City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone and welcome to the regular meeting of the Madera City Council and special meeting of the Madera City Council as the Groundwater Sustainability Agency. It is Wednesday, April 15, 2026 and I call this meeting to order at 6 p.m. City Clerk Gonzales.

The city 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 9006833. enter id 85903845246 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 city council public comment at madera.gov or by regular mail at 205 west fourth street madera california 93637 we'd also like to remind everyone that wordly is available for translation services thank you for that roll call please Mayor Gallegos. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah. Here. Councilmember Rodriguez. Here. Councilmember Montes. Here. Councilmember Evans. Here. Councilmember Mejia. Absent. Councilmember Villegas.

Here. Thank you for that. If you could please stand for the invocation by Pastor Dave and remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance for our Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah.

All right. Good evening. It's good to be with you. Let's pray. father i'm thinking of your promise that you keep us in perfect peace when our minds are fixed on you because you're the rock eternal and so i want to thank you for all the city leaders in this room and i pray for the men and women i can only imagine the weight the stress the decisions uh to be made every day And I pray that you would lead them, Holy Spirit, to set their minds on you, the rock, the eternal one, that their minds would be at perfect peace even amidst the decision-making and the things to do every day. And I also pray, Lord, that they would not grow weary or lose heart because you promise a harvest of righteousness at your perfect time if we do not give up. And so, Lord, I just thank you for men and women who just love this city, care for the people of this city, that they would trust in your timing, and they would continue to do the good work that you've put in front of them to do, and that this city will just continue to flourish and thrive, a city full of people who will love one another and love you. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Amen. Please remain standing.

Pastor. There's something for you here. Thank you for being here tonight and Mayor Pro Tem.

At this time, I will bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns for our approval of the agenda. I do have one correction if my colleagues would entertain moving E2 up after public comment. If I see any other comments, I would need a motion and a second.

Make that motion to approve the agenda with item E2 after public comment.

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

Moving on to presentations. The first presentation is a proclamation recognizing the retirement of city employee Lynn Hollier, water system lead worker.

I don't see Lynn in the house yet. Unless he's outside still. Chief, do you see him outside? Okay, well, we'll postpone that. Maybe he will make it in before we finish our presentations. We'll go to the next item.

Proclamation recognizing April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

And that will be presented by our very own Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah.

Thank you, Mayor. Those representing CAPMC? There we are. How are you guys doing? we just want to give thanks for this group during sexual awareness month um i don't have a whole lot to say but we do appreciate all the services that you guys provide for our community and for those again in times of need uh whereas sexual assault awareness month calls attention to the prevalence of sexual violence and its impact on individuals of all genders, ages, racial, cultural, and economic backgrounds, and whereas individuals and organizations have long worked to prevent sexual violence and to promote safe, respectful communities for all, and whereas preventing sexual violence requires community-wide efforts to educate the public, support survivors, and challenge harmful attitudes and behaviors, and whereas Community Action Partnership of Community, Madera County, Inc., Victim Services provides critical support, advocacy, and crisis intervention to individuals impacted by sexual violence. And therefore, let it be resolved that on behalf of Mayor C. Skagos and the City Council that we recognize April as Sexual Awareness Month. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Jennifer Coronado. I'm with Victim Services. I just want to thank the mayor and city council for recognizing April's Sexual Assault Awareness Month. We do have a few events for the community. On Friday, we have our annual Walk a Mile on Her Shoe. So if you've never seen or heard of it, it's where we go to Courthouse Park. Registration is at 5 o'clock and the walk starts at 540. We have children, men, women wearing heels to just bring attention to a good cause. We also have denim day denim day is Wednesday the twenty ninth. It's basically where it's a world event. We break dress code to kind of protest blaming victims of sexual assault based on their clothing. So, an Italian judge rule that a victim had tight jeans on. So she couldn't have been raped. She had a that's giving consent. So, of course. cause outrage everywhere so the women in parliament over there protest by wearing jeans so we continue to do that over 20 years now that would be on april um 29th and then we are also hosting a child abuse conference on april 30th over at dss in the emo room and that would be at 10 a.m and we just hope that everyone can join us and thank you all right

Mayor city council members, thank you so much for the many years of support. I'm bringing awareness to sexual assault as, you know, your city law enforcement and many other agencies participate and support our child advocacy center. That's where children come in and they're interviewed for for a forensic exam because they have they have shared that they're a victim of sexual assault. so it's really important that we share this awareness with our partners at madera pd and others and thank you for your support this is many years of support from the city council thank you all right you want to come up to the chamber for a picture and let the record show that councilwoman mahia has arrived thank you

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, ready? Hey, ready? One, two,

Next item city clerk Gonzalez.

Is proclamation recognizing National Volunteer Month?

Well, I need heels tonight. This monitor's got a little higher, I think. Good evening, everyone. I have the great opportunity tonight to welcome some volunteers that have been with us for many years. We cannot do what we do in this city without their support. If I could please call up our police department chaplains. I think we have three in the house. Come on up. We would like to honor you, if you can move this way so we make sure you're in the camera, for a National Volunteer Month. And Chief, come on down. April is recognizing a National Volunteer Month, providing an opportunity to honor individuals and groups who selflessly dedicate their time and talents to meaningful causes. This month is devoted to celebrating the hard work, compassion, total compassion here. And these gentlemen are showing commitment day and night. You can we call them and our community calls calls them across this nation. The city of Madera recognize all their civic engagement and essential to building a strong, vibrant and connected community. The volunteer chaplains of Madera Police Department serve as a vital partner, offering support, compassion and care to residents and first responders alike i hereby cc gallegos mayor of the city of madera and my city council hereby proclaim the month of april 2026 as national volunteer month and i do want to just put another keynote here that when tragedy does happen in our community which it did i think a year ago this community pulled together and we did a vigil out at walgreens because of an incident that happened chaplains were there they were not just comforting the family they were comforting this community because each and every one of us goes through a lot when something happens in this community and without them I think a lot of us would be home struggling with a lot of things and issues of mental health but they're always here for us and if it's not having to do with a personal issue it could be a professional issue remember they're always here to help support you in any way and You could reach out to the chief. He could get you in touch with one of our chaplains to get you through whatever you need to get through. And it can be even your children or your neighbors or your friends or an elderly person that lives in your neighborhood. subdivision or near your housing. Always know that they're here and they will do whatever it takes to make us all very mentally healthy and spiritually sound and whatever we need. So with that, thank you chaplains for being there with us. And I hand you this proclamation and any one of you would like to say a few words are more than welcome to.

Thank you. This is just Gino Cermonti, Chief of Police. I just want to say these men have integrity. They are strong leaders in our community. Not only do they have families, they're running their congregations, but they're also putting in their time to give back to their community through the police department. She had talked about during times of tragedies, but it's not just times of tragedy. They will come and do ride-alongs and just be there to listen to the officers. But most recently, I had an interaction with Pastor Tim Echeverri, who is just present on a ride-along. And we ran into a gentleman who was struggling in life, was starting to hit rock bottom, and was just reaching out for help. What an opportunity we had to provide that help. Pastor Echeverria actually was able to drive him to an inpatient facility to where he was able to start to make changes in his life. But it's those types of willingness to sacrifice for others and looking for change to build up this community is what these three gentlemen provide. So this is Dennis Sylvester, Mike Under, and Tim Echeverria. We just appreciate you guys so much for what you do for our community.

I'm going to say something real quick.

So I just want to say that we're honored today and just want to also say that we thank God for our police department. But I want to let you guys know that we're honored that we get to do this. And not only that, but not only represent our Madera Police Department, our chief and also all the officers, but also the city of Madera. But I just want to say we thank all of you guys. We're all here today because somebody put their arm around us. That's why we do what we do. I know it's a calling from God, but we love it and we appreciate it. And just want to let you know that we're always praying for all of you as well. But thank you and God bless you. And thank you, Chief, too, for all that you do for allowing us to do this alone.

Thank you.

Thank you. Ready? One, two, three. One more. One, two, three. Hold that pose. Hey, next item is a certificate of recognition recognizing Linda Garner, founder of Doors of Hope.

Blessings to each and every one of you here this afternoon. It is such a great honor for me to be able to stand and to present this honor to you in reference to Linda Garner. I will read to you what it says certificate The City of Madera City Council Certificate of Recognition, in memory of Linda Gardner, in memory of a remarkable individual whose service, dedication, and leadership left a lasting impact on the City of Madera. Linda Gardner, founder of Doors of Hope, established the organization in May 2003 to address pregnancy in Madera County. She was a dedicated leader who demonstrated compassion and a strong commitment to serving and uplifting the community. Her legacy continues to inspire. Her contribution to the city will be long remembered. And to you, I present this. Thank you so very much. And thank you for continuing to keep her memory alive. Would you like to have some of this?

Thank you so much Mayor and City Council for recognizing Linda for the work that she started in 2003. Doors of Hope, I don't know if many of you know about Doors of Hope. We are a parenting and pregnancy resource center here in town. We have serviced over 5,000 people in the 23 years that we've been operating. and we are a non-profit, we are a faith-based and pro-life organization. We are located on Yosemite, 1201 East Yosemite, and there are many services that we provide for the community and for the people who are low income and can't afford a lot of things. Everything is free at our facility. Instead of trying to go through and tell you all the classes that we have, I thought what would speak more volumes is some of the reviews of the clients that we have come across. And so I want to read some of these reviews and this speaks volumes for doors of hope and what we do for the community. This is from a client. I don't know what I was walking into. I didn't know what I was walking into. They gave me a pregnancy test. Let me take it privately and sat with me for over an hour. Just listened, no agenda. I left with real information instead of just fear. Another one, parent in the Fresno area. I had to take a parenting class for social services. Expected to hate it, but it was one-on-one in Spanish and my advocate treated me like an adult. I ended up staying for the Strengthening Families program on my own. and here's another one, a father in Madera, called about anger management because my co-parenting situation had gotten bad. Class was court approved completely free. My advocate helped me through things I'd been avoiding for years. My relationship with my kids is now different. I have just a few more. One lady said her name is Patty. Doors of Hope provides many services that I think most people are not aware of. For starters, years ago, one of my daughters was a teen parent. They have donated baby clothes and things to help her out. Not only do they provide parenting classes and education, they also provide free faith-based peer counseling. Deborah Holliday has been so helpful to me in my journey of healing. I am so grateful to be able to see her on a frequent basis. They provide much needed services and support to all types of people in the course of my life. She has been my master level clinician that I have seen over the course of my life. I hope people consider donating to this nonprofit agency because they are a very positive resource for our community. And just a few more here. Amazing people and amazing services. Highly recommended. They have been truly inspiring and helpful in my time of need. They never judge anyone and simply try to help you out in any way they can. And one says, I am very grateful with the way I was attended. I am feeling a lot better and more at peace with how I manage family time and friendship time. I thank God most of all for giving me the strength to walk into the doors of hope and have the courage to have asked for help. Yeah, thank you for opening your doors. I 100% recommend this location, this foundation, this group as a safe place. And the last one I'm going to read is from a Hispanic client. Her name is Christina. And she said, I really love Doors of Hope. The diaper program has truly supported my family in these tough times. Especially living paycheck to paycheck. The best part is also learning and getting an education from the program. So, a lot of people don't know what we do, but we educate parents, newly parents that are going to be new parents and already people who have children, small children. And so that is what we do and then I also have a flyer here that I would like to present to the city council. It's our 23rd anniversary celebration that we're going to have open to the public on Saturday, May 2nd. The public is invited to attend from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Come by and see us. Check us out. See what we're like. We're going to have refreshments. We're going to have finger foods. And we just want to make the public aware of who we are in this town and what we do. So thank you very much. I'm very appreciative of this certificate of recognition. And I thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you. Ready? One, two, three.

One, two, three.

next item city clerk is the mid valley 2025 annual update recycler of the year and madera high school scholarship recipients

Thank you. And I think we have Billy coming up with Marissa. And if we could get the CEO, Mr. Cavalcoff to also join this group, maybe he could start off by introducing his staff that's here. We have quite a few in the house. So thank you for being here. Yes.

Okay.

Sorry.

and if your kids staff could go more towards us to be in the camera thank you good evening mayor council members staff joseph cowguff owner of mid valley disposal it's our pleasure to be here tonight to give you an update hand out some scholarships and go over the cleanup event. With our staff, I'll start with Rick, our operations manager, Ray Sanchez, route supervisor, Casey Austin, government affairs. Billy is our recycling manager, Fernando, and Marissa on the recycling team as well. I'm going to turn it over to Billy to get it started.

Thank you so much for that introduction, and I'm so happy to see everybody tonight. Feels like it's been a year. So the 2026 update is going to be a recap of 2025. So I actually want to invite Marissa up. She's our recycling program specialist, and I'm going to have her make these presentations moving forward. So we're throwing her into the fire tonight, and then I'll pop in at the end for the scholarships. Perfect.

Welcome, Marissa.

Thank you, Billy. And I've done like three of these already, so hopefully I don't stumble through this one. But I just want to quickly introduce myself. My name is Marissa Corralejo, and I'm the Recycling Program Specialist here with MidValley Disposal. I just recently reached my one-year anniversary with MidValley this past January, but I'm not new to this industry. I've actually been in this industry since diapers. My dad's been a driver since 1992, and I have aunts, uncles, and cousins that are GM's operations managers, you name it. Um, so it's just really amazing. I've been, I worked for other corporations and I just want to just say it while I have the opportunity that mid Valley disposal is hands down the best company I have ever worked for. So, um, we'll leave that there, but we'll go ahead and we'll get started here. So I just kind of wanted to quickly just touch base on the community events that Mid Valley was a part of. We actually really enjoy this. One thing where Mid Valley excels is community engagement. And so this past year in 2025, we participated in the Madeira Earth Day, Madeira Old Times Day Parade. I actually wasn't at that one. The Pomegranate Fruit and Nut Festival and the Christmas Parade, which I heard was a lot of fun. And then so for quickly education and outreach, we have Fernando Botello, who is our recycling coordinator here. And he actually is the one that is boots on the floor doing all of this work here in the city of Madera. So thank you, Fernando, for your hard work. In the city of Madera, he was able to accomplish 659 site visits. Over 1,000 educational flyers were distributed to the community, whether that was through a mailer or an in-person flyer. Four flyers inserted in our utility building, so those were actually separate flyers, and then all the Tier 1 and Tier 2 food generators were identified and provided education for Maria Ayala. She is not here right now, but she is our food recovery specialist, and she is really great at what she does. And so we have our cleanup events. And for that, I'm going to go ahead and bring up our operations manager and our route supervisor, Rick Rye and Ray Sanchez. And they can go ahead and give you guys those totals.

I will say that this year's cleanup was the biggest one we've ever seen.

That is 100% correct, Joe. I'd like to take a moment first off and thank the Public Works, Code Enforcement, and the Police Department for all their help this year. This year brought a number of additional challenges that we've never faced before from hazardous waste to sulfur and acid into some of the largest illegal dumping sites we've ever seen to date. Despite these obstacles, we were able to complete our work successfully. And after our final day, we conducted a full sweep for the next three days alongside Public Works, making sure there's nothing left, nothing was left behind. IN TOTAL, WE COLLECTED 4.7 MILLION POUNDS OF TRASH, 66,116 POUNDS OF ORGANIC, 230,890 POUNDS OF METALS, 2,507 MATTRESSES. THIS IS A LITTLE OVER 5 MILLION POUNDS OF TRASH COLLECTED OFF THE STREETS OF MEDERA. THIS IS AN INCREASE OF 1.3 MILLION POUNDS FROM LAST YEAR TO THIS YEAR. JUST SO EVERYBODY CAN GET A GOOD LITTLE VISUAL OF THAT, OKAY? At this year, once again, just thank everybody. It was especially Ray Sanchez, the Mid Valley team as well for coordinating with Public Works and city staff for making sure that we had another successful cleanup this year. Thank you.

I want to, for the next slide, as the Recycler of the Year, I want to invite Fernando. He's integral in selecting it, the recipient. So, Fernando, go ahead.

Good evening everyone. My name is Fernando Botello and I'm the recycling coordinator for the City of Madera. It is an honor to stand before you today as we celebrate an outstanding example of sustainability and commitment to a cleaner, greener future. The Recycler of the Year recipient has consistently gone above and beyond in ensuring they properly sort their recycling and organic waste. This is a bittersweet feeling because the year they are selected is sadly the year they will be closing their business doors. What a better way to close shop than with this recognition. With that being said, I am thrilled to congratulate Plaza Flower Shop for being recognized as Madeira's Recycler of the Year.

she wasn't able to make it tonight but we wanted to make sure and visit her beforehand so we got that picture with her so she has her award and then lastly we're going to move forward with our scholarship recipients so if you're one of If you're 1 of the scholarship recipients, please come on up. I'll give you a brief introduction and allow you to share with the council. If you've been selected to a school already, or what your dream school is, and what you want to do. So, come on up from Madera high school. I have Isabel Martinez. from madera south i have nicolette mercado and from matilda torres i have kirt vir singh and i would love to invite you you're the first one up girl if you want to come say something

Hi, I'm Isabel Martinez, and I just want to say how grateful I am to be here today. So thank you. And as I haven't really picked a college I want to go to yet, but I do know that I want to major in animal science as I want to pursue a career that has something to do with helping animals and making sure that they are living in the best environment.

life is possible.

