end of starting that program nationwide, frankly. So it's smoother than

it was

before. If it doesn't understand what you said, it could ask it a second time. And there's, I guess, always going to perhaps be a little bit of that issue. But I would just tell folks, if they get concerned or frustrated or feel in any kind of way, zero out, just like the term you started to use, and you'll talk to somebody in our comm center. I think, you know, frankly, that's where the world is headed.

And there are a few things in police communications that have come along that have been, I don't want to say life altering, because that's overstating it a little bit, but such a significant change in the way that business is deployed for the dispatchers that, frankly, this is the future of what law enforcement will be doing. So the other thing we can look at, and I have to ask staff, because I'm not in the weeds that deep, I think there's a way that we can trigger or ask for, because you can send we can send a link, you can send photos to us through that program. So let me see if there isn't a way that when you put that in, if you leave a number that we can text your the success of your call being logged, or, you know,

Yeah. Was kind thinking like that kind of track. Like, maybe if almost like a random, like, you know, let us know how we're doing like, you know, if you would like to make a comment, you can send an email to this number or whatever and let us know your feedback or something. You know what I'm saying?

Like

There is that there is A survey or

something. Yeah.

There is an option for that, and there's a secondary vendor we've looked at for something similar to that, because getting community feedback just generally, you know, I guess, on the full book of service is something that I've been wanting to explore. So let me do a little bit of work on that, and let's bring a presentation back to you in the next month or two, depending on when it could fit into counsel. Yeah.

I just know that, like I said, it's it's up and coming, and I know it is the future a 100%, and it's you know, we're only gonna go that direction, not backwards. But I just wanna I was just curious if there was tweaks that can be made with keywords where they could Yes. Fine tune stuff and where you get it, like, really dialed in. So Yes. So thank you for the questions on that. And the only other thing I had was yeah. I think that might have been it. I just I do look forward to I do look forward to these reports. I think it's very thorough. And I think overall, based on the stats and stuff, I think you guys are doing a good job.

I think the officer initiated stuff is very high, which to me, I like to see because I feel like, you know, like the traffic stops, for example, I mentioned that already. The officer initiated, you know, numbers are up. So all of that reflects that you guys are doing stuff. But yet total incidents, strangely enough, is, like, almost exactly the same as it was last year. I mean, 30,070 versus 29,994. I mean, that's, like, 80 incidents. That's almost exact. So, I think

that's good. Yeah, the credit, I mean, I'll take the credit on behalf of the department. Frankly, we have an amazing organization of professionals, sworn to non sworn to work hard every day. We lean on them hard from time to time. We annoy the heck out of them from time to time, but they are resilient and dedicated to serving the community. And this this work that you saw here today is a reflection of their efforts, and I'm just lucky enough to be able to work with them.

Alright. Thank you, chief. Mhmm.

I'll go next because mine kinda piggybacks off of his. I did use that PowerAI, I think, two or three times within the last month or two, and I think it's fantastic. Right? Being a longtime dispatcher that I spent years doing, it is gonna save them heartache day after day after day after day. And I did I personally didn't seem that it was too cumbersome. And I like, you know, it did ask several questions, but they all seemed appropriate. And at the end, it gives you a nice summary of you're calling for make sure that you're calling for this, and this is all the information that you gave us. I think I think it's great. I'm glad that we did it. Piggybacking off of that, I'm I'm really impressed with the numbers.

Like like I said, being a dispatcher, having them answer all 93%, almost 94% of the calls within ten seconds, that means there were out of the six thousand eight hundred and three nine one one calls, only 425 of those were answered in greater than ten seconds. And ten seconds is a very short amount of time. And so that's very impressive. The I did have a question at the end when we talked about the POP officer. Yes. With the mental health counselor, since that position is vacant, is the mental health counselor riding with someone else? Or how are we

She was until she resigned and went to a different employer from So the they are working hard to fill somebody and backstop that. So we're without the mental health counselor.

They go together?

No. No. All right. She those are tough jobs to fill at the county level for the mental health thing. And so, you know, sometimes these are stepping stones for folks Yeah. Getting into that business or expanding what they know.

Yep. And then the last thing I wanted to say is not specifically on the report. It kinda piggybacks off of what council member Farmer said, and it's nothing that the police department's doing. It's really just a message out to the parents in our community. Right?

The police department has done a great job, and they've done fabulous work on educating the children and everyone about using helmets with bicycles and scooters. However, your children are not protected if they don't wear the helmet. I take my kids to and from school, and I can't count the amount of times that these kids are riding their bikes with their helmets hanging off the handles. It that's not one, it's not gonna protect them. Two, it's gonna if if anything, make it worse because now you've got this helmet flopping around while they're trying to to ride this bicycle. So please talk to your kids. Tell them that that's not gonna protect them if they just hang it on their bicycle or their scooter. They gotta put it on their head. That's all.

