City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the regular meeting of the Madera City Council, Wednesday, March 18th, 2026. What a beautiful crowd we have tonight. Could you start us off, City Clerk Gonzalez?

The Madera City Council. The majority council meetings are open to the public. This meeting will also be available for public viewing and participation through zoom members of the public may also observe the live stream meeting on the city's website at www dot dot gov forward slash live members of the public may comment on agenda items at the meeting or remotely through an electronic meeting via phone by dialing 669 900 6833. Enter ID 879-9267-6799 pound. Press star 9 to raise your hand to comment and star 6 to unmute yourself to speak. Comments will also be accepted via email at citycouncilpubliccomment at madera.gov or by regular mail at 205 West 4th Street, Madera, California 93637. We'd also like to remind members of the public that Wordly is available for translation services.

Thank you for that. Roll call, please.

Mayor Gallegos.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah.

Here.

Council Member Rodriguez. Here. Council Member Montes.

Here.

Council Member Evans. Here. Council Member Mejia.

Here.

And Council Member Villegas.

Here. Thank you for that. At this time, if I could ask everyone to please stand for an invocation by Pastor Mike Sosa. And the Pledge of Allegiance will be given by Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah.

It's a pleasure to be with you all tonight. Would you please bow in prayer? God, you are known by many names, Creator, Redeemer, Life-Giving Spirit, Heavenly Father. While it is a great truth that by your love and grace we know you, it is a greater truth that you know us and what we need even before we ask. We acknowledge the blessing we have of living in this fair community and this pleasant valley. We ask that you continue to provide for and uphold us as we work and live here. We thank you for all our elected city officials who serve this community. We pray that you give them wisdom so that they may govern well. We thank you for the work done by this Council and their predecessors that has made Madera a safe, productive, and inviting place to live. Continue to direct them in the work that is before them. We pray in the name that is above all names. Amen.

Thank you, Pastor and Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah. Moving on to the approval of the agenda. Do my colleagues have any questions, concerns, or comments? If not, I entertain a motion.

Mayor, if I may, we are requesting that item B5 is pulled, and that is at the request of the applicant. That's item B5 under the consent calendar.

Thank you for that. And for the record, to Council Member Evans, I believe you have the first, and Council Member Villegas, I believe you have the second. Are you fine with that removal? Thank you very much.

I have a request, Mayor. Sure. I would like to request the inclusion of my nomination for the Woman of the Year program.

So there has been a first to modify the initial motion. There needs to be a second that motion. Then there would be a vote whether or not that substitutes the primary motion.

Okay. Can we have discussion for that?

Yes. Okay.

So my question would be, why was, why do we need to add this to our program?

um to we would need to add it to be included to for the selection to be honored tonight um as uh my selection for district five okay and the criteria i guess i should say that now

um for woman of the year there's a criteria and there's three areas um i was going to put that part of my presentation the most important thing is the woman of the year is the city of madera woman of the year award and it needs to really represent us in our districts that we are voted on and elected by so one of the criteria is you must reside in district in your district and reside in madera for five years or more We've had several people in the county that could be great recipients of this nomination and this award every year that we've done it. We've had several council members vote and nominate county women that have been involved in our community. But again, this is a City of Madera award, and the criteria is pretty well black and white. Just like if you apply for a grant and you have to meet criteria. If you don't meet the criteria, your grant will not go forward. When you apply for a driver's license, you have to meet the criteria. You have to be of age. You have to have behind the wheel training. If you don't meet the right criteria, you can't get a driver's license. As electives and government officials, I feel that we should follow the rules. We have a lot of women in our city that represents our districts very well. I could rattle off 10 names off the bat. I started this program five years ago and I wanted to nominate a woman of the year. She wasn't in my district. So I wasn't able to bring her to this council and have her recognized because those are the rules. um you've elected us to follow rules and that's what we do uh the nomination that councilwoman he is speaking of is not a resident of the city of madera therefore she does not meet the right criteria she's a wonderful woman she's an advocate for a lot of for residents in her district and in the city but again you hold us to a higher level to follow rules and i would hope that my colleagues would do that it wasn't something that was brought upon It's a criteria that's been there five years. It was given by Esmeralda, Assemblywoman Esmeralda Soya. And if there was ever a question in place, I would hope that that would have been brought to my attention way before tonight in front of our residents tonight. And so that is why This is being brought in. It's not in a part of our program tonight. I would yield to give Councilwoman Mejia her nomination at public comment and give her six minutes extra time to recognize her woman of the year who does not reside in the city of Madera. So I have questions. Councilmember Montez.

Yeah, so my question is, is that criteria codified in anything that the city council has adopted? no it's a program that i brought to the city we never had woman of the year okay so uh again uh i think that because it's a district nomination we have uh honored people that have done great things in in different districts one that comes to mind that was a you know big contributor of mine uh as far as professional development uh mentorship was jim talbert right we are honoring him in the east side of madera and he was never a resident there I think that for this, there essentially are no codified rules, right? It's something that the council does have discretion to do. And I think the council member would be best, the council member for that district would be the best person to gauge who they can nominate for the district that they represent, that the people have elected them to represent. So those are my comments. But I think we should move forward with the council member's nomination being part of the program tonight.

Thank you for your comment. I disagree because we do have rules. We do have a criteria and that was set in place. Councilwoman Mejia.

I would like to clarify that my selection currently does a lot of work for District 5 residents and is a former resident of District 5. While they no longer live within the City, they have long done a lot of impactful work for both district five residents and all of the city of madera as well as the county and house housing related issues um i would also like to clarify that when that program was started there was no input from all of council all of the body yet um i don't know a lot of people may or may not know that each council member only gets 800 a fiscal year to be able to spend in however they choose while we did not have input As far as the guidelines, the money was drawn from our accounts. So I believe that if we have. If we advocate for transparency from government, from the public, it should start within ourselves with each of our colleagues. If the money is going to be drawn from our accounts, we should have a say as far as how that criteria is established.

That's true, Councilwoman Mejia. But again, it's optional. When I did it five years ago and honored women, when I started this program, I was very clear. It's optional. You don't have to use that money to honor a woman of the year in your district. So it's not something that has to come out of your account. It's truly your option as a council member. You can choose to buy your own flowers that are less or an award that is less. um again that is you that's being very transparent um we did have a couple council members that certain years didn't honor a woman because they weren't here or they didn't get around to the paperwork um that has happened and it's been very clear councilwoman council member rodriguez thank you america eagles first of all let me recognize the passion that exists between these women

I want to appreciate them 1st, because the 1 thing that we're not going to do is take away the moment of appreciating those women. So, with that, in spirit of that, I think you guys both advocate good points. But I do feel that we are going to continue to move forward with the celebration. There is a 1st and a 2nd already on the floor. So I will ask that we go through the process of, uh. making that vote and moving on and adopting the agenda so we can continue this beautiful celebration again both of you strong passionate women will articulate your points i think you guys are well uh good arguments but we still can't take that away from the moment that we have here today which is let's celebrate the women of the year and with that we have councilwoman evans has a comment i'll go ahead on al ditto um councilmember mejia i do understand i do understand that this is

great celebration and I adhere to that but I also say that if we're going to be doing something then it needs to be written out so that we can all vote on it and then we can move forward on it but I'm gonna leave it at that and I hear back thank you what a sad day for the city of Madera today I have a motion and a second all those in favor say aye aye those opposed nay motion passes

six to one, correct?

Mayor, that's a secondary motion to amend the primary motion. So there still needs to be a primary motion to approve the agenda. Okay. And there's already been a first by Council Member Evans, a second by Council Member Villegas. She needs to vote. Okay.

All those in favor for approving the agenda?

Aye.

Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for that.

Okay.

and moving on to presentations is woman of the year good evening everyone thank you for being here tonight um on this special day of woman of the year in the city of madera a resident of the city and it starts with women's from the past the present and the future. And I see a lot of women in the audience that know how much we carry on our backs as women and all the work that we do in this community and what you do in your homes with your family. And a lot of it is given without recognition. We do it because that's who we are. And so here are a few women from our past that have really impacted, I think, us as women and even us in our community. We have Corrie Ten Boone. She was a Christian woman who was very strong in her Christianity, who helped the Jews escape the Holocaust and lived to be 91. Boy, has she had a bird's eye view of what's happening in this world. We also have Catherine, Dorothy, and Mary, who were African-American women who changed our world in engineering and mathematics. Dr. Ellen Ochoa, who was the first woman to be in space. who is a symbol of peace, and Helen Keller, who overcame immense chances as a woman who was blind and deaf. At first, we need to really thank our mothers. We are strong women in who we are because of our mothers. They have laid the foundation for us. They have laid the path. We have seen great things from them, and that's who we are today if you look at our backgrounds. So at this time, I started this program because I felt in this city, we weren't honoring the women in our community that do so much for us and volunteer their dedication and courage. They their passion for this Community and their hard work, so I had been on Council for five years when I started this program so I honored five women in my district. And not all of them are here today, because there is events that are going on throughout the Community, but I do have several of them that are here. One of my first ones was Christina Rache if she could please come up. I also have Alicia Brown.

Tilly Morales.

Tilly, Tilly, come on up. Grab flowers, please. And these past recipients are going to be handing the flowers to the new ones. Sally Bonprezzi. Daphne Nathan. Michelle Oberti Desmond. And we're blessed to have 2 other women that we also honor the council and the mayor honors staff members. And they, I see 1 in the audience and that's purple. Oh, and and Lieutenant are those in the back. So, give them away. Can you give away so they know who you are. Thank you for all that you do. So I'm going to kick it off with my first woman of the year. And I'm going to call her up and tell you all about her. There's programs that say a lot of her bio, but I'm just going to highlight some of the things that I feel that's deserving of her being my woman of the year 2026. And that is, well, maybe I should back it up. All these years, you can talk to these ladies. Forgive me, God. I lied to get them here. It's a surprise. They have no idea why they're here. So they kind of look around and see their family and thinking, oh my gosh, why are my family here? And I've been very successful all these years on getting the women here secretly. So my woman of the year has no idea. She thinks she's here to present a book that she wrote that's amazing that I'll talk about. And this is going to Victoria Vincent. So a little bit about Victoria. She's amazing, a remarkable leader in this community. She's been able to receive the Angel Award. And until I met her, I didn't even know what the Angel Award is. It's a international Christian film and music festival award. She has received it several times for spreading kindness. And part of that kindness is she wrote her own children's book that's called The City of Kind Words. And she goes throughout this nation, not just the city and not just the state, sharing this book of kindness and teaching children how important it is. She's also an advocate for breast cancer. She put on BYOB, Bring Your Own Bra, designing it, and then they're auctioning them off for breast cancer awareness. The one thing that really hit me for her is for decades, she's an interior designer. She makes the most amazing clothes that you've ever seen. And for decades, she used to have a shop in Madera. And at the end of the season, she would donate her clothes to young girls who couldn't afford them. And these are like designer clothes. And one of these young ladies came to me and said, oh my gosh, I remember her. She gave my sisters a family of 12 And again, you know, it's hard to really raise that many children. She donated her clothes because the girls would walk by and look in her windows and were just like, oh, my gosh, if I could only afford that outfit. She gave him those outfits. And the one young lady who spoke to me said, I wore that outfit till it was shredded. And I thought I was all that in this designer outfit. And we looked for the picture and couldn't find it to present to you today. But for a decade, she has been giving clothes. of herself and her skills and her gift from God. And she's been expiring to young high school kids. Her generosity helps live this community. And that is why Victoria Vincent is my Mayor's Woman of the Year 2026. At this time, I'd like to call up Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah, District 1.