So right now, some of my top choices are Cal Poly Pomona and Fresno State. So thank you.

Hello, everybody. My name is Nicolette Mercado and I'm from Madera South. For my college, I'm probably going to go to Madera Community College and will hopefully get my bachelor's in pre-med as I want to become an optometrist. And I just wanted to thank Mid Valley Disposal for giving me the scholarship and my family for being able to support me. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Kirti Garcin. It can be a little hard to pronounce. I'm going to UC Berkeley this next year for architecture and industrial engineering. And I'm probably going to get my bachelor's and then go forward with my PhD or doctorate in something else. That's about it.

And Billy, before you go on, can I have the parents of these students please stand up to give you a round of applause for all the hard work you put into your children?

Thank you.

That's the end of our presentation. If you have any questions, we'd be happy to answer or we can just take photos.

We'd like to take a photo. Come on up.

as everyone's preparing um i just want to let everyone know it's a bit warm in here our hvac stopped working we do have someone working on it right now so i apologize so we'll probably keep a couple of doors open try to get some air circulation

Oh, we need big rally.

You can spin it.

Can you fit in?

Like the people that one step and as we can pass, you guys should talk to.

I don't like my what did I like you said that you should have some come around the back to taller.

There we go. That's important. There we go. Perfect. All right. Good.

Good.

Step back here. We need some steps. Okay.

Everyone ready? One, two, three. One, two, three. Got it. Thank you.

Stay still. Now the parents want photos.

They want a photo.

Are we in or not?

Oh, we're in, okay. Me too.

Okay, and now one with only the parents. Ready? One, two, three, four, five.

Yay. Congratulations. Thank you.

Congratulations again. Thank you. Thank you. Well. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations.

Thank you.

Still there. Thank you, Ben Valley for that great presentation and all that you do to support our city and our young people in the city of Madera.

We appreciate it.

Moving on to the next item, City Clerk Gonzalez.

Is public comment the 1st, 15 minutes of the meeting are reserved for members of the public to address the Council on items, which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Council speakers 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 a public hearing on the agenda should be held until the hearing is opened. 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. Anyone in the Chamber, please come up to the podium if you have any comments that are not on the agenda.

Good evening, I'm Charlotte Brewer. I'm here representing Relay for Life, which is also taking place on May the 2nd. So when you go to Doors of Hope, please come by Relay. We'll be there for 24 hours. Our theme this year is wave goodbye to cancer. And don't we all wish we could do that? So it's kind of a beachy theme and it should be a lot of fun. Relief for Life is a community-based fundraising event for the fight against cancer. It unites communities to celebrate survivors, remember loved ones lost, and raise funds to fight back against cancer. Since 2005, our community, which included Eastern Madera County and Shochilla, with Madeira, but Madeira is the only surviving relay has raised over $4 million for the American Cancer Society through Relay for Life. We'd love to keep adding to that number as we continue to fund life saving research and services and education. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment, Miss Burr and for our really cute ornament that you gave us this evening. Any other comments? Come on up.

Good evening Council and City of Madera. My name is Maurice Johnson and I wanted to say thank you to the board, the Council members for allowing me to be a part of the Airport Advisory Commission. I had my first meeting yesterday and unfortunately, it wasn't a quorum. But I want to bring to your attention that and that I will try and help bring volunteers and more people that want to volunteer to support that commission. I do have three business owners. They have businesses in the city of Madera, they're residents of the city of Madera or county, and I will work with the airport manager and Azima, who is an administrator in the city, to help strengthen the airport advisory committee. It's something for me to do. I feel as a resident of Madera that this is a great opportunity. I appreciate being aligned with Anita, Councilwoman Anita Evans, and I appreciate the help from Councilman Rodriguez and Councilman Montes and Artemio. Yes, thank you. I appreciate the help with with this committee and I look forward to being here next time. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Anyone else in the chamber? City Clerk Gonzalez, anyone online or on Zoom? Thank you. With that, I will close public comment at this time and move on to E2. We're going to move up. City Clerk, are you ready for that title?

Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. For about five or six years, you've been hearing me come up and talk about the Groundwater Sustainability Plan and and SGMA, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. And usually that's coming from me. Tonight, we have John Davids. He is one of the people who are directly involved in the presentation and preparation of those reports. Tonight, he'll be discussing the domestic well mitigation program. But I would say take any opportunity that you can. to ask him about, you're very welcome, to ask him about the domestic well mitigation program and any other aspects of SGMA that you might like.

Thank you. And that will be an update and action on this item by the successor agency.

That is right. And I'm just working back through a number. There we go. No, it wasn't. Alicia? Sure. I'm looking for the share part.

I do feel a breeze now, so thank you for that. Oh, there it was. Public Works Director.

I lost it.

Shannon. Thank you so much. So embarrassed. Anyway. Okay, done. Good. Thank you, Keith.

for the welcome, and Mayor, Council, it's good to be with you this evening. I had three observations before I got started this evening on my way down. I've added two to it. As you can imagine, I'm in a lot of boardrooms and city council chambers from about Shasta Valley down to Los Angeles. And this is probably one of the more inviting and welcoming boardrooms. So congratulations to you guys. It's a hard act to follow, having given out scholarships. Now I'm gonna talk about groundwater, right? That's difficult. That thoughtfulness extends to the fact that you also moved me up in the agenda. So thank you for doing that as well. Okay, the three observations that I had on my way down this evening before I wanted to jump in was this. I'm going to talk this evening about a program that has been developed and a series of documents that are embedded and sort of surround that program. At times, it's going to feel like We, as the administrator, David's engineering, it was the creator or the author of those documents. That's not the case. Your staff irrigation district water district. That's their hard work that went into creation of those documents. So I want to be clear about that. The 2nd item I want to mention is that what I'm going to describe here is a cooperative effort between again city of water district irrigation district. You guys have the luxury in many respects of relying upon an irrigation district for the day to day management of this. Right? And that's an envious position, right? That's really good for you all. And then the last observation is, I think this is the 4th time I've given this PowerPoint. So, if we're nothing else, I'm going to try and keep it fresh for myself. Okay. All right, let's go ahead and jump into it. I always like an agenda. So here's the roadmap for our discussion. We're going to take a minute to talk about the background, right? How did we get to this point? This is a significant milestone. We'll review the domestic well mitigation program. I'll start with a high-level summary, and then we'll move into the program documents and then into the well driller selection process. Again, the audiences are varied. Some folks are more interested in this program than others, but the presentation is largely remain the same. And then I'm going to give you my takeaways, right? I mean, if Keith was up here, he may have other takeaways. And I encourage him to offer those thoughts as well. But the takeaways will largely be mine. I'll talk about the next steps. And then of course, we'll open up for questions. And I'm pretty informal. So if there are questions along the way, please, please throw something at me and we can go ahead and take the question and try and get it answered. All right, so here's the background. You will remember, given Keith's updates before you, that the original Groundwater Sustainability Plan for the Madera Subbasin was submitted back in January of 2020. We subsequently revised the Groundwater Sustainability Plan in response to the Department of Water Resources' incomplete determination. We turned that in in 2023, and lucky for us, it's not common In critically overdrafted basins to have an approved groundwater sustainability plan in the area. We do, in fact, have an approved groundwater sustainability plan. We did that the 1st time around. But as part of those revisions, the 7, I think it wasn't quite 7. there are 7, but I don't think all 7 signed the memorandum of understanding when we revised the plan, but you guys did and 4 of your colleagues did as well. And as part of that revision, we developed and subsequently execute a memorandum of understanding that said that we were committed to domestic well mitigation. Okay. We didn't quite know how we didn't quite know where or when or to what level, but we knew we were committed. Okay. So that's the genesis of the MOU. After the plan was approved, we spent a couple years working our way through, right? This is a, you know, water's difficult. And when you have seven parties at the table, it makes it even more difficult. We spent a couple years noodling our way through it. It wasn't because we didn't want to see resolution. It just took time. We spent last summer, the summer of 2025, with a facilitator mediator to try and get us there. And in fact, we did, and we didn't end in a way that I think is synonymous with some of the other sub basins in the San Joaquin Valley. Nonetheless, we decided that we reaffirmed our commitment to mitigate for domestic wells as a function of declining groundwater levels. We decided as a group that each of the GSAs within the sub basin was going to mitigate for domestic well mitigation within their own geographical boundaries. And that's the distinction. In some places, all of the GSAs work together, one program. That's not the case here. And that we would get started immediately. At the time, that was October 9th of 2025. So we're not too far away from that. So here's the summary, and I'm gonna add one wrinkle to this that I think is most appropriate for you all. But as I've already said, this is a significant commitment by you all, right? And Madera Irrigation District and Madera Water District. It is funded at different levels, right? And as the administrator, I don't think I even learned about what the funding levels were until just recently. That doesn't really matter. That's between the three GSAs, okay? Again, the domestic well of concern must be within the geographic boundaries of MID. the City of Madera or Madera Water District. The applicant must be the owner of record. That's extremely important. This next sub-bullet says it's limited to the drilling of the new well only. The distinction that I want to draw here with you all today is a more durable solution, and it's not precluded by the program, and that is where the opportunity arises, we want to be able to connect people to existing community water systems. Our goal is not to go out and drill a new well, to the extent that we can control that. So that's very important for you guys, right? In our agricultural communities, that potential doesn't exist. On the fringes of your area, that opportunity exists and we want to capitalize on it. That's a durable solution long-term, okay? It is one-time mitigation, right? So when a landowner comes in, they're qualified, we drill a new well. Again, it's just one time. The landowner has significant responsibility throughout this process and you'll see as I move through some of the documents, there's some real skin in the game and that's intentional. We want the landowners to be engaged in this process. The maximum award, this is one of the things that all of the seven GSAs, you know, could agree to. The maximum award is $35,000, okay? In some cases, it's going to cost more and that will be the landowner's responsibility and we're already seeing that today, okay? There is the hope, I will say, and I think there's great opportunity for collaboration with self-help enterprises to bridge the gap between the $35,000 that this program provides and increased costs should that be the case. So we're working through coordination with self-help, which is funded by the State Water Resources Control Board. As part of the process, we wanted to make sure that we vetted the well drillers. And so we have, and you'll see slides here in a minute about the RFQ that went out, but the landowners must use one of the pre-approved well drillers. And importantly, they can use, there's four, and you'll see that in a minute, they can use different well drillers throughout the process. Okay, so we want to try and give flexibility. And then lastly, the program is administered by a third party, that is David's Engineering, in coordination with Ludorf and Scalmanini, who have, between the two firms, we've been the primary authors of all of the groundwater sustainability planning efforts that have taken place within the Madera, Chowchilla, and a host of other subbasins. Okay? So let's jump into the documents. I'm not gonna cover these in a great level of detail. I think the intent of going through them with you this evening is to make you aware, at least at a superficial level, of what's required, right? So if your phones ring, you can push people to the right places. That's the intent tonight from my perspective. So, the 1st document that we have, and these are all, there's going to be some commonalities across all of these documents. 1 of the commonalities is that all of these documents are available online at this point. Okay. So they're all hosted on the irrigation districts website, but there are water district. You can click. They have a landing page. You click there. It points you back to the irrigation district. And I believe the same is true for you guys at this point. I know is working through it. Okay, all right, fair enough. Well, just like the AEC, you'll be back online in no time. I trust that.

Mr. Davis, is it also in different languages?

That's another commonality. It's in both English and Spanish, okay? And importantly, when there's telephone numbers, there's a distinct telephone number that's a 559 area code for this region. When they call our offices, they have the option of getting a Spanish speaker as well, right? So we do have that functionality, okay? All right, so we have the program summary document. It defines eligibility, talks about each of the individual phases of the program. And again, as I've already said, it's accessible online and it's available in both English and Spanish versions. The application is to be completed by the landowner record. There's an important sub bullet here and that is that we don't want to just write off or exclude tenants, right? I mean, that's an important function in our communities. So the reason for including this today is such that the public can see it, you all are aware, if we find ourselves in a situation where we have a tenant occupied property talk to the landlord right that's at the end of the day that's who we do business with i think that's reasonable but we want to make sure that the renters know that uh importantly the landowner must not be delinquent on any of the accounts with the three different participating gsas okay so our staff is going to call around we're going to call them an irrigation district everything current yep good to go we're going to talk keith has given us a contact for for your staff internally We're going to reach out to them, everything good here, and so on and so forth down the line. We talked about skinning the game early on and responsibility. There is $100 non-refundable deposit. We've gone back and forth on this over the years. The intent of this is really just to prevent folks from coming in willy-nilly. There's some seriousness behind this. I'm not going to say that $100 is insignificant. It's not. It depends on on everybody's individual scenarios, but that's the fee that we've arrived at. All right, the initial well assessment, this is a form that must be paid for to be completed by the landowner, by one of the pre-approved drillers. And importantly, the form must be completed within 45 days of the application date. The intent is we just want something within that time window that gives us a good indication of whether the well is in fact dry or not. Uh, as I've already mentioned, the landowner is responsible for the costs associated with the initial well inspection and then the well assessment form is submitted alongside the application. And lastly, they must use the pre approved. All right, the application process form, I'm actually moving fairly quickly through this. And again, that's intentional. I really just want you guys to be aware of the forms. Um. This form is used after the Domestic Well Mitigation Program approval. There's approval of the application and the landowner proceeds to the next step. There are a couple different binding agreements within the context of what I'm going to show you this evening. This is one. It must be signed by ourselves as the administrator, the landowner, and in addition to that, the pre-approved driller, and the form must be signed prior to beginning the work. So again, we're not trying to be onerous here, but we're trying to be thorough and it's a balance. Uh, this is the 2nd of the binding agreements. This is the actual mitigation agreement that gets executed by the parties upon completion of drilling of a new well, or connection to an existing community water system. It is a legal contract was developed by mitigation districts council, and then shared with with your staff in addition to staff from their water district. Um, the important components again, it's actually for a legal document. It's fairly brief. It's only 3 or 4 or 5 pages, but in general, the agreement includes a couple of important provisions. The 1st is that there's no warranty or guarantee that the program mitigation measures. will be for those measures that are performed, okay? And that's important. We can't control sort of the slope and the extent of future groundwater declines, okay? We are doing our best to implement projects and management actions. The number one driver, as I'm sure Keith has told you in this room, to our success from a groundwater sustainability perspective is one variable, and that's hydrology. If we have five wet years in a row, You're never gonna see me again. Keith's phone won't ring, I won't call him. If we have five drivers in a row, I may be back to see you guys, right? Okay, that's the main driver. The document also protects the MID GSA and importantly, the other parties and their authorized representatives like us, we're thankful for that. long term this is an important item the landowner agrees to allow property access for future monitoring okay so we're we're going to mitigate for the well but we also have a significant uh data gap within much of the sub basin and so to the need to the extent the need arises for us to go out back out and monitor groundwater conditions uh we have the right to do so One-time mitigation, okay, I mentioned we don't have a control over the future. This is one-time mitigation. How do we back that up? This document is recorded on the deed, okay? So if I participate in the program, I execute these documents, I get a new will, it's recorded, three years down the road, I go to sell the property, there's a title search, this is gonna pop up, okay? Because public outreach is so important in addition to the presentations that I've given in a host of different spots, we put together a domestic well mitigation program flyer again. It's on the website to be distributed. I'm sure that there's a stack of these perhaps somewhere or there will be soon. Maybe. Yeah. And it provides a concise summary of the program. Okay. And refers the potential applicants to additional resources again, available in English and Spanish as all these documents are. let's talk a little bit we're in the home stretch here so hang with me let's talk a little bit about the well driller selection process uh this is important from a technical perspective we advertised the solicitation on january the 20th of this year we provide the opportunity of all in all of our contracts for questions to be asked by potential bidders uh that deadline was january 30th we received no uh no questions Subsequent to closing of the RFQ period, we received 7 submissions, which is fantastic. Right? I mean, we want the free market to operate and we want cost to be as reasonable as possible. So that's really, really good. The statement of qualifications were reviewed by both ourselves, David's engineering and Ludo from and subsequently we selected 4 qualified candidates out of that pool of 7. Okay. So, these are the 4, all right, Arsenal, well, services, well, drilling Bradley and sons, who's a familiar name and then Valley well drilling. Okay. So the potential applicants again, the intended tonight make you aware of this. There's 4 different parties that folks can choose from. All right, as part of the well, uh, driller selection process, there is also, you know, we're, we're not short of agreements. We have another agreement between the pre-approved well driller, uh, and the animated irrigation district in this case, on behalf of the other GSAs, uh, we distribute, this is a mandatory document. It's to be executed by all parties. In fact, all of these are already on file at our office. Uh, the agreement highlights importantly, a couple of different items. One, that the payment conditions set by the Domestic Well Mitigation Program, namely that $35,000 cap. It defines the standards for the program. It talks about the warranty of the drillers when drilling a new well. We require the insurance requirements. prevailing wage included as a public works project, reporting and documentation of the new well that's constructed, and then the GSA's right to terminate the driller for failure to follow the requirements, okay? Actually, this document is fairly one-sided, and that's for good reason. It gives the GSAs, like yourselves, great ability to terminate the program for any reason at any time under any conditions, okay? And that's the last bullet there is just that. here are my takeaways uh and again we're we're moving uh around third base headed to home uh this is a significant commitment right i said that in the opening and i'm going to say it again i mean it uh the program is a detailed and well-developed program right and it wasn't us that developed it it was your staff and colleagues at each of the other participating agencies again just to recap you must be within the geographic boundaries of mid city of madera or madera water district There, this must be, we must deal with the applicant or the applicant must be the owner record limited to join of a new well, or importantly connection to an existing community water system. It is 1 time mitigation. Landowner has skin in the game. There's a host of documents to aid and track implementation of the program and then lasted at the maximum award is 35,000 dollars. Pre approved welders are in place and the programs ready for implementation has been since about the 1st of April. Okay. So, next steps, I'm here with you guys this evening. This might be an old presentation. That's all right though. I won't hold it against Keith and probably my fault. That's okay. I'll take the blame tonight. I was before the board of directors on March 31st before you guys this evening and it was actually before the water district board. I think a week from tomorrow. Okay. We, as staff have monthly reoccurring meetings just to make sure that we're all on the same page. Right? Most of this is going to run through in ourselves, but we don't want to leave anybody behind. So, at a staff level, we have monthly reoccurring meetings. 1 of the questions that has come up and is important for the public tonight is. If a well inspection comes in today, or excuse me, well, application comes in today, and we move through the, the approval process, and they meet the requirements for the program. We have standing well, inspection days, and those inspection days are the 2nd and the 4th Wednesday of every month. Right? So, at most folks are waiting 2 weeks to have their well inspected. Okay. If we were to see, I think it's fair to say, if we were to see a significant uptick in the number of dry wells, we would increase that frequency. Right? We want to be responsive to the community. The pre approved well, driller flyer is complete. And then again, as I mentioned, the official start date is at this point a couple of weeks ago.