Council member Pratton.

I also look forward to this every year. This is a great presentation. Thank you for your service and and all your folks. Just one question. When is the volunteer appreciation lunch? Do you have a date for that?

I do not have a date. My coordinator will let me know when

Just try to let us know.

It's it's in

the spring. Possible. Yeah. I won't spring it on you, like, four days before or anything like I might have done on something else.

So I may last year. Thank you. That's all.

Council member Sandhu.

Thank you, chief. Good job as you stop doing a bit excellent job. You know, NRBS, all these report is going down. So if you look at the report '24 to 25, really good report. Thank you for my question. I ask you on the safe safety, and thank you for explanation. The last thing, I don't wanna repeat what the council member Farmer said, the AI. You know, I know when we check the AI, like, I don't have something in front of me. This this call can go to 911 or this is regular. Yes.

It's easy. You could follow. And that AI is is a little bit problem. Sometimes, dude, you don't go and your employees call you in the middle of the night. Oh, I called three times, it does not go. It's not your department's problems, AI is new, we have to go. But see if that kind of presentation you can bring them up so we can train. I'm here, but there's a lot of owners or manager in this town. When they call something, they don't know they just call to 911 or they have to call. So I would really appreciate if you bring the presentation so these people can learn and they can give that transaction to them.

Right. I would just if you do get those complaints or you experience those yourself, just hit 0 and get out of the loop. And like you would anyways, if it was a traditional phone tree where they say, listen to the following, because they've just changed when they never really changed. But and then you go through and you try to figure out what number you're hitting. If you hit 0, you can get out of that system like we used to have. The same way I would tell people if they have some concerns about it, hit 0, get out, talk to a dispatcher. So and then we will bring that presentation to you. Thank you. Yes, no problem.

Just thank you for this. I actually look forward to it. So my suggestion to you is don't let Ms. Cobley bully you for only five minutes.

She bullies me every day, but that's okay.

No. I did I did enjoy it. I do have a just a clarification. Your moving violations, does that include those e bikes? Or is it

It could. Yes. It would. Yeah. So moving violations are gonna be other than equipment issues. So tinted windows wouldn't be a moving violation, let's say, for example. But running a stop sign is, or speeding in those things. So if you're riding a scooter type two, you know, scooter or something and get a citation for that. That's going to be a moving excuse me, a moving violation.

Gotcha. Just I thought so, but wasn't 100% sure. And I actually look forward to seeing our officers on e bikes. Think that'll be fun.

Yes.

Alright. Anything else? Do we have any public comment? No. Okay. And we just we don't have we're just accepting this. Right? Or we're just receiving the presentation, so we don't need a motion. Alright. So we can move on to m. Any communication? None. City clerk's report? None. Comments by staff?

Parks and rec director Armando Solis.

Good evening, mayor and city council. I just wanted to remind you that our Saturday market kicks off this Saturday. We're we have a 148 vendors, and we will fill up fourth from b to d and c all the way to the alley. So

To the where? I'm sorry.

To the alley right next to Esther Lulevale. Gotcha.

And that's it.

Alright. Comments by city council. Vice mayor Reid.

I do have one. I would like to request a future agenda item for my annual council discrepancy spending account of the $1,000 to be given to the Saint Martin Foundation. I attended one of their fundraisers this last weekend. The pasta and bingo, the mayor was there. Councilman farm or farmer. That's farmer over

here. You're Patton. Yeah.

He was there. We had a great time. But the Saint Martin Foundation is a small nonprofit here that started in 2022 that operates transitional sober living housing for people recovering from addiction, helping them reintegrate into the society through housing, job assistance, recovery. So I didn't realize exact or I knew what they did, but the fundraiser was a very eye opening experience. So I would like to see that on a future agenda item.

Will do.

Other than that, thanks everybody for coming. Thank you for your public comments. And thank you for your presentation. I'm going to take this to the library authority and say this is what crime under control looks like. That's all.

Alright. Council member Pratt.

I did attend the the the item, the Saint Martin's. That was the same thing. I didn't know as much about it as I did when I attended. It was very well very well put together. It was good. Also attended the the funeral for Gloria Stemler. You know? And I've known Gloria because her mother her daughter was in my school class, and so I knew most of the kids. But I didn't know all the things that she had done. So it was definitely a big loss to our community to see her go. But beyond that, that's it.

Thank you. Council member Sandhu.