Thank you. And at this time, I'd like to call up Vicki Garcia and her family.

And family. Yeah.

Oh, Vicki. Vicki, you for now. Sorry. They can get the day off right now. So, um, just a little bit of background of Vicki Vicki was born and raised in Madera and she has been a obviously a long time resident. She decided to stay, which is always great. Um, Vicki attended Fresno state where she achieved her bachelors and social services and, uh. Working there for a few years, she decided to join the police department where she's been working for 14 years as the dispatcher. What's great about Vicki is her recognition not once, but twice as dispatcher of the year and then as well as being 2025 chief recipient. So I thought it was only great to honor her as somebody as a. kind of a source of inspiration for those that are doing a lot of the hard work. Thankfully, a lot of us don't have to call 911, but when you do, it's nice to have somebody that's on the other side of the line, understanding when you're at your worst moment, that they're there for you, they're there to get you help. And I thought it was only best to recognize somebody like Vicki and her long-term work that she's done for the city. And with that, I'd just like to say thank you.

now i'll bring up council member rodriguez district 2. what an honor it is to see so many beautiful women out here and i want to extend that appreciation to all of you women that are here today

Can you guys hear me?

Okay, good. And also the young ladies that someday will become young women. I want to take that the time to appreciate that. Now, my nominee for this year Women of the Year is Kendra Navarez. You know, over the last couple of years, I've always tried to wing it. And I've tried to speak out from the heart, right? And sometimes I do well. So this time I thought I'd do her right and read so that I can capture everything that Kendra has done. Not only is she a neighbor that I adore, Kendra Nevarez is a lifelong Mederan resident and an independent business entrepreneur whose life reflects service. faith and resilience born and raised in madera correct she has devoted over 30 years uh to remnant church where she strengthens her spiritual foundation and extends that compassion through her missionary work in mexico and countries outside of the continent together with her husband adrian they have built a loving family rooted in faith even opening their home to adopted sons that they have. And they provide them and nurture them with guidance and care. Kendra previously worked for the city in the Madera as a parking enforcement officer until she suffered a brain mass that affected her physical and speech abilities, changing her life and her career path. Determined not to let adversity define her, she started Kendra's Thrift Boutique. And if you guys have ever visited that, that's over on Pine and Howard. Although there was challenges from COVID and post COVID issues and also storm drainage issues that I think we got a lot of calls from you. Yeah. And believe me, we heard you and our city manager is a testament to that. He's he, he got on it pretty quick there. So kudos to our city manager. Nevertheless, she stayed open and continued working with the partners such as Foster Services of Madera and Madera Unified, supporting families in need. Dedicated to growth, Kendra recently finished a computer science class to keep up with the technology. As you all know, AI has now kind of taken over. and the sector of business and the fact that she has her own business she wants to be able to have more impressions out there and be able to capture more people so that her business can thrive so with that um it is a privilege to honor kendra navarez as a 2026 district 2 woman of the year thank you

at this time i'd like to um bring down council member montez district three

I would also like to thank all the strong women in our community, all the leaders, all the recipients of Women of the Year past and current for everything you do for the community. For my recipient this year, oh, I do want to add, I don't lie to my recipient. Right try not to, but I do ask people to like, for me, so I don't know if that's better or worse, but we get them down here and we like it to be a surprise. But my recipient for district 3 is Marie Luna for this year. So I had nominated her partner in crime in a previous, and that was a hard decision for me. I always intended to do both of you guys, but one had to come before the other. But I'm also going to read, and then I'll add some stuff in. So Maria is a resident of District 3 and a lifelong Medarin. Maria has been married to her loving partner, Bill, for 27 years. Maria has been an active member, very active member, of her neighborhood and worked at the Bridge Shore for over 30 years before it closed. More recently, Marie has become a vocal advocate for her neighborhood, serving as a neighborhood watch captain, letting me know of all the things that are happening in the neighborhood. And as a board member of matters, transit advisory board, so when she called me and I say, hey, something, something needs to be fixed. You know what? I have the perfect job for you. You can come and you can advocate for the community and get a job. Marie has strong roots in the area and she is a native American belonging to the tribe tribe when Marie is not advocating for her neighborhood. She also advocates for other areas. She is passionate about, like, education. animals and nature. Marie also participates in local clubs, gardening, and gym workouts to stay fit. While on about, Maria will take note of concerns and advise the city, again, our city manager and everybody can attest to that, city of issues in her area, and especially ones impacting children attending Washington School. District 3 is lucky to have Marie as an ally and a strong voice for what is needed in the community. So thank you for everything that you do.

You're welcome.

I'll bring up Councilman Evans, District 4.

First and foremost, blessings to each and every one of you that have taken the time to come on this afternoon. And to the mighty women, the phenomenal women, the mothers, the grandmothers, the great grandmothers, I salute you. Being a parent, being a mother, yes. Take your round because you so, so, so deserve it. This is not an easy task to be a mother. And first and foremost, it's not an easy task to be a woman. So thank you so very much. Now for me, for District 4, this young lady, I have known since I became city councilwoman. and i'm going to bring her up but i knew of her always as carmen perez but then just here recently i found out her name is maria carmen perez so would you please come my darling now i met maria through her gracious brother which was the principal at James Monroe Elementary in my district, and that is Mr. Leonard Breth. Maria Carmen Perez is a proud lifelong member of Madera and a graduate of Madera High School who dedicated her life to her family, community, and the schools that support generations of her loved ones, which those are her children right there, that row right there. grand and no great-grandfather it's great i got you i got you okay um she spent 20 years working at denise packing and for the past decades has served as front office manager at schaefer ranch where she is respected by her colleagues and supported by her employer yes mr steve schaefer maria's connection to madera unified school district is truly multi-generational her siblings children and now her grandchildren have all attended the same school my goodness she is deeply valued there yes you are yes you are she is familiar and enthusiastic presence at the school events including assemblies awards banquets back to school nights and open houses maria generously volunteers her time organizing school dances supporting communities and helping create meaningful experiences for the students and her family. Beyond the schools, Maria is known for her strong commitment to Madera community. She regularly volunteers at local events, organizes and distributes clothes for families in need, and supports efforts that bring people together. Through her compassion, generosity, and dedication in family and community, Maria Carmen Perez continues to uplift those around her and make Madeira stronger, a stronger place for this generation. Thank you.

Thank you. At this time, I'd like to bring up Council Member Villegas for District 6.

good evening everybody welcome this is a very nice celebration today a lot of people thank you uh amala taylor can you please come over here please all right Okay, Pamela Taylor was born in Madera, California in 1954. Later, she graduated from Madera High School in 1972. After that, she moved to Silicon Valley to obtain a Employment up to 22 years, relocated back to the Central Valley, where it has been in Tucson. She also spent time raising her nephew working in finance and payroll and accounting. She decided to become a career change and enroll in material community college and. She graduated in 2013 with an associate degree in administration. This started at the beginning of her community service. Since 2011, she has her neighborhood watch captain working tireless to promote safety engagements in collaboration with her community. Her leadership role was fostering strong connection among neighbors, exchange public awareness around locals safely, uh from 2012 2020 she shared a volunteer planning commission contributed inside commitment to shaping policies that benefit the broad community her passion for service extends deeply into spiritual life since 2014 she has been actively involved with remand church and madera where she served as a missionary worker ministry leader attending outreach programs, and guiding efforts to support those in need through her work. Pamela's passion, integrity, and education to create and fuel impact. Her ability to inspire, organize, and help lead those around her how to strengthen both civic and spiritual community alike. At this time I call Councilman Mejia. Good evening.

At this time, I would like to thank and call all of my past Women of the Year recipients who are all here today, starting with last year's, Ms. Michelle Birdy Desmond. Can you please join me? Can we get a round of applause, please? Can we have Jessica Flores de Jesus, who was selected in 2024? And Ms. Leonor Ippolito, the recipient from 2023. And at this time, if we could all get a big round of applause for this year's Women of the Year for District 5, Joanna Torres. Congratulations. Joanna Torres's advocacy work has long made a meaningful impact in District 5 and beyond. Through her work at California Rural Legal Assistance, she has helped many residents from District 5 and all of Madera remain in their homes while supporting them through a range of housing-related challenges. She demonstrates courage by consistently standing up and speaking out on behalf of others in both private and public spaces, including at Madera City Council meetings. Her commitment to community service is evident. through her involvement in a variety of local initiatives, from helping create safe spaces for LGBTQ plus youth through the Madeira Rainbow Coalition, to promoting civic engagement as a member of the local NAACP, to supporting border turnout efforts through Madeira Boats, which she co-founded. Joanna's passion for strengthening the community is evident in all that she does. She not only participates, she leads, encouraging others to get involved and give back. Whether volunteering with the Valley Watch Network or supporting in the organization of indigenous community events, Joanna consistently helps create spaces where people feel safe, valued, and included. Her work extends beyond volunteerism. She advocates for individuals and families in underserved communities, champions equal rights, and works to ensure every voice is heard. She believes in a strong community She believes a strong community is one where everyone, regardless of background or identity, has dignity, opportunity, and a voice. People like Joanna remind us that meaningful change doesn't happen only through policy or meetings. It happens through compassion, action, and the courage to stand up for others. Our community is stronger because of individuals like Joanna Torres who dedicate their time to uplifting others and building a Madeira where everyone belongs. Congratulations, Woman of the Year for District 5.