Okay.

So, mayor with that, I'm happy to answer any questions on the subject matter today. and at Keith's requisition or request any other groundwater conditions or questions that you may have.

Great presentation. Thank you. Council Member Rodriguez.

Yes, thank you, Mayor Gallegos, and thank you, Mr. Davids, for the presentation. As far as the City is concerned, do we have an approximate number of people that are in domestic wells, that have domestic wells within the City? Do we have ballpark number?

There's probably only been about 3 or 4 wells have been shown up in city in the last year. So, um. Those have been mitigated by the self help enterprises. I may I may behind the 3 or 4 in the last few days. We've had probably 4 dry. Well, reports come in, but they were all out in the county for the last several months. They've mostly been what they've been occurring out in the county or outside the city limits.

and folks that have a wells domestic wealth within the city they're not required to register those wells do we not have like how many of those people have wells and the reason I say that is because the $35,000 seems to be a fairly priced or average price for a well but as we continue to go through this domestic well mitigation program and the cost continue to increase is that a sufficient number So it is not so onerous on that resident that's going to suffer some issue with their domestic well.

We consider it a fair number. Prices will increase and there is the opportunity for the amount to be raised. In combination with self-help, we're hoping that we can go ahead and help even more people. As an example, it was mentioned that If they connect up to the city, that's better overall for the, for everybody that can cost an equivalent amount. If they're immediately adjacent to the city is, in fact, it might cost a few thousands to the 35,000 dollars to go ahead and connect. If they're immediately adjacent, we have 1 or 2 of those right now out on Alice Avenue. There's a, there was 1 property. That would like to connect and self help is handling that particular 1. Uh, that would probably be no more than 5 or 10,000 dollars, including connection fees from the city. But as you move away, it gets to be expensive to go ahead and extend water. You're talking about, um, um, anywhere between 800 or plus dollars per foot to go ahead and do it, depending upon who they talk to and who they contract with. It can be a really large number when it's a, when it's an individual looking for a couple of 100 feet of pipe.

the last time we had this conversation i think you mentioned that if people wanted to connect they can utilize this mitigation money to connect to the city would that be uh that's right and we're amenable to allowing that correct Okay, and my last question is, do we have an amount of residents that are outliers within the main water line that particularly- We do, but I can't, it's hard to go ahead and describe how, or to go ahead and figure out how many there are.

As an example, along Adele Avenue, there are a number of properties through there that are adjacent to it. There's no water line in that particular street, but there have been dry wells. there are quite a few dry wells around the periphery. I've seen a number of dry well reports that show that they're within, say, 500 feet of the City. 500 feet is an important number because the County is mandated to ask the City whether we have a concern with connecting to the City. We can say yes or no, and generally our response to that is going to be based upon is it is it an onerous request to ask them to go ahead and bring in 300 feet of of a pipeline to connect their house to the city we have we we look at around 200 right now and even that depending upon the contractor might be a big number compared to say the 35 000 so each request is each request seems unique at the time it seems got it and

If someone has an active well, but knows that this well, it has a potential failure here in the next couple of years. Can they be active in trying to. Go after this application.

Yeah, I think I'm going to let John. Yeah, no, that's a great question. I think I have a couple observations in response to your questions. The 1st is, um. He's exactly right that the hope is, and frankly, from our perspective, the expectation is that we can bridge the gap between $35,000, and let's call it 50 for discussion purposes tonight, through using a cooperative relationship with self-help enterprises, okay? So I think that's the first question, or the first comment that I had. The second comment is that our firm has the luxury of playing a similar role for madera county all right so when you talk about cost escalating we know that right and it's it's up to to the program design for the madera county program they have built in a three percent escalator there's a question whether that's enough or not in today's world but they've built that escalator in over time to account for inflation just exactly as you talk about right and then lastly i would say that your this idea about um sort of On the way to being dry and taking proactive action, yes, we want to know about those folks. We want to know about the folks that the well is cycling on and off today, but in two months from now when irrigation demand picks up, they might be out of water. Yes, we want to be proactive with those folks.

And I only say that because you brought up a really interesting point. you were assuming that if we have five good wet years and obviously we would love to see that right obviously that's good for recharge but if we don't and most likely they probably will be calling.

The odds are high that we're not gonna have five wet years in a row. That's merely illustrative, right? I mean, if I had a bat phone to mother nature, I'd ask for that, but that's not something that I have, right? So you're absolutely right, yeah. And frankly, we are seeing a bit of an uptick. We did this for another client. If you look at the number of dry wells, so if you were to imagine a graph with number of dry wells on the Y-axis and time between January and December, on the X axis, what you would see is that there are very few dry wells in the early months. And then what happens? We go into our growing season, right? And then that line shoots up and then it sort of carries on at a stable rate for a while. We turn our ag wells off and we drop back down and dependent upon the year types that can be cyclical, right? Especially when you 2021 and 2022 is a really good example of that, right? Two dry years back to back. That's precisely what you see every year.

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Davids. I appreciate your response. And thank you, Keith. That's all I have.

Thank you for your comment. Council Member Montez. A couple of questions in kind of the same vein.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you for the presentation. Just curious, what was the estimate of the property owner's responsibility for assessment of the drywall?

That's a difficult one. And again, I think our gut feeling on that, we don't have firm numbers from the contractors. We think it's probably in the $400, $500 range is the guess. But again, we're hoping free market does what free market does. And now that there's four folks out there. Uh, you know, hopefully somebody undercuts the market and we drive that price down. That's the intent. And again, this isn't an isolation. So I mentioned that we are the administrator for Madera county as well. So, between Madera county, and the 3 within the program that we discussed tonight. The important thing about that, from my perspective, those are the clients that we've always represented all along the way. That amounts to coverage of 96, 98% of the subbasin. So, you know, the other districts, Root Creek, Newstone, Gravely Ford, they're small districts on the fringes. And what we're talking about here is implementation for almost the majority of the subbasin. Yeah.

And that's really good because that leads to my next question. So as an administrator, do you guys have the ability to like stack? So you guys are getting reports. Let's take a Dell. There's a few wells that went out. If they go out in around the same geographic area around the same time, they would say, well, this is going to be a $200,000 job. But since we have multiple, we can.

Yeah, there's some economy of scale. The place that that plays out the most, frankly, is probably that, you know, Madera county was ahead a little bit from a timing perspective. So what we've learned there has already infiltrated its way into this program. The other economy of scale is in those inspections that I talked about on the 2nd, and 4th, Wednesday of every month. We're not coming down here on the 2nd, Wednesday, just to do inspection for the program. We've discussed tonight. Right? We're going to pull all of the applicants. for Madera County and yourselves into one batch. So when we drive down here, we're splitting that cost across two different programs, right? So we try and be smart with the money.

I guess you verify that there are dry, right? But there's four in the same area. They're only getting $35,000 for each one. Say, well, you're priced out. Or would you say, we can take that as one project, pull that money together, and then do a whole stretch?

I think it's tough because there's a geographic boundary in there somewhere, right? So I think that's tough. But again, you know, one of the words that I rarely use, but it's out there is adaptive management. What we know tonight, and it's appropriate in the setting, what we know tonight and the program we've developed is likely not to be the program if I was before you in a year from now, right? Things are going to change and we're going to learn and we're going to make corrections as we go.

Thank you.

Council Member Mejia.

Thank you for the fairness of your presentation. Will the legal contracts also be in Spanish in addition to the applications?

Good question. Great question. So we debated that and the answer to that is actually no, because from an interpretation perspective, that is not something we feel comfortable with. So the recommendation is going to be and perhaps I see council shaking his head. Affirmatively our, our recommendation is to go see council of your own such that the interpretation is true and correct.

And key key summary of the highlights of the contracts be provided to people.

I think, yeah, well, maybe I should defer to counsel.

Just to jump in, what happens when you do contracts in a different language and one in English, one in Spanish, often there are nuances between the two translations that create ambiguities as what's necessary. So in the state of California, there's kind of a long history saying, hey, do the English one because that's the official state language, because that defines the exact parameters for the court to be able to rule on. However, There's nothing wrong with providing them a brief summary saying this is what the contract generally provides. However, we make no representation that this act really reflects all the nuances in the English translation. And courts have been fine with that because it's clear that it's kind of a summary versus a contract itself. And I hope I didn't jump in on that, but that's generally the reason why agencies do that.

Yeah. And I don't have, there's two thoughts in my mind. The first is, is that when they call, if they're a Spanish speaking applicant, they call our office. they're going to get someone on the other end of the phone that speaks Spanish fluently as a primary language. It's my expectation that that summary is going to be there sort of informally, but I think my takeaway and action item tonight would be in coordination with Madera Irrigation District and Madera Water District to recommend to them that we do just that, right? So we recommend you go seek your own counsel, but here's the summary, non-binding, but we hope it's helpful. So I think that's a good comment and I'm happy to work on that.

Thank you.

Council Member Rodriguez. I just have one last question and comment. Now, with this program and part of your engineering here, Mr. Davids, do you see a future breakdown of these wells based on hydrology and what you've studied?

Oh, it's inevitable, right? I mean, the reason that we're here tonight, so let's back up to The original creation of the groundwater sustainability plan, and 1 of the analysis that was that was put together by a collaborator of ours economics was this, and we, we found ourselves in a place where the stated past stigma. We knew we needed to act. We were in the middle of developing our groundwater sustainability plans. and the question was what is going to bring uh sort of the most economic harm to madera county and the madera sub basin and that analysis went something like this we can do one of two things largely there's a couple dials we can turn we can turn off all of our agricultural pumps okay and we can be sustainable from a groundwater perspective what is the economic impact from doing that it's enormous right it's enormous On the other hand, we can allow groundwater levels to decline to some reasonable level while we do the planning necessary to implement what we call the projects and management actions. Right? So, the recharge, the multi benefit land repurposing where we're taking land out of production and what we hope to see is a recovery of those groundwater levels. But in the interim. We know that there are going to be impacts of domestic wells. And let's mitigate for those domestic well impacts and the cost of doing so pales in comparison to the economic impact of of immediately stopping pumping for agricultural purposes. So there will be impacts.

Yeah. And because you use the term inevitable, I know that it's inevitable that the municipal wells will also suffer. And that's because of the overdraft that we have. So, 1 thing that I would continue to tell my colleagues here is that we continue to advocate for these aggressive recharge. projects that we can do not only with the current GSAs that are in this domestic well mitigation program, but also with the entire GSAs within our sub-basin here. It's just very important that the recharge is something that we do in projects, especially with MID. I think a lot of the residents here pay into MID, and I think we need to assert that we need more. Recharge basins within our cities to be able to prevent any of our municipal wells to take a hit because when they take a hit, every single rate payer takes a hit as well.

Yeah, I agree with that. You're absolutely correct. Councilman a couple of thoughts. 1, there are some big infrastructure projects that we are involved in. that are going in off the Churchill bypass. I recognize that's not close to your domestic wells, but I do think it's important that, and we're seeing this throughout the state, that recharge, one of the grand ideas 10 years ago was that agencies like yourselves would do all of this recharge, right? The irrigation districts, the cities, the water districts. What we're actually finding now is this really unique balance between projects that are completed with public funds by public agencies. But importantly, we're seeing a lot of recharge that is sort of decentralized in my mind that is done by individual growers, right? And individual landowners. And that's important because they can do things much more easily than the public agencies can for a variety of reasons. Environmental permitting all of the things that you guys talk about in these chambers on a, on a monthly basis. So you're absolutely correct. I think irrigation district has been a great partner. There's the Ellis basin is 1 of those places where, in coordination with the county, there's some recharge happening there. as time comes up. And the key to all of this, of course, is making sure that we retain our surface water resources for this region, right? That's a big deal. And so we're constantly facing the fight with, you know, the state of California, the federal government, and water supply more broadly. And the key to success here is harvesting the top off those wet years when they come, but also making sure that we have water, surface water, even in those dry years, and we're not turning solely to groundwater.

Thank you, Mr. Davids.

Thank you for that comment, Councilmember Rodriguez. With that, I open it up to public comment. Anybody in the Chamber have any questions? I see none. Any online or on Zoom?

We have none, Mayor.

Thank you. With that, I close public comment, and thank you for that presentation, Mr. Davis, for that.

You bet. Thank you all. Good to see you. Hope to see you again soon.

Yes. City Clerk Gonzalez, next item.

Public hearings item a 1 initiation of proceedings for the annexation of the of the sienna state subdivision into community facilities district number 2005 dash 1.

Thank you for that and I'll be presented by our senior planner smith.

good evening mayor good evening council members senior planner robert smith um this presentation uh represents the annexation number 18 for the sienna estates subdivision into the community community facilities district this is a way to create special attacks for public service funding throughout the city when generated by new development The district to be annexed is highlighted to the northwest of the city on the map and shows other annexations previously brought into the district. The map was approved for 113 lot residential subdivision with conditions of approval requiring the applicant to make this annexation application. The assessment would be $583 per unit for this new annexation. And the recommendation is for the city council to adopt the resolution declaring its intention to annex territory, including a portion of the track. I'm sorry. I lost the presentation. My apologies.

No worries.

Oh, I'm still going to get it back up. Maybe I can just read the adoption of the resolution is declaring its intention to annex territory, including a portion of track 5S19 and track 22S01, the CNS estate subdivision to the City of Madeira Community Facilities Districts, number 2005-1 public service to authorise a levy of special taxes therein and set in public hearing annexation number 18. That concludes the presentation. Staff are available for questions should you have them. Thank you.

Thank you for that presentation. I bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or comments. I see none at this time. I opened up for public comment. Anyone in the chamber? I see none online or on zoom. Anyone online or on zoom?

We have none mayor.

Okay. Thank you for that. We have someone in the chamber. Come on up, sir.

Yeah, I have a, have information about the sienna taxes that they want to provide or that when it charge in there i don't see the reason why we should pay additional taxes for that we don't even get anything benefit from the city as a matter of fact all the that little section of the uh the way we live it's all damage. There's no, nobody goes and cleans it. Nobody does anything to it. So we have a population of dogs running around, cats running around. Um, the, the sidewalks are all damaged. Um, understand what the concept of that is uh we have very bad uh neighbors that they don't take care of uh of the of the properties uh the grants it's all grown to the really high i mean i don't understand why we're gonna pay additional taxes for something that they're not even taking care of us so thank you thank you for your comments

I bring it back to my colleagues for any comments, if not for a motion and a second.

To proof.

Madam Mayor, I'm sorry, Keith, were you gonna add something before we voted? Or are you coming in for the next?