Yes. Very quick. Thank you for the staff. Their good report. Thank you for their hardworking. Thank you for the public comment. And thank you for anybody come to this meeting. And I also attend the Zed Martin event, but I was I was not stayed alone. That's why vice mayor might be forget to see me. I know I have

to I

have to attend another event, so that's why I left. Thank you. Thank you.

Council member Farmer.

Not a whole lot. I just wanna say thanks to Parks and Rec and the Public Works for, you know, I pass along a lot of things to you guys, little things. And you guys have been super good about being prompt about stuff, whether it's, you know, a question about a park. Like, I'll text Armando. I don't really text Trung. I don't even think I have his number, but I do pass things along through you, through Amy or whatever. But you've been really quick about responding. I appreciate that. And about accommodating, you know, things in certain situations and stuff. So I I appreciate being very prompt on that stuff.

I forget what something was. Oh, I think I might have already thanked you and your team for this, but the when I brought forward that there was a lot of concern in the community about the curbs and things not being properly painted and reflectors, like, literally was the next day you guys were out there. I couldn't even believe how fast you guys were out there. So doesn't go unnoticed. So I think that's all I have really. Haven't attended much. But I appreciate you guys going to Saint Martin. I missed it that night. I had planned to go. I found out all four council members were there, and I wasn't. It makes you made me feel bad. But it also made me feel good because there was a time when it was like, I was only like one of two council members that ever would go to anything. And now it's like all the council's going to all the things. So I like that.

Almost all of them.

Right? Yeah. So but that's all I have, Ms. Mayer. Thanks.

A couple of things. Thank you so much, Rodney, for our microphone. I don't know if anybody else noticed, but the microphone is attached. That's exciting. Thank you.

Also, really quick, Trung, I don't know that you know. How much longer do we need to be advertising for that stop sign at Carillon? Will that be going in soon?

We're still on schedule to install it by the end of this month.

By the end of

this month?

Yeah. The latest was we're kinda coordinating with the developer there. They set us working with them on it. So they marked up something for us, and so we're reviewing that. So it should happen here pretty quickly. We're working to find out the outreach part. And so by the end of this month, per schedule.

That's great.

And speed limit signs, weren't they gonna go out there also?

Down Carillon on that South end?

Yeah. I'm sorry, one more time?

Speed limit signs in that for that same area?

Yeah. The speed limit signs has been posted. And I think that was posted last

week. On Basso?

Yes.

Okay. What about on Carillon? On Carillon as well? Yep.

I mean, Simmerhorn

and And Bassel. Am I saying that streak correctly? Bassel? Okay. I've heard it so many different ways. Also, a quick question. I don't know that anybody knows the answer. E bikes don't fit in regular bike racks, do they? And if that's the case, do we have to should we do we need to research that or look into that if we're going have more people on anyway, just a thought. We don't need an answer right now, but it just I didn't know.

Most of our bike racks are a certain design. They're not like the old ones where it's like the size of the tire.

They're usually

just these bars where you cable your bike to whatever. I don't know of any in the city that

Since most of our facilities have bike racks typically, they will fit. The ones they won't fit are the fat tires that go in tire first. But most of them are now where you're, locked into the frame versus the tire.

Gotcha.

I when I ride the commuter bus through Downtown Sacramento, they have fancy ones that look like a bike and all the things. But the bikes are chained to the street signs, not the bike rack. So I don't know that they really matter. But This was brought up many moons ago before I was on counsel. I don't know that it got explored, so I'm not necessarily proposing that we do this right now, but it's just some food for thought, especially since we just approved a public works contract.

Maybe looking into an ordinance that gives small business advantage. I know many moons ago with the contractor that was doing the street work on 4th was outbid by like $40 or something and it was a small business from town that got outbid and had we had something similar to what the state has for small businesses small business incentive, they would have been awarded

I think when when we talked about this before that public works, I guess there's laws that say for for for public projects, you have to use the low, you cannot. But outside of that, we could have we do have.

We do have something in ordinance that allows, city businesses that's either 5% or 10%.

Well, know that's for procurement for supplies.

Yeah. But

contracts I mean, which is great. But, I mean, the state does public works contracts that way with a small business incentive for public works contracts. So I don't know. Something to maybe think about. I just it just crossed my mind. Not that that would have done anything different with this contract, but when I looked at it, thought, well, that would have been interesting if we if they were pretty close and you had a small business from town who had anyway, just something to

Are you proposing a future agenda item?

I actually would more propose maybe staff look into it

support staff

Not looking into Okay.

And they'll write back to us. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. Anything else? Alright. With that, we'll go ahead and close this meeting at 07:32.