City Council - Regular Meeting

good evening everyone and welcome to the regular meeting of the madera city council and a special meeting of the madera city council as of the ground water sustainability today is wednesday june 17 2026. i'll turn it over to my city clerk gonzalez

The Madera City Council meetings are open to the public. This meeting will also be available for public viewing and participation. Members of the public may also observe the live stream meeting on the city's website at www.madera.gov forward slash 5 members of the public may comment on agenda items at the meeting or remotely through an electronic meeting via phone by dialing. 9,900,6,833 enter ID 8,308,839,6165 pound press star 9 to raise your hand and 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 attendees that wordly is available for translation services thank you thank you for that roll call please Mayor guy goes here. Mayor pro Tim Zachariah, council member Rodriguez, council member Montez, council member Evans, council member Mejia here and council member Vegas here. Thank you for that.

We have an invocation going to be given by miss pastor leach, who I don't see in the crowd. So I would ask pastor lane if you're okay about giving that a vocation today. That's right. Thank you. And if you'll remain standing for the pledge of allegiance given by mayor pro Tim Zachariah.

good evening to council members and citizens of madera father we thank you this is the day that you have made and we will rejoice and be glad in it lord we ask that your holy spirit will be with us as we take care of the business of the city of madera for the benefit of the citizens of madera Lord, we just ask blessings to enhance, increase, and all of your blessings to everyone that is here that can hear the sound of my voice. You're a good God, a great God, a good Father, and we appreciate everything that you are doing, have done, and will do for us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Thank you for that. Moving on to approval of the agenda, do any of my have any questions or concerns? I see none. I will entertain a motion and a second. Oh, I opened up a public comment. I see none. Bring it back to my colleagues.

Mayor, I'll move to approve the consent calendar as presented. Second. Thank you. All those in. Were you asking for the agenda? Yes. I'm sorry. I take that back.

it's the adopt the agenda as presented perfect thank you I have a motion second all those in favor say aye aye those opposed motion passes unanimously City Clerk Gonzales under presentations the first presentation is a proclamation recognizing Juneteenth Day and that will be presented by Councilwoman Evans And before she presents that, I would like to apologize. I will not be at this event. My ex-mother-in-law passed away and her services will be on that day. So my prayers will be with all of you at that event on Friday. Thank you.

This is beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Thank you each and every one of you that are here today and blessings to you all. I would like to ask at this time, Apostle Joyce Lane and Deacon Ken Lane to please come. For those of you that are here, we're going to celebrate this Friday, Juneteenth. It's from the Emancipation Proclamation from 1865, the day that the slaves were freed. I want to say thank you then, and I want to say thank you now. And I would like to present this proclamation. So I, for me, this is Mama Joyce and Papa Ken. But to all of you, this is Apostle Joyce Lane and Deacon Ken Lane. And this is the proclamation. City of Madera City Council Proclamation. Juneteenth Day, whereas African-American enslaved in the Galveston, Texas, first learned of their freedom on June 19th, 1865. two and one half years after the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln became effective. And whereas since the time, June 19th has become known as Juneteenth, and it is recognized as the oldest known celebration of the end of slavery in the United States. And whereas since 1865, the observance of June 19th as Emancipation Proclamation Day has spread across the United States and beyond. And whereas Juneteenth not only commemorates African American freedom, but it also emphasizes education, self-improvement, the achievement of the African American community. And it is marked with public readings of the Emancipation Proclamation and celebrations with family, friends and now therefore be resolved that CC Gallegos mayor of the city of Madera on behalf of my colleagues City Council do hereby proclaim June 19th 2026 Juneteenth Day presented to Apostle Joyce Lane and Deacon Ken Lane see it's hard to say all that

We are very honored and grateful for this proclamation. It's been a joy and a challenge to service the Madera City. We came from the Bay Area, different culture. But we're very thankful for what God has done and allowed us to serve you with our very best. and we're always motivated by agape love. So we love you. Thank you very much for allowing us.

Hi, good evening City Council, Arturo Martinez, Jr., Senior District Rep for the Office of Senator Ana M. Caballero. Today we have a certificate of recognition from the California State Senate, and it reads, on the occasion of Juneteenth, recognized through a proclamation by the City of Madera, whereas community observances provide opportunities to reflect upon our nation's history, promote education and understanding, and recognize milestones that have shaped the American experience. And whereas Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States and serves as an opportunity to reflect upon the enduring importance of freedom, resilience, and community throughout the American experience. Now, therefore, the office of Senator Ana M. Caballero hereby recognizes Juneteenth in acknowledgement of this community of servants in this row and fostering reflection education and community engagement throughout the city of madera and our office will also be participating in various juneteenth celebrations across senate district 14. thank you

Also, I would like to remind everyone that this Friday in Courthouse Park, we will have a gospel fest. This is the first, from what I'm understanding, gospel fest in the Central Valley. So please, each and every one of you, come out, praise, worship, sing, dance, and have a hallelujah good time. Thank you.

Okay, and moving on to the second presentation, this proclamation recognizing Pride Month.

All right. Well, good evening, everyone. And I did want to say thank you to the mayor for allowing me to present this proclamation. Can I get the members of founding members of the Gay Straight Alliance from class of 2007 to join me? Okay, I'll read the proclamation. So, whereas the month of June is recognized as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer, LGBTQ pride month throughout central San Joaquin Valley. And whereas Madera joins communities throughout the Central Valley to observe pride month and to support the rights of all residents to experience equality and freedom from discrimination. And whereas the rainbow flag is widely recognized as a symbol of pride. inclusion and support for social movements that advocate for LGBTQ people in society. And whereas all human beings are born free and we equal in the dignity and rights, LGBTQ individuals have an immeasurable impact on the cultural, civic and economic success of our country. whereas the City of Madera is committed to supporting visibility, dignity, and equality for LGBTQ people in our diverse community. Now, therefore, let it be resolved that Mayor CeCe Gallegos, and on behalf of the entire City Council, do hereby proclaim June 2026 as Pride Month.

Good evening City Council. It's again me, Arturo Martinez, Jr., senior district rep for the office of Senator Ana Caballero. We have a certificate from the state also for this month. On the occasion of Pride Month recognized through a proclamation by the city of Madera, whereas community health services provide opportunities to recognize and celebrate the diverse individuals experiences and perspectives that contribute to the strength and character of local communities and whereas pride month is being recognized in connection with efforts to promote community awareness visibility and engagement while acknowledging the importance of dignity respect and belongings for all members of the community now therefore the office of senator ana m caballero hereby recognizes prime month in acknowledgement of this community of servants and its role in bringing people together throughout the city of madera city council we also do want to note the senator our office participated in the fresno pride parade and our office also present this past saturday at a pride event hosted by bandera community coalition for justice thank you very much

Hello everyone, thank you so much on behalf of the 1st, Madera, uh, high school, gay, straight alliance club. It's an honor to be here with, uh, my fellow members. Um, I, and thank you to everyone else who's here supporting, uh, for different reasons. We all came together and, um, I honorably, uh, accept this on behalf of the organization. And I know that this means a lot to everybody else.

So, just thank you for being here and yeah, it's like, heartwarming and yet it feels like such an accomplishment for a small city. I really appreciate that. Everybody that's supporting that we didn't have that support before. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for being here. I didn't really prepare words, but I can speak about my experience. As I have mentioned to my colleagues on the diets before and during the city council meetings, the work that the founding members of the Gay-Straight Alliance Club in Madera High School did 20 years ago, it's very profound. I was working as a reporter. I was a senior at Madera High School. And I remember seeing so much hate directed toward students that were still minors. Specifically, Thalia Arenas, I would really like to commend you because you really were the face and you really were. It's very difficult to be an adult and to put your face and your name out there and for her to have been a student and still a child because she was still a minor and to believe in so much, not just yourself, but all of the members that were the founding members during that time. to do it, to put their face out there and to see right now how so much hate is being directed to the youth. Like I have said before, stay strong. And sometimes I think about that and I don't like to let it get me down. 20 years ago, we wouldn't have seen the type of events in Madera that we're now seeing this Saturday. I was so happy to participate in a pride event that was hosted by the Madera Coalition for Community Justice. That is progress in and of itself. So just thank you all for being here, being supportive, and thank you to the GSA founding members.