The next? Yeah. I have a motion. I think I want a 2nd, thank you all those in favor say aye. Those opposed we do have Councilwoman Evans not present at this motion.

And a side that doesn't affect the. The current consideration, I believe the gentleman is in the existing area, which is not subject to the safety.

Right? Correct. Thank you for that. This is new development, correct? Director of Engineering? Yes, thank you. Okay, moving on to the next item.

Item A2, annexation of the Siena State Subdivision Phase 2 into Landscape Maintenance District Zone of Benefit 45A for fiscal year 2026-27.

And presented by our own Director of Engineering, Hellworth.

Thank you mayor and council members. This is the annexation of the CNS states phase 2 subdivision into the landscape main district LMD, not the CFD of course, for zone of benefit 45A for fiscal year 26-27. Pursuant or purpose of the meeting pursuant to section 22554 the landscape and lighting underneath my little screen there. Annexation of any parcel in the zone of benefit requires both a public hearing as well as a published notice of public hearing. This is that public hearing. Public notice was posted on March 4th, 2026 of the Madeira Tribune. The public meeting represents an opportunity for current property owners in the zone of benefit to comment on proposed annexation. This is also for the new parcels, not any of the old parcels. However, the entirety of the original subdivision is subject to assessments from LMD. The reason for the annexation new development, the city is subject to annexation into the landscape maintenance district zone of benefit. Assessments are levied to pay for each property's fair share of maintenance within the zone associated with their parcel. These properties will be assessed fees outlined in the next slides or slide actually, and included in the annual engineer's report once they are granted occupancy. And that is 45, a, the state's phase 2, and that's 71 dollars and 18 cents per year for lots. 1 of 5 through 137. and this is the, this is phase 2, which was also shown in the. The recommendation for tonight is conduct a public hearing and receive any public comments that may be offered. Adopt a resolution to confirm the diagram and assessments as set forth in the staff report. Levy the assessment set forth in the staff report. This occurs as part of the next annual report, which is coming up. Yep, I believe mid probably May 5th, except covenant for the landscape maintenance district zone to benefit 45 a, and authorize the city clerk to file the diagram assessments with the auditor Madera county. With that, I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you for that. I bring it back to my colleagues for any comments or questions. I see now I opened it up for public comment in the chamber. I see no comments. City Clerk Gonzales, anyone online or on Zoom?

We have none, Mayor.

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

Move to approve item A2. Second.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion passes unanimously. Thank you for your presentation. Next item, City Clerk Gonzales, moving along.

Item A3, Measure T, Annual Expenditure Plan, AEP for fiscal year 2026-27.

Thank you. And that will start off with our deputy engineer, bitter woman of the year staff member.

It's been a while. I didn't remember how to do this.

Well, I think it's going to change next time we're at council. I think our new system.

Thank you very much. Thank you, mayor and members of the council, Ellen bitter, deputy city engineer. Um, I'm here tonight to present the annual expenditure plan, but it's going to be a tag team presentation. Also, uh, engineer Alexis from Mundo is going to present some additional information on our overall street rehab program. That will be beneficial to this presentation.

Welcome assistant engineer.

So, just a background measure T is a half cent sales tax approved by the voters back in November of 2006. it's only for transportation purposes and it's only from Adair county. It receives oversight from the Madera county transportation authority. And it is slated to sunset next year. March of next year is the end of our current measure. However, the good news, of course, is that citizens initiative passed to renew measure T and that will take effect. The new proceeds beginning April will go towards the new measure. Every year, the annual work program is adopted by the authority, and it includes each annual expenditure plan by the local agencies that it covers. So, this year's annual expenditure plan, our projected revenues and our allocation is a little less because it's only 9 months of the year. So, if you've been tracking the last few years, you'll notice that this is about 3 quarters of what's expected and it's the anticipated receipts through March. If anything more comes in, or if the receipts are higher than anticipated, the authority will amend our allocation and we'll be able to. Receive any additional funds that will come in up through March. How we identify our plans, our projects and programs is through our capital improvement process and also our city budget process and approval of this annual expenditure plan does require separate council action at a notice public hearing, which is tonight's recommendation. If you recall, in 2024, Council approved Resolution 24-158, which establishes a 30-day public review period. And following that protocol, a notice of public hearing was published in the Madera Tribune on March 11th of 2026. This table is an explanation of the planned expenditures for 26-27 of the Measure T funds. This is all of the programs that are included in the measure or in the annual allocation. The first column is carryover funds from prior years. And you'll see in the top one regional transportation highway program, it's a fairly large dollar figure as we've been collecting funds for our larger regional improvement projects. So as we implement those projects, obviously the carryover balance will go down. The second column is new funds for this year. And then the total allowed for programming is the column to the far right. And at the bottom right, we have the ability to program $27 million this year. I'll go through each of the individual sub programs. The 1st, 1 is regional transportation and highway program. It's for collector streets and arterial streets. And these are the projects that have planned expenditures this year, either design engineering right of way, and perhaps construction. If the projects are ready for that. I think everyone's familiar with all of Avenue, widening gateway to Knox. Just we continue to make strides on getting that project closer to construction. Project R54, it's the Cleveland Avenue widening from Schnoor to 99. these are the preliminary design phases. It is actually one of the regional projects that's administered by the authority, but we can start the preliminary engineering phases with our local funds and then it'll be that much closer when the funds are available from the regional program to implementing. The lake 4 central intersection is the next project as we have modified the approach and we're now considering the roundabout. Of course, the costs have increased. So we're planning a contribution from measure T to help fund that project. We are able to use these funds for pavement treatments and rehabilitation on on collectors and arterials and that's what the R79 project is. It'll be noted later, but our 79 in combination with another project is going out to bid this summer. Already 2 is the almond Avenue extension from pine to stadium will be kicking off preliminary engineering phases for that project this coming year. We're also supporting the Howard road storm drain project with some design phase and measure T's contributing to get initial engineering and cost estimates. So then we can pursue other funding sources for that project. And the last project slated with for expenditures this year is filling in the gap funding for the D street and South street traffic signal. It's currently under construction and this is going to cover the construction management inspection costs. This next slide is projects that are still that are slated for Measure T funds. We're just not able to move them forward yet this year, and that's the studies and potential improvements for Lake Street, Pine Street. We have a reconstruction that we are waiting to see how we might handle the Howard-Olive Pine intersection. Are we going to have any changes to the channelization and the signals there ultimately that might change what Pine Street would look like at the intersection. So that one's been on hold for a little bit. And then the construction phase is ultimately of the Almond Avenue project. Here's a map showing those regional projects that are planned either with activity this year or in the future years. The next sub program is the local transportation program, and it's primarily the street maintenance. We transfer 860,000 dollars each year to fund the street maintenance department, and that's for patching crack, filling and signing and striping basically transportation road related activities. We do have an allocation. 1.6Million for another large rehab project. This is our 99 and it's city wide. And that is being combined with our 79 as this project that's coming out this summer. Another sub program to that is called the supplemental street maintenance. We have money slated for 2 other projects. Well, 1 is additional funding going to our 99. so what we do is we compile our different pots and we can put out a much bigger project and we can. Take advantage of the economies of scale of a large project to get better. Unit prices and pave more streets. Um, so, and then another project already is, uh, this is measure team months monies partnered with funds again for a bigger project. And then, lastly, we'll highlight a project that was implemented this year. I think you're probably familiar with it. It's the 10 by 10 patching program. These monies are in public works budget. And so they managed this project this year and here is the result of I think everybody's excited about the Cleveland and gateway intersection repaving that happened in the matter of a couple nights and it turned out really great. Uh, the 3rd component of the is compliance and this money goes for installation of ramps and improving sidewalks. We're partnering with public works for money. That's not eligible in those areas. Then we can use measure T for other areas of the city and then we match a lot of our grant funds for our sidewalk projects with this program. Transit has money planned for their intermodal transit enhancement project. And then they also have a best shelter, the relocation of the best shelters for the new routes that project is funded with measure T. and then lastly, with their remaining funds, they plan. Different activities related to the implementation of the micro transit following their feasibility study. So, if it's bringing on a consultant to plan the routes for plan, how to implement it plus potentially hiring or purchasing vehicles as needed. But that was their plan for that. uh the last program environmental enhancement is usually match funds for projects that have environmental benefits and we have been uh using these to match our cmac grant funds for the alley paving projects and we have three projects scheduled they're in the different quadrants uh we are moving forward with the alley six which is the northeast quadrant and that uh Hopefully by the end of this calendar year, we'll see that 1 out to out to bid. And then this is where we're moving into the expanded part of the presentation. You know, measure T is just 1 of our sources of funds. And so, in order to really give consideration to what we've presented here, it's appropriate to show you where the rest of the fund money is going to be spent and what the overall problem program for the city looks like. So we. that both engineering and public works maintain lists of candidate projects. And so Alexis will expand on our PMS or our pavement management plan system, but then there are certain projects that don't quite fit in that category. And we try to tuck those projects in with the others when we can. So I will turn it over to Alexis now.

Thank you, Ellen. Good evening, mayor, council members and members of the public. So, in table 4 provides the 40% funding for real road rehab projects. The projects are listed as R-79, R-80, R-98, R-99, R-104, R-108 and new projects will be coming out in fiscal year 26-27. The total funding for Measure T is $6,185,000. RMRA, which is the road maintenance Rehab account, $8,617,118. The CRISPR funding was a one-time funding source that was back in 2020. It is the Coronavirus Relief Supplemental Appropriation Act. And the LPP, the Local Partnership Program, which has a funding source of $360,000, which totals to $15,162,918. This is a map of the upcoming projects. As Ellen stated, R-79 and R-99 will be combined and will be out this summer. Back to table four, for fiscal year 26 and 27, the streets will be identified based on the output from the updated payment management plan. For Cities Pavement Management Program, PMP, the current pavement condition index is 55. For arterial, its PCI is 62. Collector roads, PCI is 56. And the residential local roads, PCI is 53. The statewide average of PCI in the state of California is 65. uh the city needs an estimate of 121 million over the next 10 years to optimally repair all sections uh the current fund level is four million per year uh that is split by 70 percent for arterial roads and collectors and 30 percent for the residentials uh here's the current state uh current state of the street condition map green is very good uh blue is good and then we have the yellow as fair and then um the orange poor and then red and very poor what does the city own and maintain uh functional class arterials uh the city owns 44.3 miles which is 25.7% of the entire network. Collector roads, 30.4 centerline miles, which is 15% of the entire network. And then the residential 142.8 centerline miles, which makes up 59.3% of the entire network. This table does not include any recent developments or annexations, which will total the increase of centerline miles. State dependent payment management program. Street saver is actually a program that the city uses to identify the project selections is used to select cost effective treatments and improve the overall PCI. Cheaper treatments early versus expensive reconstruction later. It optimizes the mix of treatments to maximize network life within budget. Project selections are prioritized based on the overall network PCI improvement. Future planning helps avoid sudden and large costs. And a new PCI survey for tourism collectors will be scheduled for next year, 2027. And I'll hand it back to Alan.

Thank you, Alexis. So you got a sneak peek of our CIP presentations coming up, and maybe we can just slide right through the payment rehab part of that one. So next year, the new measure is going to be implemented. The allocations, they are not going to issue any allocations for the last three months of twenty seven. They're going to start with the fiscal year beginning in July one of twenty twenty seven. But it will include the revenues that are generated. So there'll be a little bonus allocation that first year. The draft implementing guidelines are currently circulating. So if you've seen them posted from the Madera County Transportation Authority, If you wanted to visit, those will be the guiding documents and how the money is to be allocated and policies and procedures for that. Here at the city in this next year, we will be diligently working on our own recommendations for how we will allocate the local funds through the measure. You know, the new measure has a lot of flexibility. So we're going to and there's going to be a lot of different ways we can split those funds. So you will be very involved with the process. And definitely by next year's capital program, we'll have a plan for our new measure expenditures. So tonight, we would recommend that you receive any input from the public hearing and ultimately adopt the resolution approving the Measure T annual expenditure plan for 26-27, which is the exhibit to the resolution and authorizing submission of the projects to the Madera County Transportation Authority. And that concludes our presentation. Take any questions.

Thank you for that. I bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or comments. Council Member Rodriguez.

Thank you, Mayor Gallegos, and thank you again. Director, I'm sorry, I lost Ellen Bitter.

You just call me Woman of the Year. Thank you again, Woman of the Year.

Mr. Raymundo for the presentation. So the carryover from the annual expenditure plan Is that carryover of $24 million already program into those those plans or projects that we have in place?

They're mostly for those bigger projects. So the olive and almond Avenue project. So, even if we don't spend them this year, it'll carry over and it'll be programmed for those projects next year.

1 of the things that I've seen over the years here at the council is that we program them, but there's just not, they're not funded. Right. And I'm not sure if all of these programs that we have in the list are already fully funded utilizing some of these measure T funds.

These are fully funded. It's a matter of delivery, I think. And so if we can focus our team's efforts on all those projects, then we'll see them being spent down.

They're fully funded. It's just a matter of getting the work done. Exactly. Okay. Good. Well, that's a good problem to have. We have the funding. So thank you, woman of the year. Thank you. That's all I have.

Thank you for your comments. One question, Deputy Engineer Bitter is your your comment was that they're fully funded, we just it's we have a lot to do to get them across the line. So in the past, this council has in planning when we try to get stuff across the line, have given extra dollars to get support. Is this something that you would maybe entertain that if the council was willing to look at our budget and put some money towards these projects to get them across the finished mine because they're fully funded? Is this something that it would be in our behoove to put forth?

I welcome anyone else to answer that differently than I might, but I think they're fully with the funds that have been allocated. They can be delivered. I think it's strategizing. We talked about how we combined 2 projects that we're going to put out together as 1. well, the other 3 or 4 projects on the list, we're actually talking about combining them all into 1 giant project and getting those out the door. So we'll get the bigger companies that can come in and just kind of. blow and go through town and get it done. So those are tools we're trying to use to effectively deliver these quicker.

Well, we appreciate that because I know on this council, there's seven of us and there was only three here that were on the Council at the time that said yes to the pine almond punch through and and here we are quite a few years down the road and we still haven't even started construction on that. So that's why I'm asking if you need more support from this council. to say hey these are projects that this community really needs especially that one with all those schools that was what that's why we put a lot of the funds to that project because we have madera high we have madison and we have alpha and madera south and you get in there and you're locked in there's no way of coming out of there other than left on almond but that's a lot of traffic you need another way to go the other way so if your team can get together and staff and with our city manager to see if that's something that needs to be entertained or brought to the council, I would think that would be something that we would love to hear about. City Manager Rodriguez.

Thank you very much for the record or an older, a city manager. I'd like to provide some additional context for both accounts on the community in terms of some of the things that we are attempting to do to try to move some of these projects forward. Council may recall a number of years ago. Council authorized an on call list for our engineering team. That on call list has 10 engineering firms and. The original contract was 300,000 dollars per year per firm for total to 3Million dollars. More recently council amended that and I believe it was, it was increased to 400,000. So, city staff has been using that on call list to move some of these projects forward. The other thing that we attempted to do, knowing that there's great need in our community, and we have some severely. Poor roads, we did begin the 10 by 10 program. Our 1st, 2 projects were just completed in the last 2 weeks and the concept behind that. I also understand that councils aware of this, but maybe the community is not council authorized to 10 by 10 program. And the concept behind that was to go out immediately. We did an RFP to try to correct some of those roads and that's how we pave the area in front of the John Deere dealership and at the intersection of Cleveland and gateway. Those are relatively minor in comparison to the 217 plus miles we have. But again, those were temporary solutions. We don't believe we're throwing good money after bad money, but we're, but we've identified some high traffic areas that are need of attention. The other thing that we did, this is your 3 of the sidewalk repair program that that program. I'm very biased, but I think it's been very successful. And for the benefit of the community, that's a program that we started where we are going out to neighborhoods and we're repairing sidewalks. Sidewalks are technically the responsibility of the property owner. However, we've been fortunate that this council through use of various funding sources. Some of which Ellen discussed tonight. We have been repairing sidewalks. if if you go out on yosemite on m street um amazon marion if you look on both sides uh you will notice that we are repairing sidewalks in that area and if you drive around the community you'll see we have a lot of new sidewalks but we've also replaced a lot of broken sidewalks we've been very aggressive um we also have two vacancies in our in our engineering department We have a deputy city engineer position, and we also have a senior engineer position. We have actively we're actively trying to recruit for those roles at the last council meeting. The city council adjusted the salaries for those. And we've also council authorized a recruitment bonus of up to 35,000 dollars to recruit licensed engineers. So, um. That's a long winded response for me to say we are trying our best there. There's a long project list. before us. Unfortunately, we do have some money. Unfortunately, it's finding the bandwidth to complete those, but I do wanna share both council and the community that we're doing everything we can. And these are ongoing discussions between Alan, myself, our city engineer, Keith Helmuth, our community development director, Will, Mike Lima, our finance director. These are a lot of discussions that we're having. And with Harper coming on, our public works director, We, we've been exploring how we can try to continue the 10 by 10 program and not continue, but to actually expand it and bring some of those hopefully bring some of those items that we're currently country that we're contracting offer. If we can bring them in house, we've had some preliminary discussions and those discussions will come. They'll continue and hopefully we'll be bringing an item to council for discussion. And I also see a lot of young people in the audience. If you're looking for a field to get into, I would recommend civil engineering because you'll always have a job. So, thank you, Mayor.

