City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone and welcome to the regular meeting of the city council. Today is Wednesday, August 20 excuse me, August 19, 2026. It is 6 PM city clerk Gonzalez.

The city council meetings are open to the public. The meeting may also be viewed and accept access remotely by using the zoom link provided on the agenda on the posted agenda. Members of the public may provide comments on agenda items in person through zoom or by phone at 669-900-6833. Using meeting ID 83851979259 followed by the pound key, or by email at city council, public comment dot Gov. To comment by phone, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute when called upon written comments may also be submitted by mail to 205 West 4th street, California 93637. A recording of the meeting will also be posted on the city's YouTube channel as soon as practical practicable following the conclusion of the meeting. We'd also like to remind the public that wordly is available for translation services.

Thank you for that call this meeting in order roll call please.

Mayor guy goes here. Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah here council member Rodriguez council member Montez council member Evans here council member here and council member Vegas here.

Thank you for my colleagues for being here tonight. If you could please stand for the location given by Pastor Nilly and Puzzle Legions by Mayor Pro Tim Zachariah.

Let us bow our heads. Our most gracious Heavenly Father, we just come here thanking you once again, Lord, for this blessed day, Lord. Thank you for everything you have done and are doing and will continue to do, Lord. We ask you, Lord, that you bless this city council, Lord, bless the staff, and bless those in attendance, Lord. Keep us all in your hands of grace, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

Amen. Are you joining for the salute? Ready? Salute.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you gentlemen. Moving on to approval of the agenda. I'll bring it back to my colleagues for any comments or concerns. I see none open up for public comment online or on zoom.

We have none mayor.

Thank you. I will close public comment at this time and and bring it back to my colleagues for a motion and a 2nd mayor.

My apologies we do have someone on the phone. Phone number ending in 3227 for public comment. Please press star six to unmute yourself.

This is public comment on the agenda.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Hi, good evening. My name is Grisel Morales, and I just want to bring about a concern in regards to public comment when we open it up.

This is about approval of the agenda.

Oh, sorry.

Okay. We'll have you back on that moment. With that, I bring it back to my colleagues. I'll move to approve. Second. I have a motion and second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for that. Next item.

Under presentations, the first proclamation is a proclamation recognizing national senior citizenship.

And presented by our very own Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah.

Thank you. And then it's... Anyone here representing the Pan Am and Frank Bagan Center? If you guys would come on up. All right, there we go. Come on, gang.

Not everybody's here yet, so they might come in with a softball player.

No worries.

Give them a glove.

So we're here to recognize these individuals. And I know when we think of retirement, we always think we're just going to sit at home and, I think, watch the Wheel of Fortune or the prices ride all day. And I don't think that's the case here. I think as we retire, we understand you guys probably work harder than you did when you had jobs, right? So today is just kind of to recognize those, the seniors in our community that are doing so much work for our community, still active in everything that you guys do. So, for today, we would like to recognize whereas national senior citizens day honors are elderly population for the value and contribution they bring to home family and society as a whole. And whereas the city of Madeira has a growing number of senior citizens who contribute their time, wisdom and experience to our community. And whereas the city recognizes the need to create a community that offers the services or that older adults may need to make choices about how the age. And whereas the city council wishes to express its appreciation for past and continuing contributions of its senior residents to the community and to our nation and recognize that older adults are vital and growing part of our city. And now, whereas may it be resolved that on behalf of CC guys, our mayor and the city of Madera and my fellow council members that we hereby proclaim August 21st, 26 as national senior citizen thing. Thank you.

We have two young ladies who would like to say a few words.

Good evening. Tonight, we gather to celebrate Senior Citizens Day. Well, this evening gives us special opportunity to recognize our older adults. At our senior centers, we strive every day to honor, celebrate, and express our appreciation for the seniors of Madera for their wisdom, their strength, their kindness, lifelong contribution to our community. Our elders are the roots to our families and communities. They lived through times of great change, faced challenges and immeasurable courage and resilience. to help build foundations on which younger generations now stand their life experience often offers lessons that no textbook could fully teach to all our older adults we thank you and guidance for your share you have shared the values you have passed down and the love you continue to give please always remember you are valued you are appreciated and you continue to inspire us thank you

Good evening, everyone. I'm just going to give a little scenario. I truly enjoy being involved with the Madera Senior Centers, both as a senior participant and as a senior aide. Senior citizens are welcoming places where you can meet new friends, share experiences, stay active, day trip excursions, and enjoy meaningful activities together. I appreciate the friendships and the sense of community they provide. As a senior aide, I find it rewarding to support others and help create a positive, comfortable environment. Whether I am assisting with lunch, listening to someone's story, or simply offering a friendly smile, I am happy to help seniors feel valued, respected, and a place to belong at all times. Thank you.

You want to make your way up to the front for a picture?

Okay, hold on. Just don't want to be next to the mayor. Yeah, sure. There she is. Come on. Here it's coming. Thank you so much. Ready on 3. 1, 2, and 3. Next item City Clerk Gonzalez

Are certificates of recognition honoring Madera National Little League's senior softball team?

Thank you for that. Just a few words before I call up the coaches and these young ladies that we are acknowledging tonight. I thank you for representing the city of Madera with class. and passion, because you guys had to fight your way to be where you're at today. And we appreciate all that you did. So I'm going to call up head coach Anaya, assistant coach Chavera, assistant coach Gonzalez to come up first. We can give a round of applause for these coaches. Your coach? Which one? Gonzalez. I had a three-way chance of getting it you are oh got it right congratulations sir I know it's not easy um girls have our moments we uh go up and down with emotions and um you gentlemen power through it and get them for where they are today they couldn't be here tonight without the parents because you make sure their uniforms are clean ready to go for every game, and they're presentable, and they're ready to fight and win that championship. So with that, I'd like to call the girls to line up, and I'm going to have the coach read out their names and hand out these certificates. So come on up, ladies. We give them a round of applause. I also want to call up the coach of the National Little League, Chris Shutler, if he can come on up with us. I want to congratulate these ladies on behalf of the City Council and Mayor CeCe Gallegos, we congratulate you on making history as a member of the first Madera National Little League senior softball team to win a state championship. And I don't know which coach wants to talk about it. They're welcome to say a few words or if you have one of the ladies that have to represent all of them, you can give a few minutes and then we'll call them out one by one by name. So who would like to speak?

Um, overall, I just want to say, I'm very proud of these girls. We started off as just a weekend experience going out there, seeing what the tournament has preparing for last year for next year and we ended up winning state. Like I said, overall, it turned into a week experience over onto a month experience, practicing and tournaments and fundraising. I'm very proud of the community. We stood behind these girls raise money in a short time. to get these girls out there, and I promise you they enjoyed it. They laughed the whole time. Besides the bus ride, they laughed the whole time. We enjoyed ourselves out there. And like I said, it wasn't easy. I had a lot of crying girls the whole week out there. I'm not going to say who, but there's quite a bit of them. But like I told them, if you're crying, that means you care. So, like I said, we had a lot of learning experience, a lot of failure, and pretty much that was the idea is to take them out there, teaching the game, and give them a mindset how to deal with their failure. And we came back. Like I said, we didn't get what we wanted, but we came back with a lot of memories and experience and looking to hopefully go back again next year.

Out and when you get your certificate, you can line up in front and then we'll take a picture with council in the back when we're all done.

1st, 1 is Sophia Ramirez.

Oh, yeah, go ahead. That's good idea.

Kaylee Williams. Jordan Ruiz. Jordan Anaya. Jocelyn Torres. Jessica Frosto. Jocelyn Rodriguez. Jasmine Gonzalez. Brielle Villalobos. Betty Torres. Last but not least, the youngest, Anaya Ramirez.

lifelong friends you may hear probably going to have to Okay, move them up. Yeah.

Turn sideways.

Turn sideways. Turn this way. Turn this way. Turn this way. Turn this way. Turn this way. Turn this way.

Okay, there you go. Can everybody? Yep. Ready? Champions on three.

Well, ladies, memories are priceless that you just made here in the City of Madera and with each other. We thank everyone and all the parents for being here tonight. We don't blame you if you have to exit. We get it. Schools in and assignments are there because this will be a very long meeting. We would love for you to stay and hear all the wonderful things happening in the city, but that's truly up to you. Next item, City Clerk Gonzalez. Oh, we'll take a minute. We'll give him a minute.

don't go Wow.

that cleared fast okay city clerk gonzalez next item the next item is an update from madera county mosquito and vector control district thank you presented by the director of science and communications is he here tonight oh there you are welcome good afternoon uh don't fall asleep with me all right uh there's no clicker huh let's just keyboard okay perfect

All right, so my name is Aaron Velasquez. I'm the director of science communications at the Madeira Academy of Mosquito and Magical Logistics.

And today I'm going to talk about mosquitoes, about a little project we did with nuisance biting mosquitoes in 2023 titled the exclusion of Aedes aegypti from yard drains reduces overall abundance in Madeira, California. So let's go ahead and get started. So before I go to my main talk, I'm going to give you guys a little micro lecture about mosquito life history. If you want to eradicate or you want to conserve a species, you first have to understand its life history. So let's go ahead and get started. So a mosquito requires water to initiate its development. A female mosquito will lay its eggs in the water. And then what comes out of the eggs are these little worm-like creatures called larvae. These mosquito larvae will eat algae in the water, grow, and then become a pupa. Then the pupa will become adults. Male mosquitoes don't bite. Male mosquitoes get their energy from nectar from plants and fruits. However, female mosquitoes also get their energy from nectar. However, they require a blood meal in order to produce eggs. All right. That's very important. Just to reiterate, the life cycle of mosquito from egg to adult is anywhere between 7 to 10 days under ideal conditions. However, in the summer, this life cycle gets shortened to around 5 to 7 days. So let's talk about mosquitoes in Madeira. So in Madeira, we have around 15 species of mosquitoes, and many of them transmit diseases such as West Nile virus. Here's an example of one of those mosquitoes called Culex torsalis, which is a Western tiger mosquito, as well as the Southern house mosquito, Culex concrificiatus. Now let's talk about invasive mosquitoes. In California, we have three species of invasive mosquitoes. Mosquitoes that don't belong here, and that most of them are nuisance biters. The first one is the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes ulipictus. The second is the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti. And lastly, we have the Australian backyard mosquito, Aedes nondescriptus. Again, mosquitoes that do not belong here. Next, I'm going to show you a map of the distribution where these mosquitoes can be found throughout the state of California. And the first one is Adenoscryptus, or the Australian backyard mosquito. In the back, we have a map of California. Green is where these mosquitoes are being surveilled. There's surveillance undergoing for these mosquitoes. And yellow is where these mosquitoes are actually being detected. And as you can see, these mosquitoes have been isolated only to Southern California. Next, we have Aedes albopictus. It's a little more sporadic, found in Southern California, a very few populations in Central California, and very few in Northern California. Lastly, we have Aedes gypti, or the yellow fever mosquito. And as you can see from the map, it's the most widespread mosquito across the state of California. Some populations have established itself already in the Central Valley, some in Southern California, and even in the bordering states of Nevada and Arizona. And this map is from 2023. Next, I'm gonna show you a map from 2026. Very similar, however, these mosquitoes have now invaded into the Bay Area. With climate change and in the following years, most of California, especially those on the coast, will have the same problems as us with mosquitoes. So now let's talk about Aedes aegypti because those are the mosquitoes that exist here in Madera. It's the most widespread mosquito, like I mentioned in the map before. This mosquito is a competent vector of exotic arboriviruses such as dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever. This mosquito is very unique in the fact that it has a blood preference for human blood. So if you ever got bit at your house, if you're at a house relaxing in your lawn, on your chairs, and you ever got bit by a mosquito, more than likely, it's Aedes aegypti. It's a little black mosquito with white stripes. And this mosquito, Madera, California, was the place in California where this mosquito was first detected back in 2013. And from then, it progenated throughout the whole state. So for mosquito control, this mosquito for us is very difficult to control. And why is that? One, as compared to the mosquitoes that transit west now, where they lay all their eggs in one location, Aedes aegypti lays their eggs across various containers. So if our technicians goes to your house and they find a water source, our technician will spray that source. However, it's very difficult to identify other sources where they might have laid their eggs. This action is called skip of a position. And not only that, their eggs can also stay potent in the dry conditions. So they don't need water in order to hatch. They can just stay dry, dormant. And when water reaches the containers and lift those eggs up, then those eggs will hatch. Again, very difficult control for us. Here are some examples of where you can find the mosquitoes. Anywhere from a dog bowl, artificial containers, right? Plant dishes. Here's an example where we actually find these mosquitoes in someone's backyard. This is a picture of a fountain. On the picture on the right, you can see the water level in the bottom, and you can see the mosquito eggs on top circled. Again, very difficult to identify. And here's a video that shows where the mosquitoes are in a specific source, specifically this plant dish. And you can see this little worm-like creature's moving right now. So this person had 10 of these containers in the backyard, and each container had around 200 larvae. So they were getting bit, we went, and we got rid of the water that was in the backyard. So we are in Madera, California. We are the heart of California. Here's an aerial view of Madera. And there's a little community called Paseo Del Mar, and it's located southeast of Madera County, in the city of Madera. Just to give you an idea, city council right here in the middle, and then the Paseo Del Mar community is found in the southeast part of the city. The city is composed of around 90 homes, and we received a lot of service requests due to the amount of mosquito bites that we're getting, mosquito complaints that we're getting in the area. So we went ahead and assessed this neighborhood and inspected and tried to see what was a homogenous source across these homes. And if you're a homeowner, and if you live in a newer development, you should have a yard drain. Many of these newer homes have these yard drains that serve as a subterranean outlet for water for when you irrigate your grass. and these drains hold the water which creates an ideal breeding habitat for these mosquitoes. We took the liberty of mapping the location of these drains across this community, and almost in the red dot, you can see the red dot represents the presence of these mosquitoes, and almost every other house has these mosquitoes. So this brought up the question that if, what will happen if we remove access to these yard drains? Will the mosquito population plummet, or will it do nothing? So in order to do that, we surveyed the whole community. We canvassed and asked the homeowners access to their houses and if we could put a trap in the front of the houses. And most of them said yes. Well, actually, all of them said yes. We actually then put a mosquito trap in the front of this house that specifically targets these mosquitoes. And here's an example of where we put those traps, in shady areas, again, to where we think these mosquitoes are found. And in order to prevent the mosquitoes from getting into the drains, we use these pond filters across all these homes. These are little pond filters from koi ponds that we just stick into the yard drains to prevent access of the mosquitoes into the yard drains. And if there were already mosquitoes in the yard drains, it prevented them the ability to escape and go out and bite people. We then divided the area into three different wedges. and then applied the filters to the northern wedge on week three, to the southern wedge in week five, and the central wedge in week seven. So we then used a model to help us identify, to see if there's a difference between the caps that were not, the yard drains that were capped and the yard drains that were capped. And here is the baseline data of the mosquitoes that we found in the area. Every house was getting around seven mosquitoes per night. So that's pretty high. And as you see in the middle, we saw a spike in mosquito abundance. And if you guys remember correctly, back in 2023, we had an atmospheric river brought upon by Tropical Storm Hillary. So now let's go to the real question. Right, did capping the lawn drains work? Did that help reduce mosquito population in Paso Del Mar? Blue bars represents the drains that were not capped and the red bars represents the drains that were capped. As you can see, the red bars are lower than the blue bars. So did it work? And the answer is yes. Just by capping every single drain, we saw a 25% reduction in mosquito population. So we removed one out of four mosquitoes. However, one thing I want you to note is that there is still a spike in mosquito population across week seven and eight. Even though we implemented control or excluded all the yard drains, we still saw an increase in mosquito population, which means that containers such as dog bowls, plants, pots, were bigger drivers of mosquito abundance as compared to these yard drains. Right, and again, there was all the increase in population, again, was brought upon by Tropical Storm Hillary, which brought in more rain. More rain, more water, more mosquitoes. So in conclusion, yard drains work. They will help reduce mosquitoes in the area. However, we need to focus and attack these other sources, such as, again, dog bowls and artificial containers. However, it's difficult because we need access to these properties, and most of the time, homeowners aren't willing, and sometimes people aren't home. So in order to address this, for our next steps, we're gonna use emergent technologies in order to reduce mosquito populations, such as wide-area larvitar sprain, or WALS for short. And what that is, is basically a truck with a big, strong mist blower that throws larvicides up into the air in the hopes that these drops go into these containers and kill the mosquito larvae. And in next spring, we got funding for next spring of March, we will start releasing sterile male mosquitoes that will hopefully mate with the wild-type mosquitoes and lay eggs that will not hatch. And with that, I just want to give recognition to our founders and our collaborators, and I'll take any questions if anyone has questions.