Thank you.

okay now moving on to presentation number three for this evening it's a presentation of Madera Unified School District's options program hey hello Councilman um I don't think the mayor's here but um I wanted to award

madera police department on behalf of madera unified safety department um and let me give you a little background history of why we're here tonight prior to covid we had partnered with valley state prison to create a gang intervention program to get at the root causes of why kids were involved with gangs and at-risk behavior. And after COVID had hit, we had heard that that program was going to shut down the redirect program possibly. So we were a little lost because that's one of our most powerful intervention programs that we have at Madera Unified School District. So we were at loss to see that program go. So me and Hector, our gang consultant and our gang intervention specialist for Madera Unified and myself got together and we said, if we're going to lose that program, How can we go out in our community and get our support from our local premier leaders to help us with some of the gang intervention? And Madera Unified has done great work in intervention over the past 25 years. And what it was is that we never asked our community for help. And this was our first time we went out, went out to Madera County Jail. We went out to Paroissia Department. And then our last stop was Madera County, our Madera Police Department. We went to Chief Jaramani, Chief Jaramani. We went to Chief Jaramani and myself and Hector told him our vision and we said, we'd like to do is go to the jail and just let the kids experience that tour and then go to juvenile hall and experience that tour. Nothing scared straight, but just a visual. And then we wanted it to end with the police department. We're talking to some of the officers and we asked the chief, we said, would you buy lunch for our kids? And would you break bread with them so that our kids are at risk? Look at our law enforcement as adversaries. And we want to show them that they weren't adversaries. They're partners in keeping them safe and how we can build upon that relationship. And to our surprise, Chief said, sure, let's do it. Let's make it happen. And he has made it happen. He's made it happen, I think, four or five times so far. Nine times. And what it is, it's great because the kids get to tour. So not only is our Madera Police Department keeping us safe, but they're changing the lives of our youth in intervention. And we're getting them before we have to see that other part, but through the intervention. So we're able to take a tour there. We have the officers, I think Sergeant Gonzalez. Lieutenant Adams go in there and they talk to the kids and then the chief ends up with a great speech, a motivational speech. And then when you see kids that typically are at risk sitting down with our law enforcement partners and having lunch, it's a beautiful sight to see. And they're building relationships. And when you get to see a young lady look through the glass window and it's tennis shoes, what's back there? And we say dispatch. And she said, do you think I could be a dispatcher? So here we have young children thinking of, you know, at risk that saying maybe i could be like these gentlemen and that's a change for the best for us and what we're seeing is now my only regret is we didn't do this 25 years ago because little did i know to my surprises that she's made it so easy when i said are you are you in and he said yes 100 i'm all in and so when you have that and from his team when you have that type of leadership coming saying we're here to not only keep our community safe but for intervention it's a great feeling it makes our jobs easier in madera unified to see that partnership so we're here tonight to present the chief with the heart of the community award on behalf of madera's safety department to the chief and his officers

A couple of things. I'll just mention this program. It's a lot of stories that you won't hear. Some of the feedback I get from the kids. We take them on the tour. And at first, especially when they get to the police department, they're a little nervous. They get nervous about being around police officers. But at the end of it, I do an interview with them and I ask them how they feel. And these are kids that are heavily involved in some gang association or some kind of affiliation. They actually said it's different. I have a different opinion now. And all it took was a few of these officers to step up and actually have a good conversation with them. I mean, they had a ton of stories, but yeah, some of the kids are saying, you know, it's kind of a reality check between what I saw at the jail, juvenile hall, and then you end on a good note with the police department. We have probably a 60% change of behavior for the positive, 60% positive behavior change. that we're seeing after this tour and i'll take that all day long yes i'll take that all day long i just want to say thank you to the police department and for you know because i know you guys are busy i've been there i was a police officer with these guys for many years uh 20 years i worked with the chief i retired and here i am trying to trying to work with uh the youth and this makes it great this makes it uh especially with the presenters that they bring in some people that they share the same uh same trauma that some of the kids have gone through and they they tell their stories and they make it all happen so i just want to say thank you on behalf of the dairy unified thank you all right and as he's handing out those awards i'd just like to kind of double down on that it's these partnerships that are all for our youth our youth our future that has actually

My heart and soul is about the youth and what directions. We don't see them as criminals. We see them as young people who have some behavioral issues early on that need mentorship and some guidance so focus attention and our goal is to show them what the options with their current behaviors is where it's taking them which is jail and we've seen some deaths recently in some of our youth and so just letting them know what that pathway looks like but that's not the only pathway and we're here to partner with you and we're here to be mentors and i just appreciate what starts at the top with Madera Unified School District Superintendent Todd Lyle and his focus on every youth education and making sure they all have the same opportunities. And then with Hector and Lawrence from the Unified School District to be able to put this program together. I do wanna say special thanks to Sergeant Richard Gonzales and Lieutenant Mark Adams who play a vital role at the PD in managing that. Sergeant Gonzalez has a ton of history with our gangs and knows quite a bit of information that he could speak at their level and actually speak truth to him. So I appreciate you guys for what you do. And I appreciate, Todd, your leadership over at the school district and making sure that every youth has a voice. So thank you.

I can go right here.

i got it there you go ready one three one two three

Thank you very much. I was actually out there presenting to the realtor.

Thank you for a great presentation, gentlemen, and being with us here tonight. We'll move on to the agenda for public comment. City Clerk Gonzalez.

The first 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 three minutes. Speakers will be asked but are not required to identify themselves and state the subject of their comments. If the subject is an item on the agenda, the mayor has the option of asking the speaker to hold the comment until that item is called. Comments on items listed as public hearing on the agenda should be held until the hearing is 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.

I opened up for public comment. Please come to the podium.

Good evening members of the City Council again, Arturo Martinez, Jr. Office of Senator Ana Caballero. Just wanted to give a quick update since the last time. I believe it was here in May, but I don't think it was a June meeting, so I got some updates. So for the Latino Spirit Awards for Senate District 14, Ellie Painted Crow was chosen from Merced County in honor of the state capitol. The small business of the year was Fruta Fresca for District 14 out of the city of Kerman. For the nonprofit of the year for Senate District 14 was Chacara Movement. Also, most of the Senator's legislature made it to the Assembly, passing House of Origin, and right now it is in the Assembly where there are committee hearings. ALSO FOR MORE UPDATES REGARDING THE SENATOR'S INFORMATION, THERE IS INSTAGRAM, SENATOR CAVALLERO ON INSTAGRAM. ON THE INSTAGRAM, I DO WANT TO SHARE, FOR EXAMPLE, THERE IS A POST RIGHT NOW FOR THE CALIFORNIA COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN AND GIRLS. APPARENTLY IT IS A YOUTH ADVISORY COUNCIL AND THEY'RE CURRENTLY TAKING APPLICATIONS. SO THERE'S MORE INFORMATION ON THE SENATOR'S INSTAGRAM. So I want to give some quick updates. Also, the senator was present at the services for former mayor of Madera, Santos Garcia. Our office presented a state resolution and some black leather and memorials for the family. And yeah, thank you very much.

Thank you for your comment. Come on up.

Yes, my name is Paul Chobin, and I'm 53 years old. I've been a lifelong member of Madera. I lived in Madera all my life. I'm concerned about the city of Madera having a blank check for ZAC security and Madera private security. I remember years ago, the old courthouse, if you guys remember Peter Escanio, the Spanish interpreter, before these government center got built, we didn't have to have security. People have respect for the old, and they built these buildings here and automatically we have security there. It costs money. I don't know how Sacramento or Washington, where you guys are getting the funds, but Zax is not the police department. I used to work at Zax. Madera's crawling with law enforcement, higher patrol, sheriff, police there are three minutes away yet we're using security seven days a week costing a quarter million five hundred thousand a year it adds up and matter of fact I'm looking I'm talking to an attorney out of Carlsbad to see the city of Madera for just that you know we shouldn't be so fast to buy Rebecca supple a house her second house Zack his third house we have police department Madera is a small town They should function without Madeira rolling out the red carpet for these private securities. And all I can say is that security companies in Fresno are struggling. They get it from the private sector. They have them at shopping centers. In Fresno, it's a big town. They have them in apartment complexes. They make them leave. They don't affect the Fresno Fair. I worked at the Fresno Fair three different years. They don't let you stay there. Two weeks later, they're canceled. So we have this bad habit of leaving Zach's. And they can do the metal detectors without five securities five days a week. They got five guards there. That costs a lot of money. And you and I don't feel the pinch because it's automatic to Zach's. Automatic to Zach's. That's not right. We need to do our homework and see what they do in Bakersfield and other counties, Tulare County, San Diego, because I don't think that we, Madera's a small town. We're not in Honolulu, Hawaii. We're not in Hollywood. We need to do our homework and look at other counties and say, look, we gotta pull the plug. We can't afford, we already got the sheriffs. We got the higher patrols on 17. We're right here on South C, the police. Yet we wanna pay, we wanna have a blank check for Zach's They can do the in-house, the metal detectors in the courthouse. So thank you.

Thank you for your comment, sir.