Thank you City Manager for that comment. And I do applaud our staff and I know that we've been trying to recruit engineering. That's why I'm saying that if you need the more support from us, to kind of take off the load because it is a lot of asking, especially when we were trying to get a lot of projects through with the ARPA money that was going to leave us if we didn't spend it. So I do understand. And so that's why I'm just mentioning if it's support that you need from us to get us across the finish line, we do understand there's only so much time in a day and so many bodies that it does take to this heavy lift to get across. And I do have other comments from council members. Council member Rodriguez.

Mayor Mrakas, I guess, thank you, Mary bagels and to your point earlier. Mayor Mrakas, You know, leaving these projects to go for further time, I think, really increases the cost of those projects and I, I just want to remind Council that prior to Kobe you know, obviously inflation wasn't as bad, but after inflation. Periods come in, you know, tacos are no longer a dollar 50. Looking at 5 dollars if you want some premium, and now I can only imagine what a linear foot of trying to get some projects going. Right? I mean, I can imagine that they're going to be twice as much if not a 3rd more. So I think the longer we prolong this process, I think it's just costing the city a lot more money. So if we can expedite that through some of the services that our city manager or contract services that our city manager mentioned, that would be something that I certainly would adhere to. And I would request that we push that even further. And that's what I have. Thank you.

Thank you councilman Rodriguez council member media.

Thank you for the report a couple of years ago. I was taking an evening walk with my nephew who tripped over the sidewalk and he was just crying and he was complaining and his mom told him talk to your council member. And he said, why do I have to go to the city to talk to my council member? My, my, she's right here. So he had a point, and with that recently, I had shared some pictures of sidewalk repairs, thanks to the sidewalk improvement program that were happening around Madera high school. And it has been years since those. repairs have been needing. So I am wondering whether it would be beneficial to the community as a whole. And I say this because I did get messages and comments from residents in District 2. They were talking about Monterey Street and how difficult it is to get to Alpha without tripping over the sidewalk like my nephew did. I'm just wondering if we could get an overview and the website explaining what the process would be like for the sidewalk repair program. I understand that it may take years to get these, but how can residents make the city aware of what they're seeing? And I do see a form on the street division section that has a process to report, but I think it would be helpful if we were to understand how is this prioritized, how long should we expect for these repairs to come, and that kind of overview. Thank you.

Okay, thank you for your comment at this time question me questions.

I will defer that 1 because that's run through the public works department.

It's going to sound like I'm tiptoeing around your question council member and that's not my intent rather. It's, um. One of the ways we're doing it for the 1st, couple of years, we were using funding and for the benefit of the community and those watching online that that was limited to low income neighborhoods. And so we have a 3 man city crew and we've spent. Probably close to 700,000 dollars, I believe. On making those repairs in low income neighborhoods. So, again, that's for the repair of sidewalks, not for the installation of new sidewalks. Similar to what we've seen the launch nor Avenue. And near James, Matt. I'm sorry, not not Madison rather Monroe. We've seen some around Washington, and we've seen some around John Adams. There are 2 different programs that. Because that we're operating under for the sidewalk repair program in this calendar year in this fiscal year, we also received some non CDBG money from the city council. Those funds have been spent. We, I know we did some improvements at the intersection of Cleveland of Granada and Riverview and then we also did some near Westbury and Westgate if I recall. So, in terms of how we have been notifying people. We, we have not aggressively published the program because quite frankly, the need is so great. I think we'll be overwhelmed and I think we would be disappointing a lot of people if we told everyone this program is available because then people expect it to be done overnight. People should hold us to a high standard and I expect that I hold our staff to a high standard and I think the council should hold city staff to high standards. The challenge it's going to come to. A bandwidth issue and a funding issue and we simply don't have enough. So right now, 1 of the things we've been doing is we've been looking at some of the worst sidewalks near schools. And what we've been trying to do is we've been trying to look at schools and we've monitored where where people tend to walk. And some of the worst sidewalks, and that's where we focused. That's not to say they're the most visible. Rather again, it's it's in our humble opinion. It's the greatest need. Have we gone everyone absolutely 100%? Probably not. But as we've been going through, we're seeing less need because we're repairing more. But we've been looking at parks and schools and shopping centers and where people are likely to walk or where they're currently walking. And those are the areas we've been trying to do. 1 challenge that I do have to clarify is that we do get letters for potential litigation against the city when people trip and fall on sidewalks. The sidewalk is the responsibility of the property owner. And so whenever that happens, we typically turn them down and we say that's technically legally, it's not the city's responsibility, but we know there's a great need. And that's why we've been aggressive with this program. And we created the program a couple of years ago, not to relieve the property owner from their burden or from their responsibility, rather we know that a lot of our community members simply can't afford to repair the sidewalk. They have other needs like paying for their food. And so we created it, but managing expectations has been a challenge because some people say, well, you did it for my neighbor. You did it for for my cousin, but not for me. You're by a city. You don't like me. I'm like, we don't even know who you are. I apologize. We're not trying to offend anyone. But, but some people do call the city. And if you do have a couple of locations, or if the community has when we, we are more than welcome, we will take your call. We will visit it. My only ask is that everyone be patient with the city because this is new. We can't get to everything, but we're trying to be as helpful as possible. And hopefully that gives you some context with with kind of where we're at with the program and hopefully we plan on continuing with council support. I think it's been a very widely accepted program and I think people appreciate it.

Thank you, Arnold. I'd just like to reiterate my gratitude, appreciation that I had seen in those sidewalks near Madera High School and District 5. We're just very appreciative. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for that comment. And I will piggyback on that comment that when I've been on council the longest for 10 years, and when I got on council, I got a lot of phone calls about sidewalks. And at the time we had a city manager that wasn't apt to really help repair sidewalks with our community members. So when we had a new council and a new city manager, we made it an ask that we really needed to make a difference in a lot of the community who couldn't afford it because it was in a little piece like this, we were looking at $800 just to repair a piece like this and somebody sidewalk and again, it is the property's responsibility but $800 10 years ago was a lot of money and even think now $800 is a lot of money 10 years from now. So I thank you for this council for again, putting funds to this project and our city manager and our public works department engineering has to click it has to go through all these different hands to have one little project complete. So Thank you everyone for pitching in on this. I don't see any other comments from council. So I'll open it up for public comment at this time. I see no one in the audience. Any, anyone online or on zoom city clerk and solace? Okay. I will close public comment at this time and bring it back to my colleagues.

Motion to approve is written.

I have a motion in a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for your report Deputy Engineer Bitter and Assistant Engineer Armando for being here tonight. Moving on to the next item.

A4 is a public hearing and first reading and introduction of an ordinance amending the city's municipal code relating to fireworks.

Thank you and I'll be presented by our very own Lieutenant Adams. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, Council, members of the public. My name is Mark Adams. I'm an Operations Lieutenant for the Madera Police Department. I'll bring this up.

Got it.

Hey, great job, Lieutenant.

Thank you. Alright, so I'll be presenting an ordinance amending the city's municipal code related to fireworks. a little bit of background the city has experienced a significant increase in the use of illegal fireworks unlike safe and sane they're often unpredictable and frequently land on rooftops or in dry vegetation creating an immediate threat of structure fires and wildfires traditionally these peak around the fourth of july placing a massive strain on city resources illegal fireworks also create a public nuisance that affects the quality of life for residents including veterans and pet owners current enforcement has been hampered by a code that primarily focused on sales rather than the consequences of illegal discharge. Here's a graph of the fire department's response for calls. You can see an increase from 2024 to 2025. The hope is to reduce this in 2026. If you can imagine just the amount of calls and the limits that they have as far as their ability to respond, Our officers alone respond to hundreds of calls that night, and we do our best to try to reduce the amount of need for fire to respond to those. Our officers are driving around with fire extinguishers on loan from the fire department in hopes of being able to put out small fires to reduce the need for their response. So, some of the additions are the responsible person language. It's 1 of the most impactful changes to the proposed amendment under this under the changes. A responsible person may be, but it's not limited to a property owner, a renter or parents. This means that the adult does not have to light the firework themselves, but allowing it knowingly or unknowingly to where they should have reasonably known that those fireworks were being lit off holds them responsible. Parents become liable for minors violations and must supervise their minors during the use of fireworks. So kind of in the past and a little bit of background on that. is when somebody is lighting off fireworks, we have officers that are typically driving around in unmarked vehicles looking for people lighting them off. You can imagine that for us to be able to pin who did it and then hold them accountable becomes tough. This language allows us, if there's fireworks being lit off in the backyard and we per se did not see who lit it off, we can now hold the property owner responsible for the fireworks. um we also propose to repeal chapters 13 and 13b of title 3 and adopt a new chapter 13 of title 3 entitled regulation of fireworks the text amendment requires two readings and would go into effect the 31st day after adoption Some of the proposed language is new limits on when and where fireworks can be used. Explicit prohibition of both possession and discharge of fireworks at city parks, the Fresno River area, and also areas deemed very high fire hazard areas. Certain streets during events within 10 feet of structures and on someone else's property without their permission. New legal discharge hours of 5 PM to 10 PM on sale days and until midnight on July 4th. Also, it provides clear language on an explicit ban on illegal fireworks instead of implying and relying on state law references. uh for violations if violations occur the amended code provides multiple enforcement tools to the city including charging responsible persons with a misdemeanor a thousand dollar fine per violation and full cost recovery for fire and police response to the violation each day an individual firework use can result in a separate violation and the city would have the ability to put liens on properties if fines are not paid this is very similar to how our code enforcement currently operates just for background on that Um, so safe and the same fireworks, um, it still requires a permit and the application fees applicants must include a site plan of the proposed location, the storage of fireworks, uh, both the current and proposed ordinances allow sales beginning June 28th from noon to 11 PM. and June 29th through July 3rd from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. That's not necessarily changing. However, the current ordinance allows sales on July 4th to 10 p.m. and on July 5th from 7 a.m. to noon. The proposed ordinance would reduce July sales, July 4th sales to 9 p.m., so we'd be reducing it by an hour, and it would also eliminate the sale of fireworks on July 5th. Uh, permits will be issued to recognize nonprofits who have been established for at least 1 year. And then the final decision to issue deny or revoke permits rest with the community development director. Denials are not subject to appeal. There should be allowed 1 firework stand for 4000 residents beginning in 2027. currently the code is 1 stand for 2000 residents. The city typically permits. We offer approximately 34 permits per year. I don't believe we actually hit that mark though. Um, proposed operational standards, so operational rules are also consolidated in the amendment. This is pertaining to the, uh, the fireworks stands themselves, uh, moving them into 1 section with clear definitions on safe distances, fire extinguisher requirements, smoking bands and storage rules. Uh, the standard removal deadline becomes shorter requiring the removal by from, uh, by July 7th instead of the current deadline of July 11th. financial impact there are no cost to the city other than the preparation of this amendment or rather creates multiple enforcement tools for code enforcement our officers to use to impose fines relating to violations and its staff recommendation to waive further reading and introduce an ordinance amending the city's municipal code relating to fireworks by title only that concludes my presentation and open for any questions

Thank you. Lieutenant Adams. I bring it to my colleagues for any questions or comments. I have 1 lieutenant Adams, and that is in 2026. we're going to stay at our 34 number of permits for fireworks and on 2027, we're going to go down to half of that 17. so how I know we're going to have nonprofits saying, how, how is the city going to determine who what 17 nonprofits are going to receive. So, that's the 1st question I'm going to get asked after tonight. So, I don't think 26 will be a problem. It's 27 where I'm trying to look ahead.

Got you.

Yeah, the issuance of the permits is going to be at the discretion of the community development director. And I believe the chief has a better response for that.

Yes, thank you. Do you know what your money chief of police a little response to that is is in 2025 there was a total of 18 applicants. So currently this would only leave 1 of those applicants out. That would be starting in 2027. that does not count for this year. We're keeping it the same for 1 for every 2000 residents. in fact if there's not enough permits in the future there will be a lottery system done through the community development director he will provide for every applicant a number and then do a random lottery selection for however many permits are available so that's how the process will occur if there are more permits or more applicants than permits okay

That answers my question. Thank you, Chief, for that. I have to tell you, this council has asked for some stricter guidelines. So we thank you for bringing that to us. And I think most of our residents are going to be very happy of this. It's the ones that don't want to follow rules that are going to be like, oh, what they just put in place. So Thank you for the time and effort of staff to put this in front of us tonight. Council Member Rodriguez.

Yes, thank you. And Chief, thank you for answering that question. But here's a question to both of you regarding staff. I mean, now that we may have some teeth here, do you still see an issue with the amount of officers and our staff going out there and pursuing the illegal activity?

I can answer that. So I don't foresee a change in the amount of stuff that we use. Typically the 4th of July, I would say is arguably hands down one of the most hands on deck holidays that we have between DUI saturation patrols, fireworks enforcement, providing security for the fireworks show, and then also the added dispatchers to handle the call volume that our officers are going to be responding to. Um, however, it does strengthen their ability to enforce and go after these people and hold them accountable. And I think, uh, once that starts taking effect and people start realizing that, uh, we don't need to pinpoint exactly who lit it off, but if you're allowing illegal fireworks to be lit off, uh, under your direction or at your residence, then we can hold you accountable. I think that will have a direct impact on the, uh, the amount of illegal fireworks that we have.

And this won't be just the day of, it'll be the days leading to and the day after, right? Cause these things go on like 2 weeks before and go about 2 weeks after. So.

Correct and that's some of the other changes that are in there, which is also reducing the, uh, the times in which fireworks are able to be lit off, which those are limited to the sales time, which ends at 10 PM, which also coincides with our other municipal codes for, like, noise, noise ordinance. Um, however, in the current code, it extends it to 11 PM when you still have the 10 PM noise ordinance.

So, thank you. There is a section on the corner of Granada and Cleveland. There's a house that's that's there and I want to make sure that they're always looking at that house or does that house lights up some fireworks here.

I should go be everywhere.

Hey, thank you for that comment at this time. I open up for public comment. Anyone in the chamber. I see none. Online or on Zoom, City Clerk Gonzalez?

We have none, Mayor.

Okay, I close public comment and I will wait for the reading. If our City Attorney would do that for us, please.

Assuming the Council wants to move forward, it would be a motion to introduce by title only an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Madera repealing Chapters 13 and 13B of Title III and adopting a new Chapter 13 of Title III entitled Regulation of Fireworks and waive the first reading.

Thank you. So I need a motion and a second. Approve. Second, I have a motion and second all those in favor say aye aye aye those opposed motion passes unanimously, thank you for the report lieutenant Adams and. Moving on right along city clerk Gonzales.

consent calendar matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and will be enacted by one motion and one boat. There will be no separate discussion of these items of discussion is desired a member of the public or a member of the Council may request an item to be removed from consent calendar and it will be considered separately.

Thank you for that. I will turn this over to our city attorney.

Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. I need to recuse myself on item Bravo 15. That's B15. Our firm, another person, our unit, my firm applied for this item, so I will not be participating or advising on this matter. And I've recused myself with staff as well. Thank you.

Thank you for that. Any comments or concerns from my fellow colleagues? If not, I open it for public comment. I see none.

So cute. think you'll have your turn right i don't know where you want them at because there's a lot of

Good evening, mayor and city council members. My name is Safari. Upstanders Day. Upstanders Day means building relationships. Sorry. Upstanders Day means building relationships, the community coming together and realization that we are in this together for a better community and a better future. With this day possible, it will be a real game changer. United of Sanders is a nonprofit organization. United of Sanders is a nonprofit organization that is our three pillars, our leadership, kindness, and unity. And we do this by workshops. We have events and we do fundraisers. My whole message here is that unity... Sorry, my whole message here is that the up Sanders day would create a positive change for the city of Madera.

Thank you.

Hello, good evening Mayor and City Council members. My name is Roma Shaikh. Being an upstander means doing good, standing up for others, and believing in what's right to help and impact your community. This holiday is important because it will remind current and future generations to be an upstander. Being an upstander is something you do on your own with your own will, not some reminder from a teacher or an adult. It's something you take initiative of and apply yourself in your daily lives. This day also gets to celebrate those who help others and overall make a positive impact. This day would combat the bystander effect, encourage proactive intervention against bullying, and empower residents to foster a safer, united community.

