City Council - Regular Meeting

With us and that you give us guidance and wisdom as we recognize our veterans today. May that you just bless over them, those both serving, who have served, and who have left us, and we ask all this in your name. Amen.

Right. Remain standing. Ready?

Thank you for that. Moving on to the approval of the agenda. I bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns.

Mayor Gallegos, I'd like to, see if we can bring item e four, behind item a one prior to our consent calendar. And the rationale behind that is that we do have an item on consent that'll be approved, but this is directly with the airport advisory.

K. Do my colleagues have any concerns or corrections for moving that? And I'll do that

in a motion if we can move item e four behind a one. I

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

Under presentations is a proclamation recognizing Veterans Day.

Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call up our commanders up here, please, our veterans. While they're coming up, this is a great honor for myself and the council tonight. I am a school teacher, and this is something that I stress so importantly to our students at John Adams, that our veterans are the ones who have protected us and made sure that we are in a land of freedom. Over here, gentlemen, you wanna come over here?

Right there. Oh, you can come over to this side. Alright. So Veterans Day is it's the greatest acknowledgment of our freedom to honor our armed forces veterans who have sacrificed for their freedom. And where in 1975, Congress voted to approve Veterans Day as a national holiday every November 11.

In honor of our veterans who have served in the armed forces, the city of Madera recognizes and respects our veterans for their many contributions. The city has all branches of military represented and a dozen employees who have donated their military uniforms in service of our community and our country. By their service and their dedication efforts, these men and women have earned this gratitude from our community and the city of Madera. As that, ICC Gagos, mayor of the city of Madera, and behalf of the entire city council, do hereby proclaim November 11 as Veterans Day. We encourage all residents to recognize this fortitude and sacrifice of our veterans through public ceremonies and prayers.

Congratulations on our Veterans Day. Thank you for being here tonight.

As commander of post nineteen eighty one here in Madeira, I would like to thank the city and the mayor for this proclamation. Thank you.

There we go. Again, thank you for the congratulations. You.

You. Okay? Thank you.

What an honor to have both of you in the chamber tonight.

Thank you. Relate on kind of stuff. There you go.

City Clerk Gonzales, moving on to the next item.

Is public comment. The first fifteen 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 not 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. At this time, I open up for public comment. If anybody would like to speak, please come up to the podium.

Good evening, madam mayor and city council members. My name is Harlan Erbato. I'm the founder founder of the Big Valley Horseshoe League here in Madera. I am here tonight to request your support to fund eight additional horseshoe pitching courts at Rotary Park. As mentioned before, this council, Madera is located in the middle of the state and is an ideal location to hold the state tournaments.

If you drove by Rotary Park tonight, you would see over a 100 horseshoe pitchers and their families engaged in in league play. Players from nine surrounding cities do not have time to go home to eat dinner. They eat fast foods from our local restaurants. They get meat from our local markets for barbecues. So they continually support the economy of Madera for the past twenty five years.

For the the horseshoe courts are utilized throughout the city by both the league and the general community. If we build those additional courts, we would qualify to bring a state tournament to the Madera, which would enhance our economy by using our hotels and restaurants. With the new casino coming in, it is only going to enhance our status as far as getting a tournament play in Madera. In addition, we would receive statewide recognition if we hosted those state and local tournaments. The additional horseshoe courts would benefit the community by expanding the existing Horseshoe League and also bringing additional revenue to the city from out of town players.

And if this horseshoe courts are funded, the Big Valley Horseshoe League will work tirelessly with the Madera Parks and Community Service to make Madera the horseshoe pitching capital of the state.

I thank you for your time. Thank you for your comment.

Next comment.

Good evening, everybody. I'm Ali. I'll wait till the timer starts. Thank you all for being here today. Thank you to our veterans for your service. We I sincerely do appreciate you. Chiefs, thank you as well. Hope I didn't step on your toes on the way out of here. I'm Ali. On behalf of the Madera Islamic community, I wanna invite everybody, city council and the public, regardless of creed, faith, religion, culture, caste, to our Islamic center food drive scheduled on the twenty fifth.

We hold this every single year for the citizens of Madera. Each year, it's a special event for us. This year, we're actually really pleased to announce that we're gonna be serving a 150 families in Madera. In response to the recent challenges, obviously, brought brought by the federal shutdown, you know, families are hurting. So we decided to increase the protein portion of our food distribution. We know from a lot of people that talk to us that a lot of people, you know, are helped out by EBT, SNAP, CalFresh, all sorts of state assistance programs, federal assistance programs, and as such. So we're actually looking to add more funding for that for the month of December as well. We also have an event for December. So, again, this is on the twenty fifth. Anybody is free to join.

It'll be at the Madera Islamic Center right here in town. Again, thank you to you guys, and thank you for giving me the podium.

Thank you for your comment. Next comment. I'm not speaking English. No worries.

Street.

Next comment.

Good evening, counsel. Glad to be here. And an honor to our veterans, I pay tribute to them always. Our father was a veteran and part of the post and also the American Legion here in Madera. I'm Philip Gallegos and retired Parks and Recreation director for City of Kerman.

And I'm here today to talk about a program that I implemented in Kerman that's been on my shelf in my retired mode, because currently, I'm chasing after a two year old. That's my new full time job. And I'm ready to unfold that and help City of Madera implement that program. And, I've talked with the veterans a time or two, about the program, and they seem to, support it and would be a willing partner in helping to implement it. It is the, military, and it could be called the Madera military honor program.

And here is a banner that we had in Kerman when I implement that program. And that was back in 2018 when we started it. We started, I think, our first year with, you know, six or eight banners, and I think now we have 80 banners down going Madera Avenue from the beginning all the way to the end. And it's such, I I can't explain the feeling when you drive down there and you see that all these service people. The program involves the active, the veteran, and the memorial, which could possibly be phased in over, two or three years.

And it's really a tribute to our active members. When we were working with them, some of the letters and the notes that we received back from them were very heartwarming, especially touching for the families. It really shows the city's commitment in terms of feeling valued for those those family members who basically are making those sacrifice along with their children and to the veterans who have served and, of course, to those who have lost their lives in war. And so I'm here tonight to seek council's approval to move forward with this program. I'm here to assist and volunteer in all manners.

Like I said, I've I've done the program. I think I can make it very easy for the staff that would be assigned this. I was assigned this council back in 2018. And to be quite be quite honest, with all of the things that I did through my career in Kerman, this had to have been one of the most touching and most heartfelt programs. And Madera's a beautiful town. It it's got a lot of community spirit. And I I've talked to moms. I've talked to dads. And everybody that I've talked to is in full support and would like to see something like this to honor our service people. And so, with that, I turn it over to council.

I'm here at your service to get this going, and let's make Madera even better. Thank you.

Your comment? I see no other comments in the chamber. Anybody online or on Zoom, city clerk Gonzalez? We have none, mayor. Thank you for that. I will close public comment at this time, and we will be moving on to the next item.

Item A one, ordinance amending city council city council member salaries.

And that will be presented by our own city clerk, Gonzales.

Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Alicia Gonzales. I'm the city clerk for the city of Madera. And tonight, I bring before you an ordinance an introduction of an ordinance amending city council member salaries. Council salaries are governed by the Madera Municipal Code two dash one point o five and government code three six five one six.

Under California government code three six five one six, which governs general law cities, the counts city council may adopt an ordinance to adjust current salary. The city council last adopted an ordinance in February 2014, adjusting council member salaries from $345 to $500 per month. Any changes take effect after the next election in November 2026 if this ordinance is adopted. Senate bill three twenty nine approved on 06/29/2023 by governor Newsom amended government code three six five one six. This allowed for an increase of the maximum allowable salary from 500 to 1,600 per month for cities with populations between 50,075, which includes the city of Madera.

Periodic adjustments help maintain the value of compensation by keeping pace with inflation and reduce the likelihood of significant controversial increases. Council members' commitment extend beyond regular meetings and include evening, weekend evening and weekend events, regional representation, and constituent engagement. Council members are eligible to receive medical benefits comparable to those provided by city employees. No changes are proposed at this time for those benefits. The city's municipal code authorizes the city council salaries be set in accordance with state law.

The council may choose to make no changes to the current compensation, maintain the current monthly stipend of 500 resulting in no additional financial impact, increase compensation by 5% per year since the last adjustment was in 2014, resulting in a new monthly salary of approximately a hun $800. And the third option is to increase compensation by a lower amount as determined by counsel. The financial impact, if approved, adjustments would take effect in December beginning in December 2026. The first option would be to maintain the current rate of 500 per month. No financial impact.

Option two would be again to implement the full 5% annual adjustment, and this would be effective in November 2026 following the election or option three, implement a smaller increase as mentioned in the previous slide. The alternative would be for council council major x staff to return with additional information to consider amending the current ordinance relevant to council member compensation. And tonight's recommendation is to waive further reading and introduce an ordinance of the city council of the city of Madera, adjusting the compensation for the city council by amending Madera Municipal Code section 2.1 o five by title only. May I now turn it back over to you?

Thank you for that. I bring it back to my colleagues for any questions and concerns on this item. I see none. I opened up for public comment. I see none in the house. Anybody online or on Zoom?

We have no one online, mayor. Bear with me one second. I'll check my email. We have no written public comment, mayor.

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

So move this to be approved.

Second. I

have a motion and second. City attorney has a question.

Yes. May I read the ordinance, please? So the motion is to, wait for the reading and introduce an ordinance of the city council of the city of Madera, adjusting the compensation for the city council by amending Madera's municipal code section 2.1 o five by title only. Thank you.

Thank you for that reading. I have a motion and a second on the floor. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for that. Moving on to E4, City Clerk Gonzales.

Item e four is the airport advisory commission rules of procedure.

And that will be presented by our city manager, Rodriguez.

Thank you very much, mayor. Swapped this this morning, so I will try to make sure I'm sharing the proper screen. The others the other screen went? The other screen one. There we go.

Item e four is the is a discussion on the airport advisory commission rules and procedures. As councils aware at our last council meeting, the city council had made a motion to bring this item back for discussion. In terms of background, the airport advisory commission is currently comprised of seven individuals. Those seven individuals are each selected by council member plus the mayor, making the seven. The AAC, in their current capacity, they advise the council and city staff on airport related issues that are nonlegislative in action and that are not, related to land use items.

