City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone and welcome to the city council special meeting on Wednesday, June 24th, 2026 at 06 PM city clerk Gonzalez.

The majority council meetings are open to the public. This meeting will also be available for public viewing and participation through zoom members of the public may also observe the live stream meeting on the city's website at www dot gov forward slash live members of the public may comment on agenda items at the meeting or remotely through an electronic meeting via phone by dialing 669 900. six eight three three enter id eight seven three three three four eight one six six eight pound press star nine to raise your hand and to comment and start yourself to speak comments will also be accepted via email at city council public comment or by regular mail at 205 west fourth street madera california 93637 we would like to remind community members and the audience that wordly can translate this meeting in up to 25 different languages by scanning the qr code on the agenda thank you

Perfect Thank you. Can you do roll call please?

Mayor guy goes here. Mayor pro Tim Zachariah here. Council member Rodriguez here. Council member Montez here. Council member Evans here. Council member here. Council member Vegas here.

Thank you for that. I'd like to thank my colleagues for being here to at this special meeting and taking some time out of their personal lives away from their family at this time. Please stand for the invocation by mayor pro Tim Zachariah and pledge of allegiance.

Thank you. Father God, we always just want to give you thanks and praise. We just ask that you be with us and give us guidance during this special meeting, that we do the work for this community, and we just remember that we're here to serve, and we ask this all in your name. Amen.

Thank you for that. I'm going to move on to the approval of the agenda. I'll bring it to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. I see none. I will open up for public comment. Anyone in the chamber? Online or on Zoom?

We have none, Mayor.

All right. Close public comment and bring it back to my colleagues for a motion and a second.

Second.

Thank you for the motion. The second all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed motion passes unanimously. We have no presentations and City Clerk Gonzalez public comment.

Members of the public shall have an opportunity to address the City Council regarding matters on this agenda at the time the agenda item is called. Speaker should limit their comments to three minutes.

Thank you for that first item.

Presentation and adoption of the fiscal year 2026 27 proposed budget.

all right that'll be presented by financial director Lima welcome tonight thank you for being here oh thank you thank you all right let's see as we get the item up on the screen there we are all right good evening council Mike Lima director financial services uh tonight is a very momentous night it is FOR US FINANCE FOLKS, IT IS CHRISTMAS, NEW YEAR'S, FOURTH OF JULY, AND BIRTHDAY ALL WRAPPED INTO ONE. IT IS THE PROPOSED BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 26-27. SO BEFORE WE BEGIN, I DO HAVE SOME LEGAL MEA CULPAS THAT WE NEED TO DISCLOSE. The agenda item that was issued on Friday had a couple of misprints in it, and there has been a corrected item that has been given to council. But for the record, I will read out what those corrections were. The first one on the staff report, under recommendation on the GAN limit, the staff report that was originally issued says 62,788,178. IT NOW READS 65224052. THE NUMBER THAT WAS ON THE ORIGINAL REPORT WAS LAST YEAR'S NUMBER. IT HAS NOW BEEN UPDATED ON THE REVISED REPORT. ALSO ON THE STAFF REPORT, THE FINANCIAL IMPACT, UNDER THE FINANCIAL IMPACT SECTION, IT SAYS THAT THE TOTAL CITY BUDGET, 242,058,898. THAT NOW READS 242077858. ON THE STAFF REPORT, TABLE 2, Under water fund for both revenues and expenses, the original said $52,904,576. That should read or that does read now 52-908-576. Same table, solid waste fund expenditures. It said 11 million, the original report said 11 million, 328-578. That now reads 11-343-938. Correspondingly, solid waste operating surplus on the original report says 302-9692. It now reads 301-4332. On the resolution itself, resolution number one to adopt the budget, action number two has a figure of 242058880. That figure now says 242077858. And then also on exhibit A for the resolution, table has figures for water, solid waste, and the total that correspond to those that I previously mentioned. Those have all been updated as well. So with those changes, I understand the council has received those changes. We have copies of those here for anyone in the public who wishes to see those. So with those Lego mea culpa's out of the way, now we get to the heart of the matter, the proposed budget. So tonight we will be doing an overview of the budget, what's in it, reviewing key additions to the budget. We will be taking council discussion and questions and then looking for action on the proposed budget. Uh, so the proposed budget overview, so what we're presenting tonight is a balanced budget. Um, the total, uh. 2627 proposed appropriations are 242.1Million dollars. It is the largest budget in the city's history. Um, 2627 appropriations are 20.3Million or 9.1% higher than 2526 adopted budget. The increase is due primarily to a $16.9 million increase in the capital program, specifically water capital. I will get into the details of that a little later. Also, additionally, there's a $3.3 million increase in materials and service appropriations, which primarily is driven by a $2.5 million increase for the 10 by 10 program.