Hello, my name is Lucia Serra. It's nice to meet everybody, Mayor and City Council members. I attend Thomas Jefferson Middle School and I'm honored to be here today representing the United Upstanders Community Program alongside with Ms. Williams. I have been part of this community since starting middle school. It has been such an important part of my journey. Being involved in this program has allowed me to grow, connect with others, and help make a positive difference in our school and beyond. I've also been a part of the production side of this community by helping create videos and posting them on two different platforms, Instagram and TikTok. We share these videos to help grow our community, spread awareness, and reach other schools so that our message of kindness, courage, and support can continue to grow bigger. What I would like to say is that, especially if the goal was not to wait for something negative to happen, it is to leave before it does. preventing awareness and empowering students to choose kindness and encourage every single day. As students, we all have the power to stand up for one another, support our classmates and help make our school week and community a safer and kind place. Even small actions like checking on a friend, speaking up when something is wrong or choosing kindness can make a big difference. Together we can create a positive environment where everyone feels seen, respected,

and supported thank you for listening good evening mayor and city council members my name is omar diaz i attend madera high school the goal isn't to wait for something negative to happen it's to leave before it does an upcentered day as up center's day is about prevention awareness and empowering students to choose kindness and courage every day thank you

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Omar Garcia and I attend Madera High. An upstander is someone who does the right thing even when it's hard and helps others feel safe and included. And that's why we need Upstanders Day.

Thank you for your comments tonight and hanging in there a couple hours to see how government works. But we appreciate the parents for bringing tonight to speak on its B eight. It's a proclamation recognizing a minute order approving the proclamation of the up standards day. So thank you for being here tonight. We truly appreciate it on behalf of the mayor and council.

Thank you.

and your advisor for bringing this to our attention. With that, do we have any other public comment in the chamber? Come on up. Sure.

My name is Daisy Sierra, and my daughter Lucia Sierra, she just experienced bullying. different kind of things in school. And it was in August and September. And I stand for this bullying to stop and united myself as a parent that I was not, we see it in TV. I always say it, and I've been saying it in court. We see it on TV, but seeing it in person and telling this personally to myself, I would like to the community and to each one of you guys to join in and support this because we never know what might happen to it. I experienced it again with my son in Lincoln Elementary before Easter. And I say this has to be stopped. I've been going already to the Madera Unified and stuff like that, supporting everything that I've been dealing with my family. And this cost means a lot to me, even though it's hard to even talk about it, but we see it on the news with this 12 year old girl that she got hit in the head and she passed away. My daughter got hit twice in August and September. I'm glad she's here. And she's alive, because honestly, I feel sorry for the family that went through it with her 12 year old. My daughter was 13. She just barely did 14 on this month, 5th of April. And I join in and I appreciate each one of you guys support. as you guys can, pass the word. Like my daughter said, she's doing this. She had did this before it happened and she's doing it again, not only for herself, not only for her school, but to other people, other kids, students, neighbors, everything. If we hold each other's hand and we talk about the bullying and all the stuff that's going on in school, I think it can stop to an ending because school is meant to learn. not to be hitting, not to be bullying, not to be rude, not to be disrespectful. I don't teach my kids that. I teach my kids, you go there to learn and enjoy it, because you're going to be someone in this world, just like my mother taught me. And who knows, one of my kids will be here, or maybe the police officer of fire. I encourage them everything. I encourage them everything, because that's, that's what we do. But Thank you. It's just sorry.

Thank you for speaking up. I know it's not easy when it's your kids, but as parents, you're the best advocate for them and to speak for them and all these young people in the audience. Thank you for being here. It's not easy to. get up and speak in front of a seven body of elected officials, but we hear you. I'm not sure you know I'm a school teacher of 33 years, so I am in the school system and I have seen it for years, and I do my best to stop it as a teacher and as a mom and as a grandma now. I'm all in. So keep doing what you do. Keep talking to people in the schools. Go to the board meetings. You make a difference. You really do. One person at a time can change a lot. So thank you for being here tonight. With that, anyone online or on Zoom?

We have none, Mayor.

Okay. I'll close public comment and bring it back to my colleagues for a motion and a second.

To approve the consent calendar. Seconded.

Thank you. All those in favor say aye. Are those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. With that, I would entertain my colleagues for a five-minute recess, and we will go back online at 824. Okay, thank you. Okay, City Clerk Gonzales, we're moving on to our next item on the agenda.

Under Petitions, Bids, Resolutions, Ordinances, and Agreements D1, Phyllis' Garden Soft Interview Room Memorandum of Understanding. Thank you.

That will be presented by Chief Chair Mani.

Yes. Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of council, and for those of you that have stayed around, I appreciate your time. All right, we're up and running tonight's presentation is just an opportunity for us to discuss something new. That's the possibility of coming in a service that we're able to improve to our community and those victims of violent crimes and sexual assaults. This is a partnership between the police department and Phyllis's garden soft interview rooms. A little bit of background. Our police department currently has four interview rooms. Many of them look like the picture you see there. Very sterile, cold. The two that are behind the secure facility have metal tables similar to a jail style for interview and interrogation but we also have two that are in our police lobby where victims come in and that's their first contact and first uh communication with law enforcement in talking about and telling their story These rooms aren't very welcoming, and a lot of times it can make a victim feel kind of the self-blame, and they don't wanna truly open up about the traumas that they've been through. Those that have experienced these traumas are more likely to cooperate effectively, recall details, or return further interviews in an environment that feels much more safe, comfortable, and supportive. So that's what we wanna now provide for these community members. Below is an example of a soft room. We are not the only agency that has soft rooms. Currently our CFIT program, which is our Child Forensic Interview Team, does that through CAPMC and Maddie Mendez over there. They were the first ones to kind of have this in our community. But one of the issues is, is that only happens after the initial interview with law enforcement. And so that's days after we're trying to meet them at the very first time they come to the police department. We provide the same type of service and location for them to communicate with their law enforcement. This one's a picture from Folsom PD, and these include soft lighting, some wall colors and artwork, swivel chairs that allow them to adjust. Sometimes you become nervous. You need a little movement in your chair instead of these stationary chairs that feel unwelcoming. Some discrete recording devices, not just a table with the interview recorder that sits out there. It provides them a better opportunity to open up. Here's another one from Lodi Police Department that was also done in collaboration with Phyllis's Garden. It's a responsibility on our behalf to restock the consumable items that are located inside the room. That's water, snack, tissues, minor things. But all the furniture and decorations, those are provided by the nonprofit with zero expectation by the police department or the city to put funds towards it. What is our role? Our role is to accept and build the furnishings when delivered. The reason for the building is they're out of Elk Grove, and they have a 100-mile radius. While they're builded out, we're a little bit beyond that, and we agree to build the furnishings as they come in. All the furnishings become property of Mid-Air Police Department upon installation and even after this one-year contract. That's the initial contract. contract length for the first year. We're also allowing and permitting before and after photos for social media and website use and then coordinate an unveiling that we bring in members of Phyllis's garden to show off what they have provided. Oops. One reason why I have their logo up there is because we will be putting their logo on the wall on display. So I do like to make sure that you guys approve of their logo and having a better understanding of what the background is on it. Their logo is displayed just over the wall. I mean, just over the table is often where they do it. And it symbolizes transformation of sexual assault survivor from a caterpillar into a butterfly. Looking at some of the partner agencies that are involved in this, there's a wide range throughout California, and they've had a lot of positive impact and a lot of positive response from survivors. Our recommendation is to adopt a resolution approving a memorandum of understanding with Phyllis's garden nonprofit organization and authorizing the city manager to execute the agreement. I would just like to kind of close with this and offer an opportunity for any questions. But this came to us from 1 of our investigators and that's Priscilla Ramirez and she's a part of the child forensic interview team and does a lot of sexual assault. So it's great to have employees that truly care for the community, and this is her project that she's bringing forward. So this has nothing to do with me or any of our command staff, but this comes from the line level that truly cares for their community. And with that, I'll open that for questioning.

Thank you, Chief Chairman. I'll bring it back to my colleagues for any comments. Council Member Evans.

It's more so a comment versus, I don't have to have a question.

Sure.

I've sat in that room before and coldness is hard. So to have something like this is so very special. And to be able to speak to someone and the person is caring And not so much just a steel face, you know, so to have, as you said, the microphones and things around versus having it right there in your face and to have to be able to speak. This is going to be so much nicer, so much nicer. So thank you. And I'm forward. I appreciate the comment. Thank you.

Okay, I've seen other comments. I'll open it up for public comment in the chamber. Thank you. I bring it back to our city clerk for any on zoom or online.

We have none, Mayor.

Thank you. I have a close public comment at this time. I bring it back to my colleagues.

Motion to approve as written.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for that, Chief. Thank you very much, Council.

Next item. Item D to rescind the naming of Cesar Chavez Plaza.

Thank you and that will be presented by our city manager Rodriguez.

Thank you very much mayor members of the council are an older address city manager.

And I believe this was kind of moved around. So, let me see.

So, I had me for his staff recommendation that the council recent the naming of the Cesar Chavez Plaza. Um, for a little bit of background, Cesar Chavez Plaza was named after Cesar Chavez back in 1996, which is a couple of years after his death if memory serves me. So, the Council at the time had named Cesar Chavez Plaza. It's approximately 1 block just off of Yosemite for context. It's where the Greyhound stations at or from a ground stations at right in front of the Chamber of Commerce. And obviously the council at the time felt that Cesar Chavez, that the renaming of the plaza was merited based on his contributions to the farm worker movement spanning several decades. However, some serious allegations have come to light over the past couple of weeks. And I think this provides an opportunity for the council to discuss or to consider if rescinding the naming of the plaza is appropriate. The city historically has has had to identifying signs. 1 of them was visible on. Off of Yosemite, the 2nd sign was visible from history. I should know those signs have been removed. City staff took the liberty to remove them. Probably within, I'm going to speculate here about 40. 8 hours after the news initially broke this is the 1st meeting that the city has had. Actually. The 2nd meeting, if I recall the 1st meeting, the agenda had already published, so we did not have an opportunity to amend it. This is the 1st meeting since the news broke. This is an aerial photograph showing where the plaza is out again. It's it's on Northeast street. It's a friend of believers church, the former ground station and the chamber of commerce. It's 1 blocks approximately 400 linear feet. The signs, one of the signs was historically located at this intersection. The second sign was located in this intersection in planter areas. Signs stood several feet tall, roughly four and a half to five feet in height. Um, in recent weeks, there have been some very serious allegations have emerged from individuals regarding his conduct while he was alive. Um, obviously the city's not in a position to educate those, um, those allegations. Um, however, they, I believe they're serious enough that the city should be considering, um, the appropriateness of potentially honoring his legacy. For context, I should add that the state has already taken action to rename Cesar Chavez Day to Farm Workers Day. Some surrounding communities have already taken some action, including Fresno, San Francisco, Sacramento, LA, San Jose, and those were all done in the last couple of weeks. And again, so, based on the severity of the allegations staff felt that it was appropriate to remove the signs, which we did on March the 19th. So, a little over a month ago, probably roughly 2 days after the allegations 1st surfaced. Council does have options. So, again, so staff recommendation this evening is that the city rescind the resolution basically taking the resolution away, which eliminates the name. However, council has the full discretion to either leave the Plaza without a name, which it's again, it's a 100% up to the council council can rename it. To whatever you would like. Or you can consider it and you can add some future date name it. There is no requirement that the plaza be named again. That's fully up to the council and there's absolutely 0 timelines or there's no pressure. There's no dates that council has to be considerate of. So, with that being said, staff does recommend that the city council, we send the resolution 96 dash 71, which designated the plaza as these are Chavez Plaza and that concludes my presentation.

Thank you for that presentation City Manager Rodriguez. I'll bring it back to my colleagues for questions or concerns. Council Member Rodriguez.

Yes. Thank you City Manager Rodriguez. So at this time again the request before us is to kind of follow suit of what's taking place not only in California, but in other cities as well, correct?

Correct.

And that's just to, is it more of a public appearance of not moving towards this direction would make us vulnerable to some criticism, I'm assuming, correct?

I do think it makes the city vulnerable to criticism. I also believe that the crimes are of such nature that I think it would behoove our community that, from what I know, and again, we are not here to adjudicate the claims. We're not in a position to do so. However, I believe they're serious enough and there's enough victims in our community And they're probably experienced something similar that I think it would almost be insulting to those victims to, to continue to honor someone who's also been accused of such serious crimes.

Yes. Yes. And I appreciate that. Thank you. And if you're the record, I will say that, you know, obviously. No, 1, we don't condone that. Um, we don't accept that behavior from anyone. But to erase a man's sacrifice of what he did, especially in the Latino community. is hard to remove and erase, correct? And I say it as an erasure of his hard work and sacrifice. So I find it's a very sensitive topic and I want to make sure that I am, I'm saying this correctly, that it's not offensive to anyone, especially those that are victims in those allegations, but rather, you know, sometimes we're quick to jump to these conclusions. and we we jump on it fast uh but nevertheless I want to make sure that that I say this is that the the work and the leaps that that person did should not just be erased completely and and those are my comments I I appreciate any other comments from my colleagues but that's what I have I'm moving forward thank you all right council member Evans so

I've known Cesar Chavez since I was about eight, nine years old when I lived in Bakersfield and he came to the fields. And yes, he did a lot of things for the farm workers. My dad was a farm labor contractor and I have seen things that he has done. So not discounting any of the work, but then Dolores Huerta also She worked hard. Even though she went through everything that she went through, she still stood up for the farm workers. And I commend her for that. But if you've never been through that type of an ordeal, it's easy to say, we don't want to not recognize his work. We're recognizing his work. That's why they made it Farm Workers Day. And I commend whoever it was that created the title for that, but to now say, well, we don't want to discount him. Well, not discounting him means you discount all the women that have suffered. It's not easy. It's not pleasant. So to continue to uplift him, and what he did do and for the women that have suffered at the hands of him and the hands of other individuals that have done some of the same stuff you strike women down you you you really hurt them so for me my suggestion is to leave it unnamed that way nobody has to be offended. You know, if you choose to honor him in another way, then that's fine. But we as a city should recognize the fact that we just passed for the room at the police department. If you never sat in that room before, you don't understand. So I just speak, I speak for the women now. And I speak for Dolores Huerta. I spoke at the woman's event that Esmeralda Sawyer gave. I've been raped. I know what it's like. So to commend him or to uplift him because he did farm workers, I'm sure there's those of us that are in this room right now that have also worked in the fields. So we're not discounting the work. I stand with the farm workers. I just don't stand with and for him. And that's just, that's my opinion and I'm sorry.

Thank you for your comment, Council Member Evans. Council Member Mejia.

First, I do want to commend the city staff for acting so quickly. I really thank you for that. I can speak both as I hate the word victim. I'm a survivor. And I can also speak as the proud daughter of farm workers. So I see it from different lenses. I did see the Cesar Chavez March that passed through in front of my house. I was about eight years old. I don't remember. I was just, I was taking out the trash on road 29 and I remember seeing a lot of people just marching down and speaking up for people like my parents, farm workers, the men and women who do the work every day in the fields, no matter how hot it gets, how cold it gets, they're the ones that break their backs out there. And so for me, Obviously, it was incredibly disappointing to learn this and that is why I also come in city staff for acting so quickly. But I, I can see how. People of power would take advantage of their positions. I myself. was a survival of sexual harassment immediately following my campaign by somebody who was a participant in my campaign. So I could see how this could happen and I totally understand it. I don't like to talk about that topic. So I wouldn't, the comments that are criticizing, why didn't she speak up sooner? It's just, you wouldn't understand it unless you experienced it. So I just think that the city council at that time, they did, They acted based on what they knew. Now we should act based on what we know. And I would be in support of still honoring farm workers. I would suggest a name like Plaza Campesinos. There's a lot of Hispanic people here, a lot of people that mainly or only speak Spanish. They would completely understand this is for and about them, that the city is honoring their work. And it would still be in the same line or the same theme that, you know, he was fighting for farm workers, right? As was, as was so many people that were participating in those marches. I would suggest something like that. I would in addition suggest that we have greater community input into. how things get renamed or renamed in the city, whether it be buildings, parks, or whatever, because there's not a lot of opportunities to recognize local people or just like, I think that that would be like a form of incentivizing, contributing to our community, serving our community. There's not a lot of incentives right now. Volunteerism is in decline. So I would just be in favor of bringing more of our community. And then those are my comments. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment council member Vegas.

Uh, thank you. Uh. At this point, I wanted to say that we should be. Able to put another another name, like, any other 1 we can recommend. And personally, I'm going to say that. That's a shower is going to be my hero in my heart. Whatever he did, it's never going to go away in so many generations, especially for farm workers, people working in agricultural jobs. So I would say, yeah, just change the name and put another name, but relate it to the agricultural workers. That is my recommendation.