Common themes at the airport or some things that they could, discuss is just the operations, the maintenance of the airport, but they have no land use, authority or discretion. AAC members are appointed in the same manner and in the same fashion as all of the committees at the city. A council member makes a recommendation to the mayor. The mayor can then, move that recommendation before the city council, and the and the entire city council can take action or the city, or the mayor can deny that and able to go back to the council member. That is consistent with all other committees, commissions, and advisory appointees at the city of Madera.

Not to be confused, we also have an airport land use commission. The airport land use commission does have some legislative authority or recommendation that that is currently managed by the county. Every county in the state of California, has an airport land use commission. There may be a couple of the smaller counties that may potentially combine with other counties if they don't have an airstrip. However, here in Madera, we do have a couple of airstrips, and those are overseen by the airport land use commission.

The airport land use commission, they do advise either the, county or the city on land use matters surrounding the airport. Airport land use commission does not get involved with the day to day operations of the airport. Rather, it's the areas around the airport and the uses around the airport to ensure that there's no conflicts in uses. For example, you wouldn't want a tall building next to the airport underneath the flight path. You try to minimize residential uses underneath the flight path or the height of trees because you wanna ensure that the flight paths are maintained, accordingly.

So, currently, the the rules or the procedures of the airport land use commission I'm I'm sorry. Of the AAC, not the airport land use commission, are are regulated by the city under the rules and procedures established by the city council, a couple of years ago. However, specific to this committee, there is a resolution that was adopted by the city council in 2022 that's attached to your report, and the meetings are held once a quarter at 10AM on a Tuesday. For, more recently, we have had challenges, getting a quorum. We do have some vacancies on there, and I believe that that is one of the reasons that this council wanted to discuss, to discuss this item this evening.

With that being said, city staff is in the process of updating bylaws very similar to what we did with the city council a number of years ago for rules and procedures in terms of operationally how these committees operate, and we are planning on bringing that back for all committees and commissions to the city council for action. The exception being the planning commission because the planning commission has some very strict standards pursuant to California state law. So the exception to what I just said again is the planning commission, but all other committees and commissions in terms of how is a chair appointed, what's the who can ask a committee member to to step aside? What are the rules and procedures if if a committee member, is not attending the meetings? Should there be a set time to to those types of rules, city staff is in the process of preparing those, and we'll be bringing back those items or that item to council for council discussion and action.

So with that, that concludes my presentation. Again, this item is being brought for discussion at the request of council. Thank you.

Thank you, city manager, Rodriguez. Just to radiate what we said last time, my comment was, in 2022, the bylaws were changed by the airport advisory committee about taking two county representatives off the board and making it all city. And my suggestion was, I think it would be important to have two county residents of the seven, and the others could be city. If we have two that have some background in aviation, I think that would be great. It wouldn't have to be required, but that wasn't the bylaws.

And in order to change it back, we would need council's approval on that because we can't get a quorum with our airport commission. So, those are just my comments. Council member mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez.

Thank you, mayor Gallegos, and thank you again, city manager, for bringing this item. I think this item is brought forth because of several appearances from a gentleman that has tried to make the meetings. And, unfortunately, due to lack of quorum, we we we don't have, the advisory in operation. But, also, part of their, responsibilities is is, and you mentioned this and that was attached to our staff report is item e that would report to the council at least once a year. I don't recall the last time that we've had a report to the city council regarding the airport advisory.

So my concerns are that we don't hear what's taking place. And when I do hear of the airport, it's something that well, there's no there's no quorum. So if there's no direction, then how do we as council members know what's taking place at at the city asset? So it's very important for us to take that. Now part of the municipal code that was amended, also stated that, you know, the process by which members will be appointed.

And at this moment, based on that, section one, it reads that the mayor shall have appointments, but it doesn't specifically say if those appointments have to be within the city unless there's something otherwise that wasn't presented here. Now I know we made some commitments before regarding certain bylaws and procedures, But for this specific commission, can the mayor have the appointment of someone that has vested interest in that airport that may not lie within the city limits? And I don't see anywhere here that it says that it doesn't. So maybe just some clarity so that we know when these appointments and or nominations are coming before this council, we we have a a greater understanding of who can be appointed. No different than the advisory for the golf course.

It's not necessarily people within the city that are within our specific districts or respective districts, but rather people that have somewhat of knowledge and have vested interest in that facility as well. And and this is kinda to my point of what I I would like to see or this body to entertain that in order for us to keep any advisory, they have to be engaged in that business as well to be able to bring some value to that advisory. Those are my comments. I know we can't take action today, but it warrants a discussion because it's not once, not twice, but three times that we've seen a gentleman come up here. Maurice, I believe, was his name.

And and that I just it's unfortunate that we can't build a quorum. And that's all I have, madam mayor. Thank you.

Thank you, mayor Pro Tem. And, again, when the bylaws were changed in '22, that also stated they had to have some knowledge of aviation. That also was taken out when the two county, appointments could be on. That was also another thing taken out of the bylaws. And I think that's important, like mayor mayor Proteo Rodriguez says, they should have some knowledge, especially when that community out there is asking our advisers for answers.

And if they have no knowledge of it, it's very hard to answer. For me as the mayor now, but as a council member, when I always had concerns, my airport commissioner was always in contact with me of what was happening out there, especially when we went back to the FOB system. They were having problems with everybody on the on the, airport landing area, and that's why we kind of moved to the FOB system to make sure that we could monitor who was in and out of the airport. Councilwoman Evans.

So to, add to that, the young man Maurice, we met him, city manager, Rodriguez and I and. City council member, Viegas excuse me, I'm flubbing but anyway, we met him out there. We spoke with him and he goes out. He's he is a pilot. Maurice is a pilot.

So, I have submitted his application and I'm just waiting now for the mayor to come back and to approve it and he will be my commissioner for the airport commissioner coming forward. So, just to highlight the fact that, you know, he's very interested and he goes out. He says he goes out and he sits and he just. He monitors out there, so he's very knowledgeable of the airport. So he will be one now that will be sitting on the commission, once everything is passed and approved. So just letting you guys know that.

K. With that, I open it up for public comment. Anybody in the chamber have a comment? Please come up to the podium.

Yes. Thank you, mayor Gavis and council members. Mike Pistorosi, DMP Development, 2001 Howard Road. I believe that we have an absolute gem sitting out there with this airport. And and just as you would not take your car to the dry cleaners to have it worked on, you shouldn't have people on the airport advisory commission who have no airport knowledge or aircraft knowledge whatsoever.

And opening it up to, also people in the county because there are people in the county who fly also and utilize that airport. The the importance of having someone on that commission who also has a vested an absolute vested interest in the airport would be I'm sure that one one of the people who have an FBO out there would be glad to sit on that on that commission also. FBO is fixed base operator. That's someone who has a business there on the airport property, either repairs aircraft or services aircraft. So it's extremely important that we have people, and you're gonna get more interest if you have people who have aviation interest.

But particularly someone who has a vested interest, has an investment out there in a hangar and a business and so forth. So I'd really like to see you change the rules and require at least one member to have, to be a fixed base operator out there or have an on airport business in addition to having it open to the county and requiring, aviation experience. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Any other comments? Any online or on Zoom?

We have none, mayor.

Thank you. I'll close public comment and bring it back to my colleagues. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez.

Yes. Thank you, mayor Gagels. So, you know and I think I had brought this up before, but the makeup of our advisory over at the golf course is somewhat unique in comparison to, what we have for these other boards and commissions. And they're not all pretty much uniform, so to speak. Right?

There, you have two service club members. You have an at large, golfer, no golfer, two folks, the operator that operates the golf course, the operator that operates the restaurant, the parks director, and a city council member. And I think that brings good balance because there is a mixture of people that are have a vested interest not only in making that facility better, but also, you know, you're gonna have these operators there too that are gonna, chime in with their suggestions and recommendations. And, again, following the the makeup of that advisory, we then come back annually, and the operator comes and provides us a an update. I provide you an update.

So I think it's important that if we are going to discuss of of possibly changing or modifying or that we have that dynamic of people in that advisory, in that role to be able to enhance that gem, so to speak. Right? And and you know, I I do agree with some of the comments that were made regarding, you know, just making sure that we have someone within that airport also giving their advice because that's what they see. And that's what I have. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, mayor Procham. One more comment. Oh, go ahead, council member Zakaria.

Sorry. And just just to kinda I I would say in agreement with you, I mean, as, you know, my dad's serving on that commission, I can tell you the frustration of going to each meeting and not having a quorum and feeling somewhat it's it's kind of useless. I mean, you're gonna run out of these people who are gonna wanna put their time in. Every time they try to go to a meeting, they can't make anything happen. Experience, I would agree with. As far as how the structure just an understanding, are you are you still saying to have the seven members and have an addition to that of people of maybe specialty, like what's being proposed or somehow removing the seven and kinda starting fresh similar to the golf? Well

and I'm sorry. No. I just wanna I'm just trying

to get, like Yeah. What what your kind of thought is on this.

Some clarity.

Yeah. We do this on that podcast. I don't think No. Well, here's what I I will say is that it's it's not so much, taking away the seven member. Maybe the addition, kinda what was said earlier in public comment. This is a discussion item. Right? And maybe recommendations from here can be brought back. And and structuring the structure of how the makeup of that that, advisory is.

And the reason why I have that clarification because right now, they can't we can't get seven people together. I I mean, I would hate to make it, like, a 10 person panel, and now we're back to having four show up. So I think that's that would be something to make sure we structure it in such a way that meetings can first off happen. And then having the knowledge there is definitely important, but I want meetings to happen as as being the number one item. So I don't wanna make it so restrictive that we say, well, you have to be this a, b, and c before we can even have a meeting, and now we've kind of nixed everybody that's even potential candidates. So

Right. Thank you for your comments. One comment I would like to make is when you do a seven advisory committee, it's hard to get that quorum. If we did a five, we do have several committees that we appoint that have a five, not a member, and it's easier to get a quorum with a five and then seven. We could do a five that are voting members and two additional that are that are out of the airport and invested that give a lot of comment and give, you know, feedback into this advisory committee, but the five would be the actual ones that are appointed by council and have that vote. That's what I would my suggestion. I know our city attorney or city manager have something they wanna share.