I will get into that a little bit later as well.

Total revenue proposed for 2627 is 254.7Million, which is 22.2Million or 9.5% higher than 2526. the proposed revenues include 82Million of fund balances across various funds used to balance the budget and used to fund those appropriations. So this is citywide. This is the big picture on the citywide level, and this is revenue. You can see the $254.7 million that is proposed for next year. We're seeing significant increases in charges for services. We are also seeing increases in the federal grants and as well as inter-fund charges. You do see that budgetary carryover figure of $82 million is also there that I mentioned previously. Citywide expenditures by category, salary and benefits are projected to increase. We've had MOU increases. We've also had other benefit increases that have occurred. Those are all reflected in this budget. As I mentioned before, we have a rather substantial increase in materials and services that's related to several items, primarily the 10 by 10 program increase, an increase in inter-fund charges that is happening this year, that is proposed to happen this year, and then a very large increase in capital outlay. We have a $106 million capital budget for next, we're proposing for next fiscal year. Citywide expenditures by department, I know a lot of people think that police is the one that gets the most money. Yeah, not here, no. Engineering gets quite a bit of money, $63 million. Again, not necessarily general fund, this is all funding sources, but engineering gets quite a bit. 63 million is proposed in this budget for engineering. 103.5 million for public works. So almost half, just a little, about 40% of the budget is in public works. This year police 23.3Million would be the next largest department being funded under this proposed budget. Let's look at the general fund. I want to emphasize a point. I know I made it last week at council, but I want to bring it up again. There is no use of unreserved fund balance in this budget for the general fund. at all uh last year or when we we when i was here last year we proposed almost a million and a half to be used to fund one-time expenses this year we're not proposing anything even for one times we plan to pay those with ongoing revenues for this budget Total FY25-26 proposed appropriations are $47.4 million. This is $3.7 million or 8.5% higher than FY25-26 adopted appropriations. And general fund revenues coming in exactly the same, $47.4 million. Here's the big picture. Here's what it looks like by category on the revenue side. We are seeing slight increase in taxes, but the biggest change that you're going to see is in transfers in. You'll notice it's going from about 4.8 million to 8.9 million. We'll explain that as we go into the presentation. By category, again, salaries and benefits, the largest by far. Again, all MOU increases are counted into this budget. Any other changes in personnel costs are factored into this, and they're fully funded. Materials and services is the next largest category. pretty substantially from about a $10 million budget this year to about 14.1. Again, the increase in inter-fund charges that is also occurring. And this is by department. Here, police is the largest department in the general fund, but you do see substantial amounts being spent on parks, 6.2 million, public works, 6.9 million, and then also fire at 5.3 million. maintaining levels of service so we are in this budget proposing we're not proposing any reductions in service levels we are proposing to maintain and in some cases slightly enhance levels of service that we are providing um so uh they're like as I mentioned compared to previous years all programs are proposed remaining slight changes 10 by 10 program is proposed to be expanded uh Well, I'll get to that on another slide. Safe and clean and sidewalk repair teams are proposed to remain. Tree trimming programs slightly expanded. Our deferred maintenance accounts in wastewater with our water wells with facilities and parks are remaining. And we are proposing the addition of a trash pickup program at parks. Full-time equivalents are decreasing from 294.44 in the FY25-26 budget to 282.9. Decreases due to a couple reasons. About 7.3 FTE reduced. We do our annual analysis where we try to right-size things. How many hours are you actually using versus how many you're budgeted? And that analysis resulted in us saying, yeah, we're 7.29 positions, we could squeeze. And so we did. And then 2.81 FTE in the aquatics program are reduced because the aquatics program is not being offered this year. So we have not funded it in this budget. I should say we're not funded those positions in this budget. HOW DID WE BALANCE THE GENERAL FUND? WELL, THERE WAS A LOT OF FINGER POINTING. THERE WERE SOME HARSH WORDS THAT WERE SAID. I REGRET WHAT I SAID.