Thank you for that presentation. I'll bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. I'll start, um, have, are we still working with PG and E on their vaults that contain a lot of water that's just sitting there?

Yeah. So, uh, actually we did that in the middle of June. So every, every year we, uh, stay in communication with them and thankfully they're, uh, they cooperate with us and we are able to attend and treat those vaults.

Great. And you're still working with our public works department in our inlets, making sure we're spraying all those to get the mosquitoes of water that's sitting in those?

Yeah, correct.

Okay, perfect. Thank you for that.

Council Member Rodriguez. Yes, thank you. And thank you for providing the images. I think those really help us. But with the satellite imaging that you have, does your organization, can they spot areas that may require treatment for other types of mosquitoes like pools and what have you?

Yes, so every year we do aerial surveillance with a third party group, we actually pay and they do the mapping for us and once they get the information we then sort it out and then we'd go ahead and knock on those individuals homes that might have a green pool and treat those pools adequately.

Thank you appreciate all the information, thank you definitely.

Thank you for your question another one. the cemeteries had a lot of sitting water in their little circles that flowers. And did we eliminate that standing water that's like in the middle of those subdivisions?

Yeah, so the cemeteries are treated once a month. We try, well, actually, we prioritize that because it's very close proximity to a lot of people. So if we don't treat that, there is going to be a lot of complaints. So we go ahead and treat those cemetery cups once a month. However, with Aedes aegypti, you can have the most pristine backyard. However, if your neighbor doesn't get rid of the water, those mosquitoes will migrate to your house and bite you. So again, there has to be cooperation from the neighbors.

Got it. And they love me, so this is like a high priority for me or mosquitoes. Before you were going into the schools and doing programs for our second graders, is that still happening in Madera Unified, partnering with them?

So right now we're in search of a PIO, a public information officer, who's actually going to take in charge of that. We actually started doing in-house testing for arbor viruses like West Nile. So our priorities right now are in those sections. We've leveraged back a little bit, but hopefully in the upcoming future we'll prioritize that again.

Thank you and there was talks a few years ago when we had Mr Valdez come and talk to us about other cities that were look that we're trying and out prototyping bringing in female mosquitoes that were stale sterile and they were not able to reproduce and that was cutting the populations of mosquitoes in their city.

Yeah, so that's what I talked about. And we got funding for the spring to release male mosquitoes, get male mosquitoes on bite. We're going to release male mosquitoes into the environment that are infected with the bacteria called Bakia, that when the male mosquito mates with the female mosquitoes, and that female mosquito will get the Bakia bacteria in their system. And then when she gets a blood meal, and if she lays eggs, the eggs will hatch. So that's going to happen in the spring of 2027. Okay, perfect.

I don't see any questions from my colleagues. Um, thank you for that report. We really appreciate you being here tonight.

Thank you.

Oh, oh, 1 more council member of Vegas.

All right, thank you. I think you're doing a good job and just keep on doing a good job. I'm just going to say something. Uh. I'm very attracted to mosquitoes. I can get a 1000 in my body. Yeah, follow me. And every, everyone divide me to make me a big old lifter blister in my skin, whatever. If I'm wearing sandals, they go into my feet. They go everywhere in my hand. They go. So, so mosquitoes, they like the smell of blood, but I don't know why they follow me, but I'm very, and I, I feel it could all, it could be your diet.

It could be your diet. It could be a diet. It could be a lot of factors. Um, But if mosquitoes like the smell of sweaty skin, so like areas around your ankle, your neck, your elbows are high areas where there's a lot of bacterial growth that actually attracts mosquitoes to you. So just put some repellent and you should be fine. And make sure it has a lot of D. D is the key.

All right. Well, thank you so much for being here tonight. We appreciate it.

You're welcome. Good evening.

City Clerk Gonzalez, moving on to the next item.

public comment. 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 will open up to public comment is there anyone in the chamber that has any questions i see none online or on zoom We have a caller, Mayor.

Thank you. You have a question, and it will be a concern that an item that is not on Thea's agenda, correct?

Caller ending in 3227, please press star 6 to unmute yourself to speak. Go ahead, caller. Caller, please press star six to unmute yourself to speak.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Hi, good evening. My name is Grisel Morales and I live downtown. I am actually here to voice concern in regards to public safety for our children in the morning. There's been two incidents of indecent exposure while our children have been walking going to the bus stop. In both incidents, I have called police department. The first incident for the beginning of the school year was August 11th at 7.14 a.m. I called Madera PD because there was a homeless man wearing only a white sweat in which he was exposing his bum area. During this time, he was actually walking behind five children that were crossing the alley between, um, North C street and East fourth street. And in that incident, the police officer only warned him and let him go. but the children were able to see because other children were also waiting at the bus stop and seeing that homeless man. The second incident was today in which I called PD at 7.14 AM because there was a homeless man, also shirtless, no shoes, just with pants. And he was actually exposing his pubic area and you could see from far away, In that incident, the police officer only warned him and he pretty much said that he couldn't do anything. In both incidents, I walked my daughter and my five-year-old son and my three-year-old son going to school, just dropping her off to the bus stop. So my concern is having PD to actually be downtown and securing our children's safety and handling the homeless or having them avoid having more indecent exposure. And this is just like the first month of the school year and this is downtown. Well, anyways, you know, that's a concern for me. I wouldn't want any adult supervision to be out there and seeing these things. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment and time. Anyone else online? City clerk Gonzales.

We have no other callers, Mayor.

Thank you. I will bring it back to the Chamber if we have a public comment. You have to go up to the podium please.

Miss Gallegos, I had a conversation with you yesterday.

yes and your comma will have to wait for that item on the agenda okay okay then I'll wait if that's if that's a comment is it about downtown yes then I'll have to wait for that agenda item thank you for that okay with that I close public comments and move on to the next item

No items under public hearings. Consent calendar. Matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and will be enacted by one motion and one vote. There will be no separate discussion of these items. If discussion is desired, a member of the public or a member of the council may request an item to be removed from the consent calendar and it will be considered separately.

Thank you for that. I bring it back to my colleagues for any comments or concerns. I see none. I will open it for public comment. Anything on consent calendar? I see no one in the chamber online or on Zoom.

We have none, Mayor.

Thank you. I close public comment and bring it back to my colleagues for a motion. I'll move to approve. Second. Thank you for that. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Next item.

Under workshops is item C1, business license overview.

Presented by our very own Director Lima.

Hello. This is off.

And I think you have a team that's going to help you tonight.

Yes, yes, there is a team here tonight. Okay, this monitor is off.

Like off off.

Yeah, I don't know. Okay, so I think we still have Zoom. What we're not connecting to is the council chamber. The council chamber is not showing up on Zoom.

Can you hear us?

Let me try.

Can you see us? I see you.

I'm on.

Like they can see you?

They can see me and I'm in the council chamber. So let me ask Wendy to jump on real quick.

And then probably we should announce that if we lose connectivity that all items are continued. And then that way you have your backup.

Hi, Gary.

Yeah.

Can you let me turn on my volume? Are you able to hear me?

Yeah, I see you and I hear you.

Okay. For some reason. We lost the council chamber like you mentioned. But you can hear me loud and clear.

Yes. Yeah, I can see everybody else, but yeah, the council chambers disappeared as the participant.

Okay.

So we have to add, because we had them as a participant. But that's weird because that's the one that started the meeting. Right. Yeah.

That's why I'm really confused about why that's, that's what I'm really confused about. Okay.

Can you hear the mayor? Yes.

Gary, can you hear the mayor?

Barely, yeah.

You can't.

Yeah, those are all tied to the council chambers.

We're going to get this done.

I'll bring us back to closed session, city attorney.

Thank you, Mayor. We have one item for closed session this evening. It is item G1, Comprehensive Labor Negotiators, Pursuant to Government Code Section 54957.6, Agency Designated Representative is Mayor Diego, so Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah. The title is City Clerk. I would also note for the audience that if we lose connectivity tonight, all items will automatically be continued to a special meeting already set for 6 o'clock p.m. tomorrow. And if you desire to participate in that process, All you need to do is follow the Zoom link that is on the special meeting agenda and we will get you in. But hopefully we can get this done tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, City Attorney. With that, I open it up for public comment. Anyone in the chamber for a closed session? Online or on Zoom? I see none. So we will go into closed session and hopefully be back. Thank you.

We're back.

What was it?

Let me try.

Gary, are you there? Gary, are you there?

Yeah, I hear you. Oh, I see you.

I see you. One second.

Do you see us?

Oh, look at that.

Okay. We're back. Kevin.

Interesting.

Kevin fixed it. Interesting. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to mute the audio.

Okay. Good job, Kevin.

We are.

Thank you city clerk Gonzales. We are returning back at 729 and we'll continue our city council meeting before we move on. I would like my colleagues to entertain that we bring up E1 to the front of the agenda. We do have Caltrans in the house and a business owner that would like to speak and because of the interruption it will probably be a later night evening than we expected. Do I have the okay from my colleagues?

Oh yeah.

Okay, uh, city clerk is also, are you ready for that? Or do I need you in a minute?

Nope, we're ready mayor. I mean, 1, Cal trans highway capital, preventive maintenance project. 0601, 80 on state route 145 construction update. Thank you for that.

And I will be presenting by our director of engineering helmet council members.

Okay, I got it. Anyway, this item is Caltrans Highway Preventative Maintenance, also known as CAPM Project 060Y.

I don't think it was on Zoom. Give us a minute. Okay. Yes. You're good. Thank you.