We were just brainstorming on how a five would work. One thing that you could do, and I'm not putting myself in the middle of this, but you could do a five with two alternates. And then that way, if some reason, two of the alternates didn't show up and even one did or none of them showed up, you still have three. So as long as you form that magic three, you have a quorum, which should be easier to reach. That's also an option as well.

Okay. So right now, I have my colleagues are good with that suggestion. We A member of five with two alternates.

Is another item I mean, would it be possible to have somewhat, like, have a rotating where you still have the seven, but two are kind of your I don't know, leads or rest. I was still I mean, I wanna say just five only because I don't want it to be where a counselor feels like they're five persons.

I may, Mara, one of the ways to address that is you could just rotate through every year as to who's the alternate from which district. And then that way you have

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That'll go for that.

And are we okay with thumbs up of bringing people that are in the county also on this advisory board if you have someone? We do have actually a general that lives in the county that has great knowledge of an airport. That would be important.

What what was the general concern of why we felt it needed to be more city than involving Madera County?

Our bylaws used to say that. The past administration here changed it, and he wanted just city residents with no knowledge could be put on the committee.

Based off what our notice says is that there's not really somebody can't come in somehow have invested interest that would skew because these are just more directions towards the general practice, though, at

the airport.

So there's should be that Yeah. That issue. Correct?

Correct. Okay. Council, may I approach Amritarias?

Yes. Thank you, mayor. So I, again, I didn't see where the language states that it's gotta be within city limits. It is a Madera.

Say that in the bylaw.

And maybe I missed it, but I don't see why we couldn't open this up to to county residents that may have a vested interest in in the airport. And and, again, you know, entertain possibly a council member being part of that if they you know, they really truly wanna see how this operation is at I don't have aviation experience, so I probably wouldn't nominate myself, but let's let's nominate Shannon.

I think as counsel, we can go to those meetings whenever we want to get that knowledge, but, not saying that we're gonna somebody has aviation doesn't we're not gonna be here forever. And if we put that in there and we have a council member, a different council changes ten years from now, who's to say that person's gonna have that knowledge? So as as a councilwoman and a mayor now, I try to attend all my, advisory committees. So I think putting a council member on it that doesn't have the knowledge, then we're actually putting somebody on again that's not going to really benefit this committee. Councilwoman Evans Mahia. Sorry.

Thank you, mayor. Are we proposing that all of the members have some aviation experience, and how do we determine that? Who determines that? Who proves that?

Wait a minute, Parson.

That would be on their application. That would say all their knowledge. They have to fill that out.

Oh, so it's based on what they say. And? Okay. Pretty honest, you have to sign.

True. I mean, this is all true. Councilwoman Evans.

Sorry. And, also so we're saying that all of them are supposed to have okay. That was it. Councilwoman Evans?

Yes. Okay. So I'm for the the the five and two, I'm good with that. But I'm not good with the fact of saying that everyone has to have knowledge because some people enjoy aviation and may not have the experience or, you know, the where and all of the actual. Aviation and may be able to go out and learn some things and be a great inputter.

So I don't wanna just limit people to be able to say, well, oh, I would love to be on the commission, but now because I don't have the experience, then I'm not able to. So maybe we can kinda fluff that up a little bit or whatever. But, I'm good for the five and the two.

K. I I just wanna comment on that that, I've been to those meetings, and the community that's out there have questions. And if I'm out there and have no knowledge and I'm on this commission, how can I answer those questions? And then it is intimidating if you have no knowledge and you feel like, what am I doing here? Because we've had commissioners go out there that have been appointed with no knowledge, and they sit there and they're like, what am I doing here? I have no idea how to answer these questions. And they're pretty feisty about this airport, and they want it to run like an oil machine. And without having knowledge on this commission, it doesn't reflect well on this council because we're the ones appointing them to represent us.

Understand that part, but I'm just saying that there may very well be someone that doesn't have it. You know? And I understand because when each one of us got on council, some may have had more experience than others, but some of us did not. But we had to learn. So this too, in order for them to be able to be knowledgeable of aviation, they had to actually learn. So let them go and and at least try.

You have to fly or be part of that airport to have that knowledge. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez.

Yeah. And I think to councilwoman Evan's point is that preferably would be maybe language because part of the duties and responsibilities are budgetary. There's operations, master planning, land use, and reports. And you gotta have common sense of those areas. I think it's important. And I think that's probably the bigger is that you have common sense into those areas. Right? It doesn't necessarily mean flying. Right? I think, one of our public comments said it that there's an operator there that has a vested interest because they're a mechanic. There. Yeah. Right? But they they work on these aircrafts that that get up there. So, again, I think it's someone that has that's rounded in these arenas, and preferably, you have that experience.

I wouldn't wanna take that away from anyone that wants to learn. If I was the council member that was designated, then I would go in there diving in, but immersing myself in in the airport. Right? And it's not just about planes. There's a lot more stuff. So Right. Maybe the language can be crafted towards preferably. And then based on their applications, would give this commit this council an opportunity to approve.

What you can and can't do. Right. Okay. Councilwoman Mahia.

I, I am the of the idea that, all of these all of these resources, they're still taxpayer funded, we're all taxpayers. And whether I have aviation experience or not, I wouldn't want to close the door off to people that may be interested. It's very difficult to find somebody in the community that is interested in the first place because these are not paid roles. And I wouldn't want to just have it closed off to people that have a vested interest because, like I said, this is funded by taxpayers' dollars at the end of the day. So I would want to see some sort of diversity and balance the way that Golf Course Commission has.

May I offer a suggestion? And I'm probably out of my lane here, so if I am, just count me.

Get back in your lane. I have to

give you Thank you. And one potential option could be, to to initially there's a couple of council members that do not wanna limit it to aviation experience. One potential option could be, as a pilot program, no pun intended, is to change the the adopted time of meetings, which is the sec it's that's, one I think it's the first Tuesday of a quarter at 10AM. That's potentially one issue. My suggestion would be to have the committee establish a time and a place, not city staff.

Mhmm. So that could be put, one potential option. The second item, I think, that would provide council much greater flexibility is to not limit it to city residents, to simply say that that you do not have to be a city resident. My recommendation, though, would be if you're not a city resident, one potential item could be to to either have the person, if they're not a city resident, either have aviation experience, be a licensed pilot, have be the primary lessee at the property, at the airport, be an employee of a primary lessee. For example, if there's an airport mechanic, I'll say hypothetically, they'd probably be a very good person on the committee to to talk to us about what's going on at the airport.

Maybe they're not the primary lessee, but they're at the airport daily. That's probably a pretty good person. Or someone who has, a a a hangar space lease with us if they're not a city resident. And I think that could potentially help flesh some of this out and then also have some kind of attendance requirements if you miss so many meetings. We notify council.

And, my only other recommendation would be is to potentially keep it at seven individuals, not the five individuals. Because going back to something council member Zacharias said, if you're one of the two individuals that are not the primary that year, you may I'm not gonna say you're gonna check out, but I I think it's hard to show up to meetings if you're an alternate. Mhmm. You may simply say, well, I'm gonna go hang out at home and start coming to the meeting. But, again, I, those are just a couple of observations and some feedback based on what I'm hearing from council.

Okay. Any other questions from my colleagues? Are we good with that direction from what the city manager just said?

Yes.

Now just a clarifying question, and you will bring this back for some future discussion and or adoption? Because I think we can talk about it. Right. But at some point, we have to implement this and make sure that we get this thing rolling. We have people. Right. I think we have one before us here on the next consent item that's going to be recommended for approval. We have others, but we wanna make sure that, we have the language so that we know what to expect when these come before us.

Can we can bring this back, at whatever direction council would like us to. We can bring it back either back for a discussion or for an adoption. The the section for appointment is in the municipal code. I will have to touch base with Shannon to see if it's a municipal code amendment or if it's by resolution. Some of the items that I talked about, like the meeting times, those are adopted by resolution.

So, definitely, I would suggest a resolution at a minimum. I will have to go back and look at the fine print on the ordinance that's housed in the municipal code to see if that's also required. However, we can bring that back relatively quickly, in government time, of course, because it's it's not a big ask, I'll say. And I think, the legal counsel and I are definitely understand that this is a priority for counsel, and I don't think it's a heavy lift.

Okay. Are we good with direction? Okay. And just to end that, if you, as council members, have difficulty filling in your vacancies, reach out to another council member because I'm sure they have other people even in the airport area that they could recommend to sit and represent your district. K. With that, we are moving on, city clerk, to our consent calendar.

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 of any questions and concerns. I see none. I open it up for public comment.

Excuse me, mayor. If I may, in an abundance of caution, I'm gonna re I've recused myself from item b 15. That's, a Madera Unified School District fee waiver request. The reason being is my brother is a Madera Unified School District employee, and he is the one that made the request. So, again, I was not involved with this item. Thank you.

K. Thank you for that city manager. It's been put on record. And with that, open it for public comment. Anybody on Zoom or online?

We have none, mayor.

Thank you. I will close public comment and bring it to my colleagues for a motion and a second.

Motion to approve as written.

I second.

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

Section d, petitions, bids, resolutions, ordinances, and agreements. Item d one, domestic well mitigation program update and memorandum of understanding with respect to the cost sharing and the implementation of the domestic well mitigation program. Action on this item is by the GSA, Groundwater Sustainability Agency.

Yay. We always look forward to this. Our director of engineering help. Good job.

Council members. This presentation will be short, but you'll love it. Little bit of background. Council considered two items at the 10/15/2025 council meeting. First was a draft memorandum of understanding with respect to the cost sharing in the implementation of the domestic well mitigation program.

I'll refer to that as MOU, and that was by and between the city, Madera Irrigation District, and Madera Water District, for the partnering on a domestic well mitigation program. At the last meeting, I did present in the in the PowerPoint presentation. I highlighted a section of the agreement where we made recommendations to to the other members of the partnership. Those recommendations were accepted. Council did confirm the intent to partner with m MIT and enter into an agreement or enter into the MOU as was highlighted at the previous meeting.

A letter was letter to be sent to the Department of Water Resources illustrating the status of the GSAs within mid air sub basin relative to well mitigation. That was referenced at the last meeting as well. I did show that letter with a couple very small modifications. Council did agree that that letter could be sent out. It has not been sent out as of yet.