NO, I'M KIDDING.

THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN. I DID THAT FOR YOU, COUNCILMEMBER RODRIGUEZ. YOU WANTED SOME JOKES. I WORKED ON SOME MATERIAL.

I'M WRITING THEM DOWN.

Okay. So first what we did was we looked at the revenue side. And then the revenue side, you know, you probably remember that I came before you back in mid-May and I was saying we would probably be looking through the couch cushions to see if we could find a few pennies. Yeah, we did. We found about $1.7 million worth of pennies when we do that. We have pretty big couches in government. That's what it comes down to. So the first one is an increase in the transfer from the CFDs for city services. Up till and including this fiscal year, we've been transferring $300,000 from the CFDs into the general fund to pay for police, parks, and some other services. Thanks to the city manager who asked for kind of an audit of those services, and the assessments that are being charged, we are now generating a million three out of the CFDs. And so we have since bumped up the transfer from $300,000 to $1.3 million. That's going to be an ongoing revenue stream. So that's quite a bit of extra money coming into the general fund going forward. In addition to that, we looked at our solid waste and solid waste fund, which right now has quite a healthy fund balance. And we are fully funding the safe and clean team with that with the solid waste monies. Again, we see a strong nexus between the Safe and Clean Team and what the solid waste monies are used for. So we are proposing that. That was $235,000. We also looked at We had not done an inflation increase in the solid waste transfer for alley paving, code enforcement, and garbage collection at parks. We had not done that for several years. We did that exercise this year as part of the budget, and we were able to generate or come up with an additional almost $150,000 by making that inflation adjustment. And then finally, another new revenue stream going forward. The casino that's about to open has signed an agreement with us for police services. They anticipate that in their first year of operation, they would need approximately just under $300,000. So we have budgeted that into the budget, included that in here. Again, the commitment is not just for one year. It's ongoing. We do expect a higher level in future fiscal years, but it's a new ongoing revenue stream, which is really helpful for our organization. So about $1.7 million we found in revenue, and then we looked at expenses and we started trimming a little bit. That generated about $1.1 million. We had a $400,000 reduction in the transfer to the deferred maintenance fund. We are still moving money into deferred maintenance fund, but not at the level we had. This year we did $650,000. We're proposing to do $250,000 next year. So we reduced it by $400,000. We have various contingency accounts in the general fund. Came out to about $124,000. We reduced those. The aquatics program, We originally, our first cut at the budget, we had about a little over 100,000 in there. We did a $75,000 reduction in the aquatics program due to the smaller scope of the program. Again, as I mentioned, we do that right-sizing exercise with personnel. That generated almost $250,000, so we claim that. And then we did another couple of little very minor trims here and there. Bottom line, when we were done between adding the revenue and trimming expenses, we had a surplus of $21,840. We put that back into contingency in central administration. I think the staff report kind of implies that it was in the city manager's office, but it's not in the city manager's office per se. It's in the central admin, which is a division of the city manager's office, but that's a technical thing. Anyhow, road rehab. I really want to focus on this because I think this, I'm not supposed to have opinions, but I'm gonna say it. I think it's pretty amazing, I really do. Council, you approved the pavement management plan back about a little over a year ago. It was a really cool map with all colors of what the streets look like. That plan got approved a little too late for us to include it in the 25-26 budget, but we're here tonight to fund some of that and to make a down payment on that program and addressing it. The 10 by 10 program, what this does is it addresses streets that are not in the CFP, but need more than patchwork. We started it this fiscal year, $526,000. It has been successful. We think we can be very effective with it with more money. So we are proposing to increase it to $3 million. In the upcoming year budget, so, uh, almost 5 times the size that we're doing this year. Uh, this expansion is being paid for with measure T dollars. We are transferring them from measure D into the general fund. So the program exists in the general fund, but we're doing a transfer to pay for it. That's 1 of the reasons you saw the transfers go up. So much is because