And our last recipient is going to be recognized for a city staff member. And I'd help not telling the truth here. So I don't know if she's in our foray. She is. So she's going to hear her name for the first time before I read off why she's an exceptional woman of the year for this year, 2026. So if Ellen Bitter is in the foray, if she could come on down. So we have seen remarkable things come from Ellen, but this is some of what her director has said. And we have seen it as council member and as mayor, her astounding work here in the city of Madera. She served here in two different The first one was in 1992 to 1997, during which time she was designated as an acting city engineer on two occasions. Her second period of serving began in November of 2009 as a part-time employee because she was raising her kids. For several years, we asked if she would consider transitioning to full-time, and we finally got her in 2020. She agreed. We were so lucky. The city has greatly benefited from this decision. As deputy city engineer responsibilities for the capital improvement program, Ellen has helped move numerous, numerous important projects forward. These include expansion and repair work at the city's wastewater treatment plant upgrades to the city. 100000 gallon elevated water tank. An expanded pavement management program. multiple sidewalk programs and projects, and designated a 2.5 million gallon water tank and 24-inch water main, continued water meter installations, and the construction of several traffic signals. Allen has also demonstrated strong leaderships during crucial moments, and I'm telling you, crucial, where nobody could find answers. Allen went digging through boxes and files to get us answers that we needed to make those repairs. So it's amazing. That was when we had, if you remember, the tanker that went into like a sewer line and she was like point to make sure everybody was safe. We had we diverted the sewer with everything going. And that was the failure on Pekin Avenue that we've had known. We were working on that for years. Her ability to coordinate complex projects under pressure. We're talking major pressure and in the heat of the sun reflects both her expertize and her commitment to our community. Through decades of service Alan has helped shape and strengthen the infrastructure of our city and infrastructures down below, which is not a sexy thing to talk about it and nobody even worries about it because it's all covered. But Ellen has compassion for it for her dedication leadership and lasting contributions we proudly recognize her as woman of the year and staff member Ellen better. So at this time, we're gonna have the women of the year and the council members for a photo op. So a family or friends would like to take pictures. We extend our sincere congratulations to all the women of the year, 2026 City of Madera, and your outstanding dedication, courage, and commitment to service while living in our community. your contributions and volunteerism has made a meaningful and lasting impact on this community, helping strengthen and enrich every community member in the city of Madera. At this time, we have cupcakes and water in the foray if everybody wants to make their way, or you can stay for the photo moment. We will be taking a recess for about 20 to 30 minutes so that we can take some pictures with our Women of the Year and the families, and then we have A big agenda meeting that we have to get to to make sure that we're doing business for all of you here in the city of Madera. So I thank you from the bottom of my heart. And my council thanks you for being here tonight to recognize amazing women.

Which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the council speaker shall be limited to 3 minutes. Speakers will be asked, but are not required to identify themselves and state the subject of their comments. If the subject is an item on the agenda, the mayor has the option of asking the speaker to hold the comment until that item is called comments on items. Listed as public hearing on the agenda should be held until the hearing is open. The council is prohibited by law from taking any action on matters discussed that are not on the agenda and no adverse conclusions should be drawn if the council does not respond to public comment at this time.

Thank you for that. I open it up to public comment. Anybody in the chamber would like to speak. I see none. Anyone online or on zoom city clerk?

We have none mayor.

Thank you. I closed public comment at this time and move on to the next item.

Is item a one public hearing for the program year 2627 Community development block grant CDB G and home investment partner partnerships program annual action plan.

Thank you for that. I'll be presented by our financial director, Lima, and I think you have quite a few here, so you'll be joining us for a while.

Yes, I think I'm on. Yes, I will be here for a while. I beg your indulgence. You'll probably get tired of me by the time the night's over with, so I beg your indulgence while I go through these.

Oh, where are you? There you are.

I think I'm good. Yeah, I think we're good. Yes, I'm getting the thumbs up. Okay, that's good. I have two more shows that took Chansey this week. Okay. So thank you, Council, Mayor, council members, Mike Lima, Director of Financial Services here tonight for to present item A1 public hearing for CDBG and home funding proposals. So some background, the city's an entitlement grantee under HUD regulations. What that means is we get our money directly from the feds. It does not come through the state. HUD requires that the grantees adopt a five-year consolidated plan for continued participation in CDBG and home programs. The con plan kind of just spells out what it is we're going to spend this money on over a five-year period. And then annually, we have to submit an annual action plan, which says specifically what is going to be spent this upcoming fiscal year. The program 2627 annual action plan is the second of five that support the fiscal years 25 through 29 con plan. So we are here tonight to propose some funding for various projects and also for various organizations. So I'll be discussing tonight CDBG as well as home allocations and also the unexpended revolving loan program income funds, which we discussed at our last council meeting. The con plan has a focus. The primary focus on it is on low and moderate income households. The priorities identified in the con plan increase in affordable housing, enhance public improvements and public infrastructure, address homeless needs and services, improve public services and enhance community and economic development. As part of the process, there is a citizen participation process. So we use that to issue out the a notice saying that they that the public has 30 days to review and comment on the proposed funding, and the council will hold a public hearing. We posted that notice on March 4, public comment period will expire on April 4 of this year. As of as of Half an hour ago, no public comments have been received. The deadline to submit our annual action plan to HUD is May 15, 2026. So HUD gives out money, CDBG funding, to entitlement jurisdictions, as I mentioned, through a submission of an annual action plan. Any of the activities that are in there must support one of three national objectives. Benefit low to moderate income persons, aid in the prevention or elimination of slums or blight, and meet a need having a particular urgency referred to as urgent need. So on December 8 of last year we released a request for proposal inviting entities to submit for the funding cycle, we have 13 applications. The block grant Commission met on March 2 to review those applications provide funding recommendations and those funding recommendations were based were funded across three different categories and i'll go through those right now. Oh, one other thing before we get really into this. As of today, we have not received the funding allocation from the feds. So we don't know exactly how many dollars, but it's within 10% of our current year allotment. Current year allotment is $989,791. That is what we took to the Block Grant Commission to ask them allocate $989,791 across these organizations, across the folks that submitted. David Casimir- I again one last set of guidelines, you can spend no more than 20% on admin 15% on public service and there is no maximum threshold on capital improvements, so you can see the dollar amounts that are there on the side what that translates you and i'll get into those in a bit. So on the admin side, we had two applicants. We have the city, uh, for, uh, our, uh, action plan or CDBG administration, uh, the block grant commission, uh, recommended $182,958. Um, the, uh, we also, uh, CAP MC put in an application for the point in time count administration of 15,000. That was fully, uh, the block grant commission is recommending full funding of that, uh, of that application. So total, 197,958, which is exactly the 20% that's allowed for admin. For public service, we've got several groups that have received recommendations from the Block Grant Commission, CAPMC, this time for housing stabilization. They applied Pequeno's Impresarios, also applied Project Run, applied Olive, The Bennett House Applied, United Way, Madera County Food Bank, and then our Parks Department with our Senior Meals Program. So this gives you kind of a snapshot of all those groups. And as you can see, only one of them received the full amount that they requested. That's all of them. They requested $15,000, and that's what they received. All the rest received less than what they had applied for. But again, we're kind of restrained by that 15% cap on organizations. So the maximum pie was $148,468, even though there was 440,000 of requests. And so the Block Grant Commission came up with these recommendations, 30,000 to CAP MC, zero to Pequeno's and Presario's, 15,000 to Project Run, Again, $15,000 to Olive, $15,000 to United Way, $43,468 to the food bank, and $30,000 to the city's park department. finally on capital projects uh the city submitted four capital projects for consideration uh first is a uh 230 000 for sidewalk and 88 corner ramp improvements this is a project that's been going on where it's been funded for a few years now and this would be a continuation of that funding uh into the upcoming year we also have 51 000 for horseshoe pit design uh and then additionally 78 000 for clinton street widening this would be over uh by the sports complex over on the east side of town basically paving that dirt area so they provide parking i understand that's quite a busy area uh on weekends especially and so provide parking so that folks aren't parking out in the uh on the dirt and uh you know uh in some perhaps a little bit of a dangerous situation. And so we are providing some parking there. And finally, $284,365 for the demolition of the Mexican American and Casa buildings. I believe the staff report says 384,365. That would be a typo. It really is 284,365. So grand total being funded under the capital projects is $643,365. uh so uh in addition to that uh as you probably remember from a previous meeting we gave you an update on the cdbg revolving loan fund balance which that program is administered by the economic development commission uh we reached an understanding with them on the level of funding in that program and as a result of that agreement where uh 239 322 is coming back to us for reallocation That can be spent on a capital project. We are recommending that all of it go to the centennial pool project managed by the city's parks department. It should be noted that this council has used CDBG funding for the pools in the past. On May 17, 2023, he allocated $215,000 to replace two of the three pools. And then on August 13th, 2025, you allocated 413,317 for additional work. After that second allocation, there was a leak discovered in the pool system. It was closed last summer. Looks like it's gonna be closed this summer, because it's a pretty significant leak. And given these circumstances, staff is requesting additional funding to evaluate long-term options for that facility. Let's move on to home funds. The city a couple years ago was named an entitlement jurisdiction for home, meaning we're getting our money straight from the feds, not through the state. The allocation that we expect, again, we don't have the actual dollar amount yet, but we expect it's going to be within 10% of the current year entitlement, which is just about $353,500. An eligible home project must be in the form of an affordable housing activity, serve low and moderate income families. And so we are recommending that we fund this to expand the supply, preserve and expand the supply affordable housing. That would be $318,000 with the remaining balance going to the administration of this program. So it's expected that HUD will release the final allocations on March 30th. When they do, these amounts that we're proposing, that we're proposing tonight will need to be modified. And we are looking for direction as to how to spend that difference, basically. So our next steps, we request the council open a public hearing for the current year, or the program year 26-27 CDBG in-home annual action plan funding proposals. We request that you consider any public comments, request that you provide direction in addressing that difference between what we're actually going to get and what we're proposing tonight. And then later in a subsequent meeting, we'll come back to you with review and acceptance of the final annual action plan. And that does it for my presentation. And so I'm going to try something here. I'm really going out on a limb. Okay, no worries. Okay, let's see if this works. Okay, can everyone see that? Hey, it worked, all right. Hi, thank you for that. So that's my presentation. I have the spreadsheet here for the various proposals that you may have for CDBG, and I'm available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll bring it back to my colleagues for comments or concerns. Councilwoman Evans.