Hi, my name is Monique Williams. I want to welcome you all for being here and glad to be a part of your city council meeting. Just really quickly, I wanted to say thank you and what an honor it is. I recently bought a house in Madera. I just recently, after 25 years working for the state of California, retired as a captain from Central California Women's Facility. So Madera County has been very vital And all of the progressive movements we've seen going on, and even tonight it shows, you know how you pay attention to pride month. You're celebrating Juneteenth. I just think you guys are amazing. Very excited. I left Merced County to come here because you guys have a safer police department and even our chief geo will be speaking. here at the 21st Annual Women in Law Enforcement Symposium on July 31st. I wanted to personally invite you all. Ms. Anita has already tapped me to come and volunteer. I'll be volunteering at the Juneteenth event, and I'm here for your community as a retired person and just wanted to say how proud I am to be here. Thank you. Thank you for your comment.

I just wanted to point one thing out, that this is the second year that the mayor steps out during Pride Proclamation. And I don't think that's right. I think you should honor all people from your community. And next time you vote, keep that in mind, you guys. Thank you for your comment.

City Clerk Gonzalez, do we have anybody online or on Zoom?

We have one caller. I believe it's for... our consent calendar but I will call on her to see okay that's the phone number caller with the phone number ending 7946 please unmute yourself to speak press star six to unmute yourself Caller, if you're there, please unmute yourself to speak.

Hello, can you hear me? We can hear you. We can hear you, great. The reason I'm here is to discuss an agenda item. However, it appears to be under item B, consent calendar B16. So I'm not sure if the protocol calls for me to present now or that I request that this item be removed from the consent calendar and be considered separately. So if you could please advise me, I'd appreciate that.

And it was what, item D, was it B16, under consent, B16. OK, we will get to that when we get to the consent calendar. Right now we're on public comment. so we can speak when we get to the consent and we open it up for public comment at that time okay great thank you thank you we gotta close public comment at this time to public hearings city clerk gonzalez item a1 public hearing to consider declaration of nuisances and abatement order for overgrown weeds and that will be presented by our very own chief chair money yes madam mayor members of council public thank you very much for having us

On the agenda right now is A1 talking about weed abatement, and we will be holding a public hearing to consider declaration of nuisances and abatement order for overgrown weeds. We kind of begin with what is weed abatement. The purpose of it is to prevent fire hazards. The descriptions of weed abatement, sometimes when people drive around, they don't understand the difference between private public nuisances and vacant lots and weed abatement. So this is specifically only to vacant unfenced lots and parcels will be abated by the contractor at the owner's expense. And again, all other portions that either have properties on them will or buildings on them will be done through the public nuisance. Why is weed embatement important? Like we talked about, it's a public safety issue. It prevents fires. We've got health and safety issues. A lot of times these weeds are overgrowing right away and sidewalks prevents damage to abutting properties, a lot of times associated with fires. And really it's the illegal dumping and encampments and reducing the blight. This is the required section regarding keeping up of properties and section B is the portion that we bring to you tonight that if the owner has not corrected the violation in the prescribed time period, the Council may thereafter direct staff to abate the violation at the expense and responsibility of the property owner. Here's the process. It begins with inspections. That began in March of 2026. After a three-week review of inspections, we do issue a 45-day notice of violations. We mail it to each property owner. We do a re-inspection, which is done in the end of May. That was looked at starting in May 28th. It got sent out and May 29th was the inspections. We are now here at a public hearing where we're affording the opportunity for the public to speak regarding their violations. And then we move into the abatement process. And once the abatement is complete, we work into the cost recovery. Where are we today? We inspected 405 properties to begin. As of May 29th, the first compliance review, we had 95 in violation. A week later, we continued to do more reviews. We were able to knock it down to 75, and as of today, we're down to 64. So 341 are in compliance, and 64 remain in violation. And they still have the opportunity to clean these properties all the way up to the day we have someone on the property to abate it. So we may still see more being cleaned up as we speak I know we had some communication with some property owners today when they saw their name on the list If approved staff will move forward with contracting a vendor to abate the violations and the properties My recommendation is conduct a public hearing which we are doing today and then adopt a resolution ordering the abatement of weed nuisances within the city That concludes my report Thank You chief for that report I bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns

I see none. I will open up the public hearing. Anyone in the chamber? City Clerk, anyone online or on Zoom?

We have none, Mayor.

Thank you. I close public hearing at this time and bring it back to my colleagues to adopt this resolution with a motion and a second.

A motion to approve is written.

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

Aye.

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

Next item. Item a to resolution confirming the diagram and assessments for the annual levy of citywide landscape and thank you and that will be presented by our admin administrative analysts say come on up.

There we go.

which is happening automatically for me. Good evening, Mayor, Council, and the COSA Administrative Analysts with the Engineering Department. Today, we are here to talk about the 26-27 Landscape Maintenance District Engineering Report. Just for background, beginning in 1991, those projects were approved. They were annexed into the LMD program. Today, there are 80 active zones of benefits within the city LMD program. Areas developed prior to the state are not subject to the assessment. Assessments are collected as part of property taxes to maintain common landscape areas. Rates were initially set when the zones were established as was the maximum amount that may be charged and to exceed or raise the maximum amount the majority of parcels in the zone must vote in the affirmative. The interest reports period on an annual basis and incorporates past expenses and revenues, but then incorporates projected expenses and revenues. And then it makes recommendations on adjustments to assessments based on data provided by the city's finance department, which is populated into the city's accounting system munis. The recommendation for tonight would be to conduct a public hearing and receive any public comment and then adopt a resolution to confirm the diagram and assessment and assess for a set forth in the engineer's report. Let me the assessment set forth in the engineer's report, authorize the city clerk to file the engineer's report with the county assessor auditor's office and authorize the city engineer in consultation with the city clerk and city attorney to make any clerical corrections. That'll open up any questions.

Right. Thank you for that. I bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. I see none. I'll open up the public hearing anyone in the chamber. I see nine on online or on zoom city clerk Gonzalez. We have none, Mayor. I will close public hearing and bring it back to my colleagues to adopt this resolution.

Move to approve.

I have a motion and second all those in favor say aye. Those opposed motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you for that report.

moving on to the next item item A3 adoption of updated district boundary to include property annexed into this Adele and D Street annexation oh right and that will be presented by our very own city clerk Gonzalez Good evening, Mayor and Council. Alicia Gonzalez, City Clerk. This evening, I bring before you the adoption of updated district boundary to include property annexed into the city on Adele and D Street, the Adele and D Street annexation. LAFCO recently approved the Adele D Street annexation 2024-02 into the city's jurisdiction. The annexed territory includes an existing residence and is approved for additional development of single family residences. Members of the public residing in this area are not legally allowed to participate in city elections until the city's district boundaries are also updated. The requested action is to use an expedited process to update the district map for District 3 by introducing the ordinance amending the muni code. The city adopted its current district boundaries in 2022, based off the 2020 census data and in 2024, the district boundaries were updated to reflect the continued annexations in our city. Since that update, the city has continued to annex new territory territory, including the Adele D street annexation adjacent to district 3. And again, the annexation is adjacent to district 3 and includes 1 existing occupied residents and with the remaining property currently. being developed for 42 single-home families. Although the annexed area is now within the city limits, it is not currently assigned to a council district. A boundary adjustment is therefore required to incorporate the annexed territory into council district and ensure that residents are represented and eligible to vote in city elections. Council adopted its current district boundaries based on the 2020 census data, equitable population distribution. The current configuration of the six council districts prioritizes approximately equal division based on population. This approach ensures fair and equitable representation for all residents across the district. The goal is to avoid population disparities among districts promoting fairness and distribution for elected representatives. Here's a copy of the current City Council map. If you see in the top right corner in District 3, it's the area proposed for District 3, the Adele and D Street annexation. Council typically chooses where the district lines will be drawn every 10 years based on the on the census. Between these 10 year updates, changes to district boundaries are typically not allowed under the elections code. There is an exception for new territory has been annexed and the annexed territory contains less than 25% of the city's population. Any annex property must be added to the nearest existing council district, which in this case is District 3. No other changes to existing council districts may occur. So tonight's recommendation is to waive, excuse me, to waive the full reading and introduce an ordinance of the city council of the city of Madera amending subsection C3 of section 2-1.08 of the city municipal code to adopt revised district boundaries by title only, including CEQA guidelines section 15061B3 determination. I will now turn it back over to council.

Thank you for that. I'll bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. I see none. I will open it up for public comment. Anyone in the chamber? City Clerk Gonzalez, anyone online or on Zoom? We have none, Mayor. Thank you. I will close public comment and turn it over to my attorney.

Thank you, Mayor. If the council is inclined to adopt this item, they would waive the full reading and introduce an ordinance to the City Council of the City of Madera amending subsection C3 of section

2-108 of the city municipal code to adopt a revised district boundaries by a title only including secret guidelines 1506 1b3 determination thank you thank you for that I will entertain a motion and a second move to adopt and wave for the reading second it I have a motion and second all those in favor say aye aye those opposed motion passes unanimously thank you for that next item

Item A4, general plan amendment for adoption of the 2026 Madera County Multi-Jurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan, LHMP, and incorporation by reference into safety element to the City of Madera general plan. Thank you for that.