of this right here. There is $13.3 million of road sealing and pavement repair funded through the CIP for a variety of different projects. $3.5 million is for the separate project altogether, $3.5 million for the construction of the Lake Forest Central intersection, and then $2.5 million for the city's portion of Yosemite Avenue reconstruction. Altogether, we have $22.3 million appropriations proposed for street work or about almost about nine point three percent of the total city budget so I don't know many cities putting in this kind of money into their streets especially right now and I think that that's pretty significant so and I will just leave it at that for now So some of the other changes in here, council, there's a few things that we did to your budget. There is a salary increase from 500 a month to 800 a month to take effect after the November, 2026 election for some members, those that get elected in November, 2026, they will see a raise. And then everyone else will see one in November after the election in November, 2028. So, but we do have some money already in this budget. for the November two thousand for offices that will be affected by the November two thousand twenty six budget. The council discretionary budgets are going from eight hundred per council member to a thousand. So a little little extra there and then a dedicated pot of eleven hundred dollars for the annual woman of the year program. We have included that in the budget there in the city clerk's budget. There's seventeen thousand five hundred replacement of council chamber diocese. So that's coming as well. The city manager, in the city manager's budget, we have $55,000 for support of the community 4th of July fireworks celebration. Police, there's funding for six radios in there as part of their ongoing radio replacement program. That's being funded through Measure K and a grant, $51,000 for that. Ten automatic defibrillators for just about $23,000. THAT'S IN MEASURE K. COMMAND POST, YOU PROBABLY REMEMBER WE GOT A COMMAND POST THANKS TO STATE, AN ALLOCATION OF STATE FUNDING. THAT POST IS, THE COMMAND POST IS BEING OUTFITTED AND ALSO WRAPPED WITH THE MEDERA PD LOGO. THAT IS GOING TO COST 25,000 BEING PAID FOR OUT OF MEASURE K. WE HAVE TWO THERMAL ENHANCED DRONES BEING PROPOSED FOR PURCHASE OUT OF THE SLESF FUND. THAT'S ABOUT 15,500. AND THEN POLICE HEADQUARTER LOBBY REMODEL IS INCLUDING THIS BUDGET AT $200,000. Fire is got appropriations in the budget for a new type six fire engine. Measure K is paying for that, as well as a forcible entry prop. Now, you're probably wondering what is a forcible entry prop? It is a, as I understand, I'm going to look to the chief to bail me out if I get this wrong, but it's It's basically a modular building that can be used for training exercises that they can run into and practice various types of fire. They can adjust it and to do different conditions. So it's something we've never had here. And but we're looking forward to getting that. And we have the funds set aside in this budget to purchase that. Did I get that right? Oh, all right. Public works, probably some of the biggest changes are in the public works budget. This year, we are creating a dedicated sidewalk repair team. We've already had staff doing sidewalk repair, but we are basically putting them in one pot to track how much it is, how much we're spending on it. So there are no new positions being added. It's existing staff. but just being reallocated to this one particular area where we can monitor how sidewalks are being, how much are we spending on sidewalk repair? That's $469,000 coming out of the general fund. Maintaining and replacing equipment at the wastewater treatment plant. The wastewater treatment plant is very costly to operate by its own nature. It just is. So there is a constant need to be repairing and replacing equipment. particularly given that that facility, if I remember right, is at least 40 years old. So it just wears down given its function. So we've got 1.3 million in this budget that we're proposing for various pieces of equipment there at the wastewater treatment plant. We started a water well maintenance program this year to repair and rehab two wells a year. That is being proposed for funding again at an amount of 225,000. The biggest single item in this budget is construction of the water storage tank in the north part of town. That is proposed for construction at $30.2 million. Sewer main repairs, these are being proposed at 3.9 million. The Avenue 13 sewer trunk line rehab proposed out of the sewer fund, 1.3 million. And then wastewater treatment plant pipeline lining, also sewer fund, 1.9 million. What is significant about all these items is that we're paying cash for them. There is no debt being issued for any of these items, which means The rate payers of this city will not have that burden going forward. Parks. Parks is getting some items as well that are being proposed in this