Yes. And going back taking a look, we have what we're giving cap MC 15,000 for the point in time count of administration. And then we move on to the next. And we're going to give 30,000 for housing stabilization. For me, because Kevin C receives a multitude of grants. And there's other organizations on here that may not receive as many. So my proposal is to remove at least 10,000 from her, let her go head on and she'll receive, if we took 10,000 from her, then she would at least receive 35, as opposed to the 45,000 for the two and then divide the other 10. And my recommendation, I see here that we have Project Run had asked for 20. She's receiving 15. We have Olive. They asked for 15. They are getting their 15. United Way asked for 50. They're getting 15. So why can't we use that 10,000 and split amongst them? Because there's other grants that CAPMC does receive. Food Bank, I'm fine with that one. That one is good. Our parks, even though they ask for 65, they're getting 30, but we know that they can apply for a grant. But it's also for the senior program, and that's for the foods. And I know that the seniors do go to those facilities, and they do utilize the food that is put there. So that's my comment.

Councilmember Evans, just a clarifying question. When you say take 10,000 from CAP MC, I believe what you're from the 30 that thank you. That's what I needed.

She's already receiving 15 on the slot, the project on the table too. Okay. Yes, that's what I propose.

Any other comments from my colleagues? Councilmember Montes.

Yeah. I appreciate the comments. Um, so we do have a seat on, uh, kept MC board. So I'm the city appointed member. So I just wanted to point on again. I'm not saying that's not a bad thing. I think we do generally reallocate some stuff. Um. The 15,000 dollars for the point in time count is something that really does benefit our continuing care and it actually impacts other dollars that we would get for homelessness. Right? So that's just to administer that count, which. The head says we have to do to receive other funding. So, um, but on on this 1, I mean, I think, uh, as you said at 1st, you said 45,000, because the allocation is only 30 for the 2. oh, okay. Okay.

15 and the 30. yeah.

So then you would pose to do 20. For MC, and then 18, something for each of the other ones.

That's fine.

Right. Cause that would be, what was my math math in today?

If you want to split it that way.

I'm looking at Mike cause Mike catches me when math ain't math in.

If you wanted to add 2000 more, you could add, if you took that 10,000, there's five other groups that were recommended for funding. You could take 2000 a piece and apply it to all of those.

I would say for me personally, the food bank. Yes. I I'm good with that. The 43, that's fine. Um, the parks, if you would like, we could, but I'm looking more so at, uh,

and United Way so it'd be 20 it'd be 20 down the line on those three just getting clarification

Okay, I'm just going to make my comment then. Just so the public knows, we have a committee, the CBG committee that is represented by each council member and the mayor. And they sit and they go through all the projects that list criteria that they have to meet. And they go into depth with them. They spend hours on this, on allocations. And them representing all of us, I am going to stand as what our committee has suggested for the allocations. I just want to make a point of reference when it comes to CAP MC at the administrative level, that can't be moved. That's a separate block that has to stay just like the public service block can't move into the capital improvement block. And I'm just going to pray that maybe HUD will give us some more money in the new allocation so that we can allocate even more to these nonprofits that have asked for funding. So that's where I stand, Director Lima. Okay. Council Member, Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah.

And just as a point of clarification, so if there is a chance of more money, it'll still come back to us to maybe help fund where we're taking away. Is that correct or no?

Well, we're seeking for direction tonight. So you can say tonight, apply any extra to one of, well, we're up against the cap first off on these organizations. So saying if it was to come back with, yeah, we would be able to come back and say, you could say, if you've got extra apply X to this, or you can wait until the next meeting and then, and then make that final determination when we have final numbers. Yeah.

I mean, I guess before, is it historically you say 10%, is it historical that does go up or is it?

No, it never, in my experience, it never goes all the way to 10. I've seen about, I would say between six and seven is about, it has usually gone up. Yes. Yeah.

Okay. Council Member Rodriguez.

Yeah, I'm also in agreement with what our mayor had mentioned. I know that there is a committee that goes through an extenuating process here of trying to getting these numbers right. I know they're difficult especially when it comes to our service organizations but i'd be amenable to looking at maybe funding those three fifteen thousand dollars by maybe allocating five thousand of the cap mc to both uh 2500 each through olive and uh united way and then moving the 3468 from madera food bank to the project run and that way kind of stays even, so to speak. And if there is monies that are coming due here with HUD, then we can always come back and allocate those missing numbers back to those respective organizations. Could you repeat that again, please? Yes. So from the CAP MC or Community Action Partnership, there's 30,000. I'd leave that at 25. I split the $2,500 between Olive and United Way. Take the additional $3,468 from the $43,000 and add those to Project Run Madera.

That's from the food bank, yeah.

Correct. Okay. So you're taking money from the food bank. Okay.

You're making it sound pretty bad there. You're taking money.

I don't mean that. Sorry. It came out wrong. You are reallocating and prioritizing. That is what you're doing. Yes. Thank you.

Taking money. Okay. Based on your, you mentioned a pretty good probability that we have that. So I'm going to go on a limb here and say that director Lima said that we're getting that money back so we can play. Okay. Can I ask a question?

Yeah, absolutely. I think Council Manager, you said, I think Olive was funded at their level.

Was it requested? I thought it was.

Yeah, they requested. They got with all that they requested. Olive did.

That's fine. Then in that case, and just do the $5,000 and leave the food bank so that I don't hurt your feelings. And we... Mr. Lima, I'm only kidding. Yeah, what I meant is take the $5,000 and then split those between the, you have Project Run and United Way, leaving CAPMC with $25,000. So a total of $10,000. Make it easier?

So you're taking $10,000?

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm not trying to take $10,000. I'm just trying to give them closer to what they requested. Yeah.

So you're taking $10,000? Mayor Mrakas, you're proposing to take.

Mayor Mrakas, We 55 from CAP MC okay waiting 2500 to united way and the project run. Mayor Mrakas, got it okay and not touching the food bank okay all right.

Mayor Mrakas, That I see no other comments I open this public hearing is there anybody in the Chamber that would like to make a comment. Mayor Mrakas, I seen on anyone online or on zoom. We have none mayor, thank you city clerk and sauce with that I bring it back to my colleagues to entertain a motion of some sort.

The proof why. The money coming from captain C and going to project run and United way and the amount of not taking the money not taking the money from the food bank and $5,000.

So I understand it's councilmember Rodriguez out of OK, thank you very much.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for that. Thank you. Moving on to the next item.

Item A2 is a public hearing to amend the Community Development Block Grant, CDBG 2025-26 Annual Action Plan.

Director Lima, you're on again.

see this should my good again oh yeah I want to roll tonight okay two for two yeah good evening council once again Mike Lima director financial services here to discuss an amendment to the 2526 annual action plan So the annual action plan, as I mentioned in the previous item, had a dollar value of $989,791. You approved those allocations on August 13, 2025. In there, a little over $413,000 for the Centennial Pool Complex project. As I mentioned, since the approval of that project, one of these pools has become non-functional, resulting closure of the entire complex. As a result, the approved scope of work in the annual action plan is not attainable. So we're recommending an amendment to revise the scope of work for this project. As I mentioned, HUD requires following a citizen participation plan process in order to amend it. The public comment period for this proposed change began on February 18th. It will conclude today. As of today, we have received no comments about this. So we are recommending that you open a public hearing to comply with the CPP process. And what we are proposing to do is the existing scope of work said it was going to be minor repairs and building rehabilitation. We're now proposing the scope, say a major rehabilitation of the pool to restore to operating condition. This action doesn't change the funding. However, it's a companion action to the one you just approved. that of the 239, 322 reallocation of monies from the RLF. So if we don't do this, we can't spend the RLF is basically it. There are no financial impacts because of this action, however, not approving an amendment could impact our timely expenditure of these funds, which would impact our ability to meet the timeliness requirement, which possibly could mean they would withhold future CDBG allocations. So we recommend that you have a public hearing to get public comment on this proposed change of scope. And after that public hearing, approve an amendment of the program year 2526 CDBG annual action plan to change that scope of work. That concludes my presentation. I'm available to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you for that. I'll bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. I see none. At this time, I open up the public hearing. Is there anyone in the chamber? I see none. Anyone online or on Zoom?

We have none mayor.

Thank you city clerk. I will close public hearing at this time and bring it back to my colleagues for a motion.

Thank you.

Thank you for that. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed motion passes unanimously. Moving on to the next item.

Item A3 adopt a resolution approving the community development block grant COVID-19 CDBG-CV subrecipient agreement.

Again, presented by our Financial Director Lima, three for three.

Good evening, Council. I'm still Mike Lima, the Director of Finance. Tonight, we are here to discuss the Community Development Block Grant Subrecipient Agreement. I'm going to fly through this because, frankly, you heard this at the last meeting. We received almost $939,000 of COVID CDBG monies back in 2020-21. A lot of it has been spent, but right now there's just over $256,000 that is not spent as of today. I want this move. Yeah, what did you do? Oh, there you go. The deadline to expend these monies is September of 2026. And so we propose at your last meeting, you approve the reallocation of that 256,000 to the Parks Department for the construction of a basketball court at Rotary Gateway Park. CDBG guidelines require, as I mentioned, I've mentioned in two previous presentations, a CPP process. With CDBG monies, you only have to have a five-day public notice, not a 30-day. The public comment period opened on February 21st, concluded on the 26th. We received no public comment. We had additional opportunity for this comment on March 2nd, and then also on the 4th when you held a public hearing. So we recommend that you approve a contract with the Parks Department to expend these funds. Right now, there is no financial impact at the moment. However, again, if these monies remain unspent as of September 2026, they will be returned to HUD. And that concludes my presentation. Perfect.

Thank you for that. I'll bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns.

Just a comment, Madam Chair. So Director Lima, when did you say you'll be appearing at the Saroyan Theater?

Chancey, not the Saroyan. Yeah, I'm not big enough to go to Saroyan yet.

I open it up for public comment. Anyone in the chamber? City Clerk, anyone online or on Zoom?

We have none, Mayor.

Thank you. I close public comment at this time and bring it back to my colleagues for a motion and a second.

Motion to approve.

Thank you. A motion and a second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Director Lima, for your great presentations. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks. Our next item.

Is item A4, military equipment use ordinance and policy.

Well, we love this one. Presented by Lieutenant Adams. Welcome.