Thank you again. This project is Caltrans Highway Capital Preventative Maintenance, also known as CAPM. project 060 y 180 on state route 145 project construction update look there's not much background to it right now but this is the first of a monthly meeting to go ahead and discuss the background on the project as it moves forward staff anticipates the potential for updates or other topics to relate to the construction to change over time as the project progresses There will be additional things happening. There will be additional concerns, and this will give a venue for that discussion. Construction progress. Crews are working aggressively to advance the project. They do actually have two crews working one day during the day and at night. The project has been broken into three segments and five construction phases. First segment, north segment, which is east of High Street. They've demolished and reconstructed about six curb ramps. The south segment, Pecan to Lewis, they've replaced several hundred feet of sidewalk and replaced several driveways thus far. Now into the part of the segment that I think everybody's most interested in, downtown segment, East Street to Lake Street. There's been a cable constructed within that zone. traffic control or traffic has been shifted to the south right now what we have out there is three total lanes a one each direction and a left turn lane where it's needed as it gets to Lake Street it bulbs out a little bit and goes down to two lanes and there's a shared left through right when you approach the intersection I assume that that's to go ahead and construct the start working on half of the roundabout There have been multiple ramps, curb and gutter sidewalks demolished in preparation for the new improvements that are coming. Any place that you see along the roadway where they've saw cut the concrete and taken it out, that's likely for either the roundabout at various intersections or bulb outs. But they've cut out along precise lines. You'll even see cutouts for future trees if you walk the alignment. Their current focus right now on the first phase of the traffic control is to complete the underground improvements, the electrical and irrigation. Their next focus will be the remaining hardscaping improvements such as curb gutter sidewalks and curb ramps. This is just a picture looking to the east along E Street. You'll see that the barrier rail has been installed and it starts to neck down into three narrower travel lanes. I've Provided this is a little bit of a quick reference to go ahead and show the five phases of traffic control that we have. Right now we're in the phase one where they're working on the north side of the street. This is a little bit detailed, one of the intersections where you see that they're pulling out the asphalt and reconstructing the roadway. The next phase, I believe, is the turn lanes. the third phase is moving to the opposite side of the street I assume I've got that correct nothing's changed then the next phase they start constructing roundabouts and last phase is I believe that's the paving the construction progress I have something of note in the last day or so we were alerted to a couple horseshoes out in the sidewalk took I went out myself after after the city manager sent me a picture of that and found them I found that one of the horseshoes still had the imprints had the horseshoes still there the other one was just the imprint of the horseshoe but that was passed along to Caltrans so they can go ahead and protect it and not take it out I did not find that that particular piece of sidewalk just showing to come out but just in case And there are the two horseshoe imprints. We do also have public concerns. There are several complaints and concerns that have been received. Caltrans notes that this is minimal given the extent of this construction. This is a long project. It's going between Pecan Avenue and just shy of the railroad tracks on the east side of the city. So it's quite the project. Most of the complaints have been traffic control, pedestrian access, and business access. And examples that include a couple of complaints regarding confusion with traffic control and signage. Additional signage is going up to go ahead and alert people to businesses, and additional signs might go in to help people understand the traffic control that they've got going on out there. There are a couple of complaints regarding the confusion with traffic control and signage at the beginning of the project. Complaints regarding pedestrian access at A Street, B Street, and Almond Avenue, I believe those ended up providing some additional accessible paths across the streets. For each of these complaints, Caltrans has been active in their attempts to resolve their concerns. They're moving quickly when they identify a concern, trying to go ahead and correct it before it affects more individuals. For the traffic concerns revisions traffic controller engineered pathways seem to have been successful They'll continue doing those things for loss of business The attempts have been through an enhanced signage or clarifying that businesses are open That's an ongoing whether that will help or not. We'll see over the near term Now the last portion of the report was the traffic operations this was the impetus for this particular series of meetings once a month Overall, the traffic operations seem to be acceptable. They're moving forward, and much of what I've discussed previously is what is happening during traffic operations. They become aware of a concern, and they look to go ahead and address it. And also what I've noted, and several staff members have noted, I believe, is that traffic seems to be avoiding the downtown section. It could be that they're worried about it. I drive down it every morning when I come to work to see what's going on, though I come through it a little bit early. There's not a lot of traffic out there. During the later parts of the day, I don't know. I haven't looked to see specifically how it's picked up. I walked it yesterday, a portion of it, and I didn't necessarily see a lot of traffic either. Other individuals may have different perspectives of that. We had some confusion with wrong way driving. I think that's probably been addressed, but I, I wouldn't be surprised if you see it happening again. The, uh, when you're doing traffic control, you tend to narrow up lanes to go ahead and get people in there. I, I was pulling onto Yosemite earlier today and I, Somebody came, I'm sure I was off the outside the street and somebody went down and they were like, 3 feet into the opposing traveling. I don't know if they were avoiding me or just didn't feel comfortable with the curb being right there. That's part and parcel traffic control. When, when you start squeezing lanes to drive to get an effective work zone area. Um, and again, and the contractor actively addressing the concerns as they arise. That is my presentation. I'm happy to take any questions. We do have two members from Caltrans. We have Chantha Chapp, who is the senior resident engineer, and we have Larry Johnson, the public information officer from Caltrans. They're available to answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you for that report, Director of Engineering. I'll bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. I just have 1 comment. I would like to, um, think Caltrans for the signs that are pretty big that say we're open for business just to remind travelers that are downtown. Um, I saw I saw 2 of them pretty big. They're not little ones. They catch your attention and I know our, um. Our community is being hit by the construction, but we did hear for many years that do something to this road, clean up, make some medium islands, give us some greenery. And so with partnering with Caltrans, we appreciate them listening to our community and the businesses where their concerns were at. Um, I do have, uh, council member Rodriguez who has a question.

Uh, yes. Thank you, Mayor. I too want to appreciate, uh, Keith for their report. Also Caltrans. The one thing that I would, um, would suggest or I recommend I'm not sure if this is through the city or Caltrans is how we disseminate information I hear a lot of people complaining that this is a city project it is a part in partnership with Caltrans and Caltrans again putting this CAPM project I think we've done everything but really try to disseminate more information for folks that this is a a road diet that's coming through caltrans and sure good opportunity for the city i guess you know when it comes to having this partnership and making sure that we make these improvements that haven't been done for many many years so i think it's important to see if there may be something that we may be able to add just to throw it out there in social media because that's really where i hear a lot of the comments it's well i see a lot of the comments and it's hard for me to reply because it's misinformation a lot of it is is geared towards the city and the city is a partner in expanding its infrastructure and possibly uh improvements around the city but that's nevertheless a state highway so yeah i appreciate everything you guys are doing though thank you i think you make an excellent point we've talked a little bit about social media it if we can identify the particular uh areas where we focus that would be a great um

Part of why Larry Johnson is here I was I was talking a little bit about that with With Chantha and he got with Larry to talk a little bit about that and I'm not sure whether you have any other thoughts on that Larry Just a suggestion mayor.

Is that keep if you're walking downtown with the hardhat?

We should put a camera on you and have you just I should wear a hardhat with a camera on it You know, I thought about doing that while running too just so that you can uh, I

Throw out that information letting us going so mr. Johnson, can you also touch a base on when you did come to us? We know that it's a nine-month project between great gateway to Tozer. Could you touch upon? How long you'll be working per block?

Chant that would know that better than me but for the social media I do have I do want to let everybody know We do have a mass distribution list for updates which we're going to start doing since we're about a month into this project now so I've reached out to, I don't want to say all, but I reached out to a lot of the businesses on the strategy, especially in downtown for emails for these updates. So, if I missed anybody, or if you know anybody, please have them reach out to me. I have business cards here. I give you my. My work numbers all over the Internet, so it's not private for public information. So. We will be updating. I'll send out the 1st update tomorrow. I think it's pretty much the presentation that we just gave here, but that will go out to everybody on that list. And then we are having meetings. I think it's every Monday, Monday morning with updates and then I can do an update every week or every 2 weeks, whatever warrants for to let people know. So, if anybody needs to be on that distribution list, please let me know. And then we will put that out on social media as well. So. Um, you know, they will have to be following us on social media, get those updates. Um, and I do tag the city, the county, everybody else on those updates as well. So, um, it, you know, it's, it's out there. I hope if more people need more information, they can always contact me. Um, if businesses are hurting, we do have a claims department. I don't know their process, but I can give them the claims number and they can see, um, You know, if there's any help there, I don't want to promise there is because I don't I don't know that department, but we do have a claims department in our district in Fresno that people can. And I don't have that number off the top of my head, but people can reach out to me and I can give that number to them. And there might be some way that we can help them out. I don't want to promise that for sure. But it's another option that they can look into for the businesses that are along this along the 145 right now.

Thank you for that.

I'm the resident engineer for the construction project. So just to give you a quick rundown. So the contractor has a very aggressive schedule. Um, like, like Keith was saying, we're working day and night. Um, so based off of the current working days, um, it has the project being completed around April of next year. But because of the aggressive schedule, um, they're looking to wrap it up by the end of this year. So it's really fast. So we're looking at, you know, at least in the heart of downtown, they're going to be wrapping up that side that they're working on now within a couple months. And then they're going to shift over to the other side. So it's really fast. And we want to emphasize, you know, patience from the public and everyone involved. Just give us some time. And we're trying to get this thing done as quickly as possible.

Thank you for that comment. And I have been sharing that with local businesses and community that usually projects do take a year and a half to two years. But we really stress to Caltrans when you did come to us about being a partner is that it does infect businesses. And if we could speed fastest, which you have done, we appreciate it. And I did share with business owners also, that you did put in the RP that contracts would be working like almost day and night so that it was aggressive and get done sooner. So we appreciate that very much. Any other questions or comments? Okay, I'll open it up to public comment. I know we have someone in the chamber. Come on up.

Thank you for allowing me to speak, but I spoke to you yesterday regarding my concern. I spoke to my neighbors about it too, and it's all about the economical impact that we're having. It is a big one because now we have to support a rent with no income. There's no sales. Clients don't want to travel in an area where the traffic is a mess, which I know we all want to change. but we were not ready for that impact economically. There are mama, papa businesses where we live every day with our incomes, with ourselves, with our clients coming in. We don't do sales through the phone or through the internet. We do it with the clients come in and that's how we make our money. So I'm one of them that is hurting and it's three months already. So I asked you if there was any help that we could get, um, as a support for us to keep going or we're gonna have to shut down. I spoke to my neighbors and they think the same thing. We either get another job, I'm looking for a third job because I don't know what I'm gonna do if I don't have any sales. My clients don't wanna go through the deal of parking a block away or if they're gonna find a parking or if they have to deal with the traffic. So I'm losing a lot of business. And I do maintain myself through sales and through my clients coming in. and i'm sure the panaderia terrellas and everybody else is going through the same thing because our clients have to go in and uh that is my concern i'm just looking for some kind of relief so we could welcome this change without feeling that we have to pay the consequences So that's what I, I know my, my neighbors said that we're going to come today. They didn't come in. Unfortunately, but I did need to say that because. I am concerned because I am a pop of a Papa mama business and this is my income and this is my livelihood. And I will have to get another job because I need to maintain or either close my business or get a job. And I cannot longer be an unemployment, an unemployment person where I have to work on my own and I have to work for a job. So that's my concern. It is affecting a lot of us. And that's what I wanted to say.

Thank you for your comment. Thank you. City Clerk Gonzalez, anyone online?

We have none, Mayor.

Thank you for that. At this time, I will close public comment. This was informational and direction. I think we kind of add that what what we need so thank you for that and caltrans for being here and hanging in with us tonight we appreciate it thank you we'll go back up to our agenda city clerk gonzalez next item item c1 business license overview all right here we go round two financial director lima