budget. We have new soccer goalposts at Rancho Santa Fe Park, the John Wells Youth Center, Lions Town and Country Park, and then a replacement of goalposts at the Sunrise Rotary Sports Complex. All those combined total $25,000. We're placing this floor scrubber at Pan Am Community Center. That's $5,500 out of the general fund. Golf course capital, I mentioned this last week. We are proposing funding of $210,823. That is the largest single amount that we have proposed since the renegotiation of the agreement that we have with our golf course operator. And finally, contract for trash pickup. I mentioned we were adding a trash pickup program at parks. We are proposing $24,100 for that contract. Fire Equipment Fund. As you probably remember, beginning in FY 2018-19, the City created a Measure K Equipment Replacement Program. We have been adding $490,000 to that pot every year to pay for vehicles because fire engines are really expensive. And you can't come up with, you know, a million and a half of cash in one fell swoop. So we put money away, and then as we need to replace engines, we've been spending it. This year we're going to put another $490,000 into that pot. into that equipment replacement fund. But we're also going to be spending a little bit. I mentioned previously there's a type six fire engine as well as the forcible entry prop are included in this budget. I believe next week at your council meeting, the fire department will be bringing an item to purchase a type one fire engine that will probably be needing a budget amendment to authorize the purchase of that. But all these will be coming out of that fire equipment fund over this upcoming year. Measure K. Measure K is coming in at about $7.2 million. That's what we're projecting for next year. That includes interest earnings. It is split 50-50 between police and fire. And they are accounted for in different funds. Fire, it pays for expenses at Station 58, including debt service on the station, as well as dedicated funding for one battalion chief. Police pays for salaries of some officers, also a little bit of equipment, and $315,000 for police department facility improvements. Measure K Stabilization Fund. So Citi created these funds several years ago. In this fiscal year, we reached the goal of 30% of expenditures being set aside in these funds. So 30% of appropriations is sitting in these two funds for police and fire. Because we are increasing the appropriations in both funds, the stabilization funds need to increase from a million to about a million two. They're both going up about $200,000. So as you see, we're putting $164,000, $172,000, $164,000 in police, $172,000 in the fire stabilization funds. That is all covered in this budget as well. The emergency reserve account. So as you know, council has directed that the city keep an emergency contingency reserve of 30% of general fund operating expenditures. Under the 2026-27 proposed budget, it will be $14.2 million. That's what the dollar equivalent of that will be. That's an increase of $1.1 million that is fully funded under this budget. We will cover that increase in the reserve. Again, I want to emphasize neither this contingency reserve nor the undesignated fund balance will be used to pay for general fund appropriations. City debt, we're gonna pay about $8 million next year, or this upcoming fiscal year. Right now, as of today, we have, I can say that, it says June 30th, 2026, but we're not gonna make any payments in the next six days. We have an outstanding debt of $47 million. No bonds are scheduled for retirement. We retired two of them this fiscal year police 2018 and a successor agency 2018 be both were retired this fiscal year in 2526 nothing scheduled for 2627 and in fact, nothing is scheduled for retirement until 2035 36 so we've got about nine years before we see debt falling off their books and This is the outstanding bond. This is part of them. You'll see the other half on the next slide. General Fund really has the $175,000, but they also have a portion or sorry, the $306,000 for the fire stations is all General Fund. Of that $1.3 million of solar energy lease, a big chunk of that is paid by the General Fund. Actually about a quarter of it the rest of it is being paid by the enterprise funds Then you see the amount that's being paid for the water enterprise fund sewer has the biggest debt load of all the annual payment of about in this coming year is going to be about 2.5 million and then successor agency has 2.8 million again, that's all paid with property tax increment that is distributed by the state through the through the ROPS process. This is our debt in a picture. As you see, nothing really happens for until 3536. We do get a slight dip in 2029 on the successor agency bonds, but it's going to be pretty stable going all the way out so for about the next 10 years. So, you know, you're probably like, Mike, this all sounds like good news. Okay, what's