Thank you. See if I'm as effective as Director Lima here. Yeah, all right. Good evening. Mayor council members and members of the public. My name is Mark Adams. I'm the operations lieutenant for the police department, and we're going to be going over the military equipment use policy and ordinance. In September of twenty one, Governor Newsom signed a before anyone in the law, which is now covered under government code seven zero seven zero through seven zero seven five eighty four eighty one was created to promote transparency, accountability and oversight surrounding the use and acquisition of military equipment by law enforcement. Maybe forty one requires a law enforcement agency to obtain approval from governing body by an ordinance, adopting a military equipment use policy. In June of 2022 city council adopted ordinance number 994 approving the police department's military equipment use policy annually. The city must vote to renew change or deny the ordinance. The police department must provide an annual report outlining its use of the military equipment inventory and acquisition for prior calendar year. The report must be made available to the public within 30 days of the public meeting, which it was posted to the city website March 11th. The report must be presented on a platform open to public comment, which this council meeting suffices. items defined as military equipment include but are not limited to the following uas and robots so uas is our drone program diversionary devices such as flashbangs mobile command posts chem agent and smoke canisters breaching equipment kinetic energy weapons kinetic kinetic energy projectile projectiles which is like our lost lethal launchers stuff like that and then armored vehicles The Minera Police Department currently possesses and utilizes various items classified as military equipment to achieve our law enforcement objective. There are a multitude of situations in which this equipment can be deployed. When this equipment is used, it is often because there is no reasonable alternative that can achieve the same objective of officer safety and community safety. Here's a little preview of what our drones are capable of. So one, to allow for perimeter units to have a bird's eye view of what's going on and be able to advise of subjects that are breaking perimeters, such as this fellow. Use on fires to be able to advise of additional resources of potential movement and to better place them. Uh, to throw them up into addicts or combined fate, uh, confined spaces to prevent our officers from having to go, uh, go up there and, uh, potentially confront a armed suspect in, uh, confined quarters. It's a really cool, cool drone. Use within other departments. You know, the city has various needs and there's our drones can be deployed in a moment's notice to help get a better angle on what's currently going on. And also assisting in undercover operations to this subject here getting in the vehicle is entering a stolen vehicle. So you see the takedown here. Our drones significantly enhance public safety and officer safety. That concludes the slide. So the recommendation is review the military use policy ordinance and annual report and by minute order, affirm the ordinance and accept the annual military equipment use report.

Thank you so much for that report, Lieutenant Adams. I'm bringing it back to my colleagues. I see no comments. I will open up for public comment at this time in the chamber. I see no comments. Anyone online or on zoom city clerk Gonzalez.

We have none mayor.

Thank you for that. I closed public comment at this time and bring it back for a motion and a second through approved second. Thank you for that. All those in favor to say, aye, those opposed motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Thank you. Lieutenant for hanging in there with us this evening, moving on to the next item.

is item a five consideration of adoption of an ordinance creating an expedited and streamlined permitting process for electric vehicle charging stations who and that's going to be presented by our chief building official welcome tonight.

Hey, good evening Mayor Gallegos, Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah and council members. I'm here this evening to ask for your consideration of adoption of an ordinance creating an expedited and streamlined permitting process for electrical vehicle charging stations or EVCSs. The California government code requires all local jurisdictions to streamline the permitting process for electric vehicle charging stations by adopting a mandatory ordinance to approve applications to install through the issuance of a building permit or other similar non discretionary permits. The purpose of the state code is to limit unreasonable barriers and to promote and encourage the installation of. In developing an expedited permitting process, the local agency shall adopt a checklist for all objective requirements with which electric vehicle charging stations shall comply to be eligible for expedited review and shall also allow for online applications and submittals. Review shall be limited to the building official's determination of whether an application meets all health and safety requirements of local, state, and federal law. If the building official makes a finding based on substantial evidence that the electric vehicle charging station could have a specific adverse impact upon the public health or safety, the city may require the applicant to apply for a use permit. A jurisdiction shall not condition approval of a permit for an EBCS based on the approval of an association. That term is defined in Section 4080 of the Civil Code. For example, HOAs, that would be nonprofit corporation. We shouldn't be conditioning our approval of permits holding them to prior approval by that nonprofit corporation or other entities. California government code sets forth the timelines or time periods during which applications to install EVCSs shall be reviewed for completeness and acted upon contingent upon the number of electric vehicle stations proposed at a single site. If the local agency fails to act within the applicable time period and or fails to make a specific adverse impact finding, the permit is deemed approved by operation of law. And staff recommends to waive full reading and introduce by title only an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Madera, adding Chapter 7 of Title IX of the City Municipal Code to create an expedited permit process for electrical vehicle charging stations with the associated CEQA findings. And that concludes my presentation, and I'm open for any questions that you might have.

Sounds good. Thank you for that. Councilmember Rodriguez.

yes so that i can better understand can you give me an example of where these stations would be located are we talking about certain government buildings are we talking about buildings in general yeah buildings in general we're talking about maybe an existing parking lot and somebody wants to install charging stations that would be one example it could be also residential Applications like somebody that owns a house and wants to have a charging station. They can also do that. So it's for both residential and commercial. Not necessarily just public buildings. It could be any commercial facilities where they want to install those charging stations.

So, just to be clear. So, any residents that wants to put a charging station for their personal vehicle is required to get a permit. Today that is correct. Okay. Okay. I just wasn't sure that that was the case that we're talking about. Bigger buildings parking lots, but this is in general covers all that as well in general.

Yeah, it's just that, um. There's some cities or counties that are taking a little longer than what they should to review and approve permits. So the state is mandating that we have to come up with a mechanism to expedite and streamline the permitting process. And yes, it's for both residential and commercial.

Now, here's the question for maybe our permitting department, but are we having folks and I'm assuming this is citywide not only here, but that skip that process. When they're trying to install charging stations.

I haven't no, I haven't heard of anybody trying to bypass the permitting processes. I'm pretty sure there's somebody out there that has tried it. We don't know about it, but I mean,

I got a friend.

A friend of a friend.

Thank you. But you answered my question. Thank you.

I see no other comments. I'll open it up for public comment in the chamber. I see none. Anyone on Zoom or online? Thank you. Close public comment at this time and bring it back to my colleagues.

Approved and recommended.

And may I read the agenda title, Councilmember? Oh. Thank you, so your motion is to wait the full reading and by title only in order to the city council, the city of madera adding chapter seven of title. Nine of the city municipal code to create an expedited permit process for electrical vehicle charging station with the associated secret finding chances.

I second. A motion and a second all those in favor say aye aye those opposed motion passes unanimously Thank you chief building official for being here for that presentation moving on to the next item.

Thank you for that. Colleagues, any questions or concerns? I see none. I open it up for public comment. There are none in the Chamber. Anyone online or on Zoom? We have none, Mayor. I close public comment and bring it back to my colleagues.

Motion to approve minus B5.

Thank you for that. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Moving on, City Clerk.

Section D petitions, bids, resolutions, ordinances and agreements item D1 amendments to the City of Madera classification plan changes to salary range assignments for certain positions on the City of Madera full time salary schedule and hiring bonus program. Also, please be advised that pursuant to government code 54953 D3 prior to taking action on this item, the council must orally report a summary of the action being considered. If approved, the recommended action will modify the assigned salary range for the department head positions of city engineer and public works operations director. if licensed as a civil engineer to to city of madera schedule m for management employee salary range 533 equivalent to 144 422 to 184 thousand sixty three dollars per year thank you for that and it will be presented by our human resource director silva hi good evening mayor and council