Okay, let's see if this one worked better than the last one. Okay. Good evening, Council and Mayor. Mike Lima, Director of Financial Services, here tonight to talk about business license. We've been calling it internally Business License 101. I actually think that the break was well-timed because I see a lot of you got cokes or some sort of nourishment. I suggest that you settle in because this is going to take a while, and I'm glad you have something to to, uh, consume while you're listening to this. All right. So, uh, quick overview, the, uh, city, as you know, charges an annual business license every year. Uh, it ensures that business license is basically the city's statement that a business is allowed to operate within the city limits. Uh, and what that means is there's a lot of, uh, how should I put it? Um, commitments or there's a lot of implied promises behind that operation that that permission to operate and that uh as you'll see as we get into this explains why we do the things we do because there are a lot of promises that are implied in that permit um This past fiscal year we issued just over 3,700 business licenses. We received almost 500 new ones. For most of these businesses, business license is assessed as a fee based on their gross receipts. Basically, it's an income tax. And the laws governing business license can be found in the city's municipal code. Title six, chapter one, sections one through 95. However, several of those sections have been deleted. It's actually only 62 sections that still exist, but who's counting? So this is a trend over the last few years to show you kind of what has been issued. You see there's been kind of steady growth in the number of business licenses issued. Five years ago, we were looking at about 2200. We're now about 2600. We've seen a doubling in mobile vendor issues, but they're still pretty small compared to the overall total. We've gone from 35 to 69. And then rentals, we're going to talk a little bit more about rentals as we get into this program. But they've gone up about 20% from 847 to just over 1000. So in the municipal code there are special rules for all kinds of folks hotels motels hospitals fortune tellers believe it or not They have a section in there about fortune tellers dances pool tables card rooms laundries. There's a whole bunch of them in there We're not going to focus on those. We're only going to focus on the most common in this presentation For fiscal year 26-27, the current fiscal year we're in, business license revenue is projected at right about $670,000. All this money goes into the general fund. It's about 1.4% of total general fund revenue. It's not a majority of it, but it has an impact when it goes in. Citi has a minimum annual business license assessment, generally speaking, again, $40. And then it has a maximum, $1,056. Large retailers such as Home Depot and Wal-Mart, they are the ones paying the $1,056. There is a chart in the municipal code section 6.122. It tells you how much each business pays based on their gross receipts. So where does the money come from? So you have an annual license assessment. We've got a table here that shows if you have a dollar amount that you pay, how many licenses were in that that paid that dollar amount, and then how much revenue did that generate? So from $4 to $99, that is the majority of the folks that are paying. 2,300 licenses paid somewhere between $4 and $99 last fiscal year. They generated just under $110,000. The next biggest group is paying between $100 and $499 a year. That's almost 1,300 business licenses. They generate the most revenue, $253,500. And then finally the 500 to 1,060, 240 businesses are paying that and they generate about almost $183,000 last year. So if you're opening a business and you show up and say, I want my business license, You probably think you want to go to the finance department. That would be wrong. You don't go to the finance department. You go to the planning department. Why do you go to the planning department to get a business license? Well, because the planning starts the review process. And this is the process I was talking about, the implied promises that are in a business license. And so you start with planning. And planning takes a look at the application that they receive. And they start looking to see, does it meet zoning? So, like, for instance, you don't want a mechanic shop in an office district. Yeah. So they confirm that the proposed business does meet the zoning laws that are set by the by council. Then there are a number of fees that could be possibly charged, and I'm not going to go through all these. But bottom line, depending on what kind of business you're trying to operate and where that business is located, you may end up paying. You'll pay a different amount on the permit on the permitting fees for planning. Once you get past planning, then you come and see finance. And finance, there is applications. We have applications available at our office. They're also online. You pay a $50 application fee to process it. And at that point, once we do the initial review, then it goes to a variety of different departments. First stop is building. Building takes a look at it. They verify the business's proposed layout. They look and they may ask you to issue some building permits to make modifications to the buildings, like for electrical or plumbing. If you do that work illegally, hire someone who doesn't have that or do it yourself. It could result in fines and penalties. So anyhow, you've got to get building to sign off on it. And they do inspections as well. You may or probably end up in public works. They check the water quality and backflow testing to ensure there's no contamination of the city's water system. Then you go to police. Now, why would you go to police? Well, because for some industries, they have a very elevated risk to public safety, financial security, and community trust. So you need to get folks fingerprinted. And then a background check done on them. So here are some of the businesses that need live scan and background checks. A list is right here. Probably folks you would expect, folks who deal with the public on an ongoing basis, or particularly maybe dealing with children. But these are folks that need to have extra background to be looked into. And then code will go out. And code will do an inspection of the business. And they will conduct an on-site premise, make sure the signage is right, make sure that there's no other public nuisance violations, no violations of conditional use permits. And then if you have a food, if you decide to open a restaurant, if you're crazy enough to go through all this and still want to open a restaurant, then you've got to go talk to county health, environmental health, because they have a permit. And the permit involves food preparation, and they go out and they verify that you've got the equipment and the facilities to handle food with proper temperatures, that you've got, that it's clean, that the grease traps are set up so they don't catch on fire. All that is done by environmental health. Once all that is done, then you come back to finance. And at that point we will issue the business license. Um, we, uh, what we do is if you come in, most people, when they start a business, they don't come in on July 1st, which would be really clean. Instead, they come in mid year or some point of the year. And what they do is, uh, what we do then is prorated. We say, how much do you think you're gonna earn this year? They tell us, we look it up on the table and say, okay, you owe this for your business license assessment. They pay that they get the business license. Um, We also charge a $4 fee for every application. That $4 fee is associated with California State Law SB 1186. That is ADA compliance. Basically, it's money that we collect. We send most of it to the state. We keep about a dollar of it. And what that is is used to train staff on ADA compliance and also hire folks to do ADA planning So it's all associated with ADA planning and basically ADA planning requirements. So after all that, how long does this take? well from start to finish if everything goes right it's about three weeks to get that permit to get that business license but that that is optimal a lot of folks take a month two months because they run into uh something with building the permits aren't correct that they need to do work on the building something needs to happen or they're not meeting uh signage regulations again The implied promise in that business license is they're meeting all city requirements. And if they don't, then they gotta start keep working at it and keep working. So it's not uncommon for folks to take a month or two months to get their business license because there are a lot of steps that have to be addressed. Let's talk about mobile vendors for a moment. Mobile vendors are required to get a business license. They fill out the same application, pay the same $50 fee, but they don't pay based on their gross receipts. Instead, the MMC in the section on mobile vendors says that they are required to pay a $600 annual fee. Now, what we do is, in response to some concerns that have been raised by mobile vendors, The $600 is for the whole year. They're like, hey, I only operate in the summer months because I sell lemonade. No one wants to buy lemonade in the winter, so I sell in the summer. So I only need something for four months. So what we do is we charge them $50 a month. So if you did $50 times 12 months, it's 600, but we give them an option of doing $50 a month, so they only have to pay for the months that they're in business. That being said, if you're dealing with food as a mobile vendor, you still have to go see Madera County Environmental Health. They make sure that there's proper washing stations, food handling, the temperature is right. They come out and inspect every food area, and every county has to do their own inspections. So if a mobile vendor comes to us and says, hey, I have a permit from Fresno County Health, Too bad, you gotta go to Madera County Health and get another one. A permit from, right now, a permit from Environmental Health for a mobile vendor to operate is $381. That's off their July 2026 master fee schedule. That changes every year. So they would have to get that permit. There are, so here are the typical all-in costs for itinerant vendor or mobile vendor so you've got the TUP application fee of $206 $50 fee for business license the environmental health permit if you're a food vendors 381 business license is either 600 or you're paying $50 for the months that you're in operation $10 vendor ID fee and the $4 SB 1186 fee All in, $1,251 if you're operating a mobile vendor operating a food truck here in Madera.

Or I can wait until 5.30 and just park somewhere.

Oh, okay.

Perhaps.

All right. Common issues with mobile vendors. They don't have permits. Either they don't have a business license or they don't have that county environmental health. That's probably the biggest one. They park for longer than 30 minutes. The municipal code says that they're not supposed to do that. They park at city parks, which is not permitted. They park on private property without the property owner knowing. And probably the biggest one, they show up within a couple of days of their event and say, I need a business license. As you probably could tell from this process that I went through, this admittedly long process, Um, we can't get a permit to them on the same day or within a couple of days. It does need weeks to do it to get through all the steps. And so same day permitting is just not possible at this time. Um, I mentioned that, uh, you know, vending from a mobile, uh. At a community event, vending from a stand or a mobile preparation unit, push cart, or other location requires a temporary use permit by the planning department. The applicant submits a statement and site plan and then an attestation form acknowledging the conditions. And then those special events are conducted at city-owned facilities are required to get a special event permit from the parks department. fairgrounds this one pops up a lot for us what about the fairgrounds how do they have to pay business licenses well the fair itself does not it's a state it's an entity of the state of California and as such because business license is a tax and the fair is a state agency fair is the fair itself is exempt from business license as well as business building and zoning ordinance ordinances under the state constitution in general vendors operating at during the fair also get that business license exemption so if you see someone selling cotton candy they probably don't need a business license during the fair however vendors outside on operating on the fairgrounds outside the fair like the swap meet should have business licenses because that's not part of the fair itself it's just on fair fair property Okay, I said, I was going to talk a little bit about rental properties and so let's, uh, let's talk a bit about it. The authority for doing that was, uh, is in 6 section 6.128 of the municipal code established in June, 1978 amended September, 1999 municipal code also has a section 4 dash 615 approved in 2017 says it's unlawful to engage in rental housing unless you have a business license. This fee is also based on annual gross receipts, just like a lot of other businesses. But the minimum is less. It's only $20. It's not $40 like it is with most businesses. Short-term rentals like Airbnb and Vrbo currently do not require a business license to operate. Yeah. We do not have that requirement. So how do you renew it? We talked a lot about how you're setting up. Every year you have to pay. So how do you do that? Well, the license period is aligned with the city's fiscal year, July to June. Again, paid on total gross receipts for the most recently completed calendar year. So, well, you'll see the calendar in just a second. This has been historically a very manual process with several steps for both the finance department and the business owner. Here is that process. So in January, we send out gross. We have been mailing out gross receipt reporting forms to businesses. Gross receipt forms in March are returned to the city. We sit down and we calculate how much taxes owed and then send out an invoice in May saying, here's how much you owe based on what they reported. Businesses send in payments to us in May and June, and then June, July, they get their business license certificates. So there's a lot of mailing back and forth that goes on. So challenges, it's labor intensive, it's slow, and some businesses need their business license by July 1st, and sometimes we don't get to meet that because of that iterative process. So how are we improving that? How are we trying to streamline that a bit? Well, first off, I'm gonna go back to planning. Planning, about a year ago, They developed and implemented a new business information checklist for what is needed to get a business license. That checklist displays all the steps they need, which departments they need to go to, and who they need to talk to in order to get one. That's available in the city's business license web page, and it has been well received by folks. In finance, we introduced the business license module to Citizen Self Service Portal. So now businesses can go online, they can download their statement, they can download their certificate, they can make payments online, and they can file their return online as well. So that January to June timeline I just showed actually can be bypassed by months by doing this process. we started this year like I said the ones who jumped on it right away were the big businesses Walmart McDonald's they were immediately let's do this and then the other ones that which kind of surprised me but then I thought about it and I was like oh that makes perfect sense there are businesses that all they do is do business license filings for other small businesses and they reached out to us and go yeah I got like 10 how do I get on this and I We signed them up. So in the end of the day, we had over almost 1100 businesses file returns electronically out of that roughly 3000 that I showed you earlier. So we had about a 28% acceptance rate in the first year, which we think is pretty good. We hope to make it better and we hope to keep promoting this because it saves a ton of time. So just indulge me in a little math here. 1,068 filings takes about two minutes per filing to load into the system. So you're looking at about 2,200 minutes. That's 35.6 hours of work time. That's basically a work week that just got saved by folks doing this. We're hoping to extrapolate that as we go forward. So what happens for folks, because we like to think all businesses are honorable and they do the right thing, but unfortunately that doesn't happen all the time. Some folks avoid their business license responsibility either out of ignorance, they don't know that they have this, or they just flat out are lying. And so fortunately the municipal code does give us the authority to go in and enforce. Specifically code enforcement has the ability to go in enforce business license requirements most of these are identified through other enforcement related activities like substandard housing or vehicle and but when they do find it they do cite them for it and not having a business license is considered a misdemeanor under our municipal code on top of that a topic using code enforcement we also partner with HDL we have a contract with them to do business license compliance The goal is not to punish businesses, but we do want to get what they owe under our municipal code. What HDL does is HDL is also our sales tax consultant. So what they do is they get the sales tax information from the state and they say, hey, business A is paying sales tax. And then they get compared to our business license list and go, but they're not paying you business license. Let's go visit them. And that's what they do. They send a letter and say, we notice that you're paying sales tax, but you're not paying business license and you need to please do so. Madera County, Chowchilla, and MCTC also contract with HDL on the sales tax side, and we do as well. We work with them. One of the things that did pop up as we started these efforts with them was that their collection office is out of Fresno, and the letters came out of Fresno. So we got some folks going, is this a scam? Are you scamming me because you're saying the city of Madera owes it, but I've got to send my check? to Fresno what's going on here so we've kind of worked that out a little bit and work to kind of have some education with folks to address that but it is still primarily being run out of their Fresno office for the last four months they have collected an additional twenty one thousand three hundred dollars of business license so if you multiply that over a full year that's about sixty three thousand dollars which is about nine percent of our about ten percent of our budgeted amount which is pretty good so are you done with those cokes yet are you finished or no you still got more okay all right well then we'll keep going all right um so I want to this is actually the last slide so I'm just going to leave it with this part I want to leave you the word of caution um and the reason why I'm going to say this is because you know I'm sure you've heard some stuff in this presentation You go, wow, Walmart's only paying $1,000 a year? Seriously? I mean, they make that in the first 10 minutes of the year.

Come on, they gotta be paying more than that.

There are limits as to what you can do with business tax and how you can change it. Business tax is defined as a general tax under state law. So if, for instance, you go, man, Walmart should pay more. Let's bump it up to 5,000. Vote of the public immediately. If you're raising, if it turns into raising revenue, it's a vote of the public 50 plus one, 50% plus one sound of two thirds. Now, if you decide, if you listen and you go really, we're charging mobile vendors, 600 bucks. And that doesn't seem right. These are mom and pop shops. We need to cut that to like 300. You could do that, but you'll be cutting some general fund revenue and. If in the future, some council goes, ah, we need to bump that up to 500, vote of the public at that point. So I bring this word of caution up not to say you can't do anything about it. I bring it up to say, just be aware that there may be unintended consequences when you do it. And there are some limitations at the state level. And with that word of caution and depressing note, I will leave you. and say that I do have a team here to assist me with any questions you may have. I have Will Tackett, our Community Development Director, I have Chief Chair Monti, our Police Chief, and Richard Gracia from my office who handles a lot of the business tax stuff for finance. And with that, I conclude my presentation and I'm available, we are available to answer any questions you may have.