Now the partnering, since the council meeting on October 15, staff has received a revised MOU. Changes to the MOU are essentially typos from that provided in the staff report. I went through it line by line trying to find what what was there, and all I did was find that there was a formatting error. The revised MOU has been provided to the council prior to this meeting with council or or with copies made available in the chambers. I believe that the at both doors, more than likely.

Staff is recommending approval of that MOU. With regard to the coordination work group, there have not been no meetings since the last one on 10/01. Council consideration tonight is to the recommendation to approve the MOU. With that, I'd be happy to take any questions.

Perfect. Thank you for that report, director of engineering. I bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. I see none. I open up for public comment. Anybody in the chamber? I see none. Anybody online or on Zoom? We have none, Mayor. Thank you. I will close public comment at this time and bring it back to my colleagues for a motion and a second.

Motion to approve.

Second.

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

Thank

item.

Item d two, one year extension to agreements for professional on call engineering services.

Alright. Presented by our deputy engineer bidder. Thank you, and welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, mayor and council members. I am trying to pull up the here we are.

It's a pretty flower.

I love that blue. Very blue.

Okay. Tonight, I'm here to present the one year extension to agreements for professional on call engineering services. Back in '9 in 2022, we faced an extensive capital improvement program and continued private development demands on our department such that, we issued a request for qualifications for on call engineering and land surveying services. The intent was to develop a pool of firms on retainer capable of providing a variety of engineering services. On October 19, council approved entering into agreements with 10 engineering consulting firms offering a variety of, skill sets, kind of for our use in the department.

The agreements work for a three year term with the provision for two one year extensions. I'd like to note that these on call services are also available for other departments. Parks department, transit, and public works have used or intend to use these consultants from the on call list for either consulting services or for assisting with some of the smaller capital projects. Some examples are trail construction, park facility improvements that have been funded with some of our grants. We intend to use it with the bus shelter installation project, and we've conducted numerous technical studies and modeling for our water system, our water wells, demands, sewer system, and out at the wastewater treatment plant.

And then continuing on to the services that we have, used for our on call, sewer main rehabilitation and replacement projects, sewer lift station projects, water main replacements, a new traffic signal, traffic engineering studies, assisting with environmental reviews and supporting documents for our capital projects, and legal descriptions for right of way that might be needed for these projects. The requested services are implemented through a task order that it defines the specific scope of work and fees. So no funds are encumbered with the consultants until this task order is approved and the fees are negotiated and accepted. The total value of all the task orders issued to each firm was set at 300,000 per year with a maximum cumulative amount of 900,000. To date, $2,297,324 has been authorized through the on call professional engineering service agreements for those projects that, were listed earlier.

And, the fees per consulting firm vary depending upon the type of work that they did and and the scope of work. So some consultants have received more funds through this than others. Given the increased cost of doing business, specifically for certain larger projects or if there's cumulative task orders building up with a particular firm, the we found the $300,000 cap could be limiting on the services that we need. So we have requested and recommended increasing, the maximum fee per firm, up to 400,000. It's hard to believe it's already been three years, but we are there.

And so we definitely would like to extend this service, and we offered, to extend the on call agreement to nine of the 10 firms. Of the nine, seven have approved their amendment, and those are the ones that are included in tonight's action. If the other two firms, wish to move forward and, sign the amended agreement, then that'll come back at a later action with counsel. So continuing the our recommendation would be to adopt the resolution, approving a one year extension to the on call consultant services agreement and increasing the maximum annual compensation to 400,000 with the following consultants, Akell Engineering Group, Blair Church and Flynn Consulting Engineers, AM Consulting Engineers, Peters Engineering Group, Provost and Pritchard Engineering Group, TJKM Consultants, and Umabian Horn. And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you. Great report. I bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. I see none. I open up for public comment. Anybody in the chamber? I see none. Anybody online or on Zoom? City Clerk Gonzales.

We have none, mayor.

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

Motion to approve as written.

Second.

Thank you for that. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Those opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Next item.

Item d three, construction agreement with Taylor Backhoe Service Inc, DVA TVS contractors for IFP202425Dash22B, James Taubbert Park construction rebid.

Alright. That'll be presented by our parks director, Abeur. Great to see you tonight.

Yeah. Good to be seen. I'll put the first. Did I

get it?

Almost. Almost. Time that I

that I miss? Oh, there. I thought I had it. It's on my screen. Alright.

Here we go. Okay. Madam mayor, council members, guests, and colleagues, Joe Abare presenting item d three, cons the construction agreement with Taylor Backhoe Services Incorporated, for, James Talbert Park construction, which was a rebid, if you recall. The background on this, the city was awarded 1.9 for a new park from proposition 68 state state of California funding. The grant performance for this project is from 07/01/2020 through 06/30/2028 Park completion of this, park completion must be at least three three months before the end of the grant performance period.

Park amenities, some of you this might be familiar. I've been up here a few times talking about this park, but a half basketball court, art mural on a block wall, bike racks, table tennis, picnic area, and drinking fountain, two playgrounds, benches, sensory play panels, park lighting, fencing, block walls near the two existing homes, the oversized park sign at the intersection, and then sales over the playgrounds. I'll just pause on that a little bit because I get a lot of calls from the public talking about our our parks don't have shade, especially when it's hot. And so, we're we're really trying to be very, intentional, when we do put together new parks about having shade for for our kids who are out there playing. The bid, if you recall, was released on 02/26/2025, and they were due 03/26/2025.

And at that time, we received six bids. We we ended up, requesting authorizations to reject all the bids because they exceeded the available the grant balance. As I mentioned, the city was awarded 1.9, and at the time the City had encumbered $247,062. This left an available balance of 1,700,000.0 and some change. The balance was insufficient to cover the lowest bid which was 1.874114 and 38¢.

You can kind of see here's a table shows a summary of the six bids that were received, and again, we did get permission to reject those bids. We, in turn, we revised the scope of work within the grant objectives to rebid the project. The intent was to lower the project costs. On August 8, we released another RFP and the rebid included included changes to the initial design, which included revisions to the initial pour in place playground surfacing to engineered wood chips. We modified the playground with an entry ramp and revision to the color surfacing initially requested for half the basketball court.

At this time, instead of six, we received four bids from interested contractors. I have a table that'll show the vendors ranked by costs with staff recommending awarding the agreement to tailor backhaul services as the lowest, most responsive, and most responsible bid per the requirements outlined in the project's contract documents. As you can see, here's the table, 1.858228 and 50¢ to Taylor Beckhoe, which is the lowest bid at this time. We did receive one advisory from the Foundation for Fair contracting on seper 09/22/2025. The latter requested the rejection of, rejection of the vendor due to alleged violations of prevailing wage laws and failure to comply with workforce development and formal apprenticeship programs.

After investigation and due diligence in working with our city attorney, it was determined that there was no evidence to substantiate a finding of nonresponsibility or disqualification or disbarment. No other, incident was located which had made similar findings. Given this outcome and given that, the vendor met all the bid requirements, we're recommending award of the bid to Taylor Backhoe Services. Taylor Backhoe Services is a family owned construction company located in Merced. They have experience in demolition, excavating, have worked on a large range of job types, including agricultural pipelines and to state highway projects.

They have an active contractor license and an active department of industrial relations registration as confirmed by staff. While an attempt at lowering the bid amounts, you probably noticed receiving response did not result in a dramatic decrease, the rebid did result in lower bids in general. With the grant balance of 1,700,000.0 and some change, the lowest construction bid of 1.858228 and 50¢, there's a difference of $117,565.44. Take into account an anticipated 10% contingency for unforeseen circumstances that may arise during construction, which would be about approximately $1,855,000 and a bit an additional $303,388.29 in funding is required to fully fund the the project. You can kinda see the encumbered amount that we've spent so far, which I mentioned earlier.

The total expenditure is at $249,336.94, which leaves us the total that I mentioned before 1,700,000 and a bit more. The we did do, working with engineering and the city manager and finance. We actually did a deep dive on our developable impact, development impact fees and the balance of projects that are encumbered already. And as you can see, the total encumbered amount to date is approximately $2,634,156 which the balance as of October 2025 was $4,000,534.02 42. So we think we have sufficient funds, DIF, and these numbers are some are estimates and some are pretty accurate.

But I think we're pretty good. Staff is proposing using development impact funds to cover the difference. Even considering the already committed money monies in the park's development impact fee fund, there's an adequate fund balance to provide the needed $303,389 to fund the Talbert Park. Should any of the contingencies of the $185.08 $22.85 not be needed, it will be returned to the diff. So our recommendation is awarding a construction service agreement under invitation for bid 202425Dash22B for the James Talbert Park construction rebid for the low bidder amount of $1800000.0.58.

$858,228.50 to Taylor backhoe. With the construction 10 contingency of 10% as mentioned. And we also recommend amending the fiscal year twenty twenty five, twenty six budget approving related expenditure lines, line items for the execution of the construction service agreement with Taylor Backhoe, contractor. And as you know, this has been a long, long process. And so I know I've been up here a few times talking about this park, but, it it's something I think, you know, has a lot of, a lot of lot of people looking and I keep getting calls and I think I mentioned councilman Vegas when I walked in this evening.

He says he's actually people are questioning him. Hey, when are gonna do it? We've got this open space. But, you know, as I think my city manager mentioned, you know, in government time, things don't move as rapidly as we'd like, but we do wanna make sure we're accurate and we're judicious in everything that we do. So, we put a lot of work into this effort, and so that's our recommendation. And so that's end of my presentation, and I'm open for any questions.

Thank you for that report. I'll bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. I see none. I opened up for public comment. Anybody in the chamber? Anyone online or on Zoom? City Clerk Gonzales.

And mayor.

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

Make a motion to approve.

Oh, that's a tie.

Once

I'll second it.

Oh, there you go. Thank you, councilwoman Evans. I have a first I have a motion and a second. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Those opposed, motion passes unanimously. Thank you for that report, Parks Director Abreur. Moving on to the next item.

It's under section e, item e one, Parks and Community Services Department fiscal year twenty twenty five-twenty six, quarter one week gap.