Mayor Mrakas, Thank you for your comment Council member Rodriguez Thank you mayor guy goes city manager Rodriguez and one of the options that you had before us also was to maybe allow the Community. Mayor Mrakas, To possibly provide maybe some input and feedback in a lot of times I know it's left before us here, but I think it's important also to have have them engage and maybe bring us back with some. some potential names of that plaza. I'm not opposed to either one of the options or alternatives that we have there, but I would like to see some feedback. Absolutely. To the point I made earlier, you know, when we put people on these pedestals, whether they're heroes or men and what have you, women, we do that. We do that not knowing that they're human. A lot of times, you know, things, We just do that as people, we tend to rise people up and make them these heroes and yet come to find out that they had flaws like, and everybody else says, you know, there's so many leaders out there presidents and we have buildings and stuff names after them. And yet there's nothing taken from that. My point was, yes, we don't condone any of those acts, especially to those vulnerable people or victims that were part of the allegations. That's despicable. But I think we tend to do that. We do this. We do this to ourselves sometimes because instead of looking at the movement, we look at people. We look at this particular person and we personify them like God, whether it's a woman, a man, whatever. But we do that. And yet we come back here and then we have to retract 30 years, 40 years from now. Again, lesson learned is that whenever we have these movements is that we start thinking about, it's not about one person. It's a collective. So the name itself, Cesar Chavez, will be ingrained in many peoples as this fighter, this guy that put sacrifice into the community, especially in Latino communities. That's it. That's what I want to take away from it. Yes, I'm not going to degrade anything, for example, what took place here with the allegations. We have to accept the fact that this was a man that committed these allegations that are before him. You have to accept that. The community is accepting that. But nevertheless I think we as people. We put them there. And then we have to take them down because we forgot that there were there were human. Their flaws. Those are my comments.

Thank you council member Rodriguez council member Montes sounds like it's going to be on the same page but yeah I think. Well approving this detour today. Right rescinding the original naming. Uh, and then still having the ability to change the name in the future acknowledges, you know, the work, um, and the movement, but also acknowledges the pain that it's causing a lot of people. Right. And that's real. So, I mean, I'd be in favor of. Moving forward with this today, and then, uh, future time with community input, um, having a different name. So those are my comments.

Thank you for your comment. And I would just like to end this with I'd like to thank my fellow council members for speaking up today. I know it's not an easy subject to speak about. We do have a naming policy in place in our city that I'm sure our staff can bring back. And we do have to remember that we do own that corner lot. And there is a vision of of doing some Mary Pelletier, Magic there in the future for us, so I would entertain looking at holding on to renaming that Plaza until we have. Mary Pelletier, More of a vision of what we're planning to do with that big piece of property and we do own the property, all the way down the greyhound there's one slice we're still working on, but that is said to be determined. Um, but behind us, God, we trust right there behind us tells us that he will send us and show us signs of where we should go with this. It's not an easy subject, but we do trust in him and we, to make those right decisions and in policy makers and electeds were held to a standard. Um, and with him and the guidance that he gives us, I think we've heard, uh, both sides. We've heard, um, great comments. from all council members. Again, not an easy subject to speak about. But with that, I would like to entertain a motion that we approve D2 to resend the resolution 96-71 and hold to renaming this plaza to a future date or time. Oh, yes. Sorry. Excuse me. I got so emotional. Open up to public comment. Ooh, got a public comment. Thank you, city attorney.

Thank you, Maddie Mendez, resident of Madera. Thank you for this position to remove the name and i think we have a mural close to this plaza that it should be named after and that little child will never be questioned as to his reputation it should be named after thaddeus there's nothing after him but that mural named after him so consider it for a future but i don't see that that plaza will connect with the farm workers right there and we should plan for something in the future for our farm workers who have you know the foundation of this city is on them And I was in the fields when Cesar Chavez, UFW were striking at the end of the rows and they threw rocks at me and call me a scab and all kinds of name as a child. They injured my father with the UFW flag when they put a nail in the pole and struck him over the head. So I have a different view of Cesar Chavez. And I always wondered growing up, who is this man that leads anger? when I'm the same color as him.

Thank you for your comment. Um, city clerk consoles, anyone online or on zoom?

We have none mayor.

Thank you. So my motion stands as I presented it. If I have a second, thank you. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed motion passes unanimously. And thank you for that. Um, report city manager at radius and bringing it to our attention. Next item.

Item E1, final allocations for the program year 2026-27 Community Development Block Grant and Home Investment Partnerships Program Annual Action Plan.

Okay, and that will be presented by our grants manager, Zuniga. Welcome.

Oops.

Good evening Mayor, Council members, members of the public. Marcela Zuniga, Grants Administrator, presenting on the program year 2026-27 Annual Action Plan for the Community Development Block Grant and Home Investment Partnerships Program. We're here tonight to discuss final funding allocations. Last month, we brought this item forward and at that March 18th meeting, Council approved tentative funding for CDBG. It was tentative because at that time HUD had not released the program year 26-27 funding allocations. Therefore, the allocations or the amount discussed that or considered that evening was based on this year's allocation, which is in the amount of 989,791 dollars. HUD did release the program year 2627 CDBG and home allocations on April 3rd. The allocation for CDBG decreased by just over 3% or a total of $32,694. additionally since the last council meeting the city received a letter from the community action partnership of mondara county um indicating that it um had decided to withdraw its request for cdbg funds previously awarded during that march 18th meeting there were two applications one was for in the administration uh funding category for fifteen thousand dollars And the 2nd was a public service application and the amount of the amount tentatively approved was 25,000 dollars for the emergency housing program. So staff would just like to bring forward some options to note this evening for council consideration. Again, the CDBG allocation was reduced by over $32,000. Removing the CAP MC awards is equal to a total of $40,000 that was previously allocated in the CDBG tentative allocations. So if we consider those two scenarios, the net balance requiring reallocation is just over $7,300. So that's the number that needs to be reallocated this evening, given the reduction in the CDBG funding allocation and the withdrawal of two applications. So, we also want to express that it is up to Council how that the reallocation of that $7,300 is done. It can be spread across all three funding categories. It can be centralized in one funding category, a couple of funding categories. It is completely up to Council this evening to determine how to reallocate those funds. note is that the funding maximums cannot be exceeded. So the 50% in public service and the 20% in administration. This evening staff is seeking council direction for the reallocation of these funds while also incorporating the public comment letter received from CAP MC. So here we have the revised funding maximums per category. The actual funding maximum assumes that the administration and public service funding categories will be funded this evening at their maximum capacities. In other words, the full amounts at 15 and 20% will be funded. Leaving the capital projects public improvements funding category, at just over $622,000. As I mentioned in my previous slide, these amounts can fluctuate based on where council wants to allocate the $7,000. So, the recommended administration allocations, if you look at the far right column, and their staff left, no change or left to the city administration project unchanged, it remains at just shy of 183,000 dollars. as was tentatively approved on March 18. This chart does depict the withdrawal of the CAP MC application. And that is all that this reflects. There's no reallocation reflected. So, the, the administration of funding previously awarded to cap MC has generally gone, gone towards the participation of the Fresno Madeira continuum of care. It also helps support the personnel who leave the delivery of the local point in time survey count. At this time, staff can conclude that the city is not a recipient of continuum of care funding. And after reviewing some federal regulations, there is no requirement identified to participate in a continuum of care for either the CDBG or home programs. Further, staff consulted with the city's HUD representative to confirm a couple of points. One of them was to determine how our citizen participation plan influences the city's involvement. And because there is no written participation requirement for the city to participate in the Fresno-Madera Continuum of Care, the city is not obligated to do so. Again, being that the city is not a recipient of continuum of care funding, there is no point in time survey requirement. Further, staff reached out to the FMCOC and we did receive a response. I received a phone call after the writing of the staff report And it was a brief phone call, but what was discussed was that the city can participate in the FMC OC meetings without actually becoming a member and that the planning for the delivery of a local point in time survey will begin in late summer. So here in the recommended public service allocations, what staff did note is the elimination of the CAP MC housing stabilization award that was previously allocated last month in the amount of $25,000. All other proposed allocations have remained the same. And moving on to the capital projects, public improvement allocations, these allocations have remained the same. Staff did not make any changes to them. Also on March 18th, council approved the reallocation of the revolving loan program income balance of just under 240,000 to the Centennial Park pool complex deck and facility project. At this time, there are no proposed changes from those previously approved by council. So the last of the funding sources for the 26-27 annual action plan are the home funds. So some, as with CDBG, had released the home fund allocation on April 3rd. The home allocation increased by just over $52,000. The anticipated allocation is in the amount of $450,760. Staff continues proposing project home in the amount of $405,684. All activities tied to this project will be focused on preserving or expanding the supply of affordable housing stock within city limits. The remaining balance of just over $45,000 will be applied towards the administration of the home program. So this evening, the next steps that staff is recommending is that we're requesting that council consider all public comments, requesting that council provide staff direction to address the changes noted in the 2627 CDBG and home funding allocations. Thereafter, staff will return to council for review and acceptance of the final program year 2627 annual action plan for both the CDBG and the home programs. And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you for that presentation. I bring it back to my colleagues for comments or concerns. I see none. I will open it up for public comment or any written comment. We do have one city clerk Gonzalez.

We do mayor, um, as mentioned by our grants administrator, Marcella, we did receive a written public comment. Uh, from Miss Mendez, um, of executive executive director, and I'll read that now administration and community support has been 1 of the 1st fundings. First, fundings CAPMC received to provide services to the unhoused, CAPMC appreciates the support from the City Council members and staff. The 2026 CDBG discussion during the last regular meeting raised concerns for CAPMC. On behalf of Community Action Partnership of Madera County, Inc., I'm writing to formally notify the City of Madera on my decision to resend our applications for the Community Development Block Grant CDBG Housing Stabilization Program in the amount of $65,000 and $15,000 for the administration application to participate in Fresno Madera Continuum of Care on behalf of the City of Madera. Has a long has a long standing history of effectively utilizing funds to directly support low income individuals and families in our community in the last 2 years has been allocated approximately 100,000 dollars and housing stabilization funding. These resources have been critical in helping us provide rental and utility assistance to households facing housing instability and homelessness. During this current program year to date, CAP MC has assisted 59 unduplicated households with the variety of services ranging from security deposits, emergency rental assistance, stabilization of housing for homeless, as well as utility assistance to prevent service disconnection and ensure safe living conditions. As a result of this support, 100% of households served were able to maintain stable housing and avoid eviction, demonstrating the effectiveness of Target's short-term financial assistance. The impact of this program is best reflected through the experiences of the individuals and families we serve. For example, one household, a young family with a newborn, was facing eviction due to a temporary loss of employment. Through CDBG assistance, they were able to remain housed. In another instance, a household with fixed income was at risk of losing essential utilities. With timely utility assistance, the household was able to maintain safe living conditions and avoid a crisis that could have led to displacement or serious health risks. Additionally, a family experiencing housing instability was stable, was able to stabilize our situation with several months of rental support, allowing the head of household to secure consistent employment and move toward long term self sufficiency. For this funding cycle, CAPMC submitted a request of $465,000 to continue and expand these critical services. However, the proposed award of $25,000 significantly limits our ability to meet the growing needs within our community. Based on current program costs, the requested funding would have allowed CAPMC to serve additional households in crisis, while the reduced award will substantially limit the number of families we can assist and the level of support we can provide. funding programs consistently produce measurable outcomes that align with community priorities, including homelessness prevention, housing stability, and improved health and well-being. By helping households remain housed and maintain utilities, the program reduces reliance on emergency shelters, health care services, and other crisis systems, ultimately contributing to more stable and healthier community, given the significant reduction in funding and the resulting limitation on program impact. After watching the City Council meeting, CAPMC has made the decision to resend its application for this funding cycle as the amount allocated is not sufficient to meet the needs for housing stabilization. This decision reflects our commitment to ensuring that programs are implemented at a level that is both effective and meaningful for the community we serve. Future housing stabilization requests from residents residing within the City will be directed to the City Council member for support. CAP MC will not lead the HUD required point in time count for Madera in 2027. CAP MC is committed to seeking other funding to serve the residents of our community. Thank you, Maddie Mendez, Executive Director.

Thank you for that, City Clerk Gonzalez. Anyone in the Chamber would like to speak, public comment on this item? I see none. Do we have any more written comment? I close public comment at this time and I bring it back to my colleagues to decide we have how much? $7,306. And so my colleagues have any suggestions?

I have a question. I'm reading the staff report right. The staff recommendation was to add it to admin. That was 15.

There's still seven on the other one.

So it can be added. It can be added to administration. It does not necessarily have to. That is up to council discretion this evening.

I'm looking at and maybe I'm looking at it wrong. So the original proposals and then the new proposals are in the staff report, correct? And it keeps everything else the same with the exception of administration is going up, but it's going up by more than the 7306. And that's my math is not math and it's totally possible. It's 914.

Overall, the, um, so all the administration would have gone down as well, or it did go down as well by, I believe it was just over $4,000. So, um, whereas the, uh, 25, 26, uh, 20 or 20% is just about 198,000. The upcoming 26, 27 is, uh, 191,419. That's the maximum that can be, um,

uh allocated in the administration funding category it's late i'm reading it wrong so entertain anything council members anybody has any suggestions you just as far as we're good at putting the seven in the administration is that your suggestion council member montez that would be my suggestion any other suggestions Okay, so that way I would need a motion and a 2nd to entertain the 7400 and some change to administration. 7306 dollars. Okay.

Motion to to add to the administration 7406 dollars.

306 306 that's my motion. Okay.

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, Mayor. Administrator Zuniga. Moving on to the next item, we'll skip, we've already completed E2.

That would be my item. One moment, please. Good evening, mayor and council and city clerk this evening. I bring before you a familiar item new month new proclamations. So, this evening we will be, I bring before you selecting recipients for May proclamations. For some background Council adopted a policy in August 2023 that governs ceremonial documents and at the end of last year Council approved the 2026 list of annual proclamations. Council also discussed and approved certain proclamations would be labeled as recipient at the discretion of Council. And this evening per council's direction staff is requesting that the council select a recipient for the proclamations, recognizing national foster care month relief for life and letter carrier step out hunger food drive. We will have a full month of celebrations and recognitions in May. So we do have some proclamations that already have recipients selected. However, we are looking for your guidance on selecting for National Foster Care Month, Relay for Life, and Letter Carrier Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive. And I'll now turn it back over to you, Council.

Thank you. I bring it back to my colleagues for suggestions for let's start with national foster care awareness. Looking for any suggestions. I see none. I would like to suggest our firefighter who has several foster children that he is taking care of and honor him. I'm not sure the name is not. He was here. We recognized him.

Recently retired?

Yes. Not Scotty.

Before him.

No, before him. Okay. Thank you. That gentleman. He's been with us for so many years that we've never recognized him. So I thought that was great. I thought somebody was going to come up with something else, so I didn't have it prepared. But I think that would be a good recipient. Moving on to the next one, Relay for Life. We did have Charlotte Brewer in the house who brought us information. I think that would be appropriate. We had somebody from Relay for Life. I think it was Deborah Peppers came last year. Unless anybody else has anybody? They'd recommend. Okay. And let it letter carrier, Charlotte burr. That was in the audience today. Letter carrier, stamp out hunger, food drive day.

Okay. He was a letter carrier for like 40 years.

I say, if we could reach out also to, um, our postmaster. and see if he would like, or she, I'm not sure who we have now. They've turned around again. No, she retired. And if they would like to bring some representation from our Madera Post Office, that would be great. Okay, with that, I would need a motion from somebody just to make it legit.

I move that we recognize the writer

And if not him, Moesha Robinson? Yes, I know she has foster children and she has most catering.

And then Ms. Brewer? Yes. And then the postmaster? Yes.

I have a motion. So to be back on the motion, the motion is primarily for the foster care of the retired firefighter fighter that we're getting the name and it.

Oh, Guzman is Guzman. That's it.

So, Mr. Guzman, but if he's not available, then Moesha Robbins. Is that what I'm understanding? Okay. Thank you.

Okay. With that, we have a motion in a second. All those in favor say aye. aye those opposed motion passes unanimously thank you city clerk gonzalez uh moving on to the next item and that is also you that is also loop for parks director aber you're not presenting tonight wow same thing earlier i can share you know the next one's next

Good evening mayor and council this evening I bring before item for discussion and direction regarding participation rules for the woman of the year program. For some background, the woman of the year program was initiated in 2022 and it was recognized annually during a city council meeting and observance of women's history month. The program honors individuals selected by city council members and each council member typically selects 1 on a read from their district. Participation in the program has traditionally been optional program costs covered through each council members district allocation and each council member is allocated 800 dollars per fiscal year to use at their discretion in accordance with the city guidelines at the March 18th meeting of this year. Council directed staff to return with this item to allow for discussion on participation expectations and program guidelines. For financial impact, there is no direct financial impact associated with this report costs associated with the woman of the year program are currently funded through individual council member district allocations and any changes to participation or program structure may impact future costs. Some alternatives Council may provide direction to maintain the current program format, modify participation expectations or establish formal guidelines for future implementation. This report was prepared at the direction of the city council to facilitate discussion on participation and guidelines for the woman of the year event. I will now turn it back over to council.