Presented by our Community Development Director, Tackett.

Good evening, Mayor Gallegos, Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah, Council Members, Will Tackett, Community Development Director. Item before you at this time is consideration of a general plan amendment to adopt the local hazard mitigation plan and incorporate by reference within the general plan safety element. California government code requires every city and county to adopt a general plan to include a safety element. It's important to note that California Assembly Bill 2140 establishes incentives for local governments to integrate Federal Emergency Management Agency approved hazard mitigation plans into their general plan safety elements. This allows California cities to be considered for additional state cost sharing assistance on eligible public assistance projects. This local hazard mitigation plan is multi-jurisdictional, is prepared collaboratively between the County, City of Madera, and the City of Chowchilla. provides a comprehensive assessment of natural hazards affecting the county planning area and evaluates risks and vulnerabilities associated with hazards. The purpose is to serve as the city's primary hazard mitigation planning document, supports informed land use planning, infrastructure resiliency, emergency preparedness, capital improvement planning, floodplain management, climate adaptation planning, and risk reduction strategies. These are all items listed as hazards, which were evaluated within the local hazard mitigation plan. You can see there's a plethora of different hazards listed here. These are all included and addressed within the plan. Again, the benefits pertain to public assistance programs, which are generally limited to a reimbursement of 75% of eligible costs. leaving local agencies responsible for the remaining 25%. Again, achieving AB 2140 compliance would allow the state, through the California Disaster Assistance Act, to assume some or all of the local cost share obligation for the capital improvements programming. Adoption of the LHMP tonight will complete FEMA's approval pending adoption process, will maintain eligibility for federal hazard mitigation grant funding, strengthens our integration of hazard mitigation into our local planning and development decisions, help support implementation the city specific mitigation projects and resiliency initiatives and again the AB 2140 compliance business in the city pursue potential future disaster cost-sharing benefits project is found to be exempt from CEQA the provisions of section 15262 which exempts projects involving only feasibility or planning studies for possible future actions this plan doesn't commit us to any future action and then also the common sense exemption under CEQA that CEQA only applies where there's a possibility that an activity may have a significant effect on the environment. Again, no activities are authorized by the adoption or incorporation of the plan at this time. Staff's recommendation to the Council is that you adopt a resolution determining the project is exempt to present it to the previously stated sections of the CEQA guidelines and approve General Plan Amendment 2020-606. to adopt and incorporate by reference the county multi-jurisdictional local hazard mitigation plan update dated March 2026 into the safety element of the general plan. I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that this was not the effort of a single department or even the community development departments. This was really a collaborative effort by representatives of staff from all departments. And I think we should specifically recognize and give a special thanks to Wendy Silva and her group who assumed the lion's share of scheduling meetings, collecting and soliciting data and coordinating city efforts. So, with that, that completes my presentation and I am available to questions that Council may have.

Thank you for that presentation and also, um. Giving accolades to your colleagues, we appreciate that. So I bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. I see none. I will open it up for public comment. Anyone in the chamber? I see none online or on Zoom. We have none, Mayor. Thank you. I close public comment and bring it back to my colleagues for a motion and a second. Motion to approve is written. Second. Thank you for that. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Community Route Director Tackett. Next item.

Is consent calendar matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and will be enacted by one motion and one vote there. Items. If discussion is desired, a member of the public or a member of the council may request an item be removed from the consent calendar and it will be considered separately.

Thank you. I'll turn it over to our city attorney.

Thank you, Mayor. There has been one item that's been requested to move be removed. That's probably 16. We do have an email comments that she sent in. But and which have been distributed to the City Council and available to the public at this point But I understand she's going to be offering public comments in lieu of this in lieu of the emailed version that was sent in So we could pull item brought a b16. That would be appreciated. Thank you.

Thank you I bring it back to my colleagues for any other items Okay with that I will open up public comment anyone in the chamber and we do have one one online city clerk Gonzales and

Ms. Diane Hernandez, please press star six to unmute yourself to speak.

Hello, can you hear me?

We can hear you, yes.

Right, thank you. Good evening, my name is Diana Hernandez, and I'm the property owner of 1487 Sharon Boulevard, which is District 3, represented by Steve Montes. The purpose of my presence here today is to provide you with an impact statement on the use of my land as I understand it today. While the city of Madera considers approving rezone 2026-01 and amending the official city of Madera zoning map to rezone three areas of the city to the R3 zone district as described in the city of Madera 2024, 2032 sixth cycle housing element. You each may or may not be aware that this property was annexed from the county to city, perhaps now 40 years ago. It was at one point zoned as commercial and through the years then zoned to residential. However, there is currently no city sewer or water, which poses the question, how does the city intend to reach this objective in the six remaining years with no sewer or water and an open canal? After a conversation with the city planning department, I understand that this question needs to be addressed by the engineering department. The impact in my particular case is as follows. I was born in Madera, raised on this property, graduated from Madera High School, and as you might appreciate, There is personal sentiment to this land. For those of you who have lost your parents, my condolences, because in my case, I lost my mom and buried my father exactly one year later on her date of passing. This land has meaning. The grieving process takes time and personal decisions taken then certainly did not have a city ordinance in mind. While I can understand that you are attempting to, and I quote, comply with the requirements of government code section 65583.2 and I, which are intended to address furthering fair housing goals and improve access for a diverse array of housing opportunities for all residents of Madera, including members of protected classes. What may not have been considered is the unintended consequence of causing harm to current property owners by restricting decision-making rights for the use of their property. as also a member of protected classes. This is of significant impact because what this may mean is that I will either need to sell my property to a developer or develop it to meet this city ordinance. I believe you can all capture the magnitude of what this would take for a sole property owner to accomplish this. Selling my property to a developer may also not be what I wish to do, thereby further restricting my rights as a property owner. Because there was a manufactured home that is no longer there, the use of this property is now restricted by zoning decisions. Your decisions are directly impacting how I now may or may not use my land. While I understand that this meeting and the decisions being made are transactional, please also understand that your terms end and city officials retire or change jobs. But these decisions have a personal impact on what I can or cannot do with my land. Thank you for your time and consideration. And that's specific to B16.

Thank you, Ms. Hernandez. So at this time, we pulled B16. And so I'm going to ask my colleagues to approve the consent calendar. Is that correct, city attorney?

Would it be OK if we go to B16 right now, incorporate those comments into B16, check to see if there's any other public comments or any questions from the council? And if there's not, you can take a vote on B 16.

Okay. Sounds good. I'll bring it back to my colleagues or any questions or concerns on B 16. Anyone in the chamber have any questions on B 16. City clerk consoles any other comments we have none more questions. No, but our community development director would like to comment.

Mayor guy goes, uh, mayor pro, Tim Zachary. I will attack a community development director again, a couple of points of clarification on this item in the comments that were The adoption of this ordinance to reason the property does not change development standards, nor does it obligate development. All it does is zone property to achieve capacity to meet our future housing population, our future population projections, our arena. So it does not obligate a property owner to develop within the six years. If it develops, it develops, but that is still at the discretion of the property owner. The second item to clarify is that the resolution that this council adopted on May for purposes of the plan amendment to change the land uses to the high density did not include this property. It is already designated within the general plan as high density, so we're not changing anything. Its inclusion within the ordinance to rezone this evening is simply because that property is currently zoned PD 1500. That's the plan development zone. 1 unit for each 1500 square feet of site area by changing it to the R3. we're actually removing an impediment to development where that plan development zoning would require a precise plan public hearing and action of the commission to develop that would no longer be required. So we're not changing any of the rules. We're not changing the land use designation of the general plan, which always prevails on housing development projects. Um, if anything, we're removing barriers to the development of this property. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Community director. Tackett.

So, the attorney, and thank you, if the council is inclined to introduce this item, it would be with the full reading dot by title only a ordinance of the city council, the city of Madera approving rezone or 2026, uh, 1, and admitting the official city. Official City of Madero zoning map to rezone three acres of the city to R3 residential, one unit for each 871 square feet of the site area. Zone district as described in the City of Madero is adopted 2024-2032 six cycle housing element. Thank you.

Thank you. So, City Attorney, can we approve the consent calendar as presented or we do separate?

I suggest just doing separate. Okay. A motion under first on this one. I'll make the motion to approve item B16.

I'll second that.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed motion passes unanimously. Thank you for that.

Since you've gone through the consent calendar, I too will approve the consent calendar. Thank you. Motion.

I have a motion and second to approve the consent counter as presented. All those in favor say aye. Those opposed motion passes unanimously. Thank you to my colleagues for that.