Well, here it goes. Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah, out of the gates.

I know Mike was going to. He was ready for this. So I saw the presentation. No, I wanted to start. I mean, I think everyone knows our family business has been around for about 45 years. I have a secondary business that's been around since 2012. Do the math. I think between the two businesses, we collect almost every single license available to city, state, federal. So, um, the point of the story is to say that I, I think the concern that I had when bringing this about. Is understanding from a business perspective, uh, 1. That, um, you know, especially coming on council. That seemed like a lot of events we would go to the 1st thing out of somebody's mouth when they opened was was the most difficult. And I know through staff, it's not, sometimes it was confusion. Sometimes it was just, you know, the process. And I know that's gotten better in the time that I've been here. Um, the second thing that I saw a lot of was in my involvement with the 4th of July event and speaking with people who wanted to be a vendor and the confusion with, I have a Medera business license and saying, well, you need a county health permit. And how, how are you operating right now when you don't have the two? And the feeling of kind of like a disconnect of the whole process. This last year was when it kind of got a little deeper when talking to a lot of the vendors that want to sell non-food items and not understanding that if I come in and I want to sell a widget and maybe make a couple of dollars at the 4th of July event, I mean, I know they can maybe pay the $500 or the $50 a month, but they're paying $600. And if you look at the chart, $600 equates to a $2 million business. So, you know, it doesn't seem like a lot. $600, just pay it. But we're treating them the same way as a $2 million in business. And I know we have to be careful. It's your point. I know we don't want to say let's just make it $20 and then regret it later on. But the concern there is many of these businesses, if done right, can grow into much bigger business. That's kind of where, as a council, we have to look at it and say, you know, maybe $20 this year, But if their business grows, then we're going to get more money. That business is going to eventually pay maybe that $300, $400, $500 because they're growing. Now they're growing, they're making more tax revenue. They're maybe starting to employ. They've started to move into a permanent business. And this is the kind of growth I think we need to look at when we say encouraging businesses. My other concerns is, again, you mentioned the fairgrounds. And I, when law comes in, and I'm glad we have Shannon here, the word should and shall, you know, in your presentation said that, like at the swap meet and some of these things, they should have their license. But is it really more of a shall? Is it that should we be going, you know, I know it's sort of Wednesday, but Sunday and going out and these people that are there every Wednesday and Sunday, they're a business, right? Should we be requiring their business license? Because I know that is a frustration when you are a business and you have a lot of licenses and then you see the guy down the street has nothing. Knowing that they're not paying taxes, they're not paying a business license, they're not being checked. There's a lot of frustration that goes into that that says, hey, why do I even attempt to be legal? I can just kind of do whatever I want every day. So I really tried not to make this extensive, but it's understanding the importance that I know we have to get it right, and I know government is tough to get it right on the first try, but the things that I hear the most is the really small guys that want to get started tomorrow in a business, like you said, it's three weeks. It's expensive. So if a week out from our events these guys want to join, I have to tell them no. you're not going to get a business license in time. And that's kind of why it's also the process. I mean, I'd love to see something that is a little faster for a temporary license standpoint. I'm not saying the massage parlors and some of the things that are a little bit more delicate in the planning process. But if I just want to be somebody who's selling necklaces or tumblers, it should be apply today, you get a temporary tomorrow, and then there's a follow-up process afterwards to kind of legitimize their business and I think that's where we can come in and now you know chief and when he says you know his staff has to go out there and co-enforcement says hey you don't have a license you need to get one it's a little bit more inviting instead of saying well look how much money you're going to spend and all this and they say forget it I'm just going to close up I'll do this so that's my ask of the council just kind of maybe look at it from the standpoint of what we've heard is encouraging business growth and through that growth what we're going to get from the sales tax and the licensing so thank you

Thank you for your comment. Council Member Rodriguez.

Thank you, Mayor Gallegos. I will say thank you, Mike, for your presentation. And I want to thank Council Member Zachariah for his comments. I do have gone through the process of obtaining a business license, whether it be I said I do have gone through the process of obtaining a business license, whether it be a home occupant permit or a standard business license. And I will say that someone that thinks they know what they're doing online, the process of going through it, having to have all these departments come to an office and go through this process, it was pretty lengthy. I think it was longer than the three weeks. But again, a lot of it was on me. I had to provide certain documentation, which eventually we did, and we got that settled. So I want to think that I process a lot of stuff. through my business so i want to say that i can process things but the average show that's starting to start a business sometimes it's a little difficult so my ask would be to try to streamline that process and i know we're always trying to find ways of streamlining so when i go to the the conferences i listen to what's taking place in technology streamlining the way we do things right ai is being very involved i know with the cups and bigger businesses it's harder to do that but like the widget seller the person selling something that's a product that's not perishable I think we can do better in that arena one or three days and I know and I say that because there's cities in California that are doing it but again these aren't your your folks that are selling tacos on the street or something like that because I do understand that there's a health and safety concern there I'm last but not least, we also have a small business account from what I understand through EDC. I'm not sure if that's still available, but we had some type of loan, we may want to start putting some money aside to help some of these vendors. I mean, if the city that money has been sitting there for a long time, I don't know how many permits or how many loans they've applied. But that would be good numbers to have so that we can encourage more small businesses to take advantage of this fund. and maybe utilize some of that fund through our cannabis revenues. I don't know, maybe help some of these vendors facilitate the process and maybe assist. One of the things that we don't do is we don't invest in our small businesses, and we should. I mean, I heard the lady here having to go through a hard time. Hey, maybe that's something I'm not going to try to write what you need to have and what compliance things and what you need to have in order to get it done. But we do have a pot of money.

we can help small businesses we just haven't used it is that all council members that's all okay thank you councilwoman uh thank you i agree that

a strong entrepreneurial spirit here with the residents of Madera. And I myself have seen, I have experienced similar concerns through organizing the , which is a cultural event that originates in Oaxaca. And I think the event in and of itself does draw a lot of tourism to there. And I saw that same type of interest here in Madera. We had a lot of people trying to come out from the Bay Area and all parts of California trying to do business here. And beyond doing business, that tourism, it promotes our city. And I think that by treating the smaller businesses like the bigger ones we are having those unintentional consequences where we're missing out on business we're missing out on promoting our city so i would be in favor of trying to streamline it more trying to give more opportunities for the small startup vendors and and just having that support for them so that not not just for them but also because it helps our Oh, where we have, um, community events that everybody else gets to enjoy. Those are my comments.

Thank you for that council member Montez.

Yeah. Um, just want to respond. I'm going to agree with some of some of the things that had been set up here, but some, you know, I guess I have a different perspective, right? So I've come from the enforcement side. So I actually did court enforcement in the city there on some of these vendors and some of these businesses and actually, was part of the code enforcement process where we would go and verify hey is the business where they say they are are they doing what they say they're doing and is it permitted i know uh the other departments um had their role in that too but you know as code we would actually go to the physical location i would find sometimes people lied right i was like oh you actually come i was flabbergasted as myself right like wow you would lie on your application Um, but I think, you know, I, I think we're all in favor of streamline, like, right. You know, I think education is a big part of that. And that was something that I would try to do. Um, because enforcement, like catch somebody doing something that they're not supposed to be doing or without a business license, they can help you try to navigate that. Like I was one person, uh, and maybe we do need to have something a little more robust, uh, either within planning, within code or within finance, right. Do a class or something like, Hey, if you're thinking about this, Uh, let's go. I don't know if that would change anything as far as making sure, because when you have your licenses, the guarantee that there are certain guarantees in that, right? Like you're doing things right. And it's hard to take that back once you've issued it. Um, I mean, yeah, you can revoke, but, um, I think it's very, it's a lot harder to do than, than to say, and I don't think we've ever been in a situation where we went and put like, Hey, you're, you don't got your business license. We're going to put chains on your door and we're going to not let people in. Right. So it's administrative, right? We're not, we're not, it's a misdemeanor, but I mean, that's just more for the setting the fines, right? As far as know some of the fees i think that what we've what we've done right saying hey we're going from an annual to a monthly fee um i think that makes sense right um does anything that stops somebody saying i'm only going to operate for this month they get their license and and they don't do anything else people can do that correct yeah okay yeah you can get it for a month so not operate yeah no but if they get it for a month and they continue to operate is there anything are there any safeguards there uh

Until code goes out and checks.

Yeah, they got it.

They got to find them. Right.

And so that I guess that's kind of my point. I mean, I think, you know, more of the carrot and the stick to certain degree. So I think that I know we have some of the cannabis revenues, we can say, well, we can have kind of like a care program, like with PG&E, right? Because I think to this point, some of those funds are unallocated. I know it's a different topic, but I think that we can do that. If you qualify based on certain conditions, then maybe we can waive those using um the cannabis fee so that we don't kind of hamstring ourselves in the future saying well it's costing us this much money to actually do this enforcement but the revenues are not there so then we're not going to build a fund to enforcement i know it's a little more complex than that because it goes into general fund but um i think you know education um and assisting people um would help streamline a little bit more maybe city puts on some classes But I don't know if I would might be outnumbered, but I don't know if I would be in favor of not necessarily changing everything. Not that we're perfect. Right. We can always get better. But every place that I've gone, every city I work in Fresno now and everybody says the same thing about Fresno. This is the worst place to do business. And if you go to Madera, Madera is the worst place to do business. So everybody can't be right about it. I mean, I think that they just have the ear and they're going to complain. And maybe somebody did have a bad experience. I'm not trying to. um discount that but i think that um at least when i was here right and it has been a little while i think everybody cared and wanted things to um move forward it was more of the education piece that people didn't know and then yeah if you come the day before i want my license tomorrow i mean that's that's pretty difficult and then if we issue we can't take it back so that would be that'd be very difficult and if you have an operator and we have had operators that are doing things that they shouldn't be it's very difficult to get them to stop points we've issued So those are my comments.

Thank you for your comments. A couple from me before I move on to other council members. Director Lima, you talked about our Airbnbs do not have business license, have to apply for business license. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. So I hear from a lot of community members that are concerned because more Airbnbs are popping up. And these are people that are just having parties for the weekend. And I think they're popping up more in the city because a business license is not attached to that. So I would think if my colleagues are in agreement to maybe looking into those type of businesses having to fill out a license for the Airbnb. I know the county has a requirement for Airbnb, so maybe something the city needs to look at doing that. The second question was vendor trucks. We have a lot of vendor trucks that are even on our city private property. And I don't know if this is a question for Chief to answer. i'm not even sure who have permits our business license permits or even with i know we won't regulate um the licensing with the county the health permit but we will we will enforce those that are um for the business license so my thing is i know we don't have court enforcement at night is it possible there are officers that that see mobile vendors to stop in and just check because what i'm hearing from a lot of the community as mayor protein zachariah stated that the restaurants are having to pay overhead they're having to pay taxes they're having to pay permits and then we have a lot of vendors that are out on nights after 5 30 or whenever or on weekends and nobody is enforcing or we're not stopping i don't have a problem with it i have a problem when they're on our city property they're leaving a mess and i have been with our teams cleaning up litter throughout the city and i'm cleaning up stuff that's coming from this taco vendor that or any vendor truck that was in this area that belongs to us so that heightens my concern when i have communities saying it i'm seeing it and it's happening more and more and more because i don't think we're sitting on it hard enough i will turn that over the chief and have them address

Yeah, so we do do mobile vendor enforcement action. And yes, we do have a lot of mobile food vendors within our community. We have certain areas that are very specific and seem to have drawn mobile vendors consistently. Some of the ones that we really focus on are the ones that set up almost like their business that's actually not a mobile vending truck, a food truck, but when they send up the tents, the chairs and the tables, you'll see that consistently in the Tozer and Yosemite area, the Tozer and Clinton area. And we've had some problems along the Cleveland corridor, which is our main kind of business corridor right now on retail sales and stuff. So law enforcement does go after those. But if you're asking if it's a everyday consistent enforcement, no, because there are quite a bit of other things that they are put in charge of. And sometimes it's a staffing issue, but it is not something that cannot be done or a focus because I know certain areas have been. Dave Kuntz, A huge focus specifically over the last month we've really tried to crack down on the areas of that total your semi and tozer Clinton, and we have seen great growth out of that so we do do focused areas, some of the difficulties i'll bring up when it comes to mobile food vendors is. Dave Kuntz, You know, our current. policy or law now is 30 minutes max with can't return within one hour and that's a very difficult thing and we've talked about it in the past to where that used to be the old food truck style where it's pre-made food you show up you walk up and get maybe a breed or something these are now full-blown kitchens inside these trucks so 30 minutes sometimes they may not be able to get to more than two to three customers in that 30 minutes and they're expected to pack up and move and then not return for an hour so that does provide some difficulty The second difficulty is, is there are quite a few that are now making this on permanent property. They're going and getting CUPs. And so sometimes people drive by like the one on Cleveland Avenue and Chevron and get really frustrated. It's like, how is that food truck always there? Well, they got a proper license for that and they're able to. And so sometimes it's that visual frustration that our citizens have. We have the same one, I believe it got completed, over at Lake and Yosemite. Am I wrong, Mr. Tackett? Not approved yet, but that one's in process that it will have multiple on that property too. So there are food vendors that are going through the proper permitting process to make sure they can have some permanent status and other communities have done the same.