Thank you for that report. I bring it back to my colleagues for comments or questions. Council member Evans.

Yes. So to make it easy for everyone, my suggestion is that we allot $1,100 for that particular item that way no one will have to have anything deducted from their $800 and everyone will be just smooth sailing and we can still continue on and do the only other thing I would like to say is for me and my district is getting slim pickings to find somebody who's woman of the year. So if there's someone else that we know of that has done things and they may very well live in the county, I suggest that we'll be allowed to be able to do so to have. But as long as they're as far as Madeira City, Madeira County, that's just that's my suggestion. So.

Thank you for your comment, Council Member Montes.

This is questions for city clerk. None of our existing rules regarding proclamations and the like would cover any of this? Like, you know, because, you know, people have the, I guess, our rules to tell like what people would qualify for based on contributions, right?

No, the only policy that we have is

would be a certificate policy but as far as the criteria and and to be met for this type of recognition no it would not it would not okay um so i mean i guess you're saying eleven hundred dollars for the whole program right oh okay i don't have an issue with that uh but i would i would just say it would be at the discretion of the council member to select um Their recipient, I mean, I would like to see something that there are some criteria that they've contributed. To the district, right? Um, I mean, and that's going to be, I mean, I guess to a certain degree is going to be subjective, right? The. Council member would be able to, um. Articulate would need to articulate that, um. But, and I know it's going to be hard because then who would be the judge of that? And I don't want to put that, I mean, I think that would be on council, not anybody else, not on any staff member. Um, but that's, that would be my recommendation that could be at the discretion of the council member.

Okay. I see no more comments. I open it up for public comment. Anyone in the chamber? I see no one in the chamber. Anyone online or on Zoom? City Clerk Gonzalez.

We have Councilwoman Mejia. I do see that, Councilmember Rodriguez.

I have none.

Thank you for that councilwoman here.

I think it would have been beneficial if we could have projected the current guidelines, but I do have them pulled up on my phone with. So, currently, there are 5 different categories that these women that are honored, they have to fit into. They also have to be a resident of the district. They had to have lived there for 5 years or more. and nominees must have exhibited hard work, which obviously that's where it would be up to the discretion of the council member to be able to articulate it. The two suggestions that I would make for modification would be one in line with Councilwoman Evans that you wouldn't have to live within your district as long as you lived in Madera. And and I also feel very limited when it's just like they had to have lived in the district and then we're adding these years. I don't think that we should have a length of time. 5 years. I don't know how that number came about, but I just don't think that it should be. A length of time that is established for the 1st time that I had the opportunity to select someone. I did open it up to the community through social media and I did have a lot of people that were speaking on of the honorary at that time. I was Leonardo. So, I do like to think that if I'm representing my community, I do like to listen to my community, but I should also be able to articulate. why I am honoring this person, how have they made an impact to the district. So I just think that we shouldn't limit the time that they should have lived in the district or in the County of Madera. And then the second thing is that These categories are also very limited. Sometimes there are women in the community that they may not have a career in education, in business, law enforcement, or government agency, or the way that they're limited here. I have seen women that they have been part of the community doing things that not everybody notices, like they'll walk around picking up trash. They've done things for so many numbers of years and it's not necessarily tied to their educational background. It's just their love and service for the community. So I just wouldn't want to restrict or just leave it out people because they didn't choose to get an education the way I did or the way a lot of people do. So those are my suggestions for this council.

Thank you for your comment. I see no other comments. I entertain a motion and a second.

Councilmember Rodriguez so wasn't sure if there was a. A direction yet or motion but I do. You know I do agree with a lot of my council members regarding discretion I appreciate the. The list of requirements obviously we're always trying to find that ideal woman of the year and there's many of them I think in my community you have thousands of them right. I think all women are women of the year. Matter of fact, that Elisa here was a woman of the year, but again, you weren't in my district. But I still check. See, so again, I do feel that there's a lot of people in our city that fall into that category. at times I can't think of all the women in my district. And I think in years before, Mayor here had suggested, and I know that Maddie Mendez was a woman of the year, and greatly so. But I also feel that we should have a discretion if we can't go within that tight requirement that we can always step outside of that and say, hey, here's a woman of the year that has accomplished a lot more that what's on this requirement maybe doesn't meet the five year maybe doesn't meet being in my district but nevertheless meets the the example of what we call a woman of the year right so for me i i i think it was a great thing that the mayor had brought before us i think she she it's a lot of work to try to bring something like this and then try to coordinate out it takes a lot of work um but again it's also collective we we need to make sure that this carries on And we're doing it for the purpose of recognizing these women. So I hope that we find consensus. And whether it's removing one item here or allowing people from within the city, I'm good with that. I mean, I'm not opposed to just staying to the requirements or I mean, I'm open.

Thank you for your comment. I can say right now that I could name five women that meet all the criteria in every single one of your districts. So there are plenty of women that do meet the requirement. And I just think it's we're city of Madera. We're elected into our district of people who live in the district. And the criteria did come from Esmeralda Soya. And I spoke with her when I created it. And this is her requirements that she used. And I just put them basically typed them out and put them up, which we've had a problem maybe if you have no one and you can't think of a woman that's um entitled to this great accomplishment you reach out to other people on on in your district or you reach out to other electeds because um like i said i can think of five in everybody's district that is so in honor of getting this award uh mayor pro tim zagaria first time tonight

Maybe to bring just kind of some bonding between all of us now. So I was honored to get the award for around 40 a couple years ago, being around 40. Of those recipients, there were some not around 40. But I think in the light of what the award was wanting to do is highlight. Certain people, and I think that's kind of what you're trying to accomplish. It's if I'm if I'm a woman's, I don't think I'll ever get that award. But if I'm a recipient, like, some of the people in the audience, and I'm looking around the others being awarded next year. I want to feel commonality. I want to say I can relate that that person is deserving of that award. Not. Just some random person we picked out of the crowd. So I think that's kind of the voice of everybody saying is we want to give honor and I know that's kind of where you want to have it is you want to have that honor. I can agree with. I mean, yes, I'm a larger district, so there's, there's probably more population to choose from, but. To their point, I mean, if I want to choose somebody that. Maybe doesn't meet the social criteria of the award, but it's still deserving of it because of their community effort. I think that. It should be, we should have that ability to hold that standard to say, yes, they have these things is what we want, but if. This year I really found somebody that is strived. They just moved to Madera, but they have busted their butt all year for the community that there should be some leniency to that selection process. That's all I'm asking for.

Thank you for your comment. Council Member Mejia.

I think you had go right ahead. Oh, okay. Yeah, I just do want to have provide clarity because I did have the opportunity to connect with assembly woman. And I know that I'm not. It's not my intention to criticize these guidelines. It's just that I feel that. That this council as a whole should have input into whatever we adopt. So I know that, you know, that. Those guidelines were suggested, and I also had the opportunity to attend her woman of the year program, which was wonderful. She highlighted so many local leaders, Central Valley leaders. I think that they're a great guide, but. I feel she understands why, because she works with her colleagues in the assembly that.

every entity should have the opportunity to provide that input so i just wanted to clarify that yeah thank you for your comment and that's a good comment because she is picking women within her district and she didn't pick women in her that worked in her district that lived in another district she picked women in her district and that should be clarified because there are there are a lot of women that do not live in her district that work in her district but they were not chosen They were only chosen in the living in the district that she represents. Council Member Rodriguez.

Yes, thank you, Mayor Gegros. And, you know, when I first got elected, I don't recall us having any type of formal process to elect a woman of the year. I think this came years after. So it wasn't an obligation for us as council members to feel that weight that we have to have. It's something that we want to commemorate. We want to give a recognition. So however you want to do that recognition, I believe it's your discretion to allow that. So as long as you do it within a timeline, and I think some guidelines that were provided, I think we're accountable to be able to provide someone that meets that criteria. Or close to that criteria, you know, you want to commemorate someone and recognize them pretty soon. I hope not. Then we don't want not a woman. There's enough women out there. Like you said, there's, there's hundreds and you probably know a lot of them too. But a lot of times, you know, this does come in at a time where you're having to think, well, who is going to be my next woman of the year? What do I need to look for that is going to make that woman of the year? And I know a lot of people that. do a lot of hard work that may not be the teachers that may not be uh living there for five years or may not be within my district but they do a lot of work and i just feel like we shouldn't have to put more weight on what we already do here for this city this is something that we want to celebrate and i don't think we i mean i hate the fact that we're having to discuss this but i mean it has to be done so i just feel like allow discretion um i i'm amendable but i mean i also like the discretion especially if it's coming out of my account yeah

Well, I appreciate your comment. I just want to make it very clear that I did not intend to put a burden on my fellow council members. I was very clear that it is something that you can choose not to do, especially if you don't feel you have a woman in your district that is accommodating to the criteria. And if it's a financial issue, then that's something we can always look at as a council. And it's something that I thought that we should recognize that we have never done in the city, and that's why I brought it forth. And it's just something that I felt that was important because women don't always get recognized for all that they do. And again, it was an option. It's not a requirement. It's not a heavy burden that I put upon each and every one of you. It was a choice. You have a choice. And I think, you know, we're in the United States of America. We have a choice to choose the things that we want to do. Just like here, it's not something you had To do Councilwoman Evans.

Yes, I agree. I understand. I understand the guidelines things of that, but. That was the Sawyer's guidelines, so we are the city of Madera, so we should do our own guidelines. I, I applaud the idea. of us honoring and that's great. And yes, I'm sure you know a lot more people than I do, but in the same token, I agree with my colleagues. There are other individuals that may not fall under the educational criteria, but bust their butts to get out. Like prime example, Monica Bravo, know she's i'm not saying that that's who i would nominate or whatever but she went all the way to sacramento and there was things that her education is not of the elite you know where she lives may not be she's a farm worker she gets out there and busts her tail in the fields but she's dynamic And I just feel we should be able to honor people like that. I go over to the, what is it, the mosque, and you have these ladies, they without fail are there every month passing out food, working their butts off, passing out, passing out. And when they leave, they get thank you. Why can't we honor some of them? You know, because they work hard, you know, but no, they don't have the education. They may not even speak the language, but they still work hard. So if we're honoring, honor who gives and does. And I mean, I just feel that if we don't have them in our district, then if we have to go outside, at least we're still honoring. And as far as financially, Why not make a pot where none of us have to use anything? Because I use mine because I do crunch with the councilwoman. So I need to be able to have whatever, whatever. But others don't. You come in with 800 and you leave with 800 or whatever. I don't know. It doesn't matter. All I'm saying is to avoid that, let's just allocate a fund. to be able to take care of this. And then that's one less burden that anybody has to worry about. Alicia doesn't have to hear, well, why? It would just eliminate. So here's what it is. Hey, I'm just honest.

Thank you for your comment. Council Member Montes.

I feel like they've evolved over time. I don't know if they've been the same. I'm pretty sure they haven't been followed all the time. So that's another thing. Um, so I can think of a few examples. Um, so that's why I'm going back. It's still going to be a choice. People can choose to or council members can choose to participate or not. But I think it should be, uh, the guidelines, um, or lack thereof should be, uh, council decision. I mean, respect for, um, but, um, I mean, we. the council here we were elected to make decisions for this body um she was elected to make decisions where she's at um so again we have that discretion and again just i don't think we've the guidelines may have been there may not have been there may have changed but they have not always been followed so again it'll just be easier in my opinion just to be council discretion and then the council member is going to have to answer to their council district if that's something that they don't want and it should be that simple So I would move that we just make the selection council discretion. That would simplify criteria and then council is going to have to make their choices and they're going to have to explain themselves, especially when we're here in front of everybody. That's the last thing I'm going to say about that.

Thank you for your comment council member media.

I hope this will be the last thing I say. But I am also, I think it is a wonderful program and I am also in agreement with councilman Evans about allocating money for it because no, I use my 800 dollars to try to help low income children the way I grew up with with a backpack. And so. I'm thankful to council member Ramontes who donated his leftover to help support that. We were able to get more backpacks for the kids. So we do have a limited amount. We try to do as much as we can with that limited amount that we have. Um, and to be fair, the districts are about 11,000 people each and that is so small compared to the whole. Assembly district that assembly woman soda represents. And another wonderful thing that she did do is that. She allowed the community input. You had a period where you were able to nominate a person and you had to demonstrate that that woman was worthy of being honored. So in that sense, I do see her as a leader that allows for that community input. She's not the eyes and ears that are in every part of the assembly district. So she does rely on fellow members of that district to be someone that can refer, they can refer people that they think would be a good selection. And so again, I think that that aligns with just having greater input from the community, but also us as council members having our input, having the opportunity to say, I chose this person because of X, Y, Z, and it's not just if something is presented as you either do it this way or you don't do it at all, then that's not really a fair choice. And those are all my comments. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. And I don't think it's a fair choice to put a money number on this event either, which is sad to hear council member Montez about to do that.

So, um, I wanted to amend my motion to for this great program, the, uh, nominees be at the discretion of council and then also allocate, um. A separate fund, uh, 1100 dollars.

Yes.

Uh, to, uh, allow the council members to. Do this separately? I mean, I guess it is not I don't know what the cost generally is for everything. Um. Up to 1100 dollars. I don't know if you're going to give me some numbers. That's about it.

Well, last year was about 160 per district and this year we, um, it was with all the charges. It was a total of, I believe, 120.

Okay, so so that will still work. Mm.

Hmm. Mm. Hmm. Yeah, you don't have to spend it all.

Mayor Mrakas, If I could be clear, so your motion is the selection of the woman that your candidate by district. Mayor Mrakas, At each council members discretion and allocate collectively $1,100 for the event, which is de facto direction to staff to include that next year's budget is that your motion, that is our motion, thank you i'm sorry I just wanted to ask are we still restricting it by district or.

The expression of council member discretion instead of at the district.

Yeah. Okay.

It's a motion. Yeah. Second, I have a motion in 2nd, all those in favor say aye aye. Those opposed nay, it passes 6 to 1. thank you for your presentation. City clerk Gonzalez. Moving on to the next item.

Section F 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 the 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 start to my left with council member Vegas. Oh, thank you. And nothing to report. Thank you for that council member Rodriguez. Thank you. Council member.

I have nothing to report.

Thank you. Council member, uh, Evans.

Two things. One hour, whatever. Um, I, I was honored to be able to go out to, um, Madera community college. It was a Ujamaa graduation and they roped the young people. It's basically an African-American organization and they've been taught about the history of African American and the things that have gone on in the past. But it was it was very enlightening to be able to experience that. Another thing is it's called Cal Kids. And I've been working with Jose Eduardo, not not our Jose, Jose Eduardo. And this is where they construct Education and scholarships will start at the very primary age, and they will start out at 500 dollars. And as they grow and continue on through school, they can, when they graduate, they will have X number of dollars. Also, we would need the SSID number for these students. But if you know someone now that will be graduating excuse me, in May or June, whatever graduation is, if we can get those numbers now, it can be investigated and those students also would be able to get funds. The seniors now would be able to get funds as well, but just to be able to start and have these babies start out with $500 is a lot. These kids even graduating now can buy books if nothing else. So that's another thing. And then I also would like to put in for this, the upstanders day that these babies came in and requested. So bullying is bad. So if we can do something to help them out and to start a day, they were looking at the last, last Saturday in the month of September for the upstanders day. So anyway, that's my suggestions.

Thank you for your comment. Council member of Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah.

We haven't met in like a month, so as far as just some updates. So just to make you guys proud, I got the chance to go to San Francisco last weekend and watch a robotics team set another world record. So we're headed to championships in two weeks. And it was just a great opportunity because, again, it's remembering. I know we don't notice, but Madeira is on the map on a world scale for our robotics team. It's great to see the community support and stand behind that. So just be proud for them and they're, they're going charging hard. So thank you.

Thank you for representing this to council member on test.

Can't follow that. Nothing to report. Thank you.

Um, I just have 1 thing to report is, um, on behalf of the mayor and the council, we would like our prayers to go out to the family of sheriff deputy Randy hopper, um, who was killed in the line of duty tragic accident. I shouldn't say accident tragic. circumstances that took place and took his life. Very well known in the community, had law enforcement background in his family, and he will truly be missed by his colleagues. And our law enforcement here is helping represent and be supportive if needed in the Tulare County area. So with that, our prayers go out to all of them. We'll go into closed session if our city attorney will take us there.

Thank you, Mayor. We have one item G1 threat to public services or facilities government code section 54957 a consult consultation with city manager and city attorney. We do not anticipate there will be any action taken in closed session. Thank you.

I open it up for public comment in the chamber. I see none. Anyone online you're on zoom.

We have none.

Thank you. I close public comment and we will move into closed session. We're back coming out of closed session. I will turn this over to our city attorney.

Thank you, Mayor. There's no reportable action taken in closed session.

Thank you for that. At this time, I'd like to adjourn a meeting at 1032. We'll see you back on Wednesday, May 6, 2026. Thank you, everyone. Good night.