I just wanted to thank, uh, our community development director for giving us that explanation. And hopefully that also explains to our.

public comment that was there thank you appreciate that next item item c1 fiscal year 2026 27 budget workshop expenses that will be presented by our financial director Lima good evening good evening council Mike Lima director financial services

Uh, there's things flashing in the screen in front of me. There we go. Okay. Uh, so we are here tonight to have the 2nd of our budget workshops. This 1, focusing on expenditures as you remember a month ago, we talked about revenues. But tonight is where the rubber meets the road. How are we gonna spend that money? And here's kind of a preview. But before we get into that, we're gonna talk about how this year is looking. This fiscal year ends in just a couple of weeks. So we have a pretty good idea of where things are landing. And I think I would like to share that with you before we get into the numbers and what they look like for next year. we are putting the finishing touches on the 2627 budget uh well i've already said some of this already so i'm going to skip this all right let's go to the general fund overview um the fiscal year uh 25 26 appropriations were 43.7 million that was the adopted budget uh broken down as you see in front of you uh with the bulk of the expenses being in personnel costs 25 million uh we have added about a half million dollars of amendments to the general fund over the course of this fiscal year so we are right now our amended budget is 44.2 million dollars for this fiscal year And this is how it's shaping up. We have last year we spent $39.4 million. We have a budget, as I said, amended budget this year, $44.2 million. We are looking that we are going to be under budget by $2 million, $42.2 million. Now, that is still a substantial growth from last year. We're up in total 7.1%. But it is still under our budget what we thought we were going to spend and that is very good news for the organization This is by department to take a look the Again, with the totals down at the bottom, the largest department, no surprise, it has been this way for a number of years, police department, in terms of expenditures within the city, but even those are we are noticing stable growth on those. So next department that went up was, was planning or sorry, parks was the second largest here in the city. So what does this mean? As I said, we're planning to finish under by this fiscal year. We're projecting about $2 million under. The savings is a combination of unexpended personnel appropriations due to vacancies, lower than budget expenditures on contracted services, and contingency funds that were not used. The general fund, I'm going to walk through this a little differently than I got on the slide here. But anyhow, bottom line, we're under by $2 million. So let me, now I'm gonna tie the revenues in with this. You probably remember a month ago I sat up here and I said that our amended revenues were gonna be under by 200,000. So how does that all tie together? So here's how it ties together. The budget as it was built had about $1.9 million of one-time expenses in it. We did not have the ongoing revenue to cover that 1.9Million. So this council agreed to use some of our undesignated fund balance to cover it about 1.9Million. So what that means is we said, if we spend every dollar that we have that you folks have agreed to allow us to spend, we spend every penny. We're going to need to take 1.9Million out of the reserve. And pay for it. Okay. What we are actually coming in at is we're saying now if we spend every penny that we were that you folks said we're going to do, we only need 200,000. The revenues have improved that much. Okay. But now we're going to take it a step further. We're not going to spend everything that you folks have said. We're actually going to be under by 2 million. So we take the 2 million savings from the expense side, the 200,000, the shortfall in the revenue, that means that we're looking at putting $1.8 million into the bank at the end of this year. That's where we are at. Now, I've mentioned that number to you, 1.8 million. I'd like you to forget it right now. And the reason why I'd like you to forget it is because when we actually do the final numbers, it's gonna be different. But here's the takeaway I would like you to remember. We are on track and it looks very good that we are gonna put money into the bank again this year as we have done for the last few years. And that is the big takeaway from this exercise. All right, let's get into next year's budget. Total city budget that we are gonna be proposing, 242.1 million. That's up 20.3 million or 9.1% from this year's adopted budget. Growth in the overall city budget is primarily due to a very large capital program. The general funds proposed budget is also increasing, going from 44.2 to 47.4 million, a 7.5% increase. Here is where it shakes out. We're seeing about $1.8 million of growth in personnel costs, about $1.5 million in operational costs. Interdepartmental charges are going up about $700,000. Slight decreases in capital slash debt, as well as transfers out. But at the end of the day, $47.4 million is what we will be proposing. The reason why are personnel costs going up? full-time staff salaries. We had MOUs that were all approved, and those MOUs, now the costs are fully built in. It's $1 million, about 8.2%. We also have another increase in our unfunded pension liability. This is the amount we pay CalPERS for our pension costs for the portion of the liability that is unfunded. That's up $311,000, or 9.8%. Operational costs, we are going to be proposing a very big expansion of our 10 by 10 street paving program in this budget. The program's funding we are going to propose will go from $526,000 in this fiscal year's budget to $3 million in next year's. Very large increase. Growth in interdepartmental charges due to a $780,000 increase in IT replacement charges for new network equipment and software. The decrease in transfers out is due to reduction in amount being transferred to the a reduction in the amount being transferred for our deferred maintenance program. The proposed general fund budget fully funds both ongoing and one-time costs with ongoing revenues. What that means is this budget that we're going to bring to you will not have any carryover being used, not even for one-time expenses. We're going to pay for this, we believe, with ongoing expenses, but we feel confident that we can do it in this upcoming year. Let's take a look at the enterprise budgets. I'm not gonna read all the numbers to you, but I will tell you, I will point out a couple of them. Notice water going up pretty substantially from 35.3 million in 25-26 to 52.9 million next year. Sewer going down slightly. Solid waste going up a little bit. Airport going down and golf course staying relatively flat, but a slight increase there. Improvements in the budget. There are a lot of improvements that are proposed for funding in this budget. I'm gonna go through some of these right now in more detail. First, our deferred maintenance program. We started that program a couple years ago to address some of the items that have been deferred in our budgets. improvements to our facilities and then it's a dedicated funding source in order to address those we are looking to reduce that a little bit this year in order to allow folks to catch up on some of the work that they have already that's already been funded but we still have some money going into that program there's a couple police air conditioning units being funded sealer for the well center well center craft room air conditioning replacement replacing the doors here of finance. And we're going to put another 200,000 into the pot to do the roof at the public works complex. That is right now, based on the way we're funding it, we should start that project in FY28-29, so about two years from now. 10 by 10 street program. This program was created this fiscal year, $526,000. under this program a private company's contract to do road repairs that are more extensive than the standard potholing patch but not large enough to qualify for cip uh the program is is proposed for expansion to three million dollars in next fiscal year all the funds for this are coming from measure t we are setting up a dedicated cost center for the sidewalk repair team uh in this uh In this upcoming budget, the reason why we really don't have a good handle on how much we're spending on sidewalk repair. So this way, we're going to be able to track it a lot more accurately. The team will consist of 4 city staff whose primary job will be sidewalk repairs. Total cost 469,000 roughly with money coming from measure T CDBG and the general fund. Police facilities improvements, we have three that we will be proposing. There's some facility design work. There's lobby improvements of about 200,000, annex improvements of 100,000, all these funded with Measure K Police. Parks facilities improvements, we have the Pan Am indoor basketball court restriping, $10,000, $25,000 for goalposts replacement at various parks throughout the city, and then Tozer Park construction at about $1.2 million. Water. So I mentioned water going up pretty significantly. The big item in this budget, the water storage tank. $30.2 million will be included in this budget for that water storage tank to begin construction of that. We have $5.6 million for pipeline replacement. And then also various water meter installations, water meter replacements, and other water main upgrades as well are in this capital program. Wastewater. The wastewater treatment plant is a major facility that requires ongoing maintenance, as you might imagine. This budget will contain $624,000 for a program to address maintenance needs, including various parts and various equipment that need to be replaced because they have reached the end of their useful life. In addition to that, $45,000 is proposed for renovation of the facility's bathroom. Sewer, we do not have as big a sewer capital program this year as we do, or in the upcoming budget as we do this year, but we do have quite a bit of money in the program nonetheless. We have various sewer pipe repairs at almost $4 million. The wastewater treatment plant headworks and pipeline lining, $1.2 million. Avenue 13 sewer trunk main rehab at $4.8 million. and then other wastewater treatment plan improvements at $1.2 million. Airport and golf course airport is gonna be a little bit quiet this year, about 700,000 a capital. The biggest project being the reconstruction of hanger rows one and two. Golf course capital is gonna be proposed at just under 211,000. That is the largest amount that we've done since we renegotiated the lease or the most recent amendment to the lease. It's about $85,000 higher than what we've got in this year's budget. And that's a reflection of the, there's more golf being played out there and more fees being paid. And so we are, as more people pay, we're taking that money and putting it right back into the capital fund. So this year, we're going to have a slightly bigger capital fund that we have, or this coming year, have a slightly bigger one than we do this year. That concludes my presentation, and I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

So enjoyable, Director Lima. Thank you so much. I bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. You were short. I'm sorry.

Oh.

Councilmember Rodriguez.

I was just going to make it easy. You were short on the jokes today.

Oh. I could do a couple if you would like. Thank you, Mike.