So I think it's for Director Tackett maybe to answer. So how many of those mobile food vendors do we have that have CUPs? And do our officers know those vendors that they can just keep on driving knowing that they are cleared through the planning department?

Okay, so this is not going to be an encouraging statement. Been here four years. I have seen three applications for CEPs on mobile. Now, most of the business that we do with mobile vendors are on the temporary use permits where they are setting up something for a temporary period of time, but more than 30 minutes. Weekend event, community event. But, no, we are not seeing the coming up.

Okay, thank you for that answer. Okay, then I will move on to a mayor pro. Tim. Zachariah.

Yeah, sorry. I'll be quick. I'll be quick. Um, there was, uh, 2 questions for you, Mike. So, I know what I know under the, the, the, uh, peddler and mobile licensing stuff. things like Amazon, Uber, are these falling under that licensing, and are they licensed to be in the city, or do we treat them as an out of the city business, or do we get anything from these guys?

So a little bit, two different answers.

Okay.

Okay, Amazon is considered out of town. The only thing they're doing is delivery, so they are considered out of town, and we do not charge them a business license. Uber, Lyft, any of the delivery services like that, the gig economy, the companies will tell you, we don't have any employees. All our staff are independent contractors, and we do tell the independent contractors they need to get business licenses. Now, if you're asking me how many of those are doing that, probably not very many, I would say, but the companies themselves do not get a business license, an Uber, a Lyft, a DoorDash. But they tell their drivers they are supposed to get that.

Okay.

And the other question is kind of knowing that like for our security company, for lawn care, you know, a lot of industries have to have a license number on the vehicle on their item. Would that be something that would be helpful to the mobile vendor? So, I mean, like I know you can go look at the back of my car and you can look up that number on a website and it'll tell you the status of my company if we're active or, you know, closed or whatever. Is that something maybe, too, that would be helpful either to maybe even chief staff to kind of just say, I don't have to go get out of the car. Where's your license? I can just be like, okay, there's their number. It should reflect their proper business license. And then, you know, I guess everybody have a peace of mind to know, hey, they've got a number. They should be properly licensed.

Yeah, I think that would help. We have a unique identifier for each business in our system. So, yes, it would be a matter. of just getting that identifier on the vehicle or on some way, shape or form in order for them to be able to display it. There may be some challenges and I'm brainstorming here, but there may be some challenges when businesses are sold, getting that number transferred over, making sure the new owner takes on that number, meaning puts it on their cars and their stuff if they choose not to do that. but I'm sure stuff could be worked out, but we do have a unique identifier for each business. And if that was displayed, we could tell right away whether they have an active license or not.

I mean, especially, I mean, for council, I mean, we get, you know, if I drive by and I see some random pop-up, I mean, I hate to bug Chief or all the time and say, like, or, you know, call Arnoldo and say, hey, is this guy licensed? Can they actually be out here? I mean, I think it would be kind of easy to say, well, there's their license. Maybe go look it up on maybe a city website and say, like, okay, yeah, they've gotten approved. This is licensed. I don't know if there's privacy issues or whatever as far as that, but I just know, like I said, on most of the stuff I deal with on the state level, you can go look us up. It's available to you.

yeah again I I think it would help uh I mean right now the the requirement is that they have a license uh that is um easily seen that people can uh so if anyone walks up you could see it displayed but I understand that sometimes that's not enough and uh yeah I don't I I know we could possibly we could get there okay thank you thank you for their comment um I apologize Councilwoman Evans

First and foremost, I might please see.

But I've gotten a number of complaints for the corner of Lake and Cleveland. And they set up their they set up their little restaurant and the The restaurant that is sitting there is the taco casa and she's really having a hard time because you know they can walk up order get and then leave. But now she has a permanent residence she's having to I mean permanent business she's having to pay all the the fees and everything of that nature and her business is starting to dwindle because you can drive by and it's a line out. You know, on the street, because you can pull right up, get it and then leave. But she's there and she's been there for years and years. So is there anything that can be really done? You know, I don't know if they really have a permit to be able to do all that they're doing on that corner.

Yes, that's purely an enforcement issue. So. That would be just a complaint that comes in ours and we would, we would be addressing.

So say it again, please.

That's an enforcement issue. That would be a complaint that comes through us through code enforcement or through the police department that we go out and handle.

Okay.

So, yes, that's strictly enforcement.

Yeah. She's complained a number of times about that. Also, I'm not. Okay. So when you having an event, okay. Yeah, we're switching. Okay. And, um, you have, you know, like, a little. Mommel vendors that you know they come and they sit and they make the bracelets and things like that Is there a one-day permit for them or is it even required that they have a permit? Yes, or how does that work?

Yes, there is a one-day permit. Okay, I Want to handle this or do you should I get Richard? Okay, go for it I'll start and then I'll hand it over to Richard

Um, from an operational perspective, any outdoor vendor, whether it's from a mobile food truck, a push cart, a stand or tent, they are all subject to the same rules. So you are allowed to set up for those 30 minute periods without having to get any additional approvals through planning. You do have to have your business license. Um, for the temporary use permits again, that's required if you want to stay at any 1, fixed location on a temporary basis, but for more than 30 minutes. The mobile vendors themselves do not necessarily have to get that temporary use permit unless they're the primary applicant or organizer of an event. But the Gula Gets, as an example, what our staff would be asking is your event organizer is the applicant. We have created an attestation form that Mike mentioned in his presentation. Basically, you are just signing an acknowledgement that you recognize all the conditions that are applicable to that event, and you as the organizer are assuming responsibility for that. We used to have to send inspectors out on weekends or on call to show up at 7 in the morning on event days to inspect the premises. We put that on the event organizers in order to streamline that process. And it's also saved us from having to engage in a lot of back and forth with organizers or vendors oversight plans. ensuring that those site plans meet all of our development standards for the use of the site. We've been able to bridge and streamline that process through that attestation form and spend much less time on this application. So I know that you've heard lengthy amounts of time to get business permits to get some of these entitlements or licenses, but we have been making efforts to streamline that. And that's one example of how we've done that. The zoning conformance is another. We used to require site plan review for almost all new businesses. That's putting an applicant in a months-long process with upwards of $1,000 in fees. Now we use the zone conformance letter if you're on an improved property, 50 bucks. We ensure that you're not changing anything on the site, you're not making building additions, you're not changing on-site circulation, fire lanes. If not 50 bucks, you get a letter and you're on your way. And we can usually do that within 10 days. I'd like to see it come down. We can do better, but that's our average over the last couple of years.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council. If I'm shaking, it's because it's a little chilly in here, I swear. Just to briefly answer the question about, well, how are we regulating vendors that, you know, how do we know for mobile vendors if they're here just for an event for a few days a day or if they're here year-round? So our license is standard issue. They come with an expiration date every year of, well, our license year runs from July to June. So they come with an expiration date of June 30th. However, if you recall in the presentation on the mobile vendor and itinerant peddler slide, we charge a $10 vendor ID fee for just a little paper handout that we issue. But one of the big things on that is both the license number, the account number in our system, along with the days that they'll be in operation. So if it's our fiscal year, 7-1 to 6-30, chief staff, they're going to see that and say, okay, We know this vendors here year round, maybe they have a, so they're situated at a location. They're good to go. Um, but I guess another example would be for Valentine's day flowers vendors. Um, we issue those ID cards the same exact paper as well. They have a business ID. Uh, with the exception that maybe they're only operating from February 11th to February 15th selling flowers for that period. So that's the biggest indicator and we do require that, uh, their staff to have that on their person as well. So, um. I know code enforcement, they're aware of the ID cards, and that's one of the first things they check, I believe, for those types of vendors. So hope that maybe answered a few of your guys' questions.

Okay. All right.

Any other comments from my colleagues? Okay, open it.

I'll just throw in some numbers here.

Hey, Council Member Rodriguez.

I'll throw in some numbers for Mike, because Mike likes numbers. I do. Hypothetically, I don't know how many of these vendors we have, but let's assume there's 40 to 50. of them that are operating throughout our city. And each one of them is generating anywhere between $60,000 a year and sales. We don't know.

That's just hypothetical.

That equates to about $2.4 million of gross revenues, of which sales tax also applies there, which is quite a bit of money. The city level, we probably won't see more than $12,000 to $15,000 of that money. But it's not so much the money, it's what it does to the other economy, which is your brick and mortar. And I think that was said earlier. There is a president that we have to continue, I wouldn't say to enforce, and it's harder to say that because it costs more money to chase those dollars, which is $12,000, but it's not about chasing. I think it's the system, the way it's set up right now, the way the laws don't allow for us to really criminalize, but rather bring them in voluntarily. So it's going to require a lot more education, but really it's really about fifteen thousand dollars that we're missing in our general fund it just costs a lot more money for our enforcement to tackle on that and it costs more money on the economy at the end directly with other brick and mortar so i know your numbers guys so i thought i'd throw that in there i appreciate that yeah oh thank you mayor protein zachariah what i'm i guess i'm hoping to get is to

through, I guess, a proper program for that to not be 70 people, to be 100 people. I think everybody is saying there's more than 69 vendors on the street right now, especially when you look at special events and everything. There's probably a few hundred people we're missing when it comes to the money. You know, the idea was just to say if it could be a sliding scale on the fees for those mobiles to make an entry easy, but then as they improve their business. But I think, like, to your point, is there a way to kind of even know, like, what's a cap on a mobile vendor? Like, are they really, is the highest grossing one $60,000, $10,000 to kind of know where we would cap? Maybe that $600,000, kind of like what we do with, you know, our normal businesses.

Yeah, unfortunately, because they don't report gross receipts, they pay a flat amount. We don't know what that income is to set that sliding scale. We would just have to be guessing at this point. But it's certainly within council's purview to come back and say, you know, we feel 600 is too high and we should set it here, here and here at this other level and set up a tiered system just based on. that you're getting from your constituents.

Do you think the return would be outweighed by the amount of maybe work hours to go through the reporting of those or not really? It's hard to say.

I'm going to turn to Richard right now. How much time does it take to do mobile vendors right now? To issue a license. Issue license and just do the general paperwork on them. Yeah.

Yeah. I would say that largely depends on if they're going to need to go through planning and building all the other departments or if they're coming in as an out of town uh and we're just talking timetable time to issue a license say they have everything else they need uh definitely shouldn't be taking longer than a week to issue that license like I guess that me put it this way like again going back to the widget seller yeah I want to get a pop-up I want to be at a weekend event

no CUP, no nothing, the simple fact of, like, I need to apply, like, what's the time it takes to kind of verify that? And then year two, when I need to kind of renew my license, I got a report, you have to verify the report and send them a license. Like, what's the kind of, I would assume a couple hours per applicant, or is it a more lengthy investigation that we're kind of doing when they report, right?

So we check the application. We make sure they have the same requirements as any other business looking to do business here in the city. I believe they're still going to need a temporary use permit in this case for any pop-up events. Correct me if I'm wrong, Will. So it really just largely depends on when they can come back to us. Again, as noted in the presentation, we don't review the license until we know they're clear with our planning department. So it largely depends on how quickly we can get that turned around. Um, as far as setting up an account for a vendor, uh, that can be done within a day. Definitely. Uh, but it really just depends on if they have everything else they need. Of course, if they're a food vendor, they're gonna have to go through, but they're a county, but if they're selling widgets or something, um, uh, the approval process wouldn't differ that much from, let's say, like, a general contact contractor coming in and doing a job. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

council member Rodriguez thank you Mary I'll just end with this I know that we're going to walk away with this just an information report so I think to be proactive I would request that this council direct staff member to bring back something as far as uh maybe if there's any money if we have a pot of money somewhere to try to get something going with uh maybe education because I wouldn't mind paying ten thousand dollars a year well it is me that's my money right not the city's money but to try to inform people help people the entry level And instead of having enforcement chase that around, it costs more money. So I think if we have that pot of money set aside for that, we can try to help some of these vendors. I hate to use the word subsidize, but maybe help them in a way so that they can get that point of entry. And then next year, you know, hey, this is your process. And maybe do something there instead of, because we'll bring this back around, but we really ain't moving the needle. So I don't know, just.

