Town Council - Special Meeting

All right. Good evening everyone. Um I will uh now convene this special meeting of the town council. Um clerk, can we have a role? Council member here. Council member Hudis here. Council member Bidami here. Vice Mayor Risto here. Mayor Moore

here. Uh we'll start with verbal communications which is only for items that are on the agenda. I have one comment card from Gus who it's like a dja vu thing but I have to put this on the record. Uh verbal communications members of the public are welcome to address the town council. Uh you know but we can't use the resources. Um I I wish that uh you know the this is quickly done. Th there's a town of Lascatus. You you did the planning for tomorrow, but I wish that you'd give us uh um in general when you call these meetings, special meetings, you give us a little bit more time to, you know, put it in the paper, you know, because we don't a lot a lot of people don't look on and see what's on on the agenda. And uh you know that's I just wanted to get that on the record for verbal in March Madness. Yay.

Thank you. Um we will now move to item one.

I have a brief oral presentation. So uh after the uh town council just received the presentation from uh UFI as part of the joint meeting uh with the finance commission and we did want to have that meeting. As a um follow-up to council direction, the last time we were before council talking about potential revenue options, um what staff is looking for are direction on how to proceed regarding the revenue options that have been presented. Uh in particular, it'd be helpful to receive council direction on the following. Uh which of these options are more appealing to the council? Uh this would help focus staff as we move forward. Would the council like staff to continue to proceed with preserving revenue options but postponing a decision until as after fiscal analysis work by NHA advisers is complete? And as we mentioned in the previous meeting, we're anticipating those coming to the finance commission work from NHA adviserss on uh April uh 14th and to council on uh April 21st. Uh lastly, if there's any additional analysis or research that the council would like to see as well. And with that, uh, concludes my presentation. I'm available for any questions you may have. And I also have, uh, Wingy Fox in the audience here and, uh, Jim Morris, uh, both with UFI as well in case there's any additional questions for them.

Thank you very much, Director Alfaro. Um, questions of staff.

Yes, Council Member Hudus. Um, one of the things which I forgot to ask in the previous session um was about uh franchise taxes and um our I noticed our franchise taxes have been flat forever. Um and my question is is there any opportunity to increase our franchise taxes? And I don't think it was discussed in the in the presentation. Uh that I don't have that in information in front of me. I don't know if Winky or Jim may have some information on our ability to increase that tax rate for business license tax is certainly something if it's requested by council for us to come back with more information. Same type of structure but looking at that type of tax. It's not something we've looked at for the town yet. Yeah, I wouldn't add up to five million, but we may be putting things together from various pieces. Um, so maybe just if information were provided um on to our finance director on or administrative services director on that, that would be helpful. Other questions for staff? Okay, seeing no other questions, um I will go to the public and we have one uh comment from Gus who

Hi guys, we talked about this. I like the franchise tax uh thing, you know, that might work out, you know, for like a Cat in the Hat Town and I can, you know, use the Cat in the Hat logo, you know, in a background when I, you know, write my memor or, you know, whatever. Um but uh yeah, again I think there's better ways to I like to point out that one of the comments was uh uh about two years ago that you tried pushing a tax on on the thing and couple only a couple people were here. Jack, I remember looking up and they use Jack got to use the screen but it was just a blur and it was on uh you know he it went it was like a measure G I think and uh you know I was talking about soccer and you but um but I I'd like to just point out that uh the the fire I think we can save there. I I gave you that that uh picture I gave you that couple years ago. Um the the county already has uh uh uh fire services and we're paying taxes into that. So keep that in mind when you you know we save 3 million there put it all give do what Saratoga did did uh give it you know put up you know it's just mindboggling and then another million from for the soccer field you'll save easily and then uh also there was the the street and drainage that was a million so that's five million right there and so I just want to put that on the record that, you know, we didn't have enough time to look at the there was 116 pages and like I said, it was it was on Saturday when I saw it. I'm not to go waste my time on the weekend, but you know, you give somebody some people out here some time to look at things.

They'll pick you apart and say, "This is how we can say this is this is good, this is bad." You know, like the franchise tax, I think that would be something that people, you know, with the logo in the back with the things World Cup coming up, things like that. You can you can do that because we have a winning. You know, that's still not too late to to to put put a little bit of effort into that and give us g get give the town an opportunity people to make you know they live here they can be all become things. Okay. Sorry for whatever. Bye. Thank you. Going back to the council,

town manager, I think the robust conversation that we had before the council tended to indicate that you'd like additional information, which I think the three studies, at least the two studies from NHA would provide. I think from the first conversation we had preserving our option when it comes to a sale tax exemption that we should continue down that path. And so one recommendation you could consider is asking that we come back after we're able to go through the data that comes from NHA before making any decision on a future revenue measure.

It's a good suggestion. Yes, Vice Mayor Stow.

Thank you. I'm I was thinking, you know, option two and three are what makes sense on here in terms of the questions because I don't think um I at least I'm not ready to weigh in on which option is more appealing. I think we have to have a really better understanding from the studies of, you know, what the impacts are going to be or the benefits of our housing element, what other things are coming up because I think we're going to have to understand where we're going to need money on what type of thing and that might drive the choice and I certainly am not ready to make that um any decision. So, I think we want to uh continue, but of course continue working on the um legislative fix.

Great. Is that a a motion? Do we need a motion? Guess we kind of don't need a motion, right? I think if you have general general direction, I'm I'm not hearing any opposition to what Vice Morristo just said is I'm not hearing it. So, um, if unless the council says otherwise, what we'll do is we'll be sending out the two different memos that are assumptions for both the financial condition and tenure forecast as well as the revenue implic or expenditure implications of the implementation of the housing element and general plan. So that should come out. I believe this week is when we will be we will be releasing it early to both the council and the finance commission as well as to the public to have access to it for about 3 weeks. Um both documents together are approximately about 44 45 pages but it's full with incredible information about the assumptions as well as a projection of the next 10 years and what the deficits look like versus what we have today. And then after those conversations which would be Monday, April 13th for the finance commission. And then the following, we will be taking the input from the commission and adding it to the staff report that goes to council for the meeting of April the 21st. And that's when we'll have a chance to talk as a council with the assumptions and give us any feedback on those assumptions. And based on that feedback, NHA and its subcontractors, Raphelis and Wildan will revise their and build up to their final report, which we estimate the presentation of the final report coming in early May. And it will be at the same time when we're talking about the capital improvement program and elements of the budget. And then you can provide direction at that time.

Great. Okay, unless anyone else has any comments. Anything else from staff? We actually did a fast meeting this time. This meeting is adjourned.