So we are addressing two different items this evening. One is recruitment and retention caused by ongoing vacancies is where we're seeing it. And the other is some adjustments due to assignment changes. So regarding the recruitment and retention, this is specific to public safety dispatchers, police officers, and licensed civil engineers. We are trying to address how we retain employees both now and in the future within these job classifications because we continue to see turnover and vacancies. We are trying to look at how we attract candidates with prior work experience. We love training programs. Training programs are great, but our whole workforce can't be trainees. We need someone to train them, and we also just need the maturity in the workforce. And so the third point is how do we stabilize our workforce? Because our workforce is always in flux. We're not gonna not have turnover, but it's how do we stabilize the maturity and experience within our workforce? So, looking at the public safety dispatcher position, we have 11 full time budgeted positions with 4 currently vacant, which is causing a strain going with calendar year 2021 to present basically once we were out of cobit and kind of back to full service on everything. Everybody was not staying at home anymore. We have hired 15 public safety dispatchers of those only 3 still remain. So it's a continuous turnover in that position. most of those position separations were at less than four months, which means you barely get into the training, you never get out of the training and it's a constant cycle. So we are making a couple of recommendations related to public safety dispatcher. One is to bring up the entry level pay a little bit and then create a public safety dispatcher too to recognize ongoing experience as well as potentially attract lateral candidates from other agencies. In order to affect that, we have to create a little space on the salary schedule. And so there's a resulting increase recommended for 2 non sworn supervisor positions at the police department. The recommendations are highlighted in the table. The top portion shows current the bottom portion shows proposed. You can see in the bottom portion, we have the public safety dispatcher 1, 2, and then the 2 supervisors are being recommended to be set a little bit higher close to another supervisor in that department to create that space for the 2. Moving on to the recruitment and retention issues in the sworn police officer field. So we have 76 sworn police officers in your police department that's from the rank of trainee up to chief. 58 are officers. We currently have 10 vacancies in the officer positions. as well as 11 that I would say are not on the street. Seven are in the academy, four are in the FTO program. So that's brought you down quite a bit to actually functioning at the number of functioning officers. Of those officers, 60% have a tenure of less than four years. So they're new and they're still learning their profession. And then the average time to reach a lateral status if we hire you as a trainee is about two and a half years. So We are trying to build up a more experienced workforce for police officers. We are recommending some salary adjustments. These will not fix existing compaction. I want to say that out loud because compaction comes up a lot when we get into negotiations. It does. What we're going to do is we're going to bring up some of the positions, the trainee, the officer 1 officer 2 and corporal. We're going to get them a little bit closer to sergeant, but we're going to maintain a 15% spread between the positions. So that's still 3 salary steps on our schedule. If somebody promotes from a corporal to a sergeant. So what that looks like, once again, current is at the top of the table, proposed is at the bottom half of the table there. There is no recommended change to Sargent. It's being shown for comparison purposes. But we are moving up trainee is probably the biggest dollar value. Trainees only stay there for six months. So it's not a huge impact. But what we're looking at is trying to attract maturity, trying to attract someone who's maybe interested in a career change and give them a starting pay that lets them still support their family while they go back to school for us and become a sworn police officer. And then the third area we are experiencing recruitment and retention issues are unlicensed engineers. We have had a vacant deputy and senior civil engineer position for a few years now. We can hire assistant engineers. These are non-licensed, usually recent college graduates, but it typically takes over three years for them to get to licensed status if they start right away. Not everyone, it's not required. They don't have to. And so we have had a recruiter working for us to try to help us fill that deputy spot since December. Checked again today still no qualified applications and so we are trying to. Adjust those salary ranges up as much as we can within the existing salary schedule. So, what you'll see on this table, once again, current at the top proposed at the bottom, we are going to take the city engineer and we're going to snug them up against the director of community development. There's a reporting relationship there, but the director of community development does not require the license from the state of California as a civil engineer. So, once we snug the city engineer up there towards the top, we bring up all of the licensed engineers in that career ladder as much as we can, but maintaining the current spread. So, the financial impact of those 3 different various range adjustments series of range adjustments that we, we just showed. So, for the public safety dispatcher, and the relating increase to non sworn supervisors fiscal year 2526 estimated cost is 48,000 source of funds is general fund and measure K. For the sworn police officers and your corporal position, it's a lot more people involved. And so that would be an expense of about 80,000 to get to the end of the fiscal year. Source of funds, general fund, measure K and grant funds. And then for the licensed engineers, it's about $8,600. And that is also general fund, but offset by charges off to capital projects. These are not new appropriation requests. There are sufficient salary savings due to the vacancies in your existing budget. So we are not asking for more money. Um, with council's authorization side letter agreements were offered and except 2 and accepted by the police officers association, the law enforcement, mid management group and the mid management employee group to effectuate the salary placements for represented employees. The city engineer is unrepresented. Therefore, there's no side letter regarding that matter. The final piece of the recruitment and retention program that we are recommending is a hiring bonus program, because we are looking for a service commitment from new hires. 1, we want to attract them and then we want a commitment from them to mitigate the current lack of experience staff to train our new and entry level staff as well as address the ongoing turnover rate. looking back at how long it takes us to grow our own because hiring bonus sometimes can be a little scary because you're asking for a lump sum amount of money to hand to someone for that commitment but when we try to grow our own it's not free it has a time commitment and a money commitment so the typical cost to take a trainee to a lateral officer stage in payroll alone is about 264 000 takes about two and a half years When we look at our engineers, the ones that have made the path from assistant engineer to senior, once they have their licensing, it takes a little over three years, a little over $300,000. That does not include things like the police academy costs, the field training officer time commitments, any type of test prep for the engineers or the time commitment of the mentoring staff. So what we're trying to do is go out in the market and buy this. buy this for a great deal um so what we are proposing in the hiring bonus program the policy is in the agenda packet it would authorize the city manager to offer hiring bonuses only to specific positions lateral police officer twos Lateral public safety dispatcher too, so they have to be experienced as well as licensed civil engineers. This would only be for positions in your budget. We're not asking for more positions either. The recommendation is 35,000 in total spread out in 3 payments in exchange for a 3 year commitment from the applicant. So, 15,000 at higher 10,000 at year 1 and 10,000 at year 2. The continued employment is required to get to the payments at years 1 and 2. and if you read through the policy, there are also provisions in there. If the person has a leave of absence or something like that, we're going to adjust the date. We want 3 years of work time. So, if they do leave before completing the 3 year commitment, it will be considered a negative separation. However, the city manager will be able to excuse extenuating circumstances. Um, the specific financial impact will depend on the number of candidates hired under the program in the current fiscal year. It will once again be paid from salary savings. We are not requesting new appropriations that will be within budget. Any future payments that we anticipate will be included in the applicable fiscal year budget for that year. Okay, and the final piece here are the salary range adjustments due to new or additional responsibilities. So, 1st, is the streets and storm drainage operations manager and public works. We have already been adding responsibilities to include taking over the airport maintenance. They are responsible for the safe and clean team as well as our sidewalk repair team funded by. And then we are also anticipating additional capital streets projects related to money that we anticipate through measure T funding and the reallocation of those monies. The 2nd piece of this is that we are requesting to bifurcate the pay range for public works operations director. So that there is 1 pay range, the existing pay range for unlicensed, meaning they are not a licensed civil engineer. And then a separate pay range equivalent to city engineer if they are licensed as a civil engineer. Because the expectation is, if they do have the civil engineering license, they will take on more of the capital project responsibilities related to public works and take relieve some of that strain on the engineering department. So the table here shows those changes moving streets and storm drainage operations manager up and then creating the 2 different pay ranges based on licensing status for the director. The anticipated cost for the current fiscal year is about 5600 dollars. There are salary savings once again to absorb the, the increase. There is a side letter agreement authorized by council that was offered to and accepted by mid management to affect the street storm change operations manager change and the public works operations director is underrepresented. So there is no side letter. There are 4 requested actions in the agenda item packet. The 1st action has to do with job descriptions for the public safety dispatcher and the 2. Designations for public works operations director, the section, the 2nd action is 3 side letter agreements. The 3rd action is the full time salary schedule to comply with state law and publish on our website. And the 4th is the hiring bonus program. These can be taken as 1 motion 1 vote and they can also be considered separately at council's discretion. That concludes my presentation.

Thank you for that HR Director Silva. I bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. I see none. I open it up for public comment in the chamber. Anyone online or on zoom?

We have none mayor.

Thank you. I bring it back to my colleagues Councilwoman Evans.

Yes, I just want to ask a question. After they've completed their training and they go through their six months, is there any way that we can ask for a commitment of them, even after the whole three year? Is there any way that we can put it in the contract that they give us at least two full years on the ground before they decide to leave? Because it seems like they come in, they get trained and go through the process and then Next thing you know, we hear, well, this one has gone here and this one has gone to Clovis and Fresno and wherever else. Is there any way that we can have it placed in their contract that they have to give us at least two years on the ground before they leave? Is that legal? Can we do that?

City Attorney. Thank you very much. The general rule of thumb is you can incentivize, but not penalize. That's a really fast way of doing it. And I'm looking at Wendy. There's obviously some incentives that we can put in contracts. You can also put in some penalties in contracts, but that's the general rule of thumb. Incentivize, not penalize. It also affects hiring. Because if you try to put in penalties for going early, sometimes it can reduce the pool and then the pool that you get in, sometimes they just don't care or you end up with less qualified candidates. So there are other considerations as well. Thank you. And I don't know, Wendy, do you have anything else to add?

Sorry, somebody raised these monitors, so it's a little hard for short. I know. But you need a step. I do. I need a step. No, I concur. We're hoping that the modification to the salary ranges fixes that issue. We'll obviously pay attention to it. We're hoping the hiring bonus program helps bring in the experience and keeps them here. And then if we see that there is still a gap, staff will evaluate that and bring recommendations back to council. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comment. Um, at this time, I bring it back to my colleagues for a motion in a 2nd.

I'll move to approved. I've got to do every single 1, say, 1 through 4, 1 through 4. Move to prove 1 through 4. Thank you, I want to do it again.

I have a motion in a second all those in favor say aye. Those opposed motion passes unanimously Thank you HR director Silva moving on to the next item city clerk Gonzales.

D to initiation of a text amendment to the zoning regulations of the city municipal code to establish permitted color palettes for new development and repainting of existing structures in the commercial zones.

Thank you for that and i'll be presented by our planning manager welcome.

Mayor Members of the Council, David Berletec, Planning Manager. Item D2 is initiation of a text amendment to the zoning regulations of the City Municipal Code to establish color palette for new development and repainting existing structures in commercial zones. And we're here tonight as a result of the workshop you held in February where the Council discussed the the desire and the need to regulate paint colors for commercial development and also have a mechanism for when structures are repainted. So the next step in the process is a formal initiation of a text amendment to the zoning ordinance. And that's done through three mechanisms. One, it could be done by a property owner through a request. It could be done through an initiation resolution by the commission, or as we're doing tonight, a resolution of initiation by the city council. The action you're taking tonight is just that. It's a resolution of intent to start that process. That process involves Several steps what your action tonight is not doing is it's not establishing that color palette yet it's not setting those regulations, yet this is the step to get you moving forward with the direction you provided at the workshop. So the next step is step 1 is initiating that, uh, that ordinance amendment with your action tonight staff will prepare the draft. That draft is then scheduled for public hearing before the planning commission. That's a notice public hearing planning commissions role as laid out in the ordinance or in the municipal code. And the zoning ordinance is that they're their land use authority and they make a recommendation to you on that text amendment. So step 1 tonight, you take your actions saying, get moving step to the planning commission holds a public hearing conducts that allows input from the public. So it gets closer to what the end result should be. And then the next step is scheduling that introduction and reading for you. To take action and set in motion the adoption of the ordinance. So recommendation tonight is adoption of the ordinance, the resolution of intention to the city council, the city of Madera to initiate procedures to amendment, to amend chapter three, title 10 of the city municipal code relating to commercial zones in accordance with the provisions laid out in the municipal code. That concludes my report. So from tonight, if, if, The resolution is adopted will then schedule the planning Commission hearing and then following that it will come back to you for introduction and reading available for questions, thank you perfect, thank you for that report Councilman Evans.

So, once you take it to the, you know, the planning commission, excuse me, planning commission, and then it comes back to us. Are you going to bring us some paint chips? So we can take a look at the colors.

We will have color boards that show you what is going to be adopted. That will be the option and the requirement for commercial development. Okay. I'm good.

Thank you.

I guess for a point of clarification. So, I mean, currently, when you apply, we're building, there's already a palette in place. Correct? I mean, that's. Or there's a recommendation, I guess they will, or oh, yeah, sorry. And the other thing is, is to ask, so, I mean, having gone through a couple of these boards when I was on notification, for instance, it was understanding like notifications. That was part of their, their role was coming up with. Colors and different things related to the city. And. You know, is it the board's intention to their accounts intention to retain that? Or to maybe push that back down and allow that. Somewhat bubbling up, or are we in a hurry to kind of get the palette adopted? Um, but.

Mayor mayor pro, Tim counts member Zachariah at all.

Will Tackett, Community Development Director. As discussed at the workshop, the City does have adopted commercial development design guidelines. Now, they don't set forth a palette, but they provide guidance on how building colors should be implemented. Currently, if new development is proposed requiring an entitlement, color boards, material boards would be required as part of that entitlement process and subject to our discretionary approval. But if someone were to repaint their building, there is no regulatory mechanism through permitting at this point in time that would give us any review authority. So this ordinance would do that. Based upon the direction we received from council at the workshop.