see if uh the council would want to propose something bring back something either from the EDC funds or maybe from our cannabis and see if uh there's some money there okay City Manager Rodriguez Mayor City Council for the record Arnold Rodriguez I think what you heard this evening was a lot of um a lot of scenarios for a lot of complex situations Um, in in terms of the various types of vendors, we're talking Walmart at 1 point, we're talking Airbnb on another and and really everything in between. So there's a lot of different scenarios that play out. And I think what staff was trying to do was not to confuse council rather trying to explain the various variations of all the business types and our. Our our business code, which Mike indicated earlier is over 60 sections could easily be over 100 sections because there's so many different business types. We didn't even talk about the more complex items, alcohol, massage partners, which we're struggling with and a whole lot of other in between. I think if I could recap, I think some of council's thoughts were discussion points this evening 1 would be, could we potentially explore some kind of some education? Um, component to this to try to assist small businesses, and either that's a class, or if that's some kind of forum, or if there's some kind of element to that, where we can help out small businesses and there's some potential funding available for that. Um. The other item, and Richard talked about this a little bit, some kind of vendor ID number or ID system that's readily available or legible by code enforcement officers and city staff. The other item is if we can explore short-term rental. As we said, we currently do not have that on the books. Some other local agencies do. I know about 10 years ago, this was becoming very prevalent, and Madera does not have one. Um, will had indicated that some of the challenges and the chief did as well is 1 of the challenges with our current code is a 30 minute rule. Um, there's no right or wrong on that item. If you're a brick and mortar, 30 minutes is too long. If you're a vendor, 30 minutes is too short and that's really a public policy discussion and direction that council is going to have to provide. I'm not confident that staff can give you a great answer because no matter what we're going to collectively be wrong. Um, I think in terms of code enforcement, the chief alluded to this right now, we are struggling with the number of code enforcement officers. We have, we are recruiting. Uh, city council has authorized those positions. We, uh, we, we recently lost to code enforcement officers. We are actively recruiting code enforcement officers as we speak. Um, we are in that process now. The other item that was discussed a couple of times was the pop up event permits and that process and I think what council heard this evening is there is a process. We know not everyone's real happy with it. Um, it's a challenge. Um, there's all there's a lot of challenges with it, but from staff's perspective, we're simply trying to work within the limits of the municipal code that not this council, but historic councils approved. there's there's positive there's positive and negative with that and I think staff has done a remarkable job trying to be as flexible as we can with that and will allude to that a little while ago where we're actually holding the event organizer accountable now instead of staff going out there on a Saturday morning at you know seven a.m. The other item we heard is could we potentially have some sliding scale on fees on mobile vendors? And I think staff can definitely go back and explore that. Mike said a little while ago that there may be some challenges. I'm confident that Mike can get along with our legal counsel to kind of figure that out. And then the last one was are there some pots of money not to subsidize but to potentially help? But I think to help with that, I think that potentially goes back to going to some kind of educational class or course where we can help people out. And then I heard a lot of other items in between, and I'm not dismissing them, but I think they get back to some of it's fair competition. And are mobile vendors, are they causing a negative impact on our brick and mortar? And some people would say yes, and at the same time, when you have an itinerary vendor or mobile vendor, sometimes those serve as gateway industries into something bigger. Again, there's no right or wrong. This is not a Madeira problem. This problem is prevalent in every community um it's it's very common and I think what staff is trying to do is we've tried providing avenues to different vendors and avenues and sometimes it's muddy and sometimes it's great as well said earlier in his four years we've had three cups applied but yeah when we drive around the community there's taco trucks everywhere and I'm guilty of patronizing those because sometimes I pass them by they look good. And again, there's no right or wrong. It's just, it's complex and we're trying to help a lot of people out and there's a lot of scenarios. We know that there's a lot of frustration on all fronts and we're just trying to do the best within the limits of the code, which again, we operating a lot of gray at times. And you heard a little bit of that tonight, but I try to capture some of the comments. Obviously, council can provide us any direction.

Council would like we can go back and try to researching every one of those every one of those can lead us down multiple rabbit trails because they're they're complex issues so hopefully I summarized it mayor and council I think you did thank you at this time I open it for public comment anyone in the chamber city clerk Gonzalez anyone online on zoom we have none mayor thank you I closed public comment and I think director Lima director Tackett chief administrative analyst Garcia for being here tonight and That report was amazing.

Thank you Moving on next item Item d1 cities participation in the old-timers day parade.

Thank you presented by chief chair money mayor mayor Pro Tem Council, thank you. I am NOT finance director Lima He does an excellent job, but I am here to bring positive today about something that comes to every September and that's our Old Timers Day parade. I thought I'd give you a little history to start off is what was some big news that happened in 1931? Well, we had President Hoover, he signed law making the Star-Spangled Banner the official national anthem. That year, the Empire State Building opened in New York as the tallest building in the world, and I had to throw in a little criminality to this, being a law enforcement officer. The Chicago gangster Al Capone was convicted tax evasion, but also that was the actual start, the very first year that the old-timers parade was held in the city of Madera, and that's a pretty proud moment for us as a city. Now, there were only two times that the parade has ever been canceled. That was once in World War II, and that was one time in 2020 as a result of COVID. Just some small facts in history. Here's a little bit about the celebration. It goes through our downtown, and this year's Grand Marshal is going to be Dennis Smith, which we're super excited about. They're announcing that. But we also have an honorable queen that is recognized during that, and that's going to be Isla Shetler. I apologize for mispronouncing her name. She's kind of the matriarch of the Shetler family, so we're excited to celebrate them this year. Why am I bringing it to you? This year, there's changes due to downtown as a result of what you heard from engineering and Caltrans in a very positive way, but that made us reroute our parade route. And many people have asked, is the parade going on? So we felt like it would be great to provide a presentation. The new proposed route will begin at P Street on Yosemite Avenue and run all the way through H Street. And at Courthouse Park. So it's going to be on the opposite side of Yosemite Avenue. Instead of through downtown, we're going to be bringing it from the west side towards the east side. And I have a map here that will follow up. The proposed staging area will be along L Street, which is where Madera High is, along 6th Street that would lead to P Street where the parades or the floats would enter the parade route. All of Yosemite Avenue, which is the X marks in red, will be shut down. and the parade will go eastbound from P Street all the way to H Street which is right along the west side of Courthouse Park. That is the end of the parade at which time everybody will enjoy some celebrations at Courthouse Park. A request for partnership came from Madera Downtown Association as well as Rotary Cub. Those are the two agencies who put on this parade every year. Their request is to waive city services. City staff provides numerous services as a result That is crowd control, traffic patterns, returning the event to appropriate standards of cleverness. That's usually with our public works team and parks team and also obtaining a special event permit. They are still required to obtain all the insurance and encroachment permits. Those do not change and that is not a part of the request. The financial impact, the cost of providing city services, the police department has an impact of about 1900 dollars and 1930 dollars. Public works is about 657 dollars in overtime. Parks department is approximately 820 dollars in engineering. They have a fee, which represents a special event permit fee that they're requested to be wave, which is 101 dollars. The total amount requested to be petitioned is 3508 dollars. Staff's recommendation is to adopt a resolution waiving the fees to cover the cost of police, public works, parks, engineering fees, and services related to the Old Timers Day parade in the amount of $3,508. And that wraps up my presentation. I'm open for questions.

Thank you for that presentation, Chief. Good news that it's going to keep going. I'll bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. I see none. Open up for public comment. No one in the chamber, online, or on Zoom. City Clerk.

We have none, Mayor.

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

I will make the motion to approve. And thank you, Chief, for the fun facts. Second.

Thank you. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion passes unanimously. Thank you for that. Next item.

Item D2, Application for Transportation Development Act, TDA, local transportation funds, and state transit assistance funds for fiscal year 26-27.

And that will be presented by our deputy engineer bidder. Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council, Ellen Bitter, deputy city engineer. I do not have a team with me, nor do I have any fun facts. I've got very dry facts to present to you tonight. This item is an action item. It's the application for our Transportation Development Act funds. It's an annual process, and generally it ratifies What we go through with our CIP process and our annual budget process and once all the numbers are worked out in those processes Then we roll them into our application as part of the TDA so TDA provides two funding sources that you hear a lot LTF or local transportation funds and that's derived from a quarter cent sales tax and then there is state transit assistance and that is derived from the statewide sales tax on diesel fuel and State funds are allocated strictly for transit related purposes. The funds. Can be allocated, um, for both transit, um, transit 1st, um, as far as goes, and then the balance can go towards other streets and roads activities. Um, and we'll get into a little more information about, um, kind of the winds of change that are coming then. That's why this is somewhat of an informational item to tonight. So right now, agencies in Madera County, we have the option of using LTF funds for purposes other than transit as long as transit's unmet needs are met. And so typically we've used it on streets and roads projects, traffic safety programs. There is a fair amount that is contributing to the engineering department budget. And I think I mentioned other projects as well. So, and MCTC has adopted a finding of no unmet transit needs that are reasonable to meet. That's the guideline. They have to be reasonable to meet. Again, we have, um, the ability transit has prepared their budget, um, and their operations and capital budget, um, presenting what is reasonable for the city to provide. And then we, those. Their budget is, um, balanced from all of their funding sources and 1 of which is, which often provides match funds for their other funding sources. Um, eventually. LTF funds will not be a usable source for other streets and roads activities. Um, it'll be restricted to transit only. We're still a ways away from the statutory limit, which is Madera county, reaching a population of 500,000, or the city of Madera as an urbanized area, reaching a population of 100,000. This is our current year application, uh, for LTF funds, the, uh, regional transportation planning. That's a fixed off the top fee that goes directly to Madera county transportation commission. That's 3% of the overall allocation. And then there is a 2% allocation that's required to go. to pedestrian and bicycle facilities. And then after that, I'll show it on the next slide, those two funds are allocated between transit and then the remaining funds go to streets and roads. Down below, STA funds, again, that's 100% going to our transit department. So, as I noted, we have, um, traditionally used to help support streets and roads and engineering, um, for match funds and, um, traffic safety items and projects. Um, what what we are seeing, and it has been language in your staff report over many years, but. I think it is kind of hitting that point where the transit operations and capital expenditures are growing and they are seeing a larger allocation of the LTF funds and this table shows how it's changed in the last five years five years ago their allocation was 700 000 this year their allocation of LTF funds is one point nearly 1.5 million couple of those years in between they had alternate funding sources. So we saw some relief from COVID. And then you'll note on 2526, that reflects some money that the transit department actually had to do an amendment to bring some LTF funds to help them meet their obligations with their transit operators. So the trend is that The transit expenses will continue to grow because I think they've got agreements in place with, um, cost of living adjustments for their operators. So, um, we see it, um. Continually rising, uh, sorry wrong direction. Um, so ultimately, it's going to put a demand on other funding sources to meet our street. We don't see this as imminent, but each year we'll be evaluating all of our funding sources and be able to identify if it's going to impact any delivery of services or not. I think that's still over several years, but looking out, when I was doing an analysis on the CIP and I look out five years and at that reduction in the LTF, we do see Um, having to utilize other sources, perhaps the new measure T, to make up some of those differences. Um, but we will include this in next year's budget and presentations as well. That was the informational part of the item. The actual action is adopting the resolution approving this year's applications for the, both the and the funds and authorizing the city engineer to submit the applications to. Thank you for that.

I'll bring it back to my colleagues for some comments or concerns. I see none. Open up for public comment in the chamber. There is none online or on Zoom. We have done, Mayor. I will close public comment and ask for a motion to adopt this resolution.

Motion to approve is written.

I second.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Deputy Engineer Britter, for the report. Next item.

is D3 Lions Town and Country Park batting cages project perfect and that will be presented by our director ABER good evening uh mayor council colleagues uh Joe a bear presenting item D3 Lions Town and Country Park batting cages project um just to start this off there's some things that you start off you that look easy uh and then they don't always turn out that way some of the more difficult projects we do seem to go quicker this one started off quick and then we've uh ran into a little bit of a little roadblock to get across the finish line uh I won't belabor this but uh we I've been up here before and talked about how we initially thought this was going to cost us fifteen thousand dollars uh when in actuality uh we got an extra ten thousand dollars from Dick Sporting's goods to take it up to $25,000. I came before you before and asked for additional money for $96,000 in addition to the $25,000. And one of the things that we learned that bedding cages are very expensive. We actually, we put our, sharpened our pencils and we did a lot of the work internally. You've probably seen the assembly at the Lion's Town and Country Park. where we've gotten as far as we can. To complete the project right now, we think we need $44,000. Uh, long story short is that, uh, last year we got as far as we could, uh, with with the monies that we had, and we got up to a point where we needed to assemble the fencing. Uh, we did not have that expertise in house. Um, we received a number of quotes from, uh, folks outside. Um, who then we thought the quotes were a bit onerous actually shared those with, uh, actually some of my colleagues and I thought I was off base, but, uh. Uh, my director Gandhi is laughing, but we, we, we had quotes to just assemble fencing when we had the material that went up to, uh, from 42,000 dollars to 37,000 dollars where we've gone. Then I think I've. Solicit did a sourcing exercise where I solicited about at least 10 other vendors and I think we've, um, settled on 1 where I think we've. we're able to get through the finish line. So that's what this $44,000 is for. Again, I won't belabor you with the history of Dick's Sporting Goods, but that's, long story short, is where we're at today. I just want to say that it's noted that I think the important thing on this 1 slide is that, um, there are no public batting cages in the city. So this would be the only 1 that that exists and this will be 2 shoots. And I think, like I said, we are right at the finish line. All we need to do is assemble the fencing. Uh, we have everything ready to go. We have the material. Uh, and I think we have a line of sight on a vendor to do that. Um, I'll just skip through some of this again, because I've covered this already. Uh, this is what it looked like before before we did the build. You can say it was just an empty. Field, uh, which is behind, uh, uh, field, uh, totally field. Number 1. THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE TODAY. THANKS TO THE WORK OF THE INTERNAL STAFF. YOU CAN SEE WE'VE GOT EVERYTHING OTHER THAN THE FENCING. WE HAVE THE MATERIAL AND IT'S JUST A MATTER OF ASSEMBLING WHAT WE HAVE AND FINDING SOMEBODY WITH THE EXPERTISE TO DO THAT. THE FINANCIAL IMPACT, I'M ASKING FOR 44,000 TO ENSURE THAT ALL NECESSARY CONSTRUCTION SERVICES CAN BE FULLY FUNDED FOR THE COMPLETION OF THE PROJECT. AND WE'RE PROPOSING TO USE DEVELOPMENT IMPACT FEES TO FINISH THIS PROJECT. cover the difference and again that's my request tonight is we're recommending that we adopt a resolution amending the fiscal year 2627 adopted budget for construction costs associated with the Lions Town and Country Park batting cages project in the amount of $44,000 and I can answer any questions thank you for that I bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns

I just have a question director April, is it possible to approach our little league and American national and literally to see if they would consider donating some money for this batting cage because their children will be affected by having that they're right behind their fields.