Appreciate you. Councilmember Mejia.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentations. I saw that 1 of the savings factors is due to vacancies. I'm wondering which is the city department that has the most vacancies and how does that impact delivery service? The delivery of city services?

You know, I don't know off the top of my head which 1 it is. I know we have a. council heard of or received a vacancy report at its last meeting uh that kind of detailed which uh items were or which departments had the vacancies i don't recall that report off the top of my head but i do know you were briefed and that i would i would ask that you take a look at that report and see oh i'm getting

I'm getting flagged. Okay, you're getting tagged.

Thanks Mike for the record. Arnoldo Rodriguez city manager. The department that has had the most vacancies is the police department. Um, it's also the department with the most employees. The police department has a little north of 100 employees. About 110, I'm gonna look over to the chief. 113 thank you and that includes animal control code enforcement, um, sworn officers, which are 76 and then property and evidence and then and then dispatch council may recall that a couple of months ago due due to some ongoing, um, recruitment challenges that we've been having, uh, this council authorized a salary adjustment and then also. a lateral bonus of up to $35,000. We feel as though we are doing everything we can to fill those positions. but it can be a challenge sometimes because sometimes when we hire one or two, we have one departs. So that's something that we're currently monitoring. We are attempting to recruit as fast as we can, but it's a challenge at times when we're competing against neighboring jurisdictions that to be quite frank, pay a little bit more than we do. In some cases, a considerable amount more than we do. Some of the other departments, we could have one or two vacancies, but I, Think that that we're doing a good job of filling those. We do have some key positions where we've historically had challenges. City planners have been a challenge and then also license city engineers and this council authorized a recruitment bonus for those engineers. And through those efforts, we are in the process of hiring 2 deputy city engineers. They should be starting. When I believe starts at the end of July, and I believe the 2nd, when is scheduled to beginning in August. So, due to council support, we are extremely excited that we'll be hiring 2 new deputy city engineers that should be starting here this summer. So, so hopefully that provides a quick summary of some of the challenges we've had. Um, so when we, when we have vacancies, I can assure you, it's not because we're not trying or it's not coming, um, from either myself, this council or department heads. Uh, we do not have positions that we place holds on. There are some agencies that they will have positions on the books, but they'll say you cannot fill them. We do not have that policy. Our policy is if the city council author, uh, if the council authorizes a position, we try to fill it as soon as we can.

Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you both.

Thank you, Council Member Mejia. At this time, it is just informational, but I will open it up for public comment. I see none in the chamber. Anyone online or on Zoom?

We have none, Mayor.

Okay. I will close public comment, and thank you, Director Lima, for that report. Thank you.

Next item. Item D1 is Story Road Shoulder Paving, City Project R60, CMAQ 5157114.

All right. And we are going to have that presented by our Deputy Engineer, Bitter, thank you for being here tonight.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the Council, Ellen Bitter, Deputy City Engineer. I'm actually presenting tonight on behalf of Steve Bettencourt, who's out ill this evening. He's the project manager for this one. So tonight we are awarding the contract for the Story Road shoulder paving project. It's funded with congestion mitigation and air quality, or we call it CMAQ funds and local transportation funds. It is for shoulder paving along the south side of Story Road adjacent to Sunrise Rotary Sports Complex or also known as Millview Park We will be putting new pavement in between the edge of the road where it's striped the lane stripe is and the fence line and they'll also be a valley gutter to help channel the water from that and here is a map of that location and So on May 7th, our office received 13 bids for this work. I will say that is a positive trend we're seeing in our projects. We're seeing lots of bidders. I also think that's largely due to our bidding platform that reaches just beyond the local area. So here are the first lowest seven bidders. And then on the next slide are the following six additional bidders. And then at the end, the engineer's opinion of cost was $372,000, which was right about in the middle, which is where we like to be. Um, we did receive in the bid review, uh, protest from the 2nd, low bidder, uh, Welsh Montgomery construction. And then we also received a bit advisory from construction industry compliance, um, challenging the bid is being non responsive and, um, excavation as a non responsible bidder. Um, the challenges for the non responsiveness were based on a form, uh, 12 B. that's regarding the disadvantaged business enterprise compliance that it was not submitted it was submitted but it was struck out in the bid documents however AJ excavation did provide a response to rebut the claims from both agencies specifically they pointed out that the form was not required per the language of addendum one to the bid specs and addendum one Is addressed the issue of the U. S. Department of transportation, rescinding the DBE program, and it relieved the bidders of the policies and the forms. And so it was that form that was in question. So, after review and confirmation by city staff, we determined that there was no basis for the protest and that non responsibility of the contractor, the ability to do the job following. All the rules had not been established. And so we have accepted AJ Excavations bid as the lowest responsive and . Their bid amount was $284,555. They met all the required documents. And in addition to awarding the contract, we're recommending an allowance of 10% for any contingencies related to unknown or unforeseen conditions. And again, this project is funded with CMAC grant funds and a local transportation fund match. Additionally, we find that we recommend finding that the project is categorically exempt pursuant to CEQA guidelines as the roadway doesn't create additional lanes, which would result in any expansion to the roadway. Our recommendation is adopting the resolution approving the award. To AJ excavation in the amount of two hundred eighty four thousand five hundred fifty five dollars and adopting the secret class one categorical exemption That concludes my presentation if you have any questions Thank you.

I'll bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. I See none. I'll open up for public comment No one in the chamber anyone online or on zoom. We have none mayor Thank you. I'll close public comment and bring it back to my colleagues to adopt this resolution.

I gladly motion to adopt as presented.

I have an emotion in a second. All those in favor say aye. Those opposed motion passes unanimously. Thank you deputy engineer better for your report.

Next item, item D two consultant services agreement with HM TV Corporation and associated budget adjustment for the real corridor improvement study. All right, welcome back.

Admin analysts say for your report.

Thank you, Mayor, Council and Nicole say ministry panels with the engineering department tonight. We're here to talk about the consultant services agreement with the corporation for the city of Madera rail corridor improvement study. Slow background as part of the 2024 rail crossing elimination grant program. The city was awarded 1.6Million dollars to conduct a rail corridor improvement study. The city also contributed 400,000 dollars in local transportation funds to meet the required local match requirement. The state will examine 7 rail crossings within the city between Cleveland Avenue at the North and 9th street on the South. Next slide here, you'll see the crossings in question. The, um, each 1 has slightly different improvements to be studied with Cleveland Avenue and, uh, Yosemite Avenue being studied for potential grade separations. and the rest being studied for potential safety enhancements. Some potential improvements, I want to stress that these are potential. The study will actually tell us what we will be doing, but the enhancements vary and generally may include improvements of or installation of active devices such as signals and gate arms, improvements of or installation of passive devices such as signs, fences, pavement marking and striping, and potentially closure of roads that cross through tracks at grade. A great separation at Cleveland Avenue and Yosemite is the primary emphasis of the two Cleveland is the higher priority and a great separation is any means of physically separating the roadway from railroad tracks. And this can include, but it's not limited to elevating or lowering the roadway relative to the railroad tracks or elevating or lowering the tracks above or below the roadway. Uh, the process of getting us to this point is on January 26, 2026 staff issue to RFP to secure the most qualified consultant to perform the study for firm submitted proposals. Written proposals were then ranked by representatives of Caltrans, Union Pacific Railroad and the Madera County Transportation Commission. And we'd like to thank all of them for the participation in this process. The top 3 firms were invited to interview for a technical panel made up of city staff and members of the Madera County Transportation Commission. Uh, after the technical review, all firms are ranked by the panel. You will see here that was ranked, uh, 1st, and considered to be the most suitable consultant for this task. The study cost after negotiations between city staff and representatives, uh, a final cost, uh, was come up with, uh, 1,797,813 dollars and 83 cents or excuse me 80 cents plus a 10% contingency. remaining uh twenty two thousand four hundred four dollars from the lcf will be used for city staff time to get us to the full two million uh dollars The recommendation for tonight is to an improvement agreement for the consultant services between the city and corporation for the rail corridor improvement study for 1,797,812 dollars and 80 cents plus the 10% contingency and approve a budget adjustment, admitting the fiscal year 2526 budget. Uh, I am available for questions as is members from we have Diana Gomez who's the principal engineer and I haven't sell the chair who's the project manager.

All right. Thank you for that report I bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. I just have one comment I would like to acknowledge our biggest cheerleader here from caltrans principal in charge Gomez for being here tonight and. And her colleague for sitting here and answer any questions that we do have, but it looks like my colleagues are good to go so i'm going to open it up for public comment in the Chamber, I see none anyone in. Online or on Zoom?

We have none, Mayor.

All right. I will close public comment at this time and bring it back to my colleagues to adopt this resolution with a motion and a second.

Motion to approve as written. Second.

I have a motion and second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for being here tonight. Thank you for that report. Exciting.