Thank you. And that'll be presented by our Recreation Coordinator, Romero. Welcome. So that our community knows we have, like, a new system with new check click click clicks that we're it's new that our our employees are getting the kinks out here.

Yeah. We're there.

Alright. Thank you. Mayor, council. My name is Adam Romero, parks recreation coordinator for the City Of Madera. I'm here to give you our update for our q one fiscal year twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six.

You know what? I am sorry. I think I pulled up the wrong one. I'm sorry about that.

No worries. Let's see.

I'm pretty sure that finance director Lima would be okay if Adam would wanna do his presentation.

Absolutely. No knowledge. Problems.

K. So let me go over here.

K.

K. Let's try this again. Sorry about that, guys. Grace. Okay. So in summary, we'll be covering our fiscal year 2025, twenty twenty six quarter one, which is July through September. This information update will cover all divisions, with the PCS department, which is park admin, park maintenance, recreation, aging services, sports, community recreation centers, special events, and also the Madera Municipal Golf Course. First off, we'll start off with park admin. We executed an agreement with Lions Town And Country Park, trail improvements for 841,000 with toasted asphalt. This project began construction on September 29.

I received confirmation from, the office of grants and local services, California State Parks, of the acceptance of Liontown And Country Park restroom renovation project. We also did demolition and reconstruction of the damaged parts at the Thaddeus and Saran Thaddeus Saran playground at Centennial Park caused by arson. That was that began in July, and since then, our park is now reopened for our community. Here's a couple pictures of the walk through with toasted asphalt, and then, construction began shortly after that. Continue with the park admin.

Notice of completion for the Frank Bergen Senior Center fence installation project. We received four bids in response to the James Taubert part like Joseph mentioned for the rebid. Bids were due 09/08/2025. July 2025, council approved an agreement with Westwood Professional Services, for the Tozer Park design services. Staff has been working diligently with Westwood for the design and bidding package preparation.

To date, Westwood has provided a conceptual plan that includes the primary grant objectives for Tozer Park. And here's a little outline and a visual of of what we're expecting to see at the Tozer Park, the primary concept plan for for that area. Last four parks admin, awarded three CDBG agreements under the program, year 2025, 2026. Those included 413,000 towards improvement for the Centennial Pool Park Complex complex, 10,000 towards the construction of Jane Todd Tobler Park, and 40,000 towards aging services and programming. Last, starting in July, staff had rolled out a new digital survey initiative designed to enhance how the city gathers feedback on parks, facilities, recreation programming.

Surveys are automatically sent via email weekly, following a reservation or a program. For our park maintenance, at Lions Island Country Park, staff had began preparation an area, or preparing an area, sorry, behind Field Number 1 for installation of batting cages. At Rotary Park, assists his staff with reconstruction of dike curbing along the medians near Gateway Drive. The curb, had been lifted due to, tree roots resulting in unevenness, along the its lengths. And, also, treat maintenance has happened, in the q one with the West Coast arborist on completion of tree trimming and pruning along Mainbury, West 3rd Street, and Westgate, Drive medians.

And here's a couple pictures of what's going on at Town And Country Park. To the left is the, preparation for the the batting cages. And on the right, we have one of our staff, trying to, get the rodents under control, out there. So that's an ongoing ongoing task for sure. For park maintenance as well, park furnishing, several new concrete tables were installed at Lions Island Country Park and Sunrise Rotary, replacing old worn out tables.

Facility aesthetics, two restroom buildings at Sunrise Rotary received fresh paint touch ups. And for the parking lot, several parking lots in the city have been resurfaced and restriped. That includes John Wells Youth Center, Sunrise Roadway Sports Complex, Millview Center, Pan American Community Center, and the Frank Bergon Senior Center. Going into our recreation, we executed a consultant service agreement with Madera Unified for the ELOP summer camps. The camps took place, July with students ranging from TK all the way to sixth grade.

The camps offered a variety of educational, recreational, water activities to promote engagement and physical activity during these summer camps. Here's a couple pictures of reptile run that kind of visited through us or through or visited our kids, through that camp. They have snakes on board, turtles, and different different, reptiles. Recreation. We also hosted a street smart traffic safety event for kids, a fun educational program promoting bicycle and pedestrian safety.

Participants engaged in games, interactive scavenger hunt throughout the building, locating different locating traffic signs throughout the building. Children who completed the scavenger hunt received free safety helmets, and several lucky participants won bicycles and scooters throughout our raffle. Over 736 duplicated youth attend Pan Am, through from July to September, and 731 duplicated youth attend the John Wells, Youth Center, same time frame. And here's a a few pictures of our traffic event that was held at the John Wells Youth Center. There's a couple of the scooters that those kids got to take home.

For aging services, some of our favorite programs occurred in in q one were ballet terrapia, pickleball classes, tech classes, chair yoga, walk in weights, Saint Pergon Senior Center and Pan American senior senior center are executing a partnership with, FM AAA for a lunch program meals, offered Monday through Friday at 11:30 to qualifying seniors. Some events that we had in q one for our aging services are ice cream socials, dinner dance in August, national senior day that was recognized by by city council, end of summer barbecue, September, a senior trip to Monterey, healthy cooking demonstrations hosted by UC Davis, and educational Medicare medical benefit renewal support hosted by, health insurance counseling and advocacy program. Here's a great picture of of our council and mayor with some of our aging services members, on August 20. Here's a couple pictures of our seniors, our aging services, department, and, some of the activities they do for some of our centers. For sports, some of our goals, will include creating a volleyball tournament, for some of our adults, adding men's softball to our Monday night, lineup, finishing the MOUs, with youth sports leagues that include soccer and the little leagues here in Madera, and also complete the project installation of the new batting cages at Lions Town And Country Park.

Sports that we have going on in q one were our Tiny Tykes, football program. We had 47 participants, 46 in the Tiny Tykes soccer, 41 in the Tiny Tykes multisport, and we had a total of 78 in our youth flag football league. For adult sports, we had a total of 13 teams we serve, which roughly about a 195 players for softball. For basketball, we had 15 teams, roughly about one eighty, and our open gym volleyball, over two ninety five duplicated players come out there every Tuesday. So and here's a picture of our 2,025 youth foot, food stall champions.

Yeah. They had a good time out there. It was a fun fun season. Community recreation centers, we had a total of seven recorded rentals for for the Frank Bergon senior center. Pan Am, we had a total of 15 recorded rentals.

John Wells, a a total of five rentals, and the Youth Hut, recorded one rental. And, also, during q one, Assemblywoman Esmeralda Soria hosted her backpack or back to school backpack giveaway at the Pan Am Community Center, which brought in, over a thousand individuals for that for that event. So that that was big for Madera. Community recreation centers. The facilities division is overseeing the procurement, of stage curtains at the Pan Am, community center to enhance stage as an amenity for the community to use during rentals and to add beautification improvement to to the center.

Also, staff is completing maintenance at the Centennial Pool Complex, which has been closed to the public due to a leak issue. Staff is engaging in a sourcing exercise related to securing a vendor, for the PVC pipe replacement and repair repair. Special events we had in q one are one of them is our annual fishing derby, one of our most anticipated events for the city that took place September 13 at the Madera Municipal Golf Course. We also hosted our another successful fourth of July golf tournament at the Madera Municipal Golf Course, which brought in a over a 136 golfers. And, also, we had our PG and E, movies in the park series ran at Town And Country Park, where we showed movies every Friday night for eight weeks, family friendly family friendly, movies for our community.

Here's a a few photos of some of the youth and their families at the fishing derby. They're out there at five in the morning ready to go, so it's it's good to see such a big, big event for our community. And the Madera Municipal Golf Course advisory committee said farewell to two of our our first members, Chito Romero, which is golfer at large committee member, and Carla Gran, which is a service organization representative. The our committee has welcomed two new members, Andy Madillen as a nongolfer at large committee member, and Dan Riley, who's serving as our service organization representative. In July, we recorded a total of or the the course recorded a total of 4,140 rounds.

In August, they recorded 3,747 rounds, and in September, they recorded 3,423 rounds. Final impact preparation of this presentation, of this information report does not result in any significant impact. While there's a cost associated with the organization execution of our community events, These expenses have been accounted for in the city's fiscal year twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six budget. And that's all I got for you guys tonight, and I'm open for any questions or comments.

Alright. Thank you for that report. Moving on to my colleagues, mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez.

Yes. Thank you, mayor Gallegos. I just wanted to take this moment to recognize, mister Romero's efforts. Not only does he partake in a lot of these, youth activities, but I know with adults, not only from the July 4, the John, Wells Youth Center, basketball, fishing, derby, everything that we saw. I just wanna commend you, and thank you. I think the fact that you're, you grew up in Madera. You understand the need for a lot of these, sports and activities that are definitely a big part of our community. So I do appreciate everything you do. I just wanted to acknowledge you. Thank you. Thank you for that.

I just have one comment. It was pretty cool that we offered a Halloween movie in the parks this year, and every the community was like, woo hoo. That was exciting to see. So thank you for all that hard work, for all our Parks and Rec community and staff for everything they do for us in the city of Madera.

I'll share the comment. Yeah.

Thank you. With that, I open up for public comment. I see no one in the chamber. Anybody online or on Zoom? City Clerk Gonzales.

We have none, mayor.

Thank you all. Closed public comment, and that was informational. So thank you, Parks Coordinator Romero, for that report. Moving on to the next item.

It's item e two, informational report on the Madera Metro Transit System.

Great. And that'll be presented by grants administrator Zunica. Great to see you this evening.

Nope.

So sign two.

And do I drag it? Just shut it. Good evening, mayor, city council members, members of the public. My name is Marcella Zuniga. I'm the grants administrator with the city of Madera.

Tonight, I'm bringing an informational item on Madera Metro quarter one. This presentation will provide a summary of the first quarter, July 1 through 09/30/2025 of fiscal year twenty twenty five twenty six. Presentation will include Madera Metro reporting and project updates. This table is a summary of our passenger count for the services offered by Madera Metro. The total passenger count for fixed route for the three months was, just it was over 20,000 passengers.