You know, I caution to do that in the absence of an agreement with any one of those. There's some liability involved. A number of people who I did approach, they said, you know, you've taken it this far, but we don't want to touch it. We did, you know, and I don't want to belabor this a little bit, but you'll appreciate this story. After I was kind of beating my head against the wall, I was almost out of options and we were going to go with the more expensive assembly portion person vendor and there was somebody in my office trying to sell me something and she happened to mention that she used to be a contractor. and I says hey do you know anybody who can who does fencing who can assemble uh the fence and this is how God works and she says I do and I called the guy up and actually this guy came in significantly lower than anybody else that I talked to and was willing to do it and work with other cities before and that I'm I'm talking I scoured the whole Valley and they're either people were out of business or they their websites were were gone the numbers didn't you know and when they did when I did talk to them they weren't amenable to working with this

i have no problem asking for money i just don't know that we're going to get it from them and this is going to be open at all times to the public it's not going to be a locked yeah it's it'll be open facility and it's just the cages it's no batting no pitching machine or anything like that right okay open up for public comment in the chamber i see none online around soon we have none mayor okay i close public comment at this time and bring it back for a motion and a second move to approve second I have a motion and a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Parks Director Aber.

Next item. Item D4, City of Madera Support for Opportunity Zones 2.0 Census Tracks, recommended by the California Department of Finance. All right.

You're in, Community Development Director Taggart. Taggart.

Good evening again Mayor Gallegos, Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah, Council Members, Will Tackett, Community Development Director. The item before you this evening is consideration of a resolution supporting the Opportunity Zones 2.0 census tract nominations. Just a quick overview. Opportunity Zones are economically distressed communities defined at the census tract level in which qualifying new investments may receive preferential federal tax treatment. It does not appropriate public funds or guarantee private investments. It creates a federal tax-based investment incentive through a qualified opportunity fund. Eligible investments include commercial industrial real estate, housing infrastructure, and then startup operating businesses that meet federal program requirements. Under the renewed Opportunity Zones 2.0 program, the original 1.0 started in 2017. The governor may nominate up to 25% of the state's qualifying low income census tract of which there are 2469. 25% would mean the ability to nominate up to 618. the US Department of Treasury ultimately certifies the designations. New designation cycle began on July 1st of this year. The new zones will take effect on January 1st, 2027. The original zones will overlap through December 31st, 2028. after which point they will sunset. However, the new program is now permanently a feature of the Internal Revenue Code and establishes a recurring 10-year designation cycle. So we'll do this again in 10 years. The criteria did change substantially from the original program under the updated eligibility framework. tract qualifies when the median family income does not exceed 70% of the applicable medium family income or when the poverty rate is at least 20% and median family income does not exceed 125% of the applicable median. This exhibit demonstrates the original Opportunity Zones designated in 2018. Those are the areas hashed on the screen without color. You'll notice the core of downtown, most of the original downtown neighborhoods on the railroad grid were included in the 2018 designated, excepting those neighborhoods south of 9th Street and east of the freeway. The areas in green represents the census tracts, which are now eligible under the renewed 2.0 program. Um, the recommendation period opened July 1st, and we're due on July 20th city staff submitted forms recommending 6 eligible census tracks within the city boundaries and sphere of influence. Uh, those recommendations were based upon development potential to advance the strategic sectors of California's jobs. 1st state economic blueprint. And, uh, you can see some of those sectors bullet pointed at the bottom of the slide there. What you are recommending tonight or supporting tonight is the Department of finances preferred track. So they have now received all the recommendations of the local authorities. They've considered those visa V. some of their own criteria, which they have not published and they've come up with a preferred list of tracks of the 6 that staff recommended 3 tracks within Madera county were included within the Department of finance preferred list. run through those real quickly here. Census tract 7.02, this is kind of the southwesterly portion of the city, includes many of our industrial lands down to Pecan Avenue and extends all the way up to Sunset. Most of those industrial lands lie between Granada and Pine. This includes Freedom Industrial Park, other properties with railroad access, regional access, and proximity to State Route 99. This area is mostly focusing on those sectors of industrial manufacturing, opportunities for food processing, logistics, ag tech, and skilled workforce job creation. Census Track 5.10 is north of Avenue 12 and west of Freeway 99. This includes Madera Community Hospital, many medical offices along the Almond Avenue corridor, includes residential sites, including the Vitana-specific plan, And it's critical to note here that the red line on this exhibit is the city boundary. So this is an area that bleeds over to what is currently within the county, but the city sphere and that area you see in pink is, um, urban reserve. So those are areas that are unplanned, but which are general plan envisions to be developed with commercial and or industrial uses along. Avenue 12 corridor, so there's opportunity there, uh, relative to health care hub, life sciences, uh, medical office, workforce, training, med tech, supporting services. creating a regional healthcare anchor and medical district. And then finally, since this track 9.01, this is the easterly Yosemite Avenue segment over to Tozer. basically Lake to Tozer and then down Tozer down to Sunrise. This tract primarily qualifies under the sector's initiatives due to underdeveloped and vacant underutilized commercial lands along Yosemite Avenue corridor. We have RHNA housing element sites within this area provides for mixed use opportunities. We have Proximate Recreation and Open Space, Millview Park, Fresno River, Verne McCulloch Trail, potential extensions of that and development along the river frontage. Public comment period runs through August 28th. Anyone, including the governing bodies may submit comments through the GO-PIZ web page portal. City staff did send out solicitation and informational letters to potential interests, encouraging them to submit letters to our attention or to the state. Um, public comments are not required for a track to be nominated and, uh, any given track is not necessarily negatively affected solely because it receives no supporting comments. Uh, at the end of the public comment period, the state will consider the public comments received along with other factors within their criteria. And staff is recommending the council act as follows adopt the proposed resolution. Determining the Act is not a project pursuant to Section 15378 of the California Environmental Equality Act or alternatively exempt pursuant to the common sense exemption Section 15061 of the CEQA guidelines and support census tract 7.02, 5.10, and 9.01 for Opportunity Zone 2.0 nomination. That completes my presentation and I'm available to field questions. Thank you.

Thank you for that. I bring it back to my colleagues for any comments. I see none. I open up for public comment in the chamber. There is none online or on Zoom.

Mayor, I do want to make mention that we did receive two letters of support, one from Joseph Crown and one from Kirk. Copies were provided to the council and are available for the public.

Thank you for that. I bring it back to my colleagues for an adoption of this resolution.

Motion to approve is written. Second.

I have a motion and second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Director Tackett, for that report. Next item, going to E2.

Item E2 is informational report on USGA site visit to the Madera Municipal Golf Course.

You're back, Director Abram. I'm back.

I'm back. It's good.

Anyway. You're a closer.

Always holding everybody up. Anyway, Joe Hebert, item E2, information report on the USGA. Night visit to the Madeira Municipal Golf Course. During the original contract from 2009, there's a provision in the original agreement requiring an annual audit be conducted by the United States Golf Association, USGA. I'm providing this report to inform council the USGA audit provision has been satisfied. They came out this year on July 2nd of this year, or last month, and I'll just kind of go through the findings. What you'll notice is that the findings haven't changed. It's when I first, I think this is the fourth time we had it starting in 2023, but the findings have been pretty consistent. Um, the big, big thing is, uh, the irrigation system. I mean, to summarize this slide irrigation system, not so good putting greens are good. Uh, they just want us to continue, uh, uh, adding sand to the sand traps. Um, as we're doing, um, they. They talk about the greens are are pretty good. They want us to increase the aeration and fertility of the, the greens and and just, uh, stay stay mindful of the weed control. Uh, overall, um, like I said, the, uh, critical item, uh, is the irrigation system, uh, and the, the recommendations have been consistent from 2023, um, with council approval. We did start a sourcing exercise. We're in the process of, uh, exercising an agreement with. Irrigation consultant, which should be, um. should be completed within the next 30 to 45 days. And the budgetary estimate for that is not to exceed $15,000. Funds from this effort will come from the golf course allocation fund that we have established previously. This report is really for information only. I think you have a copy in your packets, so you can go through it if you so desire. and you'll learn some terms like Dela grass and good stuff like that. And so I didn't know what that meant, but I do now. So you're welcome to do that. So again, this is for information only. And that's why I'm submitting this. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer.

Thank you for that. I will bring it back to my colleagues. Council Member Rodriguez.

Yes, thank you, Mayor Gallegos. And again, thank you, Director Hebert for that presentation. as you noted um that irrigation system is is dated and um also as he noted that that there is a consultant on the way we haven't really had an opportunity to meet to execute that but there is funds in our um account there so that we can continue with that consultant and hopefully get that central system um situated so that we can get that irrigation going i know there's a lot of other items that came up there those are minor compared to the irrigation But this gives us a pretty good roadmap of what we can present to Sierra Golf Management, letting them know what other items at the course can be enhanced. So with that, that's all I have. Thank you again, Joseph.

Appreciate your time. Thank you for your comment. I open up for public comment. Anyone in the chamber? I see none online or on Zoom.

We have none, Mayor.

Okay. I close public comment. Informational. Moving on to the next item.

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

I will go to my left councilmember Vegas Oh, nothing to report. Thank you, Council Member Rodriguez.

I'll make this quick. I had an opportunity to visit and tour Diablo Canyon Power Plant, which was an eye-opening experience for me. Obviously, that's a nuclear power that's being supplied 24-7 to over 10% of California's electricity, which is roughly 2 to 2.5 million homes. That being said, when you think about power is how do you store that power? We haven't had that infrastructure, but fact that that's pushing through and that was going to be decommissioned in 2025 is scary to think when we had those rolling blackouts anyhow it was very interesting really uh um something i can bring back here to my community i think the mayor had an opportunity to do so but if you haven't i would i would advise you all to at least take a look at that because then you really know how vulnerable Um, the state is, but also our cities are when there is no electricity we can over produce, which is great. It's how you store it. And until you find that source. That's 1 source of energy that's constantly producing energy 24 7. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Council member me here.

Thank you. This year's Guelaguetas is coming back. It's going to be on Sunday, October 11th. It's going to be from 2 PM to 7 PM. There are about half a dozen Guelaguetas that take place in California and this is the uh only one that I believe is happening during the evening this time so the organizing committee is very excited to host it again this year and it's going to take place at the Madera District Fairgrounds and flyers are forthcoming and that concludes my report thank you Councilmember Montes thank you Mayor Pro Tem Zachariah

Uh, just 1 in the spirit of, uh, licensing, uh, I would ask if we could bring about. Um, maybe some discussion about licensing related to our card rooms. It's my understanding that there's an individual that controls the entire. Licensing or licenses that we have for that, and maybe have some potential revenue loss. Since that was the license are not being executed from what I understand for a long time. Um, so if if the council would allow, maybe having some discussion related to that.

One, two, three, four, five.

Thank you. Got all of us. We're good. Thank you. Thank you for your report. Councilwoman Evans.

Welcome back.

Oh, no.

Thank you so much. I just wanted to say that I attended the King Hussein ribbon cutting ceremony a couple few days ago, and it was very interesting to just know about Mr. Hussein and his religious, religious aspects of life and the things that he incorporated in and then the number of individuals that came from like Brigham Young and different organizations like that. So that was, you know, very interesting to me. I also went to Leona Pistaresi's funeral service and the lady was dynamic. I did not realize that, you know, she was this broad in the spectrum. I know being with Monty, you would have to be, but just she herself was was a powerful lady. So those are the two things. And thank you very much.

And I thank you for your comment. I will just be asking my colleagues to entertain. We've gotten a lot of good feedback on our color palette that we have put in place on social media. But I am hearing a lot from the community about existing buildings that are sitting there that aren't with our color palette. if this council would be entertaining an item to come back to look at how we can subsidize and maybe partner with some of the buildings downtown that need some repair, just not on the color, but on the post or what's ever needed to make it look nice. Since we're putting this beautiful road and maybe using cannabis money to offset that amount and just give us some information. have all of us okay thank you i'd like to thank staff for uh can i make a close yes um i would like to thank staff for hanging in there with the the down of our technology and i.t kevin from coming from home to put us back online i don't know who did because we weren't here but thank you for that we do have um excuse me for the title i'm not sure fire fire over be ever over bay is here with um our captains that are out firing helping support other fire aid A that's happening not in madera county we had lifetime achievement awards happen we had some great people in madera that were honored and it was interesting like a Councilman Evan said about King was saying, these are trailblazers in our Community that have done so much for us. One sad thing I have to end on is fellow birdie from this community who is a developer here and been involved many decades has passed away, um, unexpectedly, and our prayers are with him and his family. With that, I will give it to our attorney for closed session. Thank you, Mayor.

There's no reportable action taken a closed session.

Thank you. And I will close and adjourn this meeting at 928. Thank you. Everyone safe travels home.