the catch? Okay, so the catch, I got to say a couple of catches. But they're not really huge. They're more like, eh, we've got to keep watching these things. So for the third straight year, we are proposing transfer of general fund dollars to the landscape maintenance districts. First year we did it was over $100,000. This past fiscal year, $1,000.00. It's going up to just a hair over $21,000. We still have ongoing deficits between revenues and expenses, and the transfer amount is likely to go up in 27, 28 when we come here. But that is still an ongoing issue that we have. The other one that popped up this year for the first time that we really noticed it was gas tax revenue. Gas tax revenue is starting to flatten. It's not going down, but it's flattening. Obviously, people are buying a lot of electric vehicles or a lot of hybrid vehicles, and it's starting to show up in the gas tax numbers. Again, it's not going down, it's just this. And so the problem is that we have been moving dollars out of gas tax into our streets division and to other places to fund some of those operations. And in the next couple years, we could be in a situation where Gas tax is not growing, but those costs are. And how do we make up that difference? That's coming down the road. No pun intended. But I do want to make you aware of that, that we really saw it this year for the first time, that it's starting to show up in the numbers. And that could have an impact down the road. Okay, so more mea culpas. These are more proofreading mea culpas as opposed to the legal ones. But on page 135, there's a question mark on the last bullet of the safe and clean divisions accomplishments shouldn't be there. Page 138, there's another question mark on the first bullet shouldn't be there. Page 172, the amount proposed for the parks cleanup assistance agreements listed at $10,500.00. I should say 24,100. But you know, when you're in the budget game, that's why you print an adopted budget book. All these things get magically fixed in the adopted budget book. So I want to make you aware of them. We're going to fix these up, put a new coat of spackle on the whole thing and make it look really nice. But I did want to make you aware that they were in there and that we have found them and we're going to fix them for the adopted budget book. So... I'm gonna go what what next slide oh okay I'm being told move on okay so staff recommends approval of the 2526 proposed budget in the amount of 242.1 million and GAN limit 65.2 million so that would normally in my presentation but you know me someone put a mic in front of me I just keep talking and so I'm going to talk for a little bit so I want to say I don't know, you know, as I went through this earlier, I kind of went through it in my head. I wasn't sure if I was really emphasizing how extraordinary this budget is. All of you talk to your colleagues on other councils. I'm sure you do. I don't know very many of them where you could go and say, we're not issuing debt, we're not tapping reserves, we're not laying off people, we are actually expanding some of our programs. I don't know a lot of places that have that. And I just wanted to make you aware, it's a pretty extraordinary budget, in my opinion. And again, I know I've said this many times in the past, but I will say it again, it's the product of really good financial policies that's being set by the board and they're executed by staff it is the product of that and so um I think it's something that everyone should really just kind of be impressed with for a little while so that's my opinion uh second thing I want to say uh you know budget is not a something that is put together by one person uh know i've often said that i'm just the marketing up here i really you know i get dizzy when numbers get above five plus five so um there's a lot of people that i have to thank uh for work on this budget uh i'm gonna start with the city manager ronaldo rodriguez who's uh who's uh dedication uh who's um attention to detail and whose commitment to the city has led to an extremely balanced, extremely good budget, a solid budget. It really starts with him and it filters through the whole organization. I want to thank all the department directors for all their work. They've put in a lot of hours putting this together and I think it really, I think their hard work really shows in this document. I want to thank all the staff in those departments who worked on this. They spent a lot of hours piecing together numbers and Again, it really shows the quality of their work. And then last, but certainly not least, I want to thank the head budget gnome, Richard Gracia, who spent a lot of hours making sure that all this stuff balanced and that everything looked the way that it did. And I also want to thank Joseph Carrillo as well, who put together the book and did it under an incredibly tight timeline and made it look as the professional document that it does.