The passenger total for, DollarRide, which includes our ADA, paratransit system, is just shy of 5,000. The total count for quarter one was 25,334 passengers. And when we compared our passenger counts to the the '25, we'll see that there was a difference, an increase of 968 passengers, which is approximately an increase a 3.8% increase. When we compare our passenger count from, quarter one of this year to 2425, there was an increase of over 2,000 passengers, which is approximately an increase of 9.6%. The on time performance has, continued, or MB has continued meeting the on time performance.

As a reminder, on time performance is 90% or greater for fixed rate on valoride. A vehicle is considered on time if it departs at, the scheduled time point no more than one minute early and no more than five minutes late. So additional performance measures for quarter one include fleet performance. We did have two mechanical failures this quarter, which were addressed by our fleet mechanics. There was one new driver hired and began training.

We did there were a total of four comments received during this quarter. Feedback included, some comments regarding, driver behavior towards the, passengers. And there was one concern about long wait time phone wait times when scheduling dial a ride reservations, and there was a concern about the timeliness of the orange line, particularly at Ulman And Madera Avenues. There were a couple of special events during the first quarter. The first was on September 23.

Madera Metro participated in the new employee onboarding events. Approximately 10 new hires were shuttled throughout the city. On September 27, one of the Madera Madera Metro ADA vans participated in the old timers parade. So Madera, Metro has new transit apps, Spare Labs and TripShot. Spare Labs is specific to, Dialeride and ADA Paratransit.

Riders can schedule pickups and drop off directly from their smartphones, Provides real time vehicle location and status updates. Tripshot is for fixed route, only. Riders can plan their trips using the mobile apps, and it also offers true time notifications and service alerts. They both apps are available on the Apple Store and Google Play, and this is what they look like. Spare Labs, you will see the Madera Metro, logo for Spare Labs.

Trip shot will it it once you click in on it, you'll see Madera Metro. And so both you can see on the Spare Labs, you can schedule. It'll tell you exactly, the if there were fares associated and how long the the driver is out. Same thing with fixed route. It will all it will notify passengers if a bus is running late.

Passengers would be able to see that in real time if they have the app. Although we do have both apps now, passengers are still able to call in and make a reservation directly to dispatch. So marketing efforts for the first quarter included social media posts related to holiday service hours for fourth of July, cooling center rides, and reminding pass or the community that the that the that fixed route is free. The expenditures for the first quarter, fixed route for this quarter was just over 400,000, while dial a ride ADA paratransit was just over 280,000. Transit related expenditures were paid for using federal transit administration and state and local funds.

The increases between the this fiscal year and the twenty four, twenty five fiscal years for both fixed route and Dara ADA paratransit are due to only one payment made to MV Transportation in the fiscal year twenty four, twenty five at the time that we reported, whereas two payments have been made to MV this quarter. Project updates. We do have a few projects going on at the at the moment. We have the renovation of the intermodal facility. The plans have been approved by city staff, and now grant staff is working with the contractor to prepare bidding documents as well as our procurement manager.

The microtransit feasibility study is well underway. We hold biweekly meetings with FlexLinks, and some of you may recall that FlexLinks staff was out in September and met with MV staff, council members, as well as city staff. Upcoming events or next steps with FlexLinks, in November, December, they will be hosting a couple of pop up events throughout the community. December and January, they'll they, will be distributing community and stakeholder surveys to get feedback from them. And the last project is the, the installation of a tran of a canopy over at the transit center.

This bid closed on October 15, and we anticipate bringing forward a, request for contract award on December 3 to council. Transit expenses and personnel time for the projects mentioned are funded through federal transit administration and state monies, which include AHSE, PTMISEA, and SB one state of good repair. And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you for that report. I bring it back to my colleagues, council member Zachariah.

Thanks for the report. Just to get clarification, with the 600,000 that's that's in the, for the expense roughly for the quarter, right, that you said is about $402,100.

Mhmm.

Is that that's not including the part of the contracting for the drivers that we have in the city budget, or is that just maintenance of the vehicles, or what is what's included in that?

No. That that does include the drivers. It's we have reimbursed for two months at this point in our budget. So out of the three during the quarter, we reimbursed for two.

Okay. And then and just just doing the rough math in it, it looks like comes out about $24 per trip. Is that kind of about it's about 600,000 for about 25,000, riders?

Yeah. I

Roughly? Yeah. Okay.

I just wanna

make sure. And then and beyond that, as far as, like, maintenance and so that's all included in that that budgetary item. Correct?

Yes.

Yes. Our fleet mechanics charge directly to the transit budgets.

Thank you.

Thank you for that comment. Grants, Administrator Zunica, my question is there was a slide that talked about marketing efforts to let our community know that it's free. What marketing efforts have we made? Or MV is in charge of making those efforts too. I don't know if you

could answer it, or we have to get that information from MV. I'll reach out to MB. We posted on the Madera Metro Facebook site, and so it runs repeatedly. I will double check and confirm if it's also on MB's at least website. I'm not certain that it's posted inside the buses. That would kind of be the purpose if you're already on there. But I can bring back additional information during our next update and be with more specifics on the marketing.

Yeah. Could you please? Because we talk about social media, and that is the new way to go. But most of the riders that do ride our transit are elderly, and they're not social media or tech savvy. So that's why I'm concerned on when it comes to marketing efforts to let this community know that these rides are free. What are we really doing to reach that community? That avenue, is that what I'm I'm trying to get at? Where what are we doing for them?

Okay.

Okay.

We will bring that back. Thank you.

Mhmm. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez?

I think councilwoman Mejia had her.

I'll get her next. Go ahead.

Yeah.

Go ahead. I'll I'll you know.

Thank you. I I have really appreciated the bilingual efforts that I've seen on Facebook regarding the free ridership and also on the website, how the form is now available. Really appreciate that. I'm wondering, this is the first I learn about the app. Are we planning to market that on the Citi website and and include a link to get to it?

We are. The apps are brand new. They barely went live within the last couple of weeks at most. And yes, we are working with our communication specialists to upload those onto our website and begin advertising those as well.

Okay. And then thank you, Marcella. But I also had another question. I have seen questions on social media about I remember one, they were asking whether if you're a student, you could get a free ride. But do you have to be going to the community college to get the free ride?

Yeah. This question came up some time back, and we don't define we don't have a definition necessarily for a student. So I know that there are different other resources here in town. So I suppose that verification of attending some type of school, be it at the college or EOC or something, fine, so long as they have some type of ID or verification, as we do require for the community college students.

Okay. Thank you. And, also, my suggestion for that is if we could have a frequently asked questions where people could refer to because I see the same types of questions on social media. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for your comment.

Thank you, mayor Gallegos. I was just gonna add on the marketing. We do provide a newsletter with our monthly billing. Not sure if we provide that content in there as well, but it would be a good idea for us to let people know. I'm sure we do that. If we don't, then this would be a good opportunity for us to continue to promote that as well.

So the newsletter hasn't got been going out with the monthly billing, which is why we don't it's not available for us to to put in there.

So yeah. So we

I believe what mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez is asking is there there's a section in the utility bill where we can add language to it, and we can most definitely add that language council or

Yes.

And MERFO team. So we'll be sure we add it at the next available time or date that we can do it. Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. And we do have, Madera Food Bank giving out Thanksgiving meals. And last year, we did finally get the flyers out at the Christmas one. But that's coming up, we maybe connect with the Food Bank on that.

Yeah. We did both last year as well, and we plan on doing those again this year.

Okay. Great. Thank you. With that, I open up to public comment in the chamber. I see none. Anyone on Zoom or online?

We have none, Mayor.

Thank you. I close public comment informational only. Thank you for that report, Grants Administrator Zuniga. Thank you. Moving on to the next item.

Item e three, informational report on the city's finances.

Alright. Presented by director of financing Lima director Lima. Thank you for being here tonight.

Oh, thank you. It's always a pleasure to be here. Let's see if I can pull this off. Yeah. This is a, this is this is always an of an exercise and fun, especially when they change the rules on you.

That's it. You finally got it down, and they changed it. Know.

Rules. Yeah.

Sorry.

Okay. I'm gonna start completely open.

Way is easier. Correct? Not as many clicks.

No. It's still painful. No. There's no there's no other way to describe it. Okay. Hope

about Tim?

Well, director Lima's getting gathering his, I can't help but notice that I'm not sure if the gentleman in the back knows that we do have, translation services, so I wasn't sure if, that was provided. But

K. We're ready for you. Yes.

Good evening, council. Mike Lima, director of financial services here to present a budget update, kind of a multilayer one tonight. So, let's let's get this thing started. So, staff is currently working with the city's external auditor to prepare a, our annual comprehensive financial report for FY 2425, the fiscal year most recently ended. And given that work, we thought it might be, that you folks might kinda wanna hear an overview of how we finished the fiscal year.

And while we were at it, why not throw in quarter one? Because we've done with that too. So let's let's talk about that as well. So you're gonna get that. And at no additional cost, we're gonna also look at the airport fund and give you a kind of an overview of that as well. So a lot to talk about tonight. Let's get right into it. So general fund revenue overview. You know, as I've you've heard this slide. I think you're probably bored with it by now.

There are five, revenues that play a major role in determining general fund revenue picture. Sales tax, property tax in lieu of VLF, property tax by itself, permit fees, and hotel tax. The general, the this big five makes up 68% of the total general fund revenue, That's using, f y twenty four twenty five amended budget numbers. If these five revenues don't come in, we're in trouble in the general fund. So here's how they came in.

So in f y twenty three twenty four, we collected $28,700,000 from these five revenue sources. We thought we were gonna collect 29.1, and we collected 29.1. We nailed it. Oh, we felt so good. So but, you know, if you look at the detail in between, you'll see that, you know, we were off on some and and we both ways. We were short. Sales tax came in lower, about half $1,000,000 lower than the previous fiscal year and 800,000 under the amended budget. Property tax in lieu of VLF was, at eight point I'm not on, am I? I didn't think so. I knew it. Please, please hold on.

Station break.

Going away. Spoiler.

You say spoiler. Spoiler. Yeah.

Here. This one? Yeah.

The

flower again.

Now I'm on. Now you're

Okay. Alright. Thank you.

Thank you

very much.

Oh, let's get back in here. Backspace. Okay. So property tax in lieu of VLF was 8,300,000.0 in 2324. We thought we'd get 8.5. We actually got 8.8. Property tax, 5,200,000.0 in f y twenty three twenty four. We thought we would get 5.3. We actually got 5.6. Permit fees, we received 1.7 in 2324. We thought we'd get 1.6. We ended up with 1,500,000.0. And hotel tax, we've got a million in 2324. We thought we would get 900,000 in 2425. We actually got 1,200,000.0.