Okay. Next item. Item D3, agreement with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, CAL FIRE, for one year for fire protection services.

And that will be presented by our own very special fire chief tonight.

Good evening Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah, Council Members, City Manager, Legal Counsel and City Clerk, members of the public both online and present and of course my department head partners. My name is Larry Pendarvis. I am the Madera Fire Chief. I'm here tonight to review and to go over the agreement with CAL FIRE Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. A little bit of the contract overview. This is a Schedule A agreement with the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as CAL FIRE, which would be from July 1st, 2026 until June 30th of 27 for fire service operations. It is a one-year agreement. It's $7 million, just under $7.3 million. The agreement covers 23 personnel for fire stations 56, 57, and 58, as well as two battalion chiefs. Each engine would continue to have three firefighters. There is no change. The agreement has been in existence since 1993. CAL FIRE took over the operations at the time. There was two fire stations, two frontline engines, one reserve engine, a squad, a utility and an air unit, and there was one battalion chief. the history of the partnership. At the time, there was 19 total personnel. Five firefighters were on duty per day for the city population in 1993 of somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000 people. Today, there is 68,000 plus. In late 2020, the city did open its third fire station over on Condor. This slide here summarizes the three stations, the amount of personnel at each station, and the apparatus that is housed at those stations. This slide here depicts the Schedule A agreements between the City and CAL FIRE stemming back in six years from fiscal year 2021 up until what is projected for 2026-2027. The agreement itself, there is an administrative rate increase from 10.77 to 11.43. It should be noted that back in 2024, the administrative fees was 12.10. It did go down in fiscal year 25-26 to 10.77, and it is going currently for the next fiscal at 11.43. All personnel are captains and fire apparatus engineers. There's no firefighter level that remains in the agreement. The scope of work for the agreement is to continue to provide fire protective services, the preliminary fire investigation, continued EMS services with basic life support, the dispatch services, and public education. Other substantial assistance is we continue to assist in the, uh, Fresno river cleanup post occupancy inspections, which is the 12 SB 1205 inspections. We did complete 92, uh, inspections in 2025. And, of course, the fire hydrant maintenance with both flowing the hydrants and painting hydrants and below are those numbers for what was accomplished. Fire service in the city, as I mentioned before, there's total of 25 personnel, which does include the 2 battalion chiefs. We have 10 personnel on duty per day, which does include the battalion chief prior to station 58 opening. There was only 7 on per day. According to 1710, it is recommended for, uh, urban structure firefighting that there's a minimum of 15 personnel bond. Staffing overview remains the same from fiscal 2526 to 2627. This slide here just depicts the org chart of our department. And this graph here does depict the annual calls for service. You can see then 2024 was our busiest years. However, 2025 was just about 618 calls less. I don't know what's going on. Oh, there we go. Okay. This slide here also breaks it down by call type. It should be known that station 56 continues to be our busiest station. Medical aid calls is the majority of our call volume. My recommendation is that the council does approve the resolution as it is presented. I am available for any questions. That is the conclusion of my report.

Thank you, Chief. I'll bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. I see none. I will open it up for public comment in the chamber. City Clerk Gonzalez, anyone online or on Zoom?

We have none, Mayor.

I will close public comment at this time and bring it back to my colleagues to adopt this resolution.

Move to approve. Thank you. Second it.

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

Item D4, project list for fiscal year 26-27, funded by Senate Bill SB1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017.

Thank you. And that will be presented by our assistant engineer, Raimundo. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, staff, and members of the public. My name is Alexis Raimundo, assistant engineer. I'll be presenting today with the project list for fiscal year 26-27, funded by the Senate Bill SB1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017. Accountability Act of 2017. SB1 signed in 2017 created the road maintenance and rehab account. The revenues are from increased fuel taxes and vehicle registration fees. Each year, staff submits a project list to the state. The city will receive approximately $1.8 million this year. This year's CIP project is titled R109, Armored Seals and Overlays 2627. Uh, selection of streets, uh, city uses this payment management system, software, uh, street saver to generate the list of sheets, uh, to recommend it to rehab. They recommend the streets to receive treatments as shown on the following map. That is, this is the map of the city project 109. uh, there is a. List in the report, the proposed list in the report. Uh, staff is coordinating to confirm any overlaps on street selection. Street set schedule for improvements were reviewed to minimize conflict with the 10 by 10 program with public works. This is the upcoming proposed list for the public works 10 by 10 program. This map is an upcoming city road improvement projects, not including the 109, which is for this presentation. the same map with the addition to 109 very colorful uh tonight's recommendation is to adopt the resolution adopting a list of projects for the fiscal year 26-27 funded by SB1 the road repair and accountability act of 2017. and that would conclude tonight's presentation all right thank you for that report I'll bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns I see none I will open up for public comment in the chamber

There is not anyone online or on Zoom.

We have none, Mayor.

Thank you for that. I will close public comment and bring it back to my colleagues for an adoption.

Move to approve. Second.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously.

Next item. Item D5, 2024 Water Meter Project, City Project W32, Phase 1.

And again, thank you Deputy Engineer Bitter for stepping in for our Senior Engineer Benicourt.

Good evening again. Yes, Ellen Bitter, Deputy City Engineer. Tonight we bring the acceptance of the 2024 Water Meter Project Phase 1. The project was awarded in October of 2024 to West Valley Construction. It did not take that long to do this project, but we found that counting up all the meters is a bit like herding cats, and then once our numbers jived with the contractor, we could bring this forward to acceptance. They did complete it in accordance with the project documents. The project installed meters at city facilities, city-owned buildings, seven locations, at our parks at nine locations, and landscape medians and park strips. And a lot of those are in the landscape maintenance districts. They're all city owned property or public right of way. And California Water Code Section 527 requires that all services be metered. And there is a phase two project that would complete the remaining unmetered services in the city, both city owned facilities and publicly or privately owned facilities. it's a it's a guess at 75 it could be 50 it could be 100 so we split the difference at 75 it's it's a matter of going through all the flat rate accounts and determining why they're flat rate do they meter or is there some other reason um so these meters they're the automatic meter readings so they're automatically sending the water usage information to our system and they will be able to quantify the usage and have the ability to monitor usage and most importantly, any leaks so we can capture that and prevent water losses. Um, so there were changes along the way in the project, um, being that it's underground a lot of unknown conditions. Um, they had trouble shutting down some of the locations or in some instances where we thought maybe 3 or 4 services served a property. It was 1 master main service line. So that reduced the number of meters. So, out of the 184 that were in the bit 149 meters were installed. This table summarizes the costs of the original contract of $1.1 million and change, and there were two change orders addressing issues related to the plumbing of those meters that they did put in. And then there was quite a large credit for the meters that were not installed. Some of the meters we we did buy the meter and their in house for future meters. And then there were some that there was no meter purchased at all. So the ultimate cost was just over $1 million. um and i'm trying to remember this slide the oh we so each meter has to be physically programmed and before it can get online with our system and we are at about 60 of that effort so our public works department we have one person that goes out and programs these and they're about 60 through that the 149 that were installed so um Ultimately, we're working with public works and finance to come up with some system to get accountability for the usage of the water at those locations. So we do recommend that you adopt a minute order accepting the water meter project, which would trigger recording the notice of completion and release of retention 35 days after recording of the notice completion.

That concludes my report. Thank you for that. I'll bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. For comments? I see none. Open it up for public comment in the chamber. Anyone online or on Zoom? We have none, Mayor. Thank you. I will close public comment and bring it back to my colleagues for an adoption with a motion and a second.

Motion to approve as written. Thank you. I'll second that.