Okay, and then would it still allow, for instance, if we have certain parts of town that. Like, if downtown wanted to have their own color palette, that's still part of it. Are we looking for, like, a city wide adoption of a, of a just upon the direction we received from the council?

We're looking at a city wide for the commercial zone districts. In the future, if we were to consider adoption of a specific plan for downtown, setting forward special regulations, procedures, incentives, et cetera, that could be considered. But at this point, we're considering a city-wide ordinance. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Open it for public comment at this time. I see none. On Zoom or online?

We have none, Mayor.

Thank you. I close public comment. Council Member Rodriguez.

Yes, and I'm sorry, Will, right before you left there. Because you mentioned the city-wide adoption of that... same ordinance um and you said in the future if we wanted to bring that back for a specific uh you know commercial center what have you um that doesn't prevent us from we're gonna have to re-establish a different audience or add an amendment to the ordinance

It would have to be my, my example of downtown would be associated with the specific plan, which has its own. State appointed regulatory authority, but otherwise, yes, any amendment to your resort, your ordinance that may be adopted would have to come back through legislative action through this council. Should a specific plan be proposed that would also come to this council for adoption through resolution.

So, if I understand you correctly, this only applies to newer. buildings existing buildings that already have their color palettes at this moment would that be a requirement from this body then to uh demand they're changing in color or is that when they come before some type of structure permit or what have you the ordinance would apply to both new development and the repainting of existing commercial buildings and we will identify a process of how we can streamline or provide us a review opportunity for repainting okay And last question here, how would we enforce that? Who would enforce that?

For those individuals who do not come to us for permits, it would be enforced through code enforcement.

I'd like to hear from code enforcement at some point, see what their thoughts would be on that too.

We'll be sure to involve them within our process. Thank you.

That's all I have.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for those comments. I bring it back to my colleagues for a motion and a second.

Motion to approve it as written.

Second. Thank you have a motion and second all those in favor say aye aye those opposed motion passes unanimously, thank you planning manager burlick for your report moving on to the next item.

Item D three Community cleanup and employment pathway grant.

All right, our administrative analysts cells are welcome.

Good evening. I got in my first track. Um, good evening count, uh, mayor mayor, pro tem council members again. My name is presenting item D3 tonight for the community cleanup and employment pathway grant. um a little bit of background on september 29 2025 caltrans released a call for proposals regarding the california community cleanup and employment pathway ccep grant the grant program is designed to support litter abatement and public space beautification efforts on locally owned public right-of-way while creating workforce development opportunities for individuals facing barriers employment The city did submit a proposal on October 31st, and on February 19 of this year, the city was notified by Cal trends of being awarded an allocation in the amount of 300,000 dollars for the city of Madera. Keep our city clean project. The next steps in order to accept the award include the execution of a restricted grant agreement RGA package between Caltrans and the City, and the receipt of new funding will also require the adoption of a budget amendment to provide the appropriation authority to spend the grant. And just sharing a little bit of background of when the initiative of Please Help Keep Our City Clean, when it started. We started this back in 2024 under the Caltrans Clean California Local Grant Program. This grant helped fund the actual resurfacing of the Vernon McCullough River Trail, the playground installation at the river park, and river cleanup along the Fresno River. And I hope you guys still have your t-shirts. they're clean and if you didn't get one hopefully we'll get you one um key grant program objectives included litter and graffiti abatement with the aim to support sustained litter cleanup and graffiti removal on local right-of-way workforce development which is a big part of this grant is to create transitional employment and training opportunities for vulnerable populations either through partnerships with workforce development organizations or the use of existing employment development departments Equity and inclusion, which has the goal to prioritize disadvantaged communities and support pathways to community self-sufficiency. And lastly, sustainable community engagement to promote public education and anti-lettering campaigns. So, taking those key objectives into consideration, the final submitted proposal included the following commitments from the city. We are committing to a minimum of 12 community led cleanup events, targeting high traffic and high visibility locations throughout the city, including areas such as downtown shopping centers, alleyways, entryways and park areas. we're also committing to the creation of what we're going to call a keep our city clean team through partnership with the madera county workforce investment corporation to oversee and these this team would oversee the day-to-day operations and community engagement activities We're also committing to greening and beautification projects that target trash receptacle installation, tree and flower plantings. We're also committing to a minimum of two dump days in partnership with Mid Valley Disposal. And this would be for your bulky items, e-waste and hard to recycle materials. Public education campaign promoting help keep our city clean for the duration of the grant performance period. And lastly, a big part of the grant is the painting of city fire hydrants, which is about 2000 throughout the city to ensure visibility of hydrants to emergency responders and to maintain the safety of the community. A highly recommended part of the application included the city committing to becoming a clean California community by signing Caltrans community designation pledge. The pledge commits the city to creating. A community character characterized by cleanliness, sustainability and civic pride. And in order for the city to receive this designation, the city would have to complete certain criteria within 1 year. As part of the grant application, we did submit the pledge committing to a minimum of 10 of the 15 criteria required for the designation. These are the criteria set for the Clean California Committee designation and the items with an asterisk above are what the city feels comfortable as criteria that we are able to meet. Just sharing some images above from the city's Clean California Community Cleanup Day on March 25, 2023. And I share that picture because how can the community get involved 1st off we're going to ask the community members to sign the pledge where we have a target to me and that's where we're asking people to sign the pledge. We're also going to ask people to volunteer volunteer volunteer for these clean up events. We will be asking and taking into consideration input and feedback from the community about areas that need to be targeted or to include in our cleanup events. We're also targeting. engaging businesses and stakeholders so that they can support the campaign campaign for that sustainability piece and please you know asking the community to utilize the dump days to limit the legal dumping across the city which we did see a little bit of that in the past week so we want to offer a couple of more opportunities for the community to to take advantage of that and then just lastly everybody you know committing to actually helping keep our city clean that's the biggest way that people can get involved. The $300,000 CCEP grant program award is derived entirely from the signature initiative under the Clean California program administered by Caltrans. And the city developed the CCEP grant budget as listed in Table 1 and as requested by Caltrans for types of eligible activities. And those include employment and workforce development activities, cleanup activities, beautification infrastructure, and public engagement and education for a total of $300,000. The CCP is a reimbursement based grant program and reimbursable work cannot commence on a program until a fully executed restricted grant agreement has been secured. As this grant was not included in the fiscal year 2526 adopted budget staff is requesting approval of a budget amendment to account for the expenses associated with the implementation of the ground's objectives. So tonight we are asking for approval of the grant agreement between the state of California and Caltrans, uh, for the amount of $300,000 and amending the fiscal year budget so that we can, um, approve the revenue and expenditure line items for the execution of the agreement. That concludes my presentation. We've been for questions.

All right. I bring it back to my colleagues, bear approach and Zachariah.

Thank you. And just a quick question. So those that are interested, what's the process of signing up and then do they sign up for specific projects or for their area or how does that kind

Once we get there, we will make sure that our flyers have all of that contact information in the past. What we've done is we take a sign in signups for volunteers beforehand. So we know how many people to expect. Um, I figure if we are going to do clean up events, um, throughout the city in one single day, we might want to do that so that we know kind of where to allocate our, our resources. Um, or if we're going to do just one big cleanup site, we might just say, Hey, you know, come,

And that'll be decided later time. Yes. Thank you.

I'm just one comment. Miss Seltzer is if we could partner with Starbucks, pays their employees to come out and clean. Lowe's also does that. So we have many partners in the city that will be part of our partners when we have our cleanup days if we can just make sure we're in contact with them. Noted. Thank you. Any other comments? I pick it out for a public comment in the chamber. I see none online or on zoom.

We have none mayor.

I close public comment at this time and bring it back to my colleagues for a motion in a second.

Move to approve.

Thank you. I second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you Administrative Analyst Salazar for your report. Next item.

Under Section E of Administrative Reports, we have Item E1, Audited Comprehensive Financial Statements for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025.

Thank you. And that is going to be presented by our Financial Director, Lima, who we haven't seen for a while. Welcome.