So, let's talk a little bit about sales tax. At a gross level, sales tax was actually up 1.8% or $231,000. However, when you factor in $738,000 of tax sharing payments to the county, we were actually down 4% or $500,000. I showed you this graph back in June. At that time, I had data through March, so this completes that graph.

As I mentioned back then, you want the orange line to be above the blue. Anytime the, the orange is below the blue, you've got a problem. And as you see, we had problems. July, August, September started to perk up in October. November was close, but then December hit, and December was really good. As I mentioned before, December was the single largest month of sales tax receipts in the city's history. That's December '24. January, just a little under, so not bad, but February looked good. And then March, March was a really good month. That is the second largest month of sales tax receipts in the city's history.

So the two largest months happened this last fiscal year. So April comes around, and you see we've got a big gap between the orange and the blue with the orange on top. We love that. May comes around. It's even a bigger gap. That point, the city manager and I break out the cigars. We say mission accomplished. We're all happy. And then June hits. And June went flat. And that's where we're at again. We are at a flat point. And, so the enthusiasm we felt between February and May, it just is not there anymore. And sales tax has flattened out yet again, and I'll talk about that as we get into the quarter one, discussion. This chart, though, shows what happens when you factor the the county payments in.

And so just to give you an example, if you take a look at October or February or April, now let's look back at October, February, and April. You could see the effect that those payments had on the sales tax. It really has an impact on our monthly sales tax to pay those out. Let's talk about something a little more cheerful, property tax. Property set tax at a new record in, f y twenty four twenty five.

As I mentioned, we were at about $5,800,000 on that. Property tax growth rate over the last four fiscal years has been 10.5%. That is rocket fuel, to be honest with you. Here is the, chart. And, if you go back to f y twenty twenty one and you go up to f y twenty four twenty five, you could see anyone in finance loves those nice steps like that. They love seeing that. Hotel tax also set a new record in f y twenty four twenty five. $1,200,000. We set strong receipts in July and August '24. We weren't sure if they were sustainable, but they were sustained throughout the year.

And, so so we set a new record in hotel tax collection. As I mentioned, we also saw a decrease in permit fee revenues, which indicate a possible, slowdown in property tax growth rate, not in the actual number, but the growth rate. Remember I mentioned 10.5%? In the future, that may slow down because we're not seeing a lot of permit stuff coming through. Other general fund revenues, interest, came in at a million, which was our budget estimate for the year.

That was up a 100,000 from f y 2324 levels. Cannabis revenue, 257,000 that we collected, in, 2425. And then our refunds and reimbursements revenue was $388,000, which is much higher than our budget estimate. We only budgeted 30,000. That extra revenue primarily came from the general fund share, which was $262,000 of the solar project rebate that I briefed counsel on back in January.

So a nice little windfall that we got from the solar project, this past year. So how does it all look? The general fund, in rough numbers, we have, in f y twenty three twenty four, total general fund, 41 and a half million dollars that we collected in revenue. We thought we would get 41 or, 40, yeah, 41,800,000.0, and we actually came in at 42.6. So we did a we had growth from f y twenty three twenty four to f y twenty four twenty five.

And then we came in also, a little bit above our budget. I will say the reason we did come in under budget, we thought we were gonna use a million dollars of our, unreserved carryover, or unreserved fund balance, undesignated, and we end up not using it. So it's still there in the bank for a future year. Let's talk about the expense side on 2425. Our expenses were 38,100,000.0.

Though that was 5,200,000.0 under the amended budget of 43,400,000.0, and they were 2,000,000 under the previous fiscal year's expenses. Most of that savings was incurred in the fire department budget. What happened was in 2324, we had some extra appropriations. We made a quarter, we paid them quarterly. We made the first quarter twenty four twenty five payment using 2324 monies. We made five quarters of payments in one fiscal year. And that meant we only had three quarters of payments in 2425. So that's where a lot of the savings came from. But we also had some pretty significant salary savings as well. This kinda the chart kinda shows you where that is.

You see salaries and benefits. Again, this is or I should say this is by category. Salaries and benefits, we thought we would come in at 23,900,000.0. We actually came in at 22.4, so about a million and a half of savings there. And then the material and services line, that's where you see the payments to the fire department and other agencies. That came in, 3,200,000.0 under, budget. So overall, that was what pretty much generated the whole savings that we had incurred over this past year. This is by department. Same data, but just a different little different look on the department level. The 38.1, you could see, if you look at fire, you could see that we had budget 4.8.

Previous year, we had spent 5.9, and now we're $3.03 3 and a half million. So that's where a lot of the savings came from. So I'm I know all you love the numbers. You're you're probably there. The wheels are turning going, okay. We spent 38.1. We collected 42.6. Oh, wow. I'm gonna tell you don't do that. Don't do that. And the reason why you don't do that is because these figures are unaudited. We are auditing them right now. They are gonna change. So when I come back to you in January with the final numbers, you'll have then the the actual numbers to work with. But it gives you kind of an estimate of what we're working with, and and the estimate right now is positive.

So but don't hold us to these figures. I'm just saying that. Okay. Alright. So now let's move on to this fiscal year in quarter one. So as you noticed in the previous slides that I had, I mentioned that we or you saw that I compared to the budget in a lot of cases. That's kinda hard to do in, when you're talking about '4 first quarter results because a lot of the revenue, is collected in the second half of the year. So it's it makes it kind of odd that you're you're you think that you're way behind when you're really not. So the best comparison or the most accurate comparison is compares quarter one of last year to quarter one of this year. And here's where we are.

Let's look at, just in a big overview. So the big five, we, last year, we had by the end of the first quarter, we had collected a million and a half. This year, we're at 1,300,000.0. All the other general fund revenues, we had collected $3,100,000 and, we are right now at $2,800,000 is what we've collected. So grand total in the general fund. Last year, first quarter, we had collected $4,500,000 This year, 4,100,000.0. So a little bit down. So why are we down? Well, our gross sales tax is down. So, last year, July, we collected 1,023,000.

This year was just a hair over a million. So we're down 1.4%. But on top of that, we made a $200,000.644 it's $200,644 tax sharing payment to the county, which we did not make in first quarter last year. So it's brought those numbers down even more. We only that's why you're only seeing 800,000 of sales tax that has been, collected because we offset it, the payment against what we actually collected.

I can tell you we also received August sales tax about three days ago, actually, on Friday. It is down slightly again too. So we're and it's down just at at 1%, about $8,000 below last year. So we are stuck in that same June, July, August pattern that we saw. It's just holding, and then we're flat is where we are.

We're not seeing any sales tax growth at this time again. We will not receive property tax until January 26, so that's why we've got zeros there. Permit fees again are down slightly. And as I mentioned, this could affect the growth rate of property tax revenues in the years to come. The other 280,000 decline in general fund revenues is primarily due to, project management charges that in the previous quarter or previous year were billed in the first quarter, and this year, we're not.

So, basically, a timing difference is what's going on there. As is the case, let's take a look at expenses. As is the case with the revenues, it's best to compare previous fiscal year to this fiscal year, due to some onetime expenses that are incurred at the beginning of this of each fiscal year. Here's where we are on the expense side. We are seeing we've seen an increase.

We are at 11 last year, we had spent 11,000,000 in the general fund through the first quarter. We're at 11.7, this year. We saw an increase in salaries and benefits about 400,000, but the big increase is in materials and services. And let's maybe isolate that by taking a look at departments and seeing which department it might be. Well, when we go through here, hey. Take a look at fire. Fire's way up. We spent 200,000 last year, we've got 1,100,000 this year. Why is that? Well, that's that quarterly payment.

We did not make it last year in the first quarter. That was the one of the that was the one that we did not make because we've made it in twenty three twenty three twenty four. Now we are back on the quarterly schedule. We're back on making those. So we made that payment this quarter, and it's sure enough, it shows up in the dollars. So you take that out. We're actually under last year's expense levels. So but overall, we our expenses are up by 700,000, about 6% over the same time. And as I mentioned, it's primarily due to that $1,000,000 payment to Cal Fire this year for for which there is no corresponding payment in the previous fiscal year. So what's the bottom line?

The bottom line revenues are down 400,000 from previous fiscal year levels. Expenses are up 700,000. So that doesn't sound like a good combination. But as we look at it, we both situations appear to be attributable to timing differences. You know? Revenue that we collected last year in the first quarter that we didn't get this year, but we're probably gonna get in the second quarter, or expenses we made in the first quarter that we hadn't made before. So it looks like a timing difference thing and not a a structural issue. So, given this reason, we are currently not recommending any budgetary adjustments to the general fund at this time. Alright. So a very quick look at the airport fund.

Why are we looking at the airport fund? Is it because I like being up here talking? No. That's not why we're doing this. Because, you know, in the budget, we well, we spend a lot of time talking about the general fund. And rightfully so. The general fund is the ultimate financial backstop for the organization. It is the place that funds most of the services. But in the budget that you adopted back in June, you appropriated 160 funds. The general fund is one of those one sixty, and we tend to overlook the other 159.

So I thought it might be appropriate to talk about one of those 159, and that today, it's the airport fund. Airport fund is an enterprise fund like water and sewer. And and but in this case, airport receives most of its revenue from rents and leases. In f y twenty four twenty five, 77.6% of its revenue was from rent rents and leases. Big chunk of money comes from the rents.

The biggest expense, that we incurred in the airport fund was interfund charges to other departments. This would be, like, for, IT, for, for facilities, for those kind of, other, services that they receive from other departments. Interfund charges were about 195,000 or just over a third of their expenses. Capital work though has a major impact on the finances of airport. They it's a very capital intensive, facility.

And so anytime you're doing capital work out there, it's gonna affect both the revenues and the expense side of the equation. At the end of last, at the on 06/30/2024, so a little over about a year and a half ago, it had an unrestricted fund balance of $1,800,000. Airport funds. So let's take a look at its, revenues and expenses. They had operating revenues, running about $708,100,000 dollars.