Motion and second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Deputy Engineer Bitter for that. Next item.

is item e1 informational report on the madera metro transit system and that'll be presented by our grant administrator zuniga welcome this evening good evening mayor mayor pertin and council members marcel lazuniga grants administrator and tonight i am going to uh present on third quarter of this fiscal year for madera metro Okay, so again, I'm going to be touching on the outcomes of our reporting and the different projects that we have going on at the moment. Here in this line, we can see what our passenger counts were for the quarter. For fixed route, the four lines totaled just over 17,000 passengers. The on-demand services were totaling just over 6,300 passengers for a grand total of just shy of 4,000 passengers for the first three months of this year. In comparing it to last year, fiscal year 25, quarter three of last year, we can see that in fixed route, we have actually, we experienced a decrease in passengers this year, just shy of 2,500 passengers less. For Dial-A-Ride, however, we are showing an increase of just under 1,500 passengers, as well as with the utilization of our ADA vans, with an increase of just under 170 passengers. While the overall net is a decrease of passengers between both quarters, the fact that we are seeing an increase in passengers in our on-demand services is supportive of the outcomes that we've seen currently in our feasibility study and what the community feedback has been. In terms of expenditures, we have seen an increase. The majority of this increase is due to increased contractor fees for the year. Overall on-time performance was met. We were challenged in the first part of this year with numerous buses needing maintenance, and so we had upwards of, at times, definitely more than one bus out of service. Service continued, it wasn't impacted, but it did slow things down just a little bit. In terms of additional reporting, as mentioned, we had a couple mechanical failures that led to a tow. One accident was reported this quarter. We did have two new hires, and the staff received training on intersection awareness, workplace violence, and distracted driving. There were no driver assaults the third quarter. I'm sorry. We did receive three complaints regarding dispatch customer service. After working with MV, dispatchers received retraining on MV's platinum customer service program. In quarter three, there were social media posts announcing the federal holidays throughout the quarter. Those flyers and notices were also posted on the buses. We provided Madera County Food Bank with flyers with our fare details, and those flyers were also posted on Madera Metro Facebook page. Project updates, we are very close to completing the bidding documents for the renovation of the intermodal facility. We should be releasing that soon. The final report for the microtransit feasibility study was completed and staff from FlexLinks will be presenting in July to city council. The canopy installation was completed at the transit center. A close out request was included in this evening's agenda packet. And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you for that. I bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or comments. I just have one comment. I'm kind of excited to see the vans are like at 94 and 96% though. So for me, that was like a woohoo for us here in the city. With that, I open up to public comment. I see no one in the chamber. Anyone online or on Zoom? We have none, Mayor. I close public comment at this time and bring it back. Oh, just informational.

Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. Moving on. City Clerk Gonzalez. Council member reports announcements future agenda items. This portion of the meeting is reserved for the mayor and council members to make brief reports on boards, committees and other public agencies and at public request updates to initiate future agenda items and to take action on matters initiated under this section of the agenda. Under this section, the council may take action only on items specifically agendized and which meet requirements for action.

Thank you very much for that. I will go to my left to Councilwoman Mejia.

nothing to report thank you council member rodriguez uh yes thank you mayor uh today myself and uh council member zachariah attended the uh eric county transportation commission meeting and i'm happy to announce that um as of today we did uh adopt the uh implementing guidelines for the new measure t renewal again what does that mean that means that now obviously with guidelines 80 of those funds do come to our local jurisdictions there were some comments regarding shifting of those funds to regional projects that has a 14.5%. Again, that's at the discretion of our jurisdiction, which is this agency. This agency would have to make that decision to want to allocate those funds to a regional project. Just want to let people know some comments were circulating regarding how this would offset what the voters had approved. But again, myself alongside our commissioners and Commissioner Zachariah approved it. So I just wanted to bring that to you. Hopefully you get to see when that expenditure plan comes before us here, we also have our policies in-house to get that out to the public. I had an opportunity to travel to Mexico City, a city that's very well populated, but I did get an opportunity to ride their metro. And as we were talking about our transit, reminded me of their their their metro system called metrobus and that in itself is a different beast than what we have here right obviously it's populated with millions of people but it led me to believe that transit is still very functional in cities that are very populated and very urbanized so i hope that someday you know we get to see that capacity again increase but the way they utilize those buses are very essential for them to get from one place to another Certainly, I got around it, and it really helped me get to one place to another in a very efficient time. But at some point, I hope to see that we do not only adopt our micro transit for those areas that are in need, but continue to use our operational transit that's a fixed route. So that's all I have today. Thank you again, Mayor, and I'll pass it on.

Thank you for your comments and making it back safely. Council Member Villegas, who has a birthday. Thank you. I have nothing to report. Okay, thank you. I move over to Council Member Montes.

I just wanted to say I didn't do anything as cool as Council Member Rodriguez. I did watch some K-pop, but that's not here or there. But I do want to say thank you to all staff, especially on council meetings like this where there's a lot of stuff on the council agenda. It went relatively smooth or went very smooth. I think the council was not very verbose, but at least to me, it's an indicator that we have great confidence in the staff and what they're doing and trust. And I do appreciate the calls that everybody takes from us and from the general public that and then taking the time. to explain some of these complex issues that aren't necessarily that easy to digest, but giving us the information, regardless if we want to take it. So again, I do appreciate everything that everybody does. And again, I hope that the smoothness isn't perceived as either we're not caring or we want to get out of here, but we do have a lot of confidence and trust in all the staff. So I appreciate everything that you guys do.

Very well said. Thank you, Council Member Montes. Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah.

Just a couple items. I know Mike is still on. I'm a little disappointed in the finance report that does not show the $500,000 that the city is paying. Security company and public comment, but, uh, maybe we'll find that later, but, um, I would like to bring an item back to council. Um, and this just has to go with the grant. Um, I. Wanted to see if there was a way to bring more information to groups that may be interested. Um, it seems like a lot of them aren't familiar with timelines. And even looking myself, it looks like it's kind of like a short window of submittal and approval and everything. And I was just wanting to see if maybe. haven't been on council long enough to kind of see like, what do we do as far as announcing this so groups know, do they meet requirements and, you know, just to maybe see if we can get more engagement in that program. If council would allow that maybe bring back that item for discussion. Okay, we have approval for that.

Mayor, if I may, I just did want to echo on that, because this is something that I have also tried to, or I had requested back in I believe it was 2023, where I think it should just be open to the public to the community in general, and just marketed aggressively so that people have a heads up about this, these opportunities that are coming up. So thank you for requesting that council members, Zachariah, and I am in full support.

All right. Councilwoman Evans.

well good evening all right first and foremost I want to say thank you blessings to everyone um I did have an opportunity and and the heartfelt emphasis on the fact that I did attend um our former mayor Santos Garcia's funeral and it was it was quite touching also I was able to go to James Monroe Elementary School And they had a taco lunch for the sixth graders. And that was just absolutely amazing. And the food was delightful. I also would like to say thank you to my council members to my colleagues. On Friday, I was attacked. And it was verbal, not physical, but it was verbal and it really touched my heart. And it was the fact of the homelessness and also the river. And for whatever reason, people feel that, um, I, myself, as well as councils not doing enough, I indicated to the individuals that, um, there's a, uh, we have to have a, there's a violation first and foremost, and also that code enforcement would go out and give each one a citation they have 72 hours so people need to know there's 72 hours that the homeless will be removed or they have to vacate the premises. I want to thank the city and all those that are working to clean up the the riverbed we were it was said that you know there's not enough work done we don't try we don't do as far as the river and things of that nature. And that is so far from the truth. I even took the to the point of recording the riverbed so that individuals could see what it looks like. And also I went down to the bridge, but that wasn't good enough. So it was an attack on the fact that You know, we're not doing enough. I'm not doing enough. So I just want to commend everyone that works diligently to the PD, to the fire, to us, because we have to receive these calls. And the fact that the things that are said are so hurtful for me, it was to the point I was ready to just quit. I was tired. I was crying. It just hurt. But I commend everyone each department for all that you do and I want to say thank you to my colleagues because I know I'm not the only one that receives some of this but it's hurtful and people don't understand um they say that we make all this money we make 500 a month and I was told that all the money that they pay to us well gas right now is five dollars and 69 cents a gallon so 500 a month is not paying my gas bill they wanted to take my phone and go through it and it was just hurtful so i commend each one of you because i know you guys receive things of this nature and i'm going to close with that and i'm coming back with friday June 19th, I want to see as many beautiful faces out. I was asked if this was a black event. No, this is a city event because if I cut you and I cut me and you need my blood and we put our hands together, we're all brothers and sisters under one master. No matter who you call him, what you call him, we're all brothers and sisters. My colleague down there is also part of Black Saints United Council member Jose Rodriguez. We will be out at 8 o'clock in the morning. We have 28 vendors. Praise God, we have 3 food trucks. And we have a host of individuals that will be performing, singing, we will have choirs, we will have praise dancers. So come up, put your tennis shoes on. Oh, and I just found out that we might even have horsey rides. So Keep that under your hat. Don't tell anybody. But anyway, you guys are all invited. God bless you. I thank you so very much for being my colleagues. For each and every 1 of you out here and I yield back.

Thank you council member. Um, Evans just real quick. I know the summer is. Mayor Mrakas, is heating up, so the water leaks are happening, so we had the biggest one, we probably had in our city managers career happened so thank all of the. Mayor Mrakas, players that got in there and took care of that water leak the residents were kind of freaking out when a lot of water goes out into the street everybody kind of freaks out. I'd like to thank our staff members for being with the reporter Franco for KMPH, talking about our wonderful downtown projects that will be kicking off this summer. So everybody, eyes open, exciting things happening downtown. And with that, we have no closed session. I will adjourn this meeting at 7.53 and see you back Wednesday, July 1st, 2026. Good night, everyone.

Yeah, on the 24th, next Wednesday.

It's not on our future meetings. Okay, thank you everyone. Safe travels home. Good night.

Good night.