so with that i am concluding my presentation i have uh i'm happy to answer any questions you may have on this budget thank you very much thank you director lima i'll bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns uh council member rodriguez uh yes thank you director lima appreciate you uh thanking all staff because this is a team effort appreciate all the details that you put into this uh report and our budget um just a quick question um When you talked about uncovering these pennies in the couch, you brought a question. One is the CFDs, obviously we found a million dollars. Then you had solid waste where you found close to, looking at those figures on that page, it seemed to be quite a bit of money for those transfers. What led us to uncover that money? What kind of auditing or what kind of accountable measures do we have to make sure that if we have these funds laying in the couch, so to speak, Are we not catching those sooner? I mean, is this just a matter of. Having audits every so often every 3 years, 4 years of how do we. How do we uncover that that money?

So I think let me let me separate the 2. let me separate the CFD from the solid waste.

Well, the CFD I kind of get already because obviously with CFDs that we've been including. Assessments come and what have you, I was more so towards a solid waste.

Okay, so solid waste, uh, you know, that was us sitting and brainstorming, you know, okay, how could we. How can we fund this? How can we fund the make the whole thing work? And you as just part of the budget process as you're discussing and I. I've been in a few of these meetings in my career. You just start, well, have we looked at this for a while? And you go, no, we haven't. Let's take a look at it. And then you start, oh, gosh, we need to adjust that. And it comes up like that. So in terms of is it an auditing thing? Yeah, it's part of the discussion. It's part of the just kind of the development of a budget. And it requires, I In my experience, it requires people who are familiar with the organization, who know kind of where the funding is and what the possibilities with that funding are, and are able to bring up suggestions and say, hey, maybe we can use this, or maybe we can use that. And that's kind of how it develops. So it's more of an informal audit, but it is an audit of sorts, yes.

Well, I appreciate your approach in those informal audits. I hope you find more pennies and maybe helps us with other programs that we can certainly use. So I just want to say thank you. Kudos to you, your staff, again, our city manager, and all the team that put this together. That's all I have, Madam Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rodriguez. Council Member Montes.

Thank you. Thank you, Mike, for the presentation and the entertainment. Just piggybacking off of... i don't know what uh customer rodriguez asked it wasn't necessarily new pots of money coming in it was where we can allocate or where we can charge certain activities too especially with enterprise funds is that correct uh i would say that would be accurate on the solid waste side on the cfd side now it was it was hey these assessments haven't been updated in a while we need to go back and do it

The reason we're looking at it in this budget in particular is we wanted to see how much revenue would come in before we start brought it to you So now we have a firm grasp of what that is and we feel comfortable that Ongoing that transfer can be a million three out of the CFDs into here Thank you.

Yeah for the presentation and entertainment.

No problem. Thank you councilmember councilwoman Evans.

I want to say thank you Thank you to everyone that worked on the budget. Thank you to you and you come out and you just you lay it out for us and I mean for us to be above versus being in the hole we're not in the red we're in the black man this is awesome so thank you so very much to each and every one of you that have taken the time to do what is need to be done to make sure that our city is above instead of below so thank you very much thank you appreciate that very much thank you that's it for me thank you for your comment and just one last one for me was um

We have been asking about CFDs and how the money is and what popped from what. Because when we get approached, when we do approve them, they're like, okay, well, how much is going into parks? How much is going into police? And it wasn't something we could answer as council members. So thank you for kind of laying that out for us, the foundation that we're going to need to go back to our community and be able to answer those questions. With that, I will open up the public hearing at this time. I see no one in the chamber. City Clerk Gonzalez, anyone online or on Zoom?

We have none, Mayor.

All right. I will close the public hearing at this time and entertain a motion and a second with all the corrections that our financial director gave us this evening.

Motion to approve with all corrections that are there. There we go.

I have a motion and a second. Attorney Linden, are we good? No, are we good with the motion, with the correction? Okay, thank you. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, team, for all your hard work. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Moving on to the next item, City Clerk Gonzalez.

Is a policy governing remote participation and enhancement of public participation in City Council and subsidiary body meetings?

Thank you, and that will be presented by City Clerk.

Madam Mayor if I may I'm sorry um I did have this scheduled for a tentative it's a special meeting I it's my daughter's birthday I have a dinner to attend to so I just want to approve the uh budget I think we're good you guys can handle this other item um and any questions that I may have I'll ask our city manager thank you thank you for being here good evening Mayor and Council you're missing out on a good one Council Member Rodriguez