700,000 in f y twenty three twenty four, up a 100,000, in f y twenty four twenty five. We had a here's where I was talking. You really see the capital the effect that capital has. We received a big reimbursement from the federal and the state government for previous capital projects. That brought in $1,200,000 in f y twenty three twenty four. We did not have a similar reimbursement last fiscal year, so there's no capital revenue. But overall, so we had revenue was 1,900,000.0 in f y twenty three twenty four. We thought we'd get 1,100,000.0. We end up with 800,000. However, on the expense side, we thought we would, we had spent 600,000 in f y twenty three twenty four.

We thought we would spend that again in 2425. We actually came in at half 1,000,000. Capital, we thought we'd spend a 100,000, or we did spend a 100,000 in 2324. We thought we'd spend a half million. We spent a 100,000. So expenses were actually down slightly from the previous fiscal year and way under budget. And this is what it's looking like so far at quarter one, and it's been pretty sleepy out there. You know? A 100,000 of revenue when you compare it to last year, it's exactly the same. And a 100,000 of expenses, exactly the same.

So what's the airport bottom line? Well, the bottom line is that operating revenues are sufficient to cover operating expenses out there. There is sufficient unreserved fund balance to cover the city's match requirement on capital projects. And the big capital project, though, on the horizon, about two or so years out, is the reconstruction of the main runway. Preliminary cost estimate for this project is 5,800,000.0. City staff are in discussions with FAA on how much federal funding will be contributed to this project. And that concludes my presentation. I am happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you very much.

What a great report. Thank you for that. I'll bring it back to my colleagues for any questions or concerns. Mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez.

Yes. Thank you, mayor Gagels, and thank you, director Lima, for your presentation. I

think I killed the the Zoom feed, but that's okay.

Part of the,

part of the, the sales, tax generated for fiscal year twenty three, twenty four, twenty four, twenty five showed the spikes in December and again in March. Mhmm. And you attribute that to to what? What is that what's that drive? Is it holiday spending? Is it IRS checks? What what is what drives that spike?

So, it's a combination of, like, a couple of things. The two of them that you mentioned, but also the state, the way they pay sales tax to us, they give us the first two months of the quarter, they give us estimated payments. And then the last month of the quarter, they give us a true up. And so a lot of times, you'll get a big spike in the and you can see it on the chart. You get these big spikes in September, December, March, and June because they're catching up. They're doing a true up based on the previous two months of activity. So, yes, it is some activity driven, but it's also them catching up on payments that were delinquent in the previous months, and they catch up with that as well.

So, you know, you said these are historical spikes that we haven't seen, but a lot of that is because part of it is attributed to these payments that are made, but it's not necessarily driven by the market and the activities of the market. It's these two factors.

Well, it it's both. Like I said, it is the the spikes are because of the way that they pay. But the fact that we set records, that's indicative of the business the underlying strength of the businesses here in town. We had a lot of people buying here in town in this in this past year, and you see that in the numbers. So, yes, there are spikes, but they would not have been as high had we not had strong business activity Got it. Here in this town.

Got it. And and now we're trending a little lower?

Yes. Yes. That we are, the June payment was not as high as we thought it would be. We are trending a little bit lower. We are hoping, fingers crossed, that the September true up is is a strong one. But given what we're seeing so far, we we have no confidence that that's actually how it will turn out.

And last question regarding the the property taxes. You did also mention that 10.5%. Yes. I mean, is that normal?

For here, it looks like it's been normal the last few years, but, no, that is probably not sustainable over the long haul, but it's a a nice issue to have right now.

Okay. So and I think we plan accordingly based on those numbers because if the projections don't show that this is sustainable, then we make adjustments based on that too. Correct?

Absolutely. So, you know, over the past few years, we have assumed only a 2% growth rate Yes. In property tax, and that's required under prop 13, basically. So it's basically the prop 13 level. For this year's budget, we actually bumped it up to 3.1%. We thought it would go up that much. Obviously, we still got room to grow if these numbers continue, but we feel very confident that that 3.1% will materialize given the activity that's happened so far.

Thank you. And that's all I have, mayor. Thank you.

Thank you, mayor Pro Tem Rodriguez. Just a couple con comments. Financial director Lima. First was, I'm glad that we are just like status quo because a lot of cities around us are dipping down. Their graphs are going down way down, and they are panicking. And so I'm glad that our residents here are still buying local and helping our economy and our community grow. The second thing is our TOT should keep you going up because King Elementary is being built, and a lot of those workers are staying here at our hotels. And we see a lot of white trucks. So we can keep building happening in the city of Madera, then that will help us also in tax with our TOT. And I think that's why we had a little bit of spike go up there.

But the report was tremendous. Thank you for that. Any of my colleagues have any more questions? If not, I bring it open up to public comment. Anybody in the chamber? Anyone online or on Zoom, City Clerk Gonzales? I'm here. Thank you. I will close that public comment, and it was informational. So thank you very much for that in-depth report.

Thank Thank you you very very much.

Next item.

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

Thank you for that. I will, bring it to my colleagues and start with council member Villegas.

Oh, I have nothing to report.

Thank you, mayor pro Tim Rodriguez.

Yes. Thank you, mayor Villegas. I'm just excited to see. Thank you, city manager, for providing us the pictures at, the paving at Town And Country, Park. It's exciting to see that this is finally materializing. I also wanna send a big shout out to both, state senator Caballero and assembly member Soria. This wouldn't have happened without their efforts in in, championing those funds. So it's great to see that. I don't know. Do we have a ribbon cutting shortly at some point, or do we have some type of, say, it's it's done?

When do we have that? But I'm sure you can provide us that, announcement at some point in the future. I also, the last meeting that we had, I know I was remotely, taking my meeting, but I couldn't really see whether or not we had thumbs up on a request that I had made regarding a certificate of recognition. I believe the the SplashPad people had won a a a prize or the first place in their float, and they had requested to be come up and take a picture with city council. That prompted me to then request to see if city council would entertain that through a recognition.

But because that was pointed at me, the video, I couldn't see my colleagues if they had raised their dinks. So I assumed that it was, but there was no direction. So if the body would be okay with that, I would I would move on trying to see if we can get him a certificate of recognition again for earning that first place in the, Alzheimer's Day Parade. But if there's a different format, congratulatory, what have you, then we can get that as well. But that was my request then, and this is my request now. So I'm not sure if this body would entertain them coming out and taking a picture with us.

K? I have four, five. Thank

you, Mayor. And that's all I have today. Again, thank you to our all of our public safety and our staff. Thank you.

Thank you for your report. Councilwoman Mihilla.

Thank you, mayor. I was really happy to participate today in MLK's career day. I thank the staff there for inviting me. I was a student there, so I was happy to go back and speak to the seventh and eighth grade students about my career or careers. And thank you to our city clerk, our city staff for putting together the goody bags for our students. They really appreciated that. I am excited to be a part of the organizing committee for the Christmas in the Park, and I am looking forward to seeing all of my colleagues being a part of the parade, on December 5 and also the Christmas tree lighting that's coming back to Madera. So and with that, that's all my report. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you for that. Councilwoman Evans.

Okay. Thank you so very much. First and foremost, I just wanna give a shout out to everyone, to Keith, the entire department because the light at Pan Am Park is now on. And I am so excited. I know I received comments into the reference of we must not have a lot to do to be able to be so excited about things of that nature.

But for me to see the growth that's going on in our city, we have Knox, excuse me, not Knox, but Jim Talbert where we have the signal out there. We now have the signal at Lake And Sherwood. So, that's progress. So we can actually see things that are happening and the babies are safe and they're walking across. The people that are at the park are excited because it's there.

So I thank you guys so very much. I thank SAS everyone for that. Also, I had a great time at the trunk and treat. That was that was so awesome. And seeing the babies out there walking around, and I was able to sit and and watch the judging of the costume contest and the the families coming together and, you know, everyone in the community coming out.

And this city is a city of love, And you saw the love that night. I didn't see anyone having any problems or anything, and the babies were running around and trying to get candies here and candies there and the dragons and all that. That was awesome. To the PD, fantastic. Thank you so very much.

And, also, in diddling off of the trail, city manager and I went out there, and I was actually able to just take the shovel and stick it in the ground, but the trail is awesome. I cannot wait to take miss Bella and myself out to go and walk on the trail and to see the activities that are out there even as far as the movies in the park. The park is looking so nice. So, to Council Member Rodriguez, I know you're excited because it's it's a plus but not only for you but for the entire city. It's such a plus because that to me, I think that's maybe like our largest park in our city and there's a lot of activities out there and I just can't wait for everything to open back up.

So, to the staff, to my colleagues, this is this is an awesome time for all of us. So I thank you guys, and that's gonna be the end of my report. God bless you, and have a safe trip home tonight.

Thank you for that report. Council member Zakaria.

Just to keep it short, if you were wondering why this weekend we're busy with our hotels, the robotics team has their big competition, which brings basically teams from all over the state to compete. So I'd encourage you guys if you can make it out. They don't really stand a chance against us, but if you wanna see

how why we're so good in the

world champions, come come watch some of their matches. It'll be Saturday and Sunday, they can make it out to Matilda Tours.

Yeah.

Thank you for that report. Just a reminder, Veterans Day, they're having a ceremony on, Tuesday, November 11 at 11:00 at the Courthouse Park. Everybody is welcome to attend. I would like to ask my colleagues to entertain a future council agenda for our military and looking into the banner program that we had a community member come in and volunteer his time to put that in our city. I have six.

Thank you, my colleagues. I'd also like to put on the agenda if we're bringing back the the splash pad for a picture and recognition, I would suggest that we bring all the winners in all the categories and not just, surrogate just one community, service club, but anybody else that took place in the old timer's day parade. K. I have six thumbs up. And the last thing I have to say is, on Halloween, like councilwoman Evan said, we did the night the Thursday before national night out.

But on Halloween, we had several churches reach out to all the communities on from the North to the South to the East to the West doing events, trunk or treats, and service clubs out there making it safe for our students and even young adults who are out there doing the trunk or treats. And I commend everybody for giving their volunteer time and spending their dollars on candy for the young people in our community. And with that, I have nothing else to share. I will adjourn this meeting at, seven 08:11, and we will see you Wednesday, November 19. Safe travels home, everyone. Thank you for joining us tonight. Good night.