Thank you. You know, I was just thinking about on the walkover that... You know, the gap between my last presentation, this one, I feel like I'm having an encore tonight, like a singer does. I think I am. So anyhow, let's see if I remembered how to do this. Okay, I think I'm good. All right. Uh, so, uh, good evening council, Mike Lima director, financial services. Uh, it brings me great pleasure tonight to bring you the, uh, annual financial statements for the city of there for the fiscal year ended June 30th, 2025. um, you know, I've mentioned this before in previous presentations, the, uh. The financial statements, the annual financial statements are the companion to the budget budget tells you here's what we hope to do. Here's where we're at. And then the financial statements tell you, how did you do to get there? And so it's a real important part of the budget process. It's both the end and the beginning of the budget process in a lot of ways. And I'm very pleased to present these results to you. So as I mentioned, this is for fiscal year 24-25, which ended June 30th, 2025. I'm going to go over scope of work and timing, kind of an overview of financial statements, key financial indicators, including pension and other post-employment benefit or OPEB information, and then audit results. I am sure the last thing you want is for me to sit up here and drone for an hour, giving you numbers. And so I'm going to try to get through this as quickly as possible, but hitting the key information. Um, so scope of work, we don't just do the financial statements for the entire city. There's also, there's actually 4 reports that are prepared. There is the annual comprehensive financial report. There's also a TD. tda or transportation development act audit a measure t sales tax audit and then a single audit and what that is is it looks at all our grants and make sure that we're complying with the grant requirements for those grants uh so we we actually have four audits done at one time uh so it is quite a uh a challenge every year so with that kind of is a little bit background let's take a look at the numbers so uh what you have in front of you here is um is our numbers. This is what basically you would call a balance sheet. That's probably what you're more popular. In government, we call it a statement of net position. But bottom line, it is a balance sheet. And it shows our assets, our liabilities, and what our net position is. I'm going to ask you to take a look at the two columns on the far right. So that shows FY24, June 30th of 2024 and June 30th of 2025. Our assets went up $10 million. This is government wide. So this is taking all funds, the whole city as a whole. This is not just the general fund, it's everything. Our assets went up $10 million. Our liabilities went down almost 16 million. So we paid off a lot of bills and we still grew our assets. That's a nice place to be. And then on top of that, our overall net position went up. So you'll notice it went from $376.5 million to almost $420 million. So that's money we put either in the bank or into our capital assets, into our infrastructure in the city. It's in one of the two. So where did the money come from? Well, it came from here. And I keep moving this thing around, but I'm going to get there one day. So, our expenses as an organization, again, I focus your attention on the two right-hand columns. At the end of 2024 for that year, we had spent about $93.3 million. Last year, we spent $85.9 million. We actually had lower expenses last year than we did the previous year. Our charges for services were slightly down. Our operating grants were slightly up. But our capital grants showed a very big increase. What that is is ARPA money. That is ARPA money being put to use. We cannot show ARPA money on our financial statements until we spend it. We spent over $9 million of that ARPA allocation last year building stuff. So that is where that money is. So that's why you see that big increase in the capital grants. I know I'd mentioned to you in other presentations our tax revenue was pretty flat, and you could see that. Our taxes went from 38 to 39.2, pretty flat, not really a lot of growth there. But we did see a lot of growth in our other general revenues, specifically interest earnings. We had a very good year with our investments. We made, well, our interest income as the city was over $8 million. So that's a very good position to be in to have offset any kind of slow down that you might see another revenues. So now let's talk about the general fund specifically. So with the general fund, we had, oops, sorry, went too far. Let me go back. General fund assets grew $6.8 million. We went from 53.3 to 60.1 million. A lot of that was cash, as you'll see in a little bit. Our liabilities went down. So again, we're paying off our bills. uh but our assets are still growing that's a good place to be you want to see that uh and then our fund balance grew overall in the general fund fund balance grew by 7.8 million dollars last year now some of that is assigned some of that is is is committed you can't tap all of it but the unassigned went from 14.6 to 20 million dollars we put almost 5.4 million dollars in the bank last year of uncommitted money how do we do it well we did it uh again on the expenditure side really uh revenues were up we're up fairly well but that the expenses we control our expenses very well and it shows in these financial statements and you see it right here uh expenditures were down over two and a half million dollars last year uh from the previous year um So between that, between the slight growth in revenues that we saw from interest and other things, and then with our expenditure control, that net change of position, we went from almost $3 million to $7.8 million in total, $4.8 million growth there. So let's look at a couple of other key financial indicators. I want to focus on this fund balance. In 24, we had an unassigned balance of 14.6, or about 14.7 million. We have a stabilization reserve, and that's the 30% that we have to hold in reserve for emergencies in the future. So that came out to about 12.9 million. So in total, we had available fund balance of $27.5 million. On expenditures of the 43 million, that means we had an effective reserve rate of about 64%. we not only have the 30 that's required, we have another, that was a year ago, or two years ago, we had another 33% on top of there, 34%. Last year, that grew. That went, again, that unassigned fund balance went from 14.7 to 20, and our stabilization reserve, we actually went down because we budgeted less. So at the end, we have $32.8 million of available fund balance on expenditures of 40 million. That means we have a ratio of almost 81%. The 81% reserve to put that in calendar terms. That means if every revenue stopped today, we could keep everything going with no cuts for 10 months. With no, nothing hurting anyone. That's a pretty good place to be. I will tell you. I wanted to focus on cash government wide cash went up $7.6 million. That sounds great. But in the general fund, it went up almost eight and a half million dollars by itself. So that means something else went down because if the general fund went up 8.4, but over the organization as a whole went up 7.6, everything else dropped. And that's the ARPA money. We spent 9.4 million. So that brought that down. If we hadn't had that ARPA expenditure, we would have been even higher on the government wide side as well. Pension is always something that people look at. It's been described as a slow moving train crash here in government because so many places have unfunded liabilities. We are not immune from that because we are part of CalPERS. CalPERS has a very large unfunded liability, but they are making efforts or making strides in addressing that. And we saw that in our finances. I'm not going to go through all these numbers. I'm just going to ask you to focus on the very bottom right one, that negative $2.3 million. That means our pension liability, the unfunded portion went down last year by $2.3 million. We went from 33 million to 30.7. That's a good thing. We are paying down our pension obligation is what that means. And what that means is that people, And theoretically, at some point, there's not going to be enough money to pay every retiree in the state under CalPERS. But this is showing we're making strides to addressing that. This is just for the miscellaneous plan, by the way. This would be the general employees. This is non-sworn is who is being covered here. pension on the safety plan. This is the sworn officers. It also showed a reduction in pension liability. Not as significant, $850,000 roughly, but still improvement in the plan. Our OPEB, our OPEB did show a growth. What OPEB is, in case you're like, what is OPEB? Is that like oil, have something to do with oil? No, it doesn't have anything to do with oil. It's a, as I mentioned, optional post-employment benefit. What that is, is like healthcare after retirement. Paying for that, we have a few employees who still have that. It has been taken. That benefit is no longer being offered by the city, but there are some, and the cost of that continues to go up as medical expenses go up as well. But we saw very little growth. You notice it only changed by 176, about 177,000 dollars. So very minimal growth. And that's a good thing to see that our overall plan is holding basically held the line. So our audit results, we had an unmodified opinion for all opinion units. That means the auditors said our financial statements are fairly presented in all material respects. The policies have been consistently applied, estimates reasonable, and disclosures are properly reflected. Additionally, the auditors had no disagreements with us. There were no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies that were identified in our internal controls. financial internal controls uh no accounting issues were identified and no inappropriate activities were noted and that concludes my presentation uh wow thank you thank you uh so uh but you know what it and i've said this last year but i'm gonna say it again this year um this is a reflection of good policy being set up by council and being executed by staff and we should all just take a moment Acknowledge that and then keep working. Because just like a garden, the weeds keep popping up and you got to keep working at it to keep it going, you know, even when it's beautiful. But I will tell you that this is probably, I think there are a lot of governments around us that would love to have financial statements like this. And we are in a very fortunate position and it has to do with the policies that you set. So thank you. You make my job easier. And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you, Director Lehman. I just want to comment on your hard work on making sure we're where we're at, because that makes a difference and the staff behind you. So we appreciate and applaud all your hard work for this. It's not always easy. And then working with the departments that have to always look at their budgets to align with what we want to do overall in our agency. With that, my colleagues have any questions or concerns? If not, I open it up for public comment. I see none online or on Zoom.

We have none, Mayor.

Thank you. I close public comment at this time. And I just need a motion and a second to accept this.

Thank you so very much. Thank you.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for that. Thank you very much. Moving on. City Clerk Gonzalez.

Council member reports announcements future agenda items this portion of the meeting is reserved for the mayor and council members to make brief reports on boards committees and other public agencies and at public events to request updates to initiate future agenda items and to take action on matters initiated under this section of the agenda. Under this section the council may take action only on items specifically agendized and which meet other requirements for action.

Thank you for that I will go to my right here with council member Montes.

I want to start off with asking for a agenda item regarding the presentation that we had today. If council members or family council would be able to have staff bring back rules for the year so that the entire council would have input on, I would appreciate it.

All right. Thank you.

And that's it for me.

All right. Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah.

Keep it brief. Nothing to report.

Thank you for that. Councilman Evans.

Yes, I want to say thank you, everyone. This was a great day. I thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Also, I wanted to let you know that I went and I went to Sierra Vista. For the read to the class or whatever. Read Across America.

Yeah.

So I read the two different classes. I had a third and a fourth at Sierra Vista, which was just a blast. It was great. I went to Washington, D.C. and I was there for five days, which was very interesting, but a good conference. So we'll discuss that. or housing authority. Also today, we were honored to be able to go to Save Mark. They had such a good rally and congratulations to the fire department. They won. Sorry, PD. I'm sorry. But it was a really good citywide event because there were so many people out there, so much activity going on. The mayor was running around and cheering and all this, but to everyone, it was a great activity. Thank you everyone and that's all I have to say.

Thank you for that report. Councilwoman Mejia.

Thank you, Mayor. Today, I had the opportunity to be a part of legislative day as part of the Madera County Economic Development Commission. We were there, it was myself, County Supervisor Raul Poitras, County Supervisor Jordan Wemhoff and Christina Gallagher from the MCEDC. I want to thank our state senator, Ana Caballero, for greeting us. Also, Assemblymember Jose Luis Salache and Assemblywoman Soria, among other legislators. We had an excellent opportunity to be able to promote the priorities, the economic priorities of businesses, residents, and local governments here in Madera County. And that concludes my report. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you Council Member Rodriguez.

Yes, thank you Mary Gallegos. I too wanted to report last meeting I was unable to attend because I was also at a Valley Voice through a Regional Policy Council through MCTC through our City Council. that allowed me an opportunity to advocate for the region's needs, such as air quality, goods movement. More importantly, we had a conversation regarding the successor to the gas tax. As you all know, there's been a lot of news surrounding the gas tax. I think we had a gentleman out here proposing that we not adopt AB 1421, which strictly just extends the current advisory that was placed about 11 years ago. One of our supervisors uh is is a um he sits on that advisory and this AB 1421 was just to extend that continued uh search for a successor not necessarily adding a duplicate tax or anything like that so again promoting uh um through our legislators uh similar to um our EDC member here uh Council Member Mejia just promoting our region's needs, more importantly, not only in economic, transportation, air quality and water. I also wanted to thank our Mayor for putting together this event with the Women of the Year. I want to extend that to all staff members that are very appreciative for everything you do throughout the year. So I wanted to extend that. And last but not least, I wanted to extend gratitude to our Chief for helping the elder lady. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. That's all I have, Madam Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Next, Council Member Villegas. Thank you, Mayor, for nothing to report. Thank you for that and I just have a few things I didn't highlight a pass recipient and that was our city clerk Gonzalez, who is. A woman of the year staff member for the city of madera and also just to have a prayer go out from the city, we have Lisa gill who runs our event hall and the restaurant out at sugar pine smoke houses husband passed away last night, and so our prayers are with her family. And with that, I will turn it over to my city attorney.

Thank you. Mayor. We have 1 item for closed session. That's item G, 1 conference legal counsel, existing litigation pursuant to government code section 5, 4, 9, 5, 6 point D, subsection 1, the name of the case, the city of Madera versus Jesus Lopez County, Madera, superior court case number. Thank you.

And with that, I open it up to public comment. I see none in the chamber anyone online or on zoom.

We have none mayor.

Thank you. I close public comment at this time and we'll move into closed session. If you're not here, have safe travels home and thank you for joining us.

Mayor, City Council for item G1, the City Council authorized litigation and as appropriate by staff. Thank you.

Thank you. I will adjourn this meeting at 9-11 and we will see you back on Wednesday, April 15, 2026. That's tax day, everyone. Have a good evening.