This evening I bring before you Paul a policy governing remote participation and enhancement of public participation in City Council and subsidiary body meetings. As a summary, Senate Bill 707 amends the Brown Act to expand teleconferencing options and enhance public accessibility through measures such as agenda translations and real-time captioning. This is effective July 1st of this year and expires January 1st of 2030. For some background, the city has already implemented live broadcasting of council meeting, use of Wordly AI, designated a physical agenda posting location, and maintains an annual city council meeting calendar on its website. The traditional Brown Act teleconferencing requirements remain unchanged. SB 707 allows members to participate remotely with public or posting an agenda for either just cause or state or local emergency reasons when alternative teleconferencing is used. The public must be able to participate in the meeting by a two-way audio-visual platform and council must provide opportunities for public comment in real time. Some other changes are that minutes must list each remotely participating member and the statutory basis for remote participation member publicly disclose whether any individuals over the age of 18 are present and all votes must be taken by roll call. Under the just cause it expands the just cause provisions. The provisions you're seeing before you those remain the same as previously indicated in the in the current bill. And here are the new guidelines under just cause the member needs to participate remotely to protect an immunocompromised close relative from exposure to illness, a physical or family medical emergency prevents a member from attending in person. Previously, this was treated under the emergency circumstance. It's now under the just cause and the military service obligation. There's also a disability accommodation, and this applies to Council, exempts members who participate remotely as reasonable accommodation for disability from the traditional and alternative teleconferencing requirements. The following apply. Remote participation is treated as in-person for quorum and location requirements. The member must participate through both video and audio technology. except if their disability requires off-camera participation. And again, the member must disclose if anyone is over the age of 18 is present in the room. This is for eligible subsidiary and advisory bodies, which is a commission, committee, board, or other body of a local agency, whether permanent or temporary, is created by charter ordinance resolution or formal action of legislative body. this for the city this exclusive exclusively advisory applies to the city council in including but not limited to the airport advisory commission golf course advisory committee and the cdb cdbg block grant commission the planning commission civil service and the loan review committee are not eligible as they are not purely advisory there are certain requirements that must be met for teleconferencing for eligible advisory bodies So they do require council to make findings and approve authorization for 100% remote participation. Advisory bodies must also approve 100% remote participation and a staffed physical location for public participation must be available for the subsidiary body meetings. Members must appear on camera during these meetings. Recommendations presented to council, they must be discussed within 60 days. They cannot be placed on the consent calendar and action cannot be taken until subsequent meeting. And it may require additional staffing technology and agenda coordination. Under the social media communications, council members may use public social media to share or gather information, but they cannot discuss agency business with other or respond to 1 another's posts. The social media exception already exists in the brown act. It was set to expire in 2026 and it now the sunset date has been removed and makes this exception permanent. Local agencies designated as eligible legislative bodies shall translate agendas and accommodation for language interpretation adopt a policy on service disruption, provide closed captioning for remote platform, remote platforms and conduct outreach to underrepresented and non English speaking communities. The city council qualifies as the eligible legislative body. This also means that we must adopt a policy on disruption of service. The proposed policy establishes procedures for broadcast disruptions and meeting continuity, provides rules for maintaining decorum during in-person and remote meetings, includes accommodations for disability-related participants, and defines when council members may participate remotely, including under the Just Cause and the disability accommodations we just went over. Agenda translations agendas must be translated when 20% or more of the city's population speaks a language other than English and. English less than very well, this applies to the city of Madeira. Public location for agenda translations. We are already doing this and we have a designated public location adjacent to its agenda posting site where we're translated agendas may be posted in accordance with. Required to we are also required to reasonably assist members of the public who wish to translate a public meeting or receiving. Provided by another member of the public. This does not require the city to provide translation. It only tells us that we should assist in providing a space for them to do so. And we also need to provide instructions on how to request assistance. It must be publicized. Agencies may provide interpretation directly, but we're not required to do so. So we're a step ahead of this because we already use Wordly. Eligible legislative bodies must make reasonable efforts to encourage participation by groups that do not traditionally participate in meetings, so this is outreach to underrepresented communities. What we plan to do is we plan to add a ongoing message in our water our water bills to the Community so that's one of the ways we plan to do the outreach. electronic system for agenda and document requests eligible legislative bodies must provide a way for public to request meeting agendas document and documents electronically the city currently has two email addresses to receive such requests and staff is updating web pages to be easily accessible and prominent for the public and when I say is updating I think we've already updated those Joseph has been working on those diligently through throughout the day actually on on some of these updates and so tonight's recommendation is to adopt a resolution adopting the policy governing remote participation and enhancement of public participation in City Council and subsidiary body meetings and that will complete my presentation for this evening all right thank you for that presentation I'll bring it back to my colleagues for any comments or questions

I see none. I'll open up for public comment in the chamber. Anyone online or on Zoom?

We have none, Mayor.

All right. I will close this public hearing. Just one comment. I think Shannon would be very proud how you went through those slides. Very well done. And I'll bring it to my colleagues for a motion and a second.

Move to approve.

Second. Thank you. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. With that, I will adjourn this meeting at 6.52. We will see you Wednesday, July 1st. I would thank all our staff for being here on this special evening with us and appreciate your time